Palm Sunday 2002
The Rev’d Quintin Morrow
Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Fort Worth, Texas
The Cross of Christ
“Then they led Him out to crucify Him” –Mark 15:20.
The image of the Cross seems to be everywhere. It hangs from the rearview mirrors, and rests upon the dashboards, of our cars. It dangles as jewelry from about our ears and necks. It adorns ballcaps, t-shirts, bumperstickers and buildings. From sheer visibility alone it would appear that the Cross is a much beloved, revered and respected object of people’s faith. But you and I know that that isn’t the case. Far from it. Indeed, turning the Cross, an instrument of capital punishment, and the object of scorn and fear, into a marketing tool reveals how little people really understand what happened on it.
What did happen on the Cross? Taken from merely a human point of view, not much. A Jewish itinerant teacher, accused of sedition, was executed there. Taken from a legal point of view the Cross was simply a terrible miscarriage of justice. The Jewish religious establishment feared Jesus’ popularity, so they paid witnesses to testify against him, and they brought him before the Romans on trumped-up charges. And because the Roman governor was a weak man, he had Jesus executed, though he himself, by his own admission, could find no fault in him. Taken from the point of view of drama the Cross rivals all of the tragedies that either the Greeks, the Romans, or William Shakespeare ever penned. A humble, innocent and gentle man—the hero of the story—who came to help others, was railroaded and murdered by an immoral and unfeeling establishment.
But if those were the only ways to view the Cross, it really wouldn’t merit much notice. After all, other men have died more horrible and agonizing deaths than Jesus Christ.
And yet, taken from the divine point of view the Cross becomes the fulcrum of history, the apex and the acme of Almighty God’s work to redeem a fallen, wicked and rebellious human race from sin, death and hell. For, on that lonely hill outside of Jerusalem, suspended between heaven and earth, between two thieves, God’s Son bore the entire burden of humanity’s sin upon himself, satisfied the Father’s justice, and freed from guilt and judgment all who fly to Him in faith.
What did happen on the Cross? Why was the Cross necessary? And what difference does the Cross make to you?
The answers to all of those questions can be found in three “V’s. The three “V’s” of Calvary.
The first “V” is for voluntary. Voluntary. Jesus Christ suffered and died on the Cross voluntarily. No one compelled Him. No one forced Him. He was not constrained or compelled to go and die on the Cross of Calvary by anyone but Himself. He went and died there voluntarily—of His own accord.
During His trial Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate, and the Roman Procurator, representing the mightiest power in the world—the power of Imperial Rome—said to Him, “Do you not know that I have power to crucify you, and power to release you?” To which Jesus replied, “You could have no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above.”
Over and over, throughout His public ministry, Jesus told His disciples, “I am going to Jerusalem, and there I will be handed over to the Gentiles and I will be put to death.” Jesus confessed that He had legions of angels at His command to come and rescue Him from the Cross, had that been His desire. But it wasn’t. Because He was there voluntarily.
Christ’s death on the Cross was voluntary. But why? For what reason did Jesus willingly submit to an ignominious death upon the Cross? One reason, and one reason only: Love. Because He loved you, and He loved me. “Greater love hath no man than this: That he lay down his life for his friends.” “Therefore My Father loves Me,” Jesus said in John 10, “because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”
But more than simply one man dying for his friends, the death of Jesus Christ upon the Cross becomes the premiere event which proclaimed God’s love for all of mankind.
St. Paul puts it this way. In Romans chapter 5 the apostle writes:
“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us…”
While we were still God’s enemies; while we were still disobedient, selfish, dishonest, lustful and murderous, Christ showed the Father’s love to us by coming and dying on the Cross.
The Cross is a demonstration of the unsearchable riches and depth of God’s love for you and for me. Why? Because the Cross was voluntary. Jesus didn’t have to die. But He died because He loves you.
The first “V” of Calvary is that Christ’s death was voluntary.
The second “V” of Calvary is that Christ’s death was vicarious. It was vicarious. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines the word vicarious as: serving instead of someone or something else, or performed or suffered by one person as a substitute for another or to the benefit or advantage of another. And Mr. Webster is exactly right in his definition—not only of the word vicarious, but also of the death of Jesus Christ upon the Cross.
In the New Testament, two different Greek words are frequently used in conjunction with Christ’s death on the Cross. They are the words “anti” and “huper.” “Anti” means “instead of,” or “in place of,” and “huper” means “in behalf of,” or “to the benefit of.”
So Christ died on the Cross both instead of us, and on our behalf, or for our benefit. Jesus Himself said, “The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus Christ was my substitute on the Cross. And He was your substitute on the Cross. His work of redemption there was a work for us.
What we have to remember is that in God’s economy the consequences of sin are always death. “The wages of sin is death,” Paul writes in Romans chapter 6. God told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, “The day you eat of the tree”—that is, the day you disobey me—“You shall surely die.” “The soul that sins, it shall die,” the prophet Ezekiel declares.
And every one of us is sinful. If we all received from God what justice demanded there would not be a one of us here alive today. Because we have all sinned. And we all deserve death.
In the Old Testament, God, in His infinite goodness and mercy, provided for His people Israel the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant. In that system, a sinner who violated the Law of Moses would bring an animal to the Tabernacle, or the Temple. He would place his hands on the head of the animal and symbolically identify himself with that animal. Then, he would confess his sins to a priest, and symbolically transfer his sins on to the sacrifice. Next, the worshiper would watch as the animal he had brought was killed and offered on an altar.
