A Hill With A View
A Good Man’s View of Calvary
(Luke 23:24, Matt 27:46, Luke 23:46)
Introduction:
It’s appropriate in the weeks leading up to Easter that we devote extra attention to the story of Calvary. The preaching of the cross is central to Christianity...there can be no Christianity without the cross. The idea of subsitutionary atonement...that Christ died in our place for our sins...is the painful and magnificent centre of our faith. We as Apostolic Pentcostals can place so great an emphasis on the experience we have in God that we forget to place any emphasis on the experience of the cross that made ours available. So, in the weeks leading to Easter we are taking another look at Calvary.
Jesus suffered as no other man had ever, or could ever suffer. Yet, his suffering brings a redemptive message to us in our suffering too. “Of course,” you’ll say. “Everyone knows that the story of the cross is a story of redemption. Everyone knows that Jesus’ death was a substitutionary atonement, that he bore our sins in his body on the tree.” Even if we can’t explain it, we have at least a rudimentary grasp of the theology of redemption; that he who knew no sin became sin for us...that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
But I want to have more than a rudimentary grasp of the theology of redemption. I want to know more than the theory...I want to know how the reality of redemption works itself out in my life from day to day. I want this to be something that isn’t just theoretical, theological, or virtual...I want to know redemption in real life.
How does the message of the cross affect me in the day to day? How is redemption manifested in my common human experience? As important as the theology is, and as significant as the theory is, I want to know that when I walk out into the real world and am forced to deal with real stuff, that Calvary has a message for those circumstances.
We’ve called this series “A Hill With A View”...but it just as easily could have been called, “Calvary IRL...In Real Life.” We’ve been looking at the redemptive message of Calvary by examining the life-occurrences of five different people who were witnesses to the Cross. And so far we’ve discovered that what they saw, and what they experienced isn’t all that different from what we experience in life. And we’ve also learned that the Cross brought a redemptive message into the lives of those witnesses...and that redemptive message can speak to us.
By studying Mary’s story we learned that there is a redemptive message to every parent experiencing that unique sense of loss that often comes as your children grow up and choose a path other than the one you feel is good for them. The message is, stay as close as you can. There’s always the possibility that they may eventually turn to you, and you need to be there for them. And, stay open...for someone else may need you. Because your own kids don’t want your guidance doesn’t mean that someone else won’t.
By examining the thief’s story, we learned that Calvary brings a redemptive message to the most hopeless of circumstances. We learned that if you will humble yourself, take responsibility for your choices, and acknowledge Jesus as your one and only King, that a new life can be yours.
By looking at the story of John, Jesus’ disciple, we learned that there’s even a redemptive message in the Cross that speaks into our loneliness. And it speaks this message, “You may be lonely, but you’re not alone. You’re never alone. God has placed you in a family that loves and cares for you.”
Today, by the grace of God, we’re going to look at the story of Calvary and try to learn another redemptive message through the experience of another witness...that of Jesus Christ himself.
Just before we start examining Jesus’ experience and responses at Calvary, I’m going to issue a disclaimer. I don’t often issue them, but I think it’s important you realize that I don’t pretend that any of our studies about Calvary are exhaustive. This morning I’m going to speak to you using Jesus as a witness of his own death, and what you’re going to hear will be true, applicable, and hopefully meaningful...but it won’t be the last word on the subject of Jesus on the cross. What Jesus’ death means and what his death accomplished is far broader and deeper than I can hope to explain in one 35 minute message.
Body:
Things To Consider
Now, as we begin to examine the story of Calvary through Jesus’ eyes, there are a few things we need to consider.
Jesus As A Man
First, we need to consider Jesus dying as a man; so, all of his experiences can be described in human terms and can be connected to with human emotions. Christians for so long have placed such emphasis on the deity of Christ that we find it hard to think of Jesus in human terms. We focus so often on what he did and spoke as God, that we place little effort in understanding how he felt as a man.
Did he know anger...as a man, I mean? Or frustration? Or hurt? Or love? Did he laugh? Did he cry? We’re so concerned with the profound about Jesus that we remove from him much of what we can relate to...much of what we can connect to, about Jesus. “He was tempted in every way that we are...” that’s what the writer of Hebrews said. The man Christ Jesus must have been susceptible to the same human foibles that we are. You can’t be tempted with what you no possibility of desiring. This is a bit difficult to wrap our heads around, seeing as our theological effort is bent toward proving his divinity...not exploring his humanity.
But the entire experience of Calvary wasn’t the experience of God...it was the experience of a man. God didn’t die on the cross, a man did. The pain was a man’s pain. The anguish was a man’s anguish. On the cross Jesus suffered as a man suffers, and he felt what a man feels.
The Kind of Man
Next, we need to consider the kind of man he was, and the kind of death that Calvary meant for a man like him. The picture that the Gospels paint of Jesus is that of a passionate man who could be tender. We see there a man who loved kids and sinners, but who was very impatient with the self-righteous. We see a man who was merciful to the weak, who had compassion for the needy, and who would touch the untouchable. Though his teaching challenged the authorities at every turn, he was never political...he was concerned about living a life pleasing to God.
I think the best way I can think of to describe the kind of man he was would be to use the character description of another powerful, insightful man who encountered him; Pontus Pilate. Pilate said of Jesus, “I find no fault in him.” Faultless...that’s what Jesus was. He was a faultless man. It’s not that everyone liked everything about him...not at all. Jesus inspired the darkest depths of hatred...and still does. But that wasn’t because of his faults...it was because his life revealed theirs for what they were.
