Easter is upon – the day when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – and at Easter time we wish to hear why the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is significant to us. We want to hear of the hope that we no longer have to be condemned to an eternal spiritual death, but that we will have eternal life in the Lord if we believe that Jesus died and rose again.
Jesus’ death and rising brought us the gift of salvation and brand new spiritual life, but do you know what else it accomplished? It gave us the promise of renewal and transformation in our everyday lives and our everyday “trials and troubles.” You see, there is another victory, besides the one over sin and death which we can claim through the resurrection of Jesus Christ; and that is victory over injustice, suffering, and spiritual and emotional pain. “So how do we have this victory?” you may ask. That’s the question we’re going to answer this morning; and we will begin by reading the account of the crucifixion found in Mark 15:16-37.
Experiencing Pain and Loss (Mark 15:16-37)
16 Then the soldiers led Him away into the hall called Praetorium, and they called together the whole garrison. 17 And they clothed Him with purple; and they twisted a crown of thorns, put it on His head, 18 and began to salute Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 Then they struck Him on the head with a reed and spat on Him; and bowing the knee, they worshiped Him. 20 And when they had mocked Him, they took the purple off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him out to crucify Him.
21 Then they compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by, to bear His cross. 22 And they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull. 23 Then they gave Him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but He did not take it. 24 And when they crucified Him, they divided His garments, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take. 25 Now it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. 26 And the inscription of His accusation was written above: THE KING OF THE JEWS.
27 With Him they also crucified two robbers, one on His right and the other on His left. 28 So the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And He was numbered with the transgressors.” 29 And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 save Yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31 Likewise the chief priests also, mocking among themselves with the scribes, said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. 32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Even those who were crucified with Him reviled Him.
33 Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” 35 Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, “Look, He is calling for Elijah!” 36 Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.” 37 And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last.
In the Scripture here, we observe that Jesus underwent intense pain and agony. A crown of thorns was fashioned and mashed down on His head until He bled. He was beaten on the head, and probably upon His entire body, with a reed that was lined up and down with sharp rocks in order to tear at the flesh. He was also spat upon; and as though this weren’t enough, He was delivered to be crucified.
During crucifixion, spikes were driven into His wrists just below the hands, spreading the bones apart as they went through. While being nailed to the cross, Jesus’ feet were placed one on top the other while a spike forced its way through both of them. His knees were bent so that He would have to push up in order not to slide down and suffocate under His own weight. The position He was in, with His hands above His head, caused suffocation if He were to slide down, because His lungs would be pressed together. That’s why it was common in crucifixion to break the victim’s legs, for it would cause Him to die faster. Jesus’ legs burned with fatigue while trying to stay up, while His wrists and feet ached and bled.
We see here that Jesus was mistreated and suffered before He died. Though He was at peace, because He knew His spirit was in the Lord’s hands, the process of dying was in no way peaceful. Jesus was tortured. We realize that Jesus had to die in order to take our place. You see, because of our sins, our destiny is eternal death, but Jesus took our place in death so that we might have life in God. But why couldn’t He just die a quick death by an arrow shot through the heart, or something of that nature? We know that a sacrificial lamb was not burned alive, but killed first; so we wonder why Jesus had to suffer the way He did. It seems so unjust!
Jesus’ torture during crucifixion was not the only injustice we see. Back in Mark 15:15, we observe that a criminal named Barabbas was released to go free, while the crowd chose to crucify Jesus instead. Barabbas was a criminal, while Jesus had done no harm at all. One of the great questions we find in the Bible is this: “Why do the innocent suffer and the wicked prosper?”(1) In Jeremiah 12:1, the prophet said to the Lord, “Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You; yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?”
The common answer we give as to why someone suffers is that they have committed some sin that they are being punished for. But is this answer always sufficient? It is only one of numerous biblical explanations. If a mother loses her three-year-old son when he wanders out onto the highway, do we tell her that the Lord took away her son because she committed sin? If a wife loses her husband, do we say that God must have had a good reason for taking his life? Will these answers really provide healing? And do these answers reveal the true nature of God?
