Why did Jesus Die on the Cross?
Isaiah 53:1-9
When we read the four Gospel accounts of the Life of Christ we try to think what it might have been like to have lived during the time of Christ. We know that Jesus was arrested and condemned to die on the cross, but we have a hard time picturing the suffering and agony Jesus went through in our behalf.
In a sense that’s what producer Mel Gibson has done in his new film The Passion of the Christ. He allows you to be there and watch the final hours of the life of our Lord. The movie begins in the Garden of Gethsemane and traces what happens as Jesus is arrested, tried, flogged, and crucified. It ends with his lifeless body being taken down from the cross and a brief glance at the resurrection.
The introduction to the movie contains some familiar words from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah in chapter 53. Isaiah is called the messianic prophet because he wrote so much about the Messiah who was to come. Messiah is a Hebrew word that means “the anointed of God.” In the New Testament the same word rendered in the Greek is the title Christ. Christ also means “the anointed of God.” Messiah and Christ are actually synonyms.
On a television interview Mel Gibson said he began thinking about the Cross some 12 years ago, and the more he thought about it, the more powerful it became. He said, “I believed it; believed all of it, but at a certain point it became real.” A devout practicing Catholic, Gibson became convinced that this generation of filmgoers has no understanding of the suffering Christ who willingly endured suffering because of his love for us.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is an action movie more stunning than any fictionalized fantasy. It is true. It happened. The film is not for the weak in heart. The sufferings of Christ are brutal.
The Rev. Billy Graham had a private screening with Gibson and said he was "moved to tears." Graham added, "It is our sins" that caused Jesus’ death, "not any particular group."
Have you ever been in a situation where you were unfairly accused? Has anyone ever said anything about you that was untrue? Have you ever found yourself in a situation in which another person took advantage of you or used you for their own personal gain? What is the natural and ordinary human response? We clench our fists. Our mind is suddenly filled with all kinds of sordid images in which we imagine ourselves performing unmentionable creative acts of retaliation. We look for ways to get even, committing ourselves to doing whatever is necessary to bring the offender down. We want to play the role of the enforcer.
That is precisely what makes the Passion of Jesus so incredible. Isaiah reminds us that during his final twelve hours on earth in which he was publicly embarrassed and personally humiliated, he restrained himself from responding in any sort of retaliatory way.
“He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7) Jesus had at his command ten thousand angels, but he willingly bore our sins and interceded for sinners in his last breath.
The New Testament quotes more from Isaiah than all the other prophets combined, with an amazing 308 references in the various New Testament books. For example, John quotes Isaiah in chapter 12 of his gospel and then adds this commentary, “Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him” (verse 41 ).
When one reads verses in the bible like Isaiah 53 it’s almost as though Isaiah was an eye witness to the flogging and the crucifixion . . . that he was there. But understand that time-wise, Isaiah’s long ministry was roughly 700 years prior to that of Jesus. Seven centuries separate them.
In the face of God’s love we chose to disobey God and to make self our No. 1 concern. “All of us have strayed like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own” (Isaiah 53: 6, NLT). And the difference this has made in our personal world has been catastrophic.
So, in this movie, as you watch Jesus whipped, one awful blow after another, as you see him brutalized, bleeding profusely, and in terrible pain, then shamefully presented to the screaming mob that still clamors for his death, as you feel the sharp pain when the crown of thorns is pressed into his head, and then close your eyes or bodily recoil as the nails are driven into his hands and feet—bring to mind Isaiah’s words from this chapter: “We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord has laid on him the guilt and sin of us all” (verse 6, NLT). When you want to turn your head or close your eyes, instead keep watching and remind yourself that to God sin is a serious matter—deadly serious.
“The wages of sin is death,” reads the Bible (Romans 6:23).
There is a song entitled, “Bring Christ Your Broken Life.”
Bring Christ your broken life, so marred by sin,
He will create anew, make whole again;
Your empty wasted years, He will restore,
And your iniquities he will remember no more.
Bring Christ your broken life.
Jesus Came Teaching that His Mission Included death on the Cross
1. Jesus is the Lamb of God. After the birth of Jesus we have little information about the Life of Jesus. We see him at the age of 12 talking and teaching in the temple. But for the most part the life of Jesus is silent for 30 years.