Peter later describes Jesus as a man who was void of deceit and treachery. He was a straightforward man who spoke the truth. He wasn’t deceptive in nature. He said what he had to say, addressed what needed to be addressed, and did it in a way that implied his rightness. He wasn’t very “politically correct.” If his declaration of what was right and wrong offended the powerful, then amen...so be it. He wouldn’t speak to cause offense, but neither would he refrain from declaring what was pleasing to God to keep from causing offense.
The last person to assess his character while he lived on earth, the thief on the cross, described him as utterly innocent. Not innocent in the newborn babe sense...that innocence that describes a lack of awareness and simplicity of mind. No. Jesus was certainly aware of wickedness and wrong, his mind was complex and his thought profound. But he was utterly innocent in the sense that he was utterly innocent of wrongdoing. He had done nothing that made him remotely worthy of his judgment.
Faultless...straightforward...utterly innocent...this is the kind of man that Jesus was. Yet this kind of man was arrested on false pretences out of jealousy, tried in a kangaroo court, testified against by false witnesses, beaten beyond recognition, and then condemned to die the worst of deaths among the worst of criminals.
The Worst Kind of Suffering
And this brings us to the third thing we need to consider. We need to consider that this is the worst possible form of suffering; the undeserved suffering of the innocent as if they were guilty. To have lived a life doing nothing but good, teaching nothing but truth, faultless, straightforward, and utterly innocent...only to be accused falsely, judged unjustly, and condemned unnecessarily.
How would such a man feel? How do you feel when you experience unfairness? How would such a man respond to such horrific injustice? Would his anguish allow for anger? Considering all the things we’ve mentioned, I see Jesus on the cross responding as a faultless, straightforward, and utterly innocent man might respond.
Three Responses of Jesus
On Calvary I see three responses to this ultimately horrible form of suffering.
The Response of Grace
First, as a man Jesus demonstrates the response of grace. “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.”
As believers, when we suffer at the hands of others, we want to believe that our response will be the response of grace. We want to believe that the grace of god will be revealed in our lives...even toward those who have treated us so unjustly. And the wonderful, beautiful, amazing truth of it is that somehow it is.
We’re amazed ourselves that we are able to respond with grace, offering wholehearted, genuine forgiveness...even when forgiveness hasn’t been sought or asked for. What is so remarkable about this is that it’s an utter work of grace, for the one innocent suffering as guilty, to forgive the guilty living as innocent.
That’s amazing, that kind of grace.
The Response of Anguish
But we’re not all grace. We’re human. And the kind of suffering we’ve talked about is suffering in the worst possible way...suffering as if we were guilty, our reputation soiled and our deeds tarnished. So, we are brought to the second response of Jesus the man...the response of anguish; “God, why have you abandoned me?”
Because we’re human, we’re conflicted. On the one hand God’s grace is revealed in our ability to freely forgive. But on the other hand...and often in the very next breath...we scream out our agony and pour out our blame upon God. “Why? WHY?!? Why do you let me suffer as shameful and shamed when I have tried so hard to be faithful to you? Why do you allow me to be so demeaned when I have given so much? In my darkest hour, you have left me. In my most troubled time, I am alone. In this horror, in this injustice, in this torment...just when I need there to be some light, some easing of my burden, some glimpse of hope, you abandon me."
You’re not a sinner because you feel abandoned. You’re not faithless. You’re human...what you’re feeling is a natural, conflicted response to the worst kind of suffering. You respond in this natural, conflicted way because you are a natural, conflicted human being.
The Response of Surrender
Somehow in all of this anguish, in all of this conflict of revealed grace with feelings of complete abandonment we reach the third response to life’s most horrific suffering.
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” This is the response of surrender.
Ok God, I get it now. My life is not my own, it’s yours. You may do what you wish with my life and offer not one word of explanation to me. You don’t have to tell me why. You don’t have to show me any good outcome. I am your possession. My life came from you, has been touched by you, blessed by you, used by you, and may be spent by you...all as you see fit. And if somehow in all of this suffering you may be glorified, I surrender my life to that glory. If there are lessons in all of this mess, in all of this pain, that you would have me learn, then I surrender my life to the learning of them. Into your hands I commend my spirit. Take me, make me, shape me, use me, spend me, consume me...I am not my own...I am yours.
What I Learn
I learn something from the responses of the man Christ Jesus at Calvary... in His example and in His witness, I see and hear a message that brings redemptive power to the most terrible suffering.
I learn there is grace.
I learn that, in spite of my own pain and anguish, the grace of God can be revealed in my life toward those who’ve caused my suffering and been instrumental in my pain. And that is redemptive.
I learn it’s ok to be human.
I learn that a conflicted human heart will have a conflicted human response to suffering. I learn that because I feel overburdened and overwhelmed doesn’t mean that I’ve failed God. I learn that my feelings of abandonment don’t mean that I’m faithless. And that is redemptive.
I learn the possibility of surrender.
I learn that God’s grace and my conflictedness can somehow merge, blend, and morph together to produce the most unlikely but most necessary response of all; surrender. I learn that suffering can actually lead me to the place where I finally surrender all that I am in to his hands...and that is redemptive.
Closing:
Where he takes me from there, I don’t know. Where he’ll take you from your point of surrender, I don’t know. In Jesus’ life, after surrender came resurrection and glory. Maybe surrender will bring us to a new kind of life, a new kind of power, to a new outlook, a new way of being. I don’t know...but the hope of it is there. And I know that the Cross can bring redemption to your suffering.