The death of that animal brought two facts home to the one who offered it: 1) The wages of sin is death; and 2) God in His mercy has allowed a substitute. That innocent animal died so that the sinner wouldn’t have to. That animal’s death was vicarious. It died for the sinner.
All of this becomes all the more poignant when we see John the Baptist standing on the banks of the Jordan River and crying out the Agnus Dei. He points to Jesus and says, “Behold the lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world.” Because the blood of bulls and goats was insufficient to eternally redeem man, God sent His one and only Son as a perfect sin offering for all of the sins of the whole world. Because Jesus was fully man, His death could truly be for us. And because He was also perfect God, His death had infinite value.
The prophet Isaiah, 600 years before Christ was even born, prophesied that His work on the Cross would be vicarious. Listen to what he wrote in Isaiah 53:
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
St. Paul put it like this: In II Cor. 5:21 he writes,
“God made him [that is, Christ] God made him who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus’ death was for you. And it was for me. He was our substitute. On the Cross He paid the penalty for all your sins and mine, so that we might be acquitted by the Father—freed from guilt and punishment. Jesus’ death was “anti” you, as the New Testament puts it: it was instead of you. It was also “huper” you: on your behalf, for your benefit. Jesus died for you. His death on the Cross was vicarious.
And finally, not only was Christ’s death on the Cross voluntary and vicarious, it was also our victory. It is our victory. Victory over what? Sin, death and hell.
“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul writes in I Cor. 15:57.
Matthew, in his Gospel, records two separate but important and related events for us which followed Jesus’ death upon the Cross.
The first was that the veil which covered the entrance of the Holy of Holies in the Temple was torn in two—from the top to the bottom. Next, the Gospel writer records that many graves around Jerusalem were opened, and the bodies of those lying there were raised.
Why are those two things significant? Because they reveal, in a powerful way, the victory Christ’s death upon Cross won for us.
The veil of the Temple was torn to show that the days of sacrificing bulls and goats to cover human sin was over; it showed that Jesus’ death also brought an end to the separation which existed between and God and man because of the Law of Moses. Jesus had fulfilled the Law. His death was a victory over our accuser—the Law of Moses.
Paul writes in Col. 2:13-15:
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
Notice the word “Triumph.” That is just another word for victory.
Also, some of the bodies of the Old Testament faithful were raised when Jesus died as a tangible witness that His death defeated death. If the wages of sin is death, and sin has been defeated by Christ’s death, what does that do to death itself? It kills it!
“I am the resurrection and I am the life,” Jesus said, “whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…”
The death of Jesus Christ won a victory of over all of the enemies we face in this life—and in the next: sin, death and judgment.
If you have put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and you are trusting in His finished work of redemption upon the Cross for you, then you do not have to be afraid of death or hell or judgment. All of those things have been put to flight. All of those things have been subdued for you.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” Paul says in Rom. 6:23.
Christ’s death is our victory over sin, death and hell.
I heard and old, old story, how a savior came from glory, How he gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me;I heard about his groaning, of his precious blood’s atoning, Then I repented of my sins and won the victory.
O victory in Jesus, my savior, forever, he sought me and bought me With his redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew him, and all my love is due him.
He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood.
What happened on the Cross? Why, Jesus died there voluntarily for you and for me. His death was vicarious—it was in our place and for behalf. And it was and is our victory of sin, death and hell.
Folks, if you have never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you need to do that. The death of Jesus on the Cross was and is God’s one and only provision for your eternal life. There is no other. “I am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus said, “no man comes to the Father but by me.”
Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, but His death is efficacious only for those who put their faith and trust in Him. “Those that have the Son have life,” Scripture says, “and those that have not the Son have not life.”
Salvation is not an “if/then” proposition, as in “If you do such and such then you will have eternal life.” The Bible tells us that we are saved by God’s grace through faith—it is a gift. We do not and cannot earn it. Salvation is rather a “because/therefore” proposition. Because Jesus Christ has died for you, therefore repent of your sin and believe in Him.
Don’t leave this place without knowing for sure that your sins are forgiven, and that if you were to die today heaven would be your home. You can know. The Bible says that these things were written so that you may know—K.N.O.W.—that you have everlasting life. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, the Bible says.
You may think that you are here by happenstance, but I believe you are here by divine appointment. Do not wait until your deathbed to repent and believe. Scripture records only one deathbed conversion: The thief who died on the cross next to the Lord. And even though he had been railing and mocking Jesus, as his life drained away, he turned to Jesus and said 9 short words—“Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus said, “Today, you shall be with me in paradise.”
No sin is too great. No past is too horrible. No possession, promotion or pleasure in this life is worth an eternity of separation from God. Don’t you wait. This moment is certain. Tomorrow is not. Salvation is as simple as 1, 2, 3. 1)Acknowledge your trespasses before God; 2) Ask for forgiveness and for Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior; 3) Accept the free of gift of everlasting life.
Down at the cross where my Savior died, down where for cleansing from sin I cried, there to my heart was the blood applied; Glory to His name.
I am so wondrously saved from sin, Jesus so sweetly abides with in, there at the cross where He took me in; Glory to His name.
Oh, precious fountain that saves from sin, I am so glad I have entered in, There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean; Glory to His name.
Come to this fountain so rich and sweet; cast thy poor soul at the Savior’s feet; plunge in to today, and be made complete; Glory to His name.
Jesus said that there is rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents. He said He hadn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He is calling you. Believe and receive. Today.
AMEN.