I think we are all familiar with the account of Job. The Lord allowed Satan to test Job for his faithfulness to God. He could do anything to him except take his life. Job suffered many afflictions because of the devil, but to his friends, they saw Job’s sufferings as the result of un-confessed sin in his life. In the end of the account we see that God was not involved in working injustice on Job, but Satan did the injustice.
So, does God will a wife to lose her husband, because she sinned? No, we are punished for sin in the judgement. Does God cause a mother to lose her child for some reason that only He knows about? What reason could there be? Did God wish for His one and only Son to “suffer” during the process of dying, when a quick death would have served the same purpose?
Most of the reasons we tend to give for someone suffering, suggest that God has something to do with it. We tend to reason that since God is all-powerful that He creates both good and evil. I will admit that God is all powerful indeed, but He has nothing to do with evil injustices!
God’s power did not create evil, but it created good and order which, when given free will, can change in however which way it wants. In Genesis, we read that God created all things good. Satan perverts the good things of God, and that is where evil comes into play. When people believe that God creates evil, then this is when they tend to reject Him and turn from Him, because most people don’t want anything to do with what they consider to be an unjust God.
I was watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie, which was called “The Craftsman.” Little Albert was speaking to an old Jewish man about the question of good and evil. Albert said, “I’ve been kind of mad at . . . [God] lately.” The Jewish man replied, “Mad at God, why?” Albert said, “Well, because He lets bad things happen.” Then the Old Jewish man stated, “Albert, don’t blame the Almighty for all the evil men do. God gives us the freedom to choose between good and evil. Is it His fault that some people choose to follow the evil?” Little Albert said, “Reckon I never thought of it that way. Some things are so hard to understand.”(2)
Rabbi Kushner wrote a book that many of you have probably heard about. It’s called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner’s response basically says, “God always wills the best possible good to be achieved in every situation we encounter, but [does not] cause the best to happen.” God makes a situation possible for good to result, but it’s up to human choice as to the outcome.(3)
Should we blame God that His only Son was tortured and crucified? I believe God knew ahead of time what death Jesus would die because He is all-knowing, but He did not create the mode of death or the injustices involved in His death. The suffering that Christ endured was the result of the evil choices made by the people around Him. Our God is not unjust or sadistic. He does not take joy in our sufferings, but they are the result of the evil world in which we live.
So, what significance does Christ’s crucifixion have in helping us deal with the problem of evil and suffering in the world? The very person of Jesus Christ, His time upon this earth, and His crucifixion reveal to us that God is not some distant judge who is uncaring when we are suffering. Listen to Hebrews 4:15-16: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Martin Luther, in his “theology of the cross,” noted that God does not reveal Himself to people solely through glory and power, but through suffering and the cross.(4) Most of us realize the Bible teaches that Jesus is God “incarnate,” which means He is God in the flesh (John 1:1, 14); but when it comes to the cross, I think we sometimes forget this fact. In his book The Transforming God, Tyron Inbody says, “God does not look on our suffering from the outside but from within, from the brow and hands of Jesus hanging on the cross.”(5) According to Hebrews, Jesus experienced human temptation; so, He probably felt human pain as well. Because of the cross, Jesus knows what it feels like to experience injustice and suffering.
But what about God? Is He sitting off in the distance completely out of touch with the pain we feel? How many of us have ever paused to consider just how much it hurt the heavenly Father to see His one and only Son suffer and die? The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann observes that as “the Son suffers dying, the Father suffers the death of the Son,” and he notes that “the grief of the Father here is just as important as the death of the Son.”(6) You see, God is not distant and uncaring. He knows the pain that we go through, as He experienced the emotional pain and loss of His Son.
