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In the name of Jesus. Amen. Jesus is condemned by Pilate, handed over to the soldiers, mocked, whipped, and crowned with thorns, and is let out to die under the weight of his cross. That’s where we pick up the story tonight. They let him away, and as he’s leaving the palace, maybe even leaving town, he falls under the weight of the cross.
There’s a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country. Mark actually tells us the name of his children, and it’s presumed, and it’s kind of wonderful to think about, that Simon and his children are known because they were known to the church, that they became Christians after this, that Jesus uses the occasion of carrying his own cross to bless Simon with faith. Simon follows Jesus on the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering, and he’s not by himself. He’s surrounded by a crowd of women who are crying out and weeping.
This was probably typical in the ancient world where, when someone was being let off to die, they were surrounded by mourners. But Jesus turns to those who are weeping and he says to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves.” It’s amazing to think about. He asked them to weep not for him, saying that if they do things like this, if they crucify the Lord of Glory, if they take the one who came to bring salvation and they hand him over to the cross, if they do these things when the tree is green, what are they going to do when the tree is dry?
They’re going to cry out, “Blessed is the womb that never bore, the breasts that never nursed.” They cry out to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the sea, “Cover us.” This is the prayer of desperation and despair that comes upon all at the end of the world.
The text tells us that Jesus was led out to crucifixion with two other malefactors, criminals, and they come to the place of Golgotha, the place of the cross at Mount Calvary, the place where Jesus would be crucified. They lift him up on the cross with one on his right and another on his left, all the time mocking him. In fact, we can’t miss the mockery that Luke wants us to; I mean, all the gospel writers, of all of the troubles of the cross, this is the thing that they speak of the most.
It’s actually pretty amazing. When we think of the crucifixion, we think of the pain of the cross, I mean, the agony of having nails driven through your hands and feet and a crown of thorns on your head. But when the gospel writers speak of the agony of the cross, they mostly speak of the shame of the cross. The mockery that happens.
Listen to what they cry out: “He saved others. Let him save himself if he’s the Christ of God, his chosen one.” And the soldiers come mocking him, offering him sour wine and saying, “If you’re the king of the Jews, save yourself.” There was an inscription written over him: “This is the king of the Jews.”
Now, while all this mockery is happening, we hear the very first of the seven words of Jesus from the cross. The first and the last words of Jesus are both prayers to God, the Father. Here he prays with all those surrounding him, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
It’s not clear in the text, at least it’s not clear to me, who Jesus is talking about. Is he talking about the criminals that are mocking him, the soldiers that are mocking him, Pilate who sentenced him to die, or the Pharisees who are sitting around jeering? I think the point is, this is what Jesus is doing on the cross. He’s accomplishing our forgiveness.
At the beginning of the crucifixion, the criminals on either side of Jesus are both railing at him. But at some point, one of them changes his mind. Maybe after that prayer for forgiveness, one of the criminals notices that there’s something different going on with Jesus. So the text tells us this: it’s pretty amazing, and this is the occasion of the third sermon of Jesus from the cross. It’s the second one that we hear in the text.
One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we justly, for we’re receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” And then he turns to Jesus and says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
And here Jesus says, and these are precious words, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” And so ends the gospel lesson.
Now, in a couple of weeks, when we get into Holy Week, we’ll dig into these sermons of Jesus quite a bit more. We’ll dig into the events surrounding the crucifixion quite a bit more. We’ll talk about it quite a bit more. But what I’d like to do tonight is kind of zoom out to get the big picture.
Because if Christianity is saying anything at all, if there’s any preaching that’s consistent that comes from the church, it is this: Christ Jesus died. And God’s Church puts that statement before the world as something that’s supposed to be understood as important. But I want us to marvel in the surprise of that.
And I’d like to approach it in this way. I think that for any given person to have a sense of meaning in life or purpose in life or any understanding of who we are, that you have to understand yourself in a kind of a bigger picture. And every religion, every system of thought, every worldview has a big picture.
Every story, every movie, they all have parts to them. There are really four parts, if we can reduce it this way: there’s how things start, how things go wrong, how things get fixed, and then the end. Right? That’s the basic plot of every story, of every movie, of everything that’s going on.
And I think that every church, every religion, every confession, every scientific worldview will also present us with that. “Here’s how things started, here’s how things went wrong, here’s how things get fixed.” That’s the exciting part, and here’s how things end.
Now, the Bible comes along and it gives us all of these things. How did things start? In fact, it’s pretty amazing that to cover those first two chapters, we have only one page in the front of the Bible: Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3. That’s how things started, and that’s how things went wrong.
But then the real drama is how things get fixed. Now, here is the argument of Christianity. And I hope that you can see this as actually a very amazingly strange thing. Christianity says that of everything that’s wrong in the world, of everything that’s broken, of everything that’s twisted, of everything that’s dying, of everything in the entire universe that’s not the way it’s supposed to be, of every problem, the solution is here with this man, Jesus, hanging on the cross.
Now, that is an astonishing claim. We would look for solutions in a lot of different places and a lot of different ways. I imagine we would fix the problem quite a bit differently. But the Holy Spirit holds this truth to us tonight and every time we open the scriptures: that the solution to every single problem is the death of Jesus of Nazareth, his suffering, and his crucifixion.
Now, how can that be? How can the crucifixion be the solution to every single one of your problems? How can the crucifixion be the solution to every one of the problems in the universe? I think this is what we’ll have a lot of time in heaven to try to figure out.
But I want to suggest to you this amazing thing tonight: that instead of fixing the problems of the universe from a distance, instead of looking at the world and looking at sinners from the heavenly throne and making some sort of decree that would straighten everything out — I don’t know if that’s even possible; I imagine with God all things are possible — but instead of doing that, what the Lord did is said, “I’m going to go down into the midst of that problem, into the midst of that suffering, into the midst of that anguish, even into the midst of that sin, and I am going to take it on to myself. I am going to suffer all suffering myself. I’m going to endure all pain for myself. I’m going to experience my own wrath and anger. I’m going to pour it out on myself, and I’m going to drink that cup all the way to the dregs.”
So the way that Almighty God has determined to solve our problems and the problems of humanity and the problem of our sin is to endure what we ought to endure in our place so that he can set us free, so that he can open heaven for us, so that he can give to us eternal life. This is the Lord’s solution.
Now, I promise you that if you put all the smartest people in the world together in the same room and said, “How do we fix the problems that we face?” none of them would even and ever imagine something like this. But what no human mind can possibly comprehend or understand, the Lord himself has accomplished in his suffering and his death, all of this for us.
So we can rejoice, dear saints, that while the world is busy trying to solve all the problems and fix all the troubles and make all the pain go away, we can rejoice that the Lord Jesus has already accomplished it. He declares, “It is finished,” and this is true for you too: your sin, which stands between you and God and eternal life, your sin is forgiven. Your death, which threatens to pull apart your body and soul, is abolished. By his stripes, you are healed.
So that on the day that you die, you will have this comfort: the Father forgives you, and Jesus says you will be with him in paradise. May this, the suffering of God, the blood and death of your Savior Jesus Christ, be your comfort and peace into life everlasting. May God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.