The Fathers Perspective
Scripture: John 3:16 & 17
I. Intro
Usually when I hear the story of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection it is presented in such a way that it draws me to love Jesus more. There is almost always some new fact about his emotional or physical suffering. AS if for the first time, I see something he suffered or I feel what he felt and it moves me into a deeper love for my Savior. I praise God for each and every experience but today I want to look at a different perspective. When I read John 3:16 and 17 I see a broader image I see another view of the crucifixion story. I have heard from Barabas’ perspective, from the centurion, the thief on the cross, from Mary, from various disciples, but I have yet to hear the full story, from the father’s perspective. Not Jesus’ earthly father but the heavenly father’s perspective. When I read John 3:16 it says "God so loved the world" and 17 says, "God sent not his son to condemn." Stay with me cause today I hope, desire, and pray that this perspective can move you into a deeper love for the both the Father and the Son.
II. In the Beginning
Back at creation The Trinity had to have a family counsel.
Illustration: To help you see more clearly how this counsel must have felt please come with me to a Nazi Death camp in Germany a second Holocaust. Imagine that each family group is left together instead of being torn apart. In your camp the food supply begins to run low and the camp commander makes an executive decision. He orders each family group to choose one member that will die for the rest of the family to preserve food supplies. Who in your family would be chosen to die? If I were to imagine my family I would not hesitate, there is no way I would let on of my sons or my wife die for me. How would you choose? And how difficult would that decision be? How difficult that decision must have been for the Trinity in heaven? Sin demanded the Death penalty, and someone had to pay!
III. Gethsemane
Now lets jump all the way forward in the story to Gethsemane. Where the full burden of sin begins to be laid upon Christ when the reality of the sacrifice towers over Jesus. As Jesus begins to bend and hunch under the burden of sin the father’s keen eyes well with tears. Jesus collapses to the ground pleading for a way out for another option.
Matt. 26:38 & 39 He wanted out!
Mark 14:34-36 He really wanted out!
Luke 22:41 & 42 He wanted out!
It is one thing to stand helplessly by knowing that you don’t have power to stop something but to hold all the power in the universe and stand by is something I will never be able to fully understand. The Father, with heart breaking, had to stand by as the angels waited for the command to intervene, He had to stand and do nothing but listen to His beloved Son’s cries for deliverance.
Side thought: Jesus was human. He wouldn’t have been human if he didn’t want out. There is nothing wrong with saying "God this hurts and this is difficult." "Is there any other way we can do this?" "Please Lord I really don’t want to go through this." Yet we must not stop there and say, "that is it, you are simply asking too much of me. I know what the Bible says but I will not do it. I know what you are asking me to do but I will not do it. It is too hard!"
But Jesus finishes with "not my will but your will be done." If Jesus himself submitted to the fathers will how much more should we.
IV. The first joke of a trial
Then the priests, scribes, and Pharisees came to arrest Jesus treating the Son of God as if he were a common thief or criminal. They take him to court and begin to try and build a case against him. In Luke 22:67-69 he tries to turn their focus towards God again. The Fathers heart can not help but be touched with pride as he sees Jesus loving attempt to help even in the face of hatred and abuse. Jesus tries to get them to stop focusing on their little power struggles here on earth and to look to the big picture and the Second Coming. But they are so blinded by the Devil’s influence and their own avarice and lust for power that they refuse to see but only twist his message toward their own purpose. The father must have desired to shout forth the truth as these men twisted it towards their own desires. It really didn’t matter what Jesus said they were bent on convicting him and condemning him to die. Again the father had to hold his hand, because all these things must come to pass to save you and me.
V. Trial and beating
Pilate’s sin was that he placed his position or his job above God. He did desire to free Jesus he was open to see his innocence. There was a struggle going on inside of Pilate and again the Father’s heart was touched with pride as Jesus took time to answer Pilot hoping that maybe he could convert and save Pilate. Yet Jesus efforts are rejected, Pilate is too afraid to offend or endanger his job. So he does not do what he know is the right thing,instead he sends Jesus off to Herod. Unlike Pilot, Herod was just there for a show. He wanted to be entertained. (Luke 23:6-8) Which is what led him to unjustly execute John the Baptist not too long before this. Jesus answers him not a word and gives him no show. So Herod decides to put on his own show at the Saviors expense. He arrays him in a purple robe and he begins to mock him. They then send him back to Pilate. Pilate’s soldiers plated a crown of thorns and crowned him King of the Jews. And they mocked him. They blindfolded him and then hit him and spit upon Him and told Him to prophesy and tell them who hit Him and who spit on Him. "If you are the Son of God you should be able to tell who hit you." I imagine God slouched in his thrown, gazing at the abuse being heaped upon his only Son. His Son being beaten and abused by the very people He had sent His Son to save. The hosts of angels, lean forward watching in rapt horror as they witness the abuse being laid upon their beloved Lord. The guards roughly drag him and strap him to the whipping post. The cat of nine tails usually used to scourge a person. The cat of nine tails, the most demonically brilliant instrument of torture invented. A leather whip woven with pieces of metal and pottery shards. The tip with nine leather cords at the end of each a claw. So when the whip wrapped around the victim the claws would tear into the flesh. Then the whip would be roughly ripped away from the victim shredding the flesh and dragging pieces away with it. This is how the Son was whipped. The angels of heaven look on, their gaze moving back and forth from the scene of horror and abuse to the throne of mercy. They see as the Father quivers and jerks with each blow that is dealt to his beloved Son.