This reminds me of a song I heard many years ago entitled, “God Weeps Too,” by Christian singer Eli. He said, “This is for the widow who now must sleep alone, when the memory of a kiss will have to do. Every night when she lays down you can almost hear the sound, when God weeps too. God weeps too, God weeps too; though we question Him for all that we go through. Still it helps me to believe, and my faith it does relieve, just to think that God weeps too.”
Referring back to Hebrews 4:16, the Scripture says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Because God can sympathize with our feelings, we have someone to turn to for help in our time of need; someone who understands. But, there still might be some of us might asking, “How can I find comfort if I can’t use the age-old explanation that my suffering is for some divine purpose? What kind of help can I gain by acknowledging that God knows heartache?”
When we acknowledge that God felt emotional pain when Jesus died on the cross, we can no longer say that God creates evil, or that He wills bad things to happen. We have to come to grips with the fact that our God weeps too. John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” – He gave up His Son, and that must have been extremely painful. Because our God can feel emotional pain, this is the reason why He is a personal God. If He was anything less than personal, we couldn’t have a relationship with Him and salvation through His Son.
But the question still remains: Where is our comfort if we can’t believe that God created our pain for some divine purpose? Well, let’s look at Mark 16:1-6, and we will discover the answer.
A Transformation of Tragedy (Mark 16:1-6)
1 Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. 2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3 And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away – for it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.”
The event recorded in this passage is the resurrection. Some people would say that if God didn’t intervene to stop Jesus from being nailed to the cross, that God is powerless to overcome evil. Or, perhaps they might say that if God doesn’t prevent suffering, then there isn’t really a God; but I can’t understand why people keep forgetting the part about the resurrection!
The resurrection is the key to hope and comfort during our times of suffering. God is not powerless when it comes to injustice. The resurrection is proof of this fact. During the resurrection, Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, overcame sin and death. Many of us would see death as the ultimate tragedy, but Christ won the victory over death. Jesus suffered, bled, and died, but that was not the end of the story. This tragedy was transformed into new life!
According to Tyron Inbody, God endured the pain of losing of His Son, and Jesus endured the agony of the cross, “so that we might live and rise in God’s future.”(7) What we view as the ultimate tragedy, which is death, Jesus underwent, in order to show that He can transform death into something brand new! When we one day die a physical death, God is going to transform this seeming tragedy into eternal life through Jesus Christ, and we will enter a bright and glorious future!
So, how can this news be applied to our everyday trials and tragedies? Inbody says, “The power of the resurrection works like this. It does not eliminate hopelessness and death by slaying the dragon. It works in and through death as a gentle power to re-create new life.”(8) You see, though we are suffering, through our faith in God, and through the power of the cross, the Lord will make a way out. He can take our pain and transform it into new life, if we will only allow Him to. When we acknowledge that God knows the pain we feel, we can be assured that we are not alone in our suffering and that we are going to overcome the present moment. We will have new life!
Time of Reflection
The first question I have today is this: Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord? If you believe that He died for you, and then rose again, victorious over death, then you will be victorious over death too. Your life can be transformed through Christ’s resurrection. If you will give up the life of sin that you are currently living, and in a sense crucify that life of sin, then you will rise victorious over death; and when you finally leave this earth then you will enter into heaven.
The next question I have is this: Are you suffering from something that seems unfair and unjust? I urge you to stop pondering what reason God could have had for putting you through such pain, because He wouldn’t do that. If you are allowing bitterness to linger in your heart because someone did you wrong in the past, and you’re blaming God for not stopping that person from hurting you, then quit blaming Him. I urge you to place your burden on Christ, and allow it to be buried with Him. He can and will transform your pain into new life.
NOTES
(1) Tyron L. Inbody, The Transforming God (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 38.
(2) Michael Landon, “The Craftsman,” Little House on the Prairie. 1974 National Broadcasting Company.
(3) Inbody, 151, 156.
(4) Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. X in the introduction.
(5) Inbody, 177.
(6) Moltmann, 243.
(7) Inbody, 171.
(8) Ibid., 182.
