Looking at the Cross Sermon 1
Bob Marcaurelle Matt.27: 27-30
JESUS SCOURGED AND SHAMED
“The Governor’s soldiers/ stripped off Jesus’ clothes and put a scarlet robe on him. They make a crown out of thorn branches and placed it on his head, and they put a stick in his right hand. The soldiers knelt down and pretended to worship him. They made fun of him and shouted, “Hey, you king of the Jews!” Then they spit on him. They took the stick from his hand and beat him on the head with it. When they had finished making fun of Jesus they took off the robe.”
(Matt. 27:27-31 CEV)
The Horror of Crucifixion
We have looked at the cross so much we don’t really see it. In the 1960’s when the Vietnam War could be seen in our living rooms we turned the channel to Andy Griffin. War scenes became commonplace and even boring to some. Crucifixion was so horribly cruel that no Roman citizen, regardless of his crime could be crucified. Even Pilate hesitated to put a man he thought was innocent through it. When a man was handed over to the soldiers to be crucified they spent a little time making fun of their victim. Jesus, being a despised Jew and claiming to be the king of heaven was the ideal target so they mocked him, beat him and spit on him in mock worship.
The Prior Suffering and Scourging
This man they dragged into their barracks did not look human. Isaiah said, “Everyone who saw him was horrified because he suffered until he no longer looked human.” (52:14 CEV) In Gethsemane, thinking about the cross He broke out in a bloody sweat. He was covered in dried blood and that is why the soldiers who came to the garden to arrest Him fell back when they saw him. At some point His beard been jerked out. He said, “I offered my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” (Isa. 50:6).
Worst of all Jesus had been scourged probably by these same soldiers. Many victims never made it to the cross because they died of the scourging. The scourge was a Roman whip with leather straps attached to a wooden handle. In the end of the straps there were tied bits of metal and bone. The victim was stripped naked and stretched out by being strung up to a post. One soldier stood to hit him from behind, one soldier stood to hit him from the front. When they would come down to strike the flesh, the pieces of bone and metal would catch in the skin, so when they jerked it back they would rip out blood and flesh. By the time you had 39 lashes like that on the back and on the front a victims intestines and internal organs were exposed and pieces thrown in all directions by the whip. Arteries and veins were hanging out.
This is what they did to our Lord. Can you think of 39 lashes to the back, 39 lashes to the front? From the top of his head to the soles of his feet skin was jerked from his body. Was it the bits of bone and metal on the scourge that ripped out his beard? How many lashes hit the beautiful face of Jesus, pulling out his beard? Only God’s providence kept a bone from being broken and His eyes from being jerked out. Isaiah 52:14 tells us when they were through with this dirty work many were horrified at what happened to him because he suffered until he no longer looked human.
ADDED PAIN RECEIVED
The soldiers had a job to do. They should have just done it - take him, bind him, go get the other two, give them crosses, lead them through the streets, go to Golgotha, nail them to the crosses, and sit down and wait for death. That was it, just a simple, routine job.
It sometimes took days for victims to die. Most went insane before they died, because the heat and the thirst and the insects eating their wounds, and the unquenchable pain drove men stark, raving mad. It was a bad enough job. By itself that was enough.
Why so much added injury?
But this man was different. He had not cursed them. He had not spit at them. He had not shown hate on his face. They may have thought He was a sissy. A man would spit back. A man would curse back. He wasn’t a man, they may have thought, he was a lily-livered little scared Jew. Let’s see they said if we can make him spit at us. We’ll make him curse us. So we’re not just going to crucify him, let’s take him into the barracks and have a little fun with him. He called himself a king, this stupid Jew. A king, we’ll make him a king. We’ll show him, we’ll bow before him.
The Hardest Part of Jesus’ Sufferings?
And I believe, my friends, this is one of the saddest, most shameful scenes in all of Scripture. Women are gone now, folks, this is just men talk. They took the greatest, strongest man who ever lived and made him into a clown. The first thing they did was grab his clothes and ripped them off of that battered body, bringing more blood out. He sat there looking like a raw piece of meat, sitting there with no clothes on.
Look at that king. He needs a robe. So they found an old dirty, filthy, nasty robe somewhere and they shook the dirt off of it. It was red but they made it the purple of the king and they wrapped it around his shoulders. They said, “A king needs a scepter,” and they found an old stick and they stuck that in his hand and had him sitting there like a clown.
A king needs a crown. There were 25 different kinds of thorn bushes in Palestine. They went outside and found one and made it into a crown of thorns and pressed it down upon his head. The spikes went in his face and the top of his head and ears. Nothing did Jesus say.
He needs some subjects. So one by one they would bow down before him and they would say, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And every time they were waiting for him to spit or to curse or to hit them with that stick. All they saw was his sad eyes. They said, “We’ll get him. We’ll just beat the you-know-what out of him.” So one of them took that stick hit him beside the head and hit him while he as down.
