For the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at the events of the last few days of Jesus’ life on earth. With each of those events, we’ve seen a sense of urgency. Each week we have seen an example of urgency. But this morning is different. In this morning’s passage, our Lord shows a sense of urgency that we can hardly imagine. This morning we’re going to be talking about the Urgent Atonement that Jesus made for us on the cross. Studying the cross is a difficult thing. But that’s what we’re going to do this morning. And I’m going to warn you—the cross is hideous. It’s not a well-crafted, pretty varnished thing we have hanging on our walls. It’s not a fine, gold piece of jewelry hanging from our neck. It is one of the most brutal instruments of death ever conceived by the cruel mind of man. And that’s where we are this morning.
MATTHEW 27:26-56
I used the word atonement earlier. Atonement is one of those 25 cent theological words that we sometimes get hung up on. Atonement is a word that was made up just a few hundred years ago. Actually, it was originally two words—at onement, and it was made up by Bible translators. They were trying to capture the idea of reconciling the broken relationship between God and man. And if you think about it, it carries that idea pretty well. When a man and a woman are happily married, we say they are of one flesh. At the same time, a perfect relationship between man and God would be an “at one” relationship. But that relationship was broken. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, mankind’s relationship with God was no longer at one. We now have a sin nature that has been passed down to us from Adam. And because of that sin nature, we all sin. So not only is mankind as a whole not “at one” with God… none of us as individuals is “at one” with God. The Bible puts it this way, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And the sad thing is, in and of ourselves, there is nothing we can do about it. There is nothing we can do about it, because the only cure for sin is death. Back in the garden, God told Adam that if he sinned by eating the fruit, he would surely die. But Adam and Eve didn’t die when they ate of the fruit. Why? Because God offered a substitute. In Genesis 3:21, God killed an animal and clothed them in its skin. He shed the blood as an atonement for their sin and covered them with the substitute’s pure, sinless carcass. The animal died so they wouldn’t have to. The animal atoned for their sin. The animal shed its blood so their relationship could be at one with God again. Hebrews 9:22 says that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. So all through the Old Testament, we see sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. Millions of gallons of animal blood was poured out as an attempt to atone for the people’s sins. But all that blood pointed to one thing. It pointed to the need for a more perfect sacrifice. The writer to the Hebrews puts it like this in 10:3-4: “But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Then he gives the answer in the second part of verse 9-10: “He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” You see, there is only one answer to the sin problem. And that is blood. But all blood was temporary. In the Old Testament, the blood of animals was only effective in that it pointed to the sacrifice yet to come. But it was all temporary. It was incomplete. It was a shadow of the reality that was to come. And that reality came in our passage this morning. That reality came one ugly day on a hill called Golgatha—an Aramaic word that simply means “the skull.” That day, on that hill, God poured out all His wrath for your sin and my sin. He poured out His wrath on the sin of all mankind. He poured it all out to the very last drop on His only-begotten Son, Jesus. On that hill, atonement was made for you and for me.
After the Last Supper. After preparing Himself in prayer in the garden. His betrayer came. About midnight or 1:00 in the morning, Judas came and betrayed Jesus with a kiss. And that started in motion the worst treachery and injustice that the world will ever know. Jesus was paraded before a series of six illegal trials that would run throughout the night and into the early morning hours. After each one, He was increasingly mocked and ridiculed. He was spit on and cursed. He was stripped and slapped. And oh how He was beaten. In the first mock trial before the former high priest Annas, Jesus was dealt a single, solitary stinging blow to the face. It was just a start of things to come. The next trial was before the current high priest Caiaphas and members of the Sanhedrin. This one ended with them spiting in Jesus’ face and beating Him with their fists and slapping Him with their open hands. All the while, they were mocking Him—“Prophesy to us—who hit you that time?” Now it’s about 3 AM and Jesus is drug off to the third illegal trial. This time it’s before the whole Sanhedrin who trumped up a charge of blasphemy against Jesus. They bound Him and drug Him to Pilate. Many of us are familiar with the story of Pilate, but that is not our focus. Our focus is on the suffering of our Lord. Even though Pilate found no guilt in Jesus, He couldn’t release Him because he knew the Jews would riot. So he found a loophole and send Jesus over to Herod. Herod was a disgusting man who was looking to be entertained. He wanted Jesus to perform a circus stunt miracle for him. And when Jesus was silent, his soldiers mocked Him and put a royal robe on Him. And then they sent Him back to Pilate. So, about 7:30 in the morning, Pilate had Jesus scourged. Our passage in verse 26 simply says, “Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.”
And when he had scourged Jesus. A Roman scourging was done by a professional called a lictor. He used a whip called a flagellum. The handle was a little over a foot long and had long leather straps hanging from it. Into the end of each strap was sewn bits of glass, bone or metal. Jesus was stripped naked. His back was exposed tight as He was bent over a wooden stump with His hands and feet bound in rings at the bottom of it. And the beatings began. The cuts shredded the skin and went deep into the muscles. Each lash filleted his backside from His legs to His neck. Unlike Jewish floggings, the Romans weren’t limited to 39. They could go on as long as they pleased. They only had two restrictions. They couldn’t kill the victim. And they couldn’t let them pass out. So to keep them from passing out, they would stop beating long enough to pour buckets of cold salt water in the wounds. The lictor was only allowed to stop when it was apparent that one more blow would kill Jesus. But they needed to entertain the crowd. So they propped Jesus up and put a centurion’s robe on Him. They mashed a crown of sharp, 2-3” thorns into His scalp and forehead. And they placed a reed in His hand and mockingly bowed down to Him. “Hail, King of the Jews.” Then they beat the thorns further into Jesus scalp and skull with the reed.