At the age of 30 Jesus is given a public introduction by the country evangelist, John the Baptist in the Gospel of John 1:36. As Jesus was walking by John called out, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!”
Jesus as the Lamb of God was going to be the ultimate sacrifice for sin. His death would once and for all end the animal sacrifice for sin that was required in the Old Testament for the forgiveness of sin.
At the very beginning of His public ministry John the Baptizer spoke of the mission of Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God.
The good news is that “the anointed of God” who knew no sin had come to earth. He would show us what God’s expectations were and at the end of his life be separated from God, and die, in our place. He would die physically in a most terrifying manner. Jesus as the Lamb of God would take upon himself the very sins of the world. This sinless One who always experienced the closest of fellowship with his father, would now cry out in anguish, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus will allow all this to happen to himself, as he explained, because he loves us far more than we will ever know. On the Cross of Calvary we see the perfect love of God.
2. Jesus taught that His mission included suffering on a cross.
Jesus taught his disciples that His mission included suffering and death on a cross. Time and time again Jesus told his disciples this truth. In Matthew 16:13-20 Jesus asked his disciples a question, “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered for the others, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Verse 16:21, “ From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that he had to go to Jerusalem, and he told them what would happen to him there. He would suffer at the hands of the leaders and the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, and he would be raised on the third day.”
When Jesus was in the home of Simon in Bethany he was anointed with expensive perfume by a repentant woman. He said, “She has poured this perfume on me to prepare my body for burial.” Matthew 26:12
Later in the Matthew 26 Jesus is sitting around the table with His disciples for the Last Supper. He said, “One of you who is eating with me now will betray me. For I, the Son of Man, must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago…” (Matthew 26:24) NLT
Jesus was totally aware of what he must do to draw us back to God on that final day of his life. He receives the full fury of the dark powers of both this world and the reign of evil in spiritual realms. He pays for all the wickedness from the foundation of the world as though it was his own debt, and by doing so covers the price for everyone’s sins. Your sins are covered. Mine are as well. Praise the Lord. At Calvary it’s all laid to the account of the Lamb of God.
Isaiah the prophet declared: “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (53:7). What you and I deserved by way of punishment Jesus accepted in an act of mercy beyond anything we will ever be able to get our minds around. “Amazing love,” exclaims the hymn writer, “How can it be, that thou my God would die for me?” (Charles Wesley).
In Acts chapter 8, we have the story of the eunuch, the treasurer of all Ethiopia with great authority under the queen? The eunuch was trying to understand scripture as he headed home to Africa in his carriage. Isaiah had written these words 700 years earlier. See if you can figure out who it was the prophet was referring to as I read five verses from Isaiah 53. I’ll start with 3 and read through verse 7:
To us it’s obvious Isaiah was writing about the coming Jewish Messiah we believe was Jesus. We know this because our world has heard a great deal about him. In the first century, however, news about Jesus hadn’t yet circled the globe. So when Philip was asked by this Ethiopian “Was Isaiah writing about himself or someone else?” the Bible reports that, beginning with this scripture and many others, Philip told this high official the Good News about Jesus Christ. “Look, there’s some water,” said the eunuch, “Why can’t I be baptized?”
#At midlife, a pastor decided to endure orthodontic work in order to straighten his crooked teeth. It wasn’t long before he discovered that his dentist was struggling with issues relating to faith. “What is your view of sin?” the orthodontist would ask, bending over the pastor whose mouth was now stuffed with dental apparatus. “Um-m-m-m; umm/umm,” the patient would reply.
Eventually the two men began meeting regularly for breakfast (an environment much better for conversation) and this continued until they had become good friends who respected each other. “You know,” said the orthodontist one morning, “There’s a film I see (in fact I’ve seen it 6 times) and every time it gets to this one part, I sit in the theatre crying. I wonder if you would come view it with me and tell me what you think.”
“Why of course,” responded the pastor. And that’s how he found himself sitting in a darkened auditorium, with his friend the orthodontist, watching Arnold Schwarzenegger star in Terminator 2. (Judgment Day.)