No broken bones
They beat him and they beat him and I believe the stick got so bloody they didn’t want to pick it up with their bare hands. So then they would hit him with their fists, right in the nose, right in the eyes. They beat him to a pulp. One of them probably said, “You’re not worth fooling with.” So they quit. No matter how hard they swung, no matter where they hit him, God didn’t let one crack in a bone take place. Why? Because the Bible had predicted that “not one bone in His body would be broken.” (John 19:36)
Now that’s a miracle, right there. No matter how much evil seems to be in control, God is in control. Evil’s power is limited. Evil’s time is short. Rev. 12: 12 says of the devil, “He knows his time is short and he is very angry.” (CEV)
ABIDING PATIENCE REVEALED
1. The Providence of God
For what purpose under heaven was the beautiful Son of God subjected to such indignities? Suppose you have a precious dog or cat and it gets run over by some teenage boys and you see it. And they get out and that precious little animal is dying and they’re laughing and one of them kicks him and they all laugh. One of them throws a rock at him and they all laugh. And another one takes a stick and pokes him and pokes him and pokes him. What would you want to do, get you an AK 47 and send them all to hell right then? That’s what I’d want to do. I didn’t use a child because no one would do that to a child, but they did it to God’s child. Isaiah tells us why. It was all predicted. My friends, when evil seems out of control, when evil seems to have the upper hand as it does today, God is using that evil to accomplish his purposes.
2. The Power of Jesus
Isaiah’s Old Testament Messiah said, “I let them beat my back and pull out my beard. I didn’t turn aside when they insulted me and spit in my face.” Jesus read that when he was a boy. Jesus knew all of this was going to take place. He said to his disciples, “Everything written by the prophets about the Son of Man will come true. He will be mocked, treated spitefully and spit upon.”(Luke 18:31) And He let it happen. He had the power to stop it. When Peter pulled his sword out to rescue Jesus in Gethsemane Jesus said, “Put it away. My father has ten thousand angels He could call at any moment to rescue me.”
Jesus Christ could have stopped this mockery any time he wanted. And I think when He was made a clown in front of strong men, it was harder to endure than the cross. At least on the cross, you could die like a man. But to sit there and be spit on and cursed and hit and mocked and stripped naked, I cannot imagine putting up with that.
The Love for you and for me
Why did He? The only reason is his patient love. He is still that patient today. He sees us laugh at and ignore Him. He sees us hurt our fellow human beings. Who have you hit with your fists? Who have you hit with your gossip? Who have you hit with your ridicule? Who have you laughed at because they were poor, because they were sick, because they weren’t the same color as you? Who have you hurt? Who are you still hurting? The only reason you are not in hell today is the patient love of Jesus.
THE AWFUL PRICE REQUIRED
Why did Jesus have to suffer so much? Why couldn’t God let one Roman sword be plunged through His heart when Peter drew his sword? Jesus had to suffer at the hands of man to reveal sin and salvation.
Calvary reveals our sins. In all the controversy over Mel Gibson’s movie the question is, “Who killed Jesus?” Mel Gibson knows. It was not the Jews alone. It was not the Romans alone. We had a part in it. In the movie a hand is shown holding a hammer and lifted up to drive the nails. It is Mel Gibson’s hand because he says he and all of us are guilty. Sins like ours are seen on Calvary’s hill.
The week before this movie came out, a video camera showed a boy beating another boy on a school bus with his fists and feet. The driver kept on driving. Some kids joined in and threw a few punches. Others cheered and laughed. Others sat there and did nothing. These were children in modern affluent America! And in them and in you and me are all the sins that butchered Jesus two thousand years ago.
Calvary reveals salvation.
Jesus could have dropped dead at 32 with a heart attack but that wouldn’t mean anything to you and me. He had to die at the hands of sinful men to reveal who we are and who He is- a God who came to earth to pay our sin debt and to show us we can never do anything to Him that will make Him stop loving us. The barracks reveals you and me. It took this awful treatment of Christ to show what love is and redeem sinners.
“He was hated and rejected; his life was filled with sorrow and terrible suffering/ We despised him and said, ‘He is a nobody!’ He suffered and endured great pain for us./ He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment he has made us completely well. All of us were like sheep that had wandered off. We had each gone our own way, but the Lord gave him the punishment we deserved.”
(Isa. 53: 3-6, CEV)
Nobody summed this up better than Max Lucado in one of his books. He said,
“Jesus looked at the cross and saw hell
but He went there because He would rather go to
hell than go to heaven without us.
Have you given Jesus your sins to forgive and your life to change and control? If Jesus is not your Savior He is your Judge.