As if that abuse wasn’t enough they put a robe on him and a crown of thorns on his head and begin to mock him. Then they brutally pound the thorns into his scalp and skull. The angels are crouched ready to charge. They wait for God to issue the command "Stop it! Go get my Son! Stop the horror!" They can not understand how God can allow this to go on! How can he allow these beings to do this evil. They witness the Devil’s angels inciting the crowd and the soldiers to greater and greater cruelty and brutality. They watch the demons work the crowd into a frenzy that removes all sense of reason from their minds. The universe finally witnesses just how grotesquely evil and wicked the devil is and how righteous and just God is. But do you think God is glorying in is righteousness at this moment. Do you think he is looking around and saying "see I told you the Devil was evil?" This is the most miserable moment in God’s existence and he has and will exist for eternity. But it gets worse.
VI Crucifixion
They drag him to Calvary and place him on the cross. The Universe looks on as the Lamb of God is lead stumbling to Calvary. And the angels see the father once again tremble as the soldiers drive the nails through Jesus hands and feet. But it gets worse when Jesus calls out "Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani?" Which is interpreted "My God My God why hast thou forsaken me?" The father must be separated from the Son. The Father has to draw back from his son, he must be separated for the first time and only time in all of eternity in order that all those who love and follow Him will never have to endure that separation. They will not have to endure the second death.
VI. Separation in the Grave
Illustration: Being separated from my wife and son on a trip. I miss my family and am excited to see them again.
But the separation God must have experienced is beyond me. Can you imagine being with someone, not to mention getting along and loving someone for eternity? Then being separated completely and totally. I hear stories of couples who are married 50, 60 years and then one of them dies. The other one then soon follows because they can’t handle the separation. They are empty inside. God has spent eternity with His Jesus, never separated, never apart. They are always connected in spirit mind and thought, always connected and then completely severing that connection. But God was willing to endure separation from his Son that he could spend eternity with us and not be separated. Can you imagine as that day creeped on? We read that a thousand years with God is as a day. But I am sure that from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning felt like a thousand years to the Father!
VII. Resurrection
Heaven must have been charged with excitement the anticipation as the angels waited for the command to bring Jesus Home? When God issued the command, Gabriel flashed down like lightning from heaven, demolishing any before set speed records. He was going to call the conquering King back home! Like a bolt of lightning striking the ground in front of that tomb he sent the Roman Guards flying to the ground as dead men. With a flick of his wrist he moved the massive boulder covering the tomb entrance like a child flicking a pebble. And with a mighty voice he called "Jesus come forth. Your Dad wants to see you back home!" And out from that tomb came the Conquering King and His daddy’s boy! But instead of shooting straight off to heaven to see his father he waited just a little while. To see someone he loved very much. One of the people he had just died for who greatly needed some encouragement. He waited just long enough to tell Mary he was alive and to tell her to pass the word on to the rest of His Disciples. Then he was off to heaven. Can you imagine that Homecoming celebration? Can you see the Lord God of the Universe getting off his throne hiking up His glorious robes and running head long to embrace His Son? I can hear him say "Welcome home Son! I’m so proud of you! Thank you!"
IX Closing call
That homecoming is going to pale in comparison to the next one. There will be another one, when Jesus returns to heaven the next time, he’s going to bring a few strays home with him. He’s going to once again swing those gates open and say, "I’m back again Dad and look who followed me home!"
I want to be part of that homecoming. I know that whatever God asks me to do here is nothing compared to what he has already done. In fact all he asks us to do here is only for our best interest. If you want to be one of those who follows Jesus home in the second homecoming. If you want to say today that you want to follow God no matter what the cost. Stand with me today and sing the closing song. I tell you what when that trumpet of the Lord shall sound I want to be ready. As we sing this song any of you who haven’t committed your life completely to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and want to do so today please come forward and meet me here at the front. As we sing!
Closing Hymn: When the Roll is called up yonder