By this time Jesus had lost a significant amount of blood. His body was in shock. His open wounds were quivering and bleeding profusely. Then, they led Him away. The soldiers strapped Jesus’ quivering body to the top crossbeam of His cross and half-led, half-drug Him toward Golgotha. Hung around His neck was the sign which would be later nailed above His head. In Greek, Latin and Hebrew, the sign read, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Because of the trauma to His body, Jesus was physically unable to carry the beam very far. I’m sure He stumbled several times. Since His arms were secured to the beam, every time He stumbled, His knees and face planted into the stone street. He had no way to break His fall. Since He was physically unable, Simon of Cyrene was forced to carry Jesus’ cross the rest of the way. All the way down a street which we now call the Via Dolorosa—the way of suffering. All the way to Calvary—Golgotha.
Now, it was about 9 AM on the hill called Skull. The centurions removed the beam from Simon and placed its notch in the notch of the vertical upright. Once it was secure, Jesus was quickly thrown into position. One soldier knelt with a knee on the inside of one elbow. Another did the same on the other side. Each held one of Jesus’ hands secure and flat against the beam. Holding two square-cut iron nails in one hand and a heavy iron mallet in the other, a third soldier knelt before the hand of Jesus. His fingers probed our Lord’s wrist to find the soft hollow just beneath the thumb bone. This is the place where the median nerve passes through the wrist and up to the forearm and arm all the way to the spinal cord. When this nerve is pierced, it sends unimaginable shooting up the entire arm and through the shoulder. The soldier pierced it. Then moved to the other side and pierced His other hand. With Jesus secure, they moved to His feet. The soldiers bent Jesus’ knees at a 45 degree angle so they could place His feet flat against the vertical beam. Then they nailed them one at a time side by side. At that point, the cross was hoisted into place, elevated and dropped into the pre-dug hole. Jesus beaten and nailed body was dropped two to three feet as the cross was jarred into place. The weight of His body was causing Him to slowly suffocate as His lungs would fill with air but could not exhale. The only way He could even exhale enough to speak was to lift Himself up with the full weight of His body on His nailed feet. He painfully lifted Himself up by pressing downward on the nails in His feet to exhale enough to say, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” And there He hung. Bleeding, suffering unimaginably. Suspended as our atoning sacrifice between heaven and earth on the cruelest instrument of death man could invent.
When we see the horrors of the cross. When we catch a glimpse of the suffering and shame that Jesus endured there. When we see the lashing. When we feel the bruising. When we see our Lord in such agony. All we want to do is weep. As our mind hears the crack of the whip on His back, we want to cry out—no more! As His knees and face hit the stones of the Via Dolorosa, we want to cry out—no more! As the hammer pounds and pounds and pounds. We want to cry out—no more! The tears flow. But as the tears begin to flow for Jesus’ suffering, we are forced back to the Via Dolorosa. Back to the place where Jesus was so physically weak He could no longer carry the beam of His cross. Back to the place where the Centurion forced Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’ cross the rest of the way. As our tears flow over the pitiful physical trauma of Jesus, we hear His words to some ladies who were sharing our tears. Luke 23:27-28 tells us about it: “And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” Jesus said, don’t look at my wounds and weep over them. Don’t cry over my pain. Don’t pity Me. Don’t you understand? This is for you! This is because of your sin. This is the awful consequence of your sin. Yes—weep. But don’t weep over Me. Weep over your sin and the sin of your children. See, the fact is that the crucifixion was no accident. The crucifixion was no surprise. It was not a tragedy. Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” It pleased the Father to crush His only-begotten Son. But before you go off thinking this was some sort of divine child abuse, listen to Hebrews 12:2: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” The Father sent the Son. The Son not only willingly obeyed—Jesus joyfully obeyed. Now, the question is, why? Why would it please the Father to crush His Son? Why would it give the Son great joy to endure the cross and suffer the shame? Because He loves you. It’s that plain. It’s that simple. He loves you unconditionally. There is nothing you could ever do to earn His love. There is nothing you could ever do to break His love. Listen to how much God loves you. Romans 5:8-9 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” God loves you so much that He would rather pour out His wrath on His own Son than to pour it out on you. And the thought of you accepting His love was enough to joyfully send Him to the cross. Does thinking about Jesus on the cross make you weep? Why would you weep over the joy that was set before Him? Weep instead over your sin. Weep over your sin as you watch it nailed to the cross there with Him. The Father’s response to your sin was to joyfully crush His only begotten Son. The Son’s response to your sin was to joyfully endure the cross. What is your response to your sin? It’s already been paid for on the cross. Have you accepted Jesus’ payment for it? Have you accepted His blood bought atonement for your sin? Or are you going to add scorn to the shame of the cross by rejecting Jesus? Jesus paid the full price for your sin on the cross. He has fully paid the price to ransom you from the wrath to come. Now He is set down at the right hand of the throne of God waiting for you to accept His free gift. He is waiting for you to turn from your sins and turn to Him in faith believing that His blood is a sufficient atonement for you. When you do—your sins will be washed away with His blood. Though your sins be like scarlet, you shall be white as snow. He will cleanse you of your unrighteousness and He will clothe you in His righteousness. As Robert has sung in that song John 3:16: “I don’t understand it, but it sure does make a dirty boy clean.” Don’t you want to be clean today? When the music sounds, come forward and accept Jesus’ free gift of atonement that He paid so dearly for today.
