OPEN: April 15th was just this past week, and I ran across this bit of information about the IRS that I wanted to share with you this morning. According to the "Newhouse News Service:"
Over the past 193 years, the federal government has received approximately $4 million in unsolicited funds from guilt stricken Americans who feel they have cheated the government and want to clear their consciences.
Such money is usually received anonymously and is added to the Treasury Department’s obscure “Conscience Fund” almost every day. In recent years, the fund has received a check for 16 cents to cover the cost of two 8 cent stamps the donor said he had illegally reused. Another check was for $50 to cover the cost of a theft the donor said he had committed at an unnamed railway station 58 years earlier. Occasionally, the amounts are substantial. A few years back the government received, out of the blue, a $139,000 payment to settle old income tax debts.
The 1st deposit of conscience money is believed to have been made in 1811 during James Madison’s presidency and amounted to $5. Officials at the Treasury Dept. say that money has arrived in a steady trickle ever since, usually accompanied by brief letters explaining why the donors are sending the funds and offering their apologies, like this excerpt from a recent donor:
“While I was in the U.S. Air Force for 4 years, I took a few things that did not belong to me. I am now a Christian and would like to make it right. I don’t know the exact value but this $100 should cover it.”
APPLY: People react in unpredictable ways to the things of life that bother them.
Some have their consciences stirred and they attempt to make right what they once did wrong.
But then there are other people, who not only don’t let their conscience bother them… they go out of their way to destroy and humiliate anything or anyone who makes them feel inferior or small.
That’s what we see happening at the foot of the cross.
People seem to go out of their way to humiliate and taunt Jesus as He hangs helpless and dying.
Notice, nobody says anything to either of the thieves that hang on the crosses on either side…
BUT it appears that just about everybody gangs up on Jesus
Mark 15:29 tells us “Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads…
In Mark 15:31 - In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him…
Luke 23:36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him…
And then: Matthew 27:44 In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
Seemingly everybody who was there felt it was worth their time to degrade Jesus and verbally abuse Him.
I. But why? Why would these people do that?
I thought about that for a long time. It seemed inconceivable that anyone would do that type of thing to any person enduring such torment. It baffles the mind that anyone could be that callous. But then, I began to realize there might be many good reasons (if you could call them "good") why those who mocked Jesus would treat Him like that.
* One possible reason might be: that’s just how people are. There are many people who enjoy kicking others while they’re down. Like school yard bullies they get their enjoyment out of picking on the helpless and downtrodden.
ILLUS: Have you ever noticed in the check out lane - those "news" magazines that are on display? Actually, they are more trashy than newsy. I have always wondered why anybody bought those terrible things. But then, as I was working on this sermon, it became obvious… these magazines were allowing people to do something they could never do in real life - kick others when they are down. If you look at the cover of any of those magazines, you find they are exposing someone’s adulterous or immoral relationships, that they’ve had a baby out of wedlock or they are have been victimized by treacherous lover. Sometimes there is the picture of a famous actress engulfed in tears or a politician with an embarrassed look on their face.
Why do those magazines sell? Because they allow the reader to vicariously engage in kicking the beautiful and the famous while they are down.
ILLUS: Or consider some of the reality shows on TV. Some are known as "Mean TV" because of the degrading atmosphere they plunge their participants into. I had the misfortune of being trapped in a hospital waiting room while one of these "reality shows" was playing out and I watched as the women on the show were interviewed. Their comments about each other were belittling and mean spirited. Why would the producers of those shows dwell on this type of bitter behavior? Because they believe that is what their viewers want - the opportunity to silently take part in the destruction of other people.
There are people who enjoy kicking others while they are down.
* Another reason for the behavior those around the cross exhibited which also occurred to me was this: At least in the case of the Chief Priests and Teachers… these people had a pure hatred for Jesus.
Jesus had publicly humiliated them by exposing their hypocrisy and self- righteousness.
He had flaunted their authority and influence and had challenged many of their man-made doctrines.
For them (at least) having Jesus on the cross was a time to gloat.
· Finally, He was in a position where His frailty and weakness was on display
· Finally, He would no longer be able to chastise them and criticize their ministries
· Finally, He would be taken out of circulation and would no longer be able to embarrass them before the crowds ever again.
