He’s Not Here

Around the necks of hundreds of thousands in our society today are crosses of gold and silver. Many of them are beautifully decorated with precious stones – sapphires, rubies and diamonds. And the people, who wear them, in the majority, blissfully go on their way without even the vaguest understanding of the meaning of the true Cross.

In fact, the Cross has merely become another item of their jewelry. Yet, there were no jewels in the Cross which executed our Lord Jesus. Our culture has lost its understanding of the Cross. And let me ask the question what about you? And what does the Cross mean to you?

As we travel back into the corridors of time and the pages of history more than 2000 years ago; to a dreadful dastardly time in the history of humankind. When man was lost, baffled and tossed by every new wind that blew. It was a time called the Intertestamental Period: This was the time; when the law was about to bow subject to grace. The old dispensation was prepared to be succeeded by the new dispensation.

Those who had been looking for a great and shinning knight in armor that would lead the people of Israel to a golden age were dismayed and distraught. For the only hope they had was now hanging on a tree; with spikes in His feet and with nails in His hands. It was a time in history when Satan was trying to become our savior. It was a time when we were lost without any hope of being found. When we were looking for the Lord to speak a word but it appeared that even silence came from heaven on high.

Let’s look at this time period in history as we re-enact the most dreadful weekend that humankind as ever experienced, a time when some are screaming for the Savior and other are screaming against him saying“kill him, kill him”. And even though we gather here on Sunday mornings

some of us can’t began to understand all that transpired during that dreadful weekend.

And let me inform you it wasn’t about any Easter eggs, nor was it about an Easter hunt, or a Easter bunny.

And let me throw this in, our Sunday morning worship service doesn’t mean anything, if we don’t understand the meaning of the crucifixion. The celebration of this day will mean nothing if we have not entered into the suffering of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Look at the paradox of the weekend if you will; it was an ugly but yet at the same time it was beautiful. It was ugly because evil had seemingly had won. Satan appeared to be in charge and good appeared not to be able to stand on its own two feet. It was ugly because, as somebody said, the sun refused to shine. The earth began to quake and we are told that everything that had life had a lacking of energy on that dreadful Friday afternoon. It was ugly because it appeared that the darkness would never be disbursed by light. And it appeared that humankind would be lost forever.

But not only was it ugly, but it was beautiful at the same time. It was beautiful because the Lord was teaching us what the real celebration is all about. He wanted us to know that you can’t go up until you have first gone down. And He wanted us to know that you cannot really celebrate until you have first sorrowed. And that you cannot really understand living until you have determined what it means to die. And that the Resurrection means absolutely nothing if you don’t understand what it means to go to Calvary’s awful hill. You see on Calvary there were three crosses and I would like dissect each cross to illustrate a points and then I will be done.

The first cross was of REJECTION.

For there was an unpentative thief who absolutely said, “No” to the “Yes!” of God. He was determined that Jesus was not the God of his

salvation.

He looked about at the crowd, he looked at the Roman centurions...saw Herod and Pilate and all those with power and he made a conscious decision to say “No” to God and “yes” to the powers that be.

As a matter of fact he looked at Jesus in the center and said “Why, I would follow you it seems to me that you have no power. If you be the Christ and you have all this power why don’t you come down and save us or at least save yourself, but he didn’t know that Jesus came here for this reason so he said, that’s why it’s my choice to choose the Romans because at least they’ve got power; I choose Rome and I choose the government; they are killing me but at least I am dying with those who have the power.”