Watch the Lamb
Acts 13:26-29
Good Friday service 2001
Pilgrim Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC
A. The Message Sent to Us
Carla Muir told this story:
There was a certain old recluse who lived deep in the mountains of Colorado. When he died, distant relatives came from the city to collect his valuables. Upon arriving, all they saw was an old shack with an outhouse beside it. Inside the shack, next to the rock fireplace, was an old cooking pot and his mining equipment. A cracked table with a three-legged chair stood guard by a tiny window, and a kerosene lamp served as the centerpiece for the table. In a dark corner of the little room was a dilapidated cot with a threadbare bedroll on it.
They picked up some of the old relics and started to leave. As they were driving away, an old friend of the recluse, on his mule, flagged them down. “Do you mind if I help myself to what’s left in my friend’s cabin?” he asked. “Go right ahead,” they replied. After all, they thought, what inside that shack could be worth anything?
The old friend entered the shack and walked directly over the table. He reached under it and lifted one of the floor boards. He then proceeded to take out all the gold his friend had discovered over the past 53 years – enough to have built a palace. The recluse died with only his friend knowing his true worth. As the friend looked out of the little window and watched the cloud of dust behind the relative’s car disappear, he said, “They should have got to know him better.
I wonder, as we reflect on this Good Friday, as we watch the Lamb, Jesus Christ, who suffered and died a criminal’s death 2000 years ago that we too have missed out on the gold. Do we know our Friend’s (Jesus) true worth? Do we treat Him as if he’s some old relic of history that lived somewhere in strife-torn Middle East long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far way? What’s that gotta do with me? Yeah, sure He died, and maybe he’s some tragic hero and we drive away, walk away empty from this assembly this day or do we wanna walk out here with the gold? Have we missed the gold? Will someone one day say of us that we should have got to know Jesus better?
The Bible tells us in Acts 13, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. This means the invitation to not miss out on the gold is given. It is sent, not by e-mail, or air-mail or the mail-man delivering junk-mail by through the personal mail, the mail of God’s own son, the very person of Jesus. This is how another trans. Of Bible called the Message puts it: “This message of salvation has been precisely targeted to you.” The true worth of Jesus is revealed in this Good Friday event. An that is why true Christians everywhere called this awful bloody cross event “good” even though it meant the suffering and death of God’s Son. They know on that hill, on Calvary where Jesus died, is the gold sent from heaven. The prophets have foretold of it long before Jesus was born. Right from the pages of ancient prophecies this event of Good Friday was announced long ago. But the people of Jerusalem and their rulers missed the gold (see v.27). These are the folks, who should have seen it coming, missed it. And boy did they miss it as they cried “Crucify Him” even though it was a total sham, of trumped-up charges (v.28).
B. Message Received or Buried?
Read v.29
Do u have any idea what the burial of Jesus was like in those days. According to Byron R. McCane, professor of religion, Converse College Spartanburg, South Carolina
Christian History, Summer 1998
Jewish funerals almost always took place the same day as the death. The eyes of the deceased were closed, the
corpse was washed with perfumes and ointments, its bodily orifices were stopped, and strips of cloth were wrapped tightly around the body—binding the jaw closed, fixing arms to the sides, and tying the feet together. Once prepared, the corpse was placed on a bier or in a coffin and carried out of town in a procession to the family tomb, usually a small rock-cut cave entered through a narrow opening that could be covered with a stone.
After eulogies, the corpse was placed either in a niche or on a shelf, along with items of jewelry or other personal effects. Once in a while, a Jewish funeral might even be a little too hasty: the rabbis told stories of people who were mistakenly buried before they were actually dead!
But the Jewish rituals of death did not end with the burial. A week of intense grieving, called shiv’ah ("seven") followed, during which family members stayed at home and received the condolences of friends. (Mary and Martha were in this period of grief for Lazarus when Jesus arrived at their home.)
Then came a month of less intense mourning, called shloshim ("thirty"), during which family members still did not leave town, cut their hair, or attend social gatherings. After shloshim, most aspects of normal life resumed, but the immediate family of the deceased continued to mourn for one year. Then they would return to the tomb for a private ceremony known as "the gathering of the bones." In this secondary burial, the bones of the deceased were collected into a small stone container, called an ossuary.
Finally, the rites of mourning were over and the relatives could return to normal life.
No rest for the wicked
Different burial customs awaited those who had been condemned by order of a Jewish court. Burial in disgrace was well-known from earlier periods in Israel’s history. The bodies of some prophets and kings, for example, suffered ignominious treatment after their deaths.
In Jesus’ day, shameful burial meant two things: (1) a condemned criminal could not be placed in the family tomb until secondary burial, and (2) a condemned criminal could not be mourned in public. The family was not to observe either shiv’ah or shloshim. On the contrary, they were expected to agree with the verdict of the court.