II. Now, there may have been other reasons people taunted Jesus that day but, there is one more that is worth considering…
And that reason is this: God had prophesied that this was how the crowd would react.
Hundreds of years before Jesus walked among men, Isaiah 53:3 declared that the Messiah would be “…despised and rejected of men....”
In Psalm 22 described this situation hundreds of years before it ever occurred:
“I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him." (Psalm 22:6-8)
And again, later in that psalm “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. (Ps. 22:14-18)
(pause…) How could those prophecies have been so accurate? So precise? So minutely detailed?
Well, they were accurate because Jesus’ death on the cross was no accident. Jesus was not caught by surprise. God was not overwhelmed in amazement. It was known hundreds of years ahead of time that this was how it was going to play out. It was brought to pass by “God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). It was all planned out ahead of time, and meticulously carried out
III. But why? Why would Jesus have to die on the cross?
Why did it have to happen like that?
It certainly wouldn’t have been the way I would want to die.
Even Jesus Himself didn’t desire to die in this fashion.
Hours before He died, Jesus prayed: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Luke 22:42-44
ILLUS: And you can’t much blame Him for having 2nd thoughts
A couple of different scholars gave these descriptions of what awaited Jesus on the cross. They say: At the place of execution, the prisoner’s wrists were nailed to the crossbar. The bar was lifted and placed on the stake, which was already in the ground. The condemned man’s ankles were then nailed to the stake.
Prisoners could talk only in short bursts because of the stress on their diaphragms. As Jesus
hung on the cross, His statements were short. (I thirst… It is finished)
The prisoner hung naked on the cross and was in excruciating pain …dizziness, cramps, thirst, shame, starvation, sleeplessness and suffocation. Paralysis and death ended the ordeal, but not before three to five days of torture reduced a man to an unrecognizable mass of quivering flesh.
Nerve damage paralyzed nail pierced wrists into a grasping claw, and the victim was defenseless against birds, insects and the scorching sun.
Authentic or not, a description of crucifixion has been passed down to us - purportedly by a soldier who had been witness to many: "Of all the sounds in hell, none is more pitiable than those terrible cries through the silence of midnight, where crucified men hang in agony and cannot die while a breath of suffering remains." (Ray Vander Laan Focus On The Family and Jerry Parks, TH.D).
Then why… why in the name of God, wouldn’t Jesus listen to the words of the Elders and the teachers of the law as they shouted:
“He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (Matthew 27:42-43)
IV. Why not? I mean, if Jesus was God, (and He was) no mere nail could hold Him on cross
So, why not just come on down? Why put up with the pain and agony of this horrible form of death?
I mean… can you think of a more powerful display of power than this?
That Jesus would simply pluck Himself off the cross, cast the nails aside and float to the ground forcing the soldiers and the crowd… and the chief priests and teachers of the law to kneel in worship of Him. Nails could never hold God to a piece of wood. So why endure this terrible torture?
The answer is a very simple one… it wasn’t the nails that held Jesus to the cross
You need to understand that Jesus came to earth for one purpose: to fulfill the requirements of the Old Testament Law. The had decreed that our sins had a price and that price was death. Only the blood of a perfect, flawless sacrifice could ever cover any person’s sins. That’s why, year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day, hour upon hour - sacrifices were offered, animals were slaughtered, blood shed by the gallons. God was driving home the fact that death was required to pay for sin, and only the blood of an innocent sacrifice could cover those sins. But it must have been obvious to many of the worshippers what Hebrews 10:4 declared when it said: "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." We had not sinned against those animals, and they had no real bearing on our sins.
Nor, could any human ever die for you or me. While I might like you enough to offer myself as a substitute for your sins, my blood for yours. Or you might like me enough to do the same for me. But still, our sacrifice would not be acceptable before God because we are flawed and imperfect. As Romans 3:23 tells us “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Who would be sinless enough to pay the debt for your shame and guilt, if not God Himself. Only God could pay that price. And that is why Jesus came: to offer the sinless nature of God, His blood for ours, to cover our shame and guilt so that we could freely approach God.