This action drama tells the story of a hulking, leather-clad android sent from the future to protect a teenager who is the promised resistance leader of humankind. The archenemy is a tenacious T-1000 robot, whose liquid-metal construction makes him seemingly unstoppable, and he is bent on the child’s elimination. First the Terminator has to find the angst-driven pre-teen John Connor, who is in a foster home because his fiercely protective mother, Sarah, has been forcibly hospitalized in a psych ward with the diagnosis of delusional psychosis. Schwarzenegger’s assignment is to protect them both.
Now where exactly, you might be asking, does an intelligent, middle age, respectable orthodontist begin to cry in all this fantasy? There are two points, actually. The first one is when the mother, having decided that the Terminator has nothing but her child’s best interest at heart, says aloud about the android, “He’s a better father to you than your own father ever was.”
The second tear-jerking moment is when the Terminator, at the end of the film when the fate of the future hangs in the balance, exchanges his life in a sacrificial act of love for the life of the boy, the future resistance leader of the earth. He fights to exterminate the devious T-1000 robot but must give up his own life; both are annihilated in a vat of molten lava.
“You know,” said the pastor to the orthodontist over coffee in a restaurant after the film, “I think you are looking for a perfect father, and the only perfect father that you will ever find with love enough is the Heavenly Father.” The dentist nodded in agreement and in a few months gave himself to the One who knows all there is to know about sacrificial love.
Stories of sacrificial love, in real life or in literature, are often breathtaking We are overwhelmed when we witness examples of people who lay down their own lives for the sake of their comrades—in combat, for instance—or when we see people give up profitable careers to stay at home and care for a disabled family member. This is perhaps the purest kind of love, one that asks for nothing in return. Not only is it breathtaking; not only is it overwhelming, the cost of it can be terrifying for those of us who are close enough to witness it in action.
# Rubel Shelly shares a story about a man named Tedd Kidd who was five years older than his friend Janet. Tedd, having completed college before her, accepted a position in a city hundreds of miles away from her school. Yet, every Valentine’s Day, he persisted with the same question, “Will you marry me?” Every Valentine’s Day, the answer was the same: “Not yet.” Finally, when they were both living in Texas, Tedd bought Janet a ring. He took her to a romantic restaurant where he would, for one last time, offer her his proposal. Following a wonderful meal, Ted decided that the time had come to ask the question one last time. Yet before the question was asked, Janet surprised Tedd by handing him a box, the size of a book. He opened the package and slowly peeled away the tissue paper. The gift? It was a one word cross-stitch design that read, “YES!”
Yes! That is the only word that God needs to hear from you. In his persistent and patient way, He desires to hear that word from your mouth. “Yes, I receive your gift of love today.”
3. The Apostles affirmed the mission of Jesus was to die in our place.
The message of the Cross is clear. Jesus suffered and died for our sins. It was our sins that nailed Jesus to the cross. The Jews did not nail Jesus to the cross. The Romans did not nail Jesus to the cross. Our sins nailed Jesus to the cross.
Peter declared in I Peter 1:18-20, “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God choose him for this purpose long before the world began, but now in these final days, he was sent to the earth for all to see. And he did this for you.” Jesus bore your sins and my sins on the Cross.
The Apostle Paul taught that the death and resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of the Gospel. I Corinthians 15:3-4, “I passed on to you what was most important and what has also been passed on to me—that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said.”
The Death of Christ on the Cross reveals the pure love of God. Romans 5:8, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” There is no mystery why some people question the death of Christ on the cross. Paul tells us why some people see the cross as meaningless. “I know very well how foolish the message of the cross sounds to those who are on the road to destruction. But we who are being saved recognize this message as the very power of God.” I Corinthians 1:18
The Apostle Paul made it clear that outside of the cross of Christ there is no salvation. He declared in Galatians 6 “As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world died long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead.” Galatians 6:14
A hymn we sing describes God’s love demonstrated on the cross of Calvary.
Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I?
Was it for sins that I have done
He suffered on the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!
But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away—
’Tis all that I can do.
(Isaac Watts)
Here is the heart of our Christian Faith. No one can become right with God expect by making the response of faith to God love, by dying to self, and trusting totally in Christ.
1. Jesus is the Lamb of God
2. Jesus taught that His mission included suffering on a cross.
3. The Apostles affirmed the mission of Jesus was to
die in our place