It is striking that the burial of Jesus conforms to both these Jewish customs of dishonorable burial. In each Gospel story, Jesus was neither buried in a family tomb, nor did anyone observe the rituals of mourning for him. Even when the women came to the tomb, they came only to "see the tomb" or to anoint the body.
Furthermore, Matthew, Luke, and John each explicitly described Jesus’ tomb as one "where no one had yet been laid."
Jesus’ humiliation, then, did not end with his crucifixion. Even after he died, Jesus’ body was treated as an object of shame—he was buried in disgrace like a condemned Jewish criminal.
Isn’t that interesting?
I wonder if we do that with Jesus. The message is sent but we would rather have Him buried and ashamed of Him. Or do we receive it with joy? Can’t wait to open the mail? Check heart lately? Open the Bible to read, read it with can’t wait to hear what God says, or is it I rather bury it, shelf it, later when I got time, who cares?
Carla Muir told this story:
A successful beauty product company asked the people in a large city to send pictures along with brief letters about the most beautiful women they knew. Within a few weeks thousands of letters were delivered to the company.
One letter in particular caught the attention of the employees and soon it was handed to the company president. The letter was written by a young boy who was obviously from a broken home, living in a run-down neighborhood. With spelling corrections, an excerpt from his letter read: “A beautiful woman lives down the street from me. I visit her everyday. She makes me feel like the most important kid in the world. We play checkers and she listens to my problems. She understands me and when I leave she yells out the door that she’s proud of me.”
The boy ended his letter saying, “This picture shows you that she is the most beautiful woman. I hope I have a wife as pretty as her.”
Intrigued by the letter, the president asked to see this woman’s picture. His secretary handed him a photograph of a smiling, toothless woman, well-advanced in years, sitting in a wheelchair. Sparse gray hair was pulled back in a bun and wrinkles that formed deep furrows on her face were somehow diminished by the twinkle in her eyes.
“We can’t use this woman,” explained the president, smiling. “She would show the world that our products aren’t necessary to be beautiful.”
The president buried that woman, “we can’t use this woman.” I wonder if we’re like that president. We smile understanding the impact of Christ’s beauty, but we bury it preferring the products of our own creation.
What are the products that could make us beautiful? Watch the world, look at it, do we see any thing over the centuries that could have made this world beautiful? We still see lives destroyed, death and disease is still all around us. As we come to reflect today on the cross of Christ this Good Friday, watch the lamb, we are told of a beautiful story but it looks ugly like the picture of smiling toothless woman. It is ugly because we see in it our sin, pain, humiliation, violence, blood and abandonment.
We have come to commemorate the crucifixion: We need to put this event into perspective. Focus needs to be on content not cosmetics. We need to be like that little kid who see beneath the ugliness of the cross. And beneath it, lies the statement that people matter to God. God is saying: “Listen kid, you’re like the most important kid in the world.” He’s saying, don’t even doubt for a minute, that He does not understand your pain and your problems. He went through hell on earth to get the message across to you and I. He’s saying: Look at the picture, watch the lamb who died on the cross. Yes it is not pretty, but it shouts out the personal love of God. Remember, He could have saved the world without going this route, or He could have said it ain’t worth the price. Kinda like the save the Vancouver Grizzlies campaign, no sane Canadian would step up to buy that sad losing NBA team, because it is just not worth saving.
George Macleod
B. The poem
I simply argue that the cross be raised again
at the center of the market place
as well as the steeple of the church,
I am recovering the claim that
Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles
but on a cross between two thieves;
on a town garbage heap;
at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title
in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek...
and at the kind of place where cynics talk smut,
and thieves curse and soldiers gamble.
Because that is where He died, and that is what He died about
and that is where Christ’s followers ought to be,
and what church people ought to be about
C. Have we forgotten why Good Friday is so Good?
As u watch the Lamb dying for you, the message is sent, God loves u, paid the price of sin. Read v.38-39. Receive it or bury it? Believe then in Him will u? Pray with me… Lord, I understand You love me. I know You died for my sins. I believe in You. I receive you as my God and my Savior. Would you please take away my sins. Thank You God. Amen.
Christians, perhaps message got old, message is sent to u too? Receive it anew today, dedicate self to Him again and reorder your world to God’s priorities. Jesus first wants you to respond to Him with the beauty of your worship? Given your heart totally over to Him? On the cross, He showed His heart for u? He asks in return your heart? Worship Him?
Then will u train self to tell this to others, be like the kid who tells the world there is no product on earth that can make us beautiful and feel beautiful as the cross of Jesus.