Peter wrote: When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:23-24)
2ndly: it’s important to realize, if Jesus was God (and He was) dying on the cross in this way was the most powerful thing He could do.
ILLUS: John Stott, in his book "The Cross of Christ" made this observation:
"In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing around his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after a while I have had to look away. And in imagination I have turned instead to the lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in god forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering."
ILLUS: A story from the life of Corrie Ten Boom illustrates how important this is:
In the book "The Hiding Place" we find these words:
At the inhuman prison in Germany, every Friday the nazis made the prisoners completely undress for medical inspection. They were humiliated, the women, at having to march by grinning guards. On one of those mornings Corrie Ten Boom says, “yet another page in the Bible leapt into life for me.”
“He hung naked on the Cross.”
“I had not known – had not thought… the paintings, the carved crucifixes showed at least a scrap of cloth. But this, I suddenly knew, was the respect and reverence of the artist. But oh – at the time itself, on that other Friday morning – there had been no reverence. No more than I saw in the faces around us now.
“I leaned toward Betsie, ahead of me in line. Her shoulder blades stood out sharp and thin beneath her blue mottled skin.”
“’Betsie, they took His clothes too.’”
“Ahead of me I heard a gasp. ‘Oh Corrie. And I never thanked Him…’”
CLOSE: When Jesus died on the cross, the Elders and teachers of the law taunted Him by saying
"He saved others," they said, "but he can’t save himself! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.” (Matthew 27:42)
Earlier I asked: … can you think of a more powerful display of power than this? That Jesus would simply pluck Himself off the cross, cast the nails aside and float to the ground forcing the soldiers and the crowd… and the chief priests and teachers of the law to kneel in worship of Him.
Actually that would be nothing more than a parlor trick for God
It would be a petty, insignificant action, because it would have meant nothing
It would have accomplished nothing.
It would have failed to fulfill what Jesus had come to do.
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death— that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)
You see, the most powerful thing Jesus could do was to conquer death because it is the fear of death that holds people in slavery in this world.
It is the fear of death that robs many people of their hope and joy.
And it was only thru dying that Jesus could show that death could be conquered
It was only in sharing in the hopelessness of the grave that He could break the chains of despair.
ILLUS: If you look in your history books, you’ll find that June 18, 1815 was the day of the Battle of Waterloo. The French under the command of Napoleon were fighting the British and their Allies under the command of the Duke of Wellington.
The people of England waited anxiously for news of the battle, and they depended on a system of signals to find out how the battle was going. One of these signal stations was on the tower of Winchester Cathedral.
Late in the day the tower flashed the signal: "W-E-L-L-I-N-G-T-O-N- - - D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D” Just at that moment a sudden fog descended on the tower and made it impossible to read the message as it was repeated. The news of defeat spread quickly throughout the city. The whole countryside was filled with sadness and despair to hear that their country had lost the war to Napoleon.
But then, suddenly (as it had come) the fog lifted, and the remainder of the message could be read. The message had four words, not two. The complete message was:
"W-E-L-L-I-N-G-T-O-N- - -D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D- (pause)- T-H-E- - -E-N-E-M-Y!" It took only a few minutes for the good news to spread. Sorrow was turned into joy, defeat was turned into victory!
So it was when Jesus was laid in the tomb on the first Good Friday afternoon. Hope had died even in the hearts of Jesus’ most loyal friends. After the frightful crucifixion the fog of disappointment and misunderstanding had clouded the hearts of Jesus’ followers.
But they "read" only part of the Divine message. "Christ defeated"
The complete message didn’t make itself known until that Easter Sunday morning nearly 2000 years ago… “Jesus defeated… the enemy.”
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
Don’t Take With Broccoli – John 11:33
The Question That Condemned Jesus – Matthew 26:57
The Moment Of Truth – John 18:28
His Blood Be Upon Us – Matthew 27:16
Hail, King of The Jews – Mark 15:15
Guilty Of Innocent Blood – Matthew 27:1
Remember Me – Luke 23:38
Let Him Save Himself – Matthew 27:39
Surely This Was The Son Of God – Mark 15:33
