In Jesus Holy Name February 26, 2023
Lent I Luke 23:43 Redeemer
“Words from the Cross” “Father Forgiven Them”
Visitors from around the world travel to Barcelona, Spain to visit the new Cathedral being built. On 19 March 1882, construction of the Sagrada Familia began. By October 2015 construction was 70 percent complete. 20 million people a year visit the cathedral. Many of the first time visitors are not Christian, nor do they understand the theology of Christianity. They are enthralled with the architecture.
As they walk around they can see the various scenes from the life of Christ on display in granite. The nativity. The crucifixion. They realize the cathedral is built in the shape of a cross. Standing inside you marvel at the building’s proportions. The stained glass windows. Everywhere the visitor looks he sees a cross. In the small chapels a cross is prominently displayed. Over the central altar one sees Jesus lifted, suspended on a cross, under a canopy. During the service people are seen wearing a cross on their lapel or around their neck.
Suddenly the congregations stands and sings:
“We sing the praise of Him who died,
Of Him who died upon the cross;
The sinner’s hope let men deride,
For this we count the world but loss.”
As the service ends the congregation sings another hymn:
“When I survey the wonderous cross
On which the prince of glory died
….All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.”
The stranger, though awed by the architecture leaves the cathedral impressed but puzzled. Why so much focus on the cross, and the one who died there. As Christians we know the cross is a reminder of the forgiveness of our broken commandments. The cross is a reminder that God Himself chose to accept the blood of Jesus shed on the cross as the way to restore peace, harmony and friendship with His most treasured creation, human beings.
In the Gospel of Luke last week we read: That on the Mount of Transfiguration “two men, Moses and Elijah appeared in glorious splendor talking with Jesus. They spoke about His departure which He was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem.”
Jesus knew what awaited Him in Jerusalem. He knew He would be arrested. He would be tried and falsely accused. He knew he would experience the pain of crucifixion, the pain of nails being driven into His hands and feet, the struggle for breath, the bleeding form the scourging of the Romans. He knew. He also knew that on the cross He would be abandoned by God… in His death he would carry the weight of all the wrath of God against sinful humanity. That’s why He prayed in the agony of the garden…”Father if possible remove this cup from me…the cup of wrath.”
Over the next five Sundays of Lent our sermon series will focus on the “Words of Jesus from the Cross”. While nailed to the cross His first words were spoken, not to the men and women at the foot of the cross but to God in heaven. “Father forgive them.”
Forgiveness. It is what every human being needs. When Jesus died on the cross, He made it possible for us to experience friendship, acceptance with God by the attachment of our baptism and faith. Alienation is replaced by acceptance. John Stott notes that “our sins were the obstacle preventing us from receiving the gift God wanted to give us.” The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was the ransom price for our sin, paid in full. Paul writes in Colossians. “God took the list of broken commandments and nailed them to the cross of Christ and left them there, taking away the power of Satan to accuses us.” (Cross of Christ p. 64)
Read I Corinthians 15:4-5
To many supposedly sophisticated people in our modern world, sin appears to be a primitive concept. We Christians know differently. “Sin” is a short word used in Christianity to describe “broken commandments”. Sin remains a very serious and contemporary spiritual worry. The question for every human being is: “how can I have my “broken commandments” erased, removed, forgiven by my Creator.”
Perhaps we should remember what the old Evangelist Billy Sunday once said, “One of the reasons why sin blossoms in a culture is that it is treated as a cream pie and not like a rattlesnake.”
Only at the cross do we see “God’s holy wrath under the perfect control of His limitless love. Try to imagine it! The innocent Son of God, mocked, tortured and murdered while God the Father, His Father watches.” This was God’s plan from the beginning of creation when Adam and Eve broke their one commandment. It would take centuries, but redemption, reconciliation would happen.
On the day Jesus was crucified. The sky turned black. The earth rumbled. He said, “Father forgive them.” They are forgiven their part in murder of an innocent man. Jesus was obedient unto death, death on a Roman cross. He could have called 10,000 angels to rescue Him from the cross. He did not. Why?
On the cross Jesus totally resisted Satan’s temptations, just as He had in the wilderness. Each temptation of Satan was meant to distract, redirect Jesus from His ultimate destiny. Satan knew Jesus was the Son of God. If Satan could only get “Jesus” the human man to reject God’s plan in the wilderness then Satan would continue to hold the world hostage to death, and evil.
At the cross Satan used the Pharisees to mock Jesus in His pain. “Come down from the cross if you are the Messiah” they said. On the cross, provoked by the insults and tortures …. Jesus absolutely refused to retaliate. With the power of Rome and Jerusalem and the Demonic host of Hell swirling around the hill of Golgotha… Jesus could have met power with power. He could have called 10,000 angels.Jesus refused. His obedience to death on the cross was indispensable to His saving work.
What was that saving work? Hebrews 2:14
And Paul writes: “For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (Rom. 5:19)
On the study sheet in the back of your bulletin you will see that in The New Testament there are five main Greek words for sin.
Hamartia = missing the target
Adikia = unrighteousness
Poneria = evil of a vicious or degenerate kind an inward
Corruption or perversion
Parabasis = trespass, transgression, stepping over the
boundary line
Anomia = lawlessness, disregard for the known law.
We must acknowledge sin for what it is: an offense to God. But you and I both know that the word “sin” has been dropped from our culture’s vocabulary. It is religious phraseology, now declared meaningless in a post Christian, secularized western culture. No wonder the visitor to the cathedral wondered about the meaning of the “cross”. Yet on the cross, Jesus holds and provides the answer to how human beings can have peace of mind and soul.
Read Colossians 1:21-22
That is why Jesus died on the cross. The Roman soldiers were immediately responsible for the death of Jesus because they were in charge of the crucifixion.
“They carried out their gruesome task. There is no evidence that they enjoyed it, no suggestion that they were extra cruel. They were just doing their job. They were obeying orders. “all the while Jesus was saying “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” (John Stott the Cross of Christ p. 49)
Jesus did not die as a martyr. His death was the only way God could forgive human beings their broken commandments. Our sins sent Him there. God’s love for us sent Jesus there. Jesus had said, “The Good Shepherd was going to lay down His life for the sheep.” (John 10 based on Ezekiel 34)
In the very beginning of creation God told Adam and Eve that death would now come to all living creatures. Every human being suffers death. So God sent His Son, Jesus who lived a life without sin to be our substitute. In God’s grace and mercy He transferred all our sins to the cross of Jesus and then transferred all His righteousness to us by faith.
In our mind we find it difficult to simultaneously hold the image of God as the Judge who must punish evil doers and the Lover who must find a way to forgiven them. Yet that is what God, our creator has accomplished through Jesus on the cross.
“Not all the blood of beasts, On Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain.
But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, Takes all our sins away;
A sacrifice of nobler name And richer blood than they.
That is why the church can sing: “In the cross of Christ I glory.
That is why the cathedral Sagrada Familia is built in the shape of the cross.
