THE CALVARY STORY
Luke 23:33A And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him.
During the last week of Jesus, He rode into Jerusalem on one Sunday as a carpenter , and on Friday, He was crucified, and the next Sunday, He arose as a King.
Arlington National Cemetery is so crowded that officials are working on a columbarium to store 50,000 urns of ashes. Governments world-wide are worried that if people continue to die, soon no more places would be found to bury them.
You and I do not know when death will come but Jesus did. The words of John the Baptist was ringing in his ears, “behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world”
In a biography of Daniel Webster, 863 pages dealt with his career and just five pages are devoted to his death.
In Hay’s life of Abraham Lincoln there are 5,000 pages but only 25 are devoted to the dramatic story of his assassination and death. In most biographies the deaths of the subjects are mere incidents at the close of the books.
But when we come to the four biographies of Jesus, the four Gospels, we are confronted with a strange fact. One-third of Mark, one-fourth of Luke, and one-half of John are given to His death. All these pages are devoted to the last 24 hours of His life. The death of Jesus Christ is a significant fact in human history, because Jesus Christ came for the express purpose of dying for sinners. When He left heaven, He knew He was going to the cross.
The death of Jesus in important, for it is given on an average of 35% in the Gospels.
CONCERNING THE CALVARY STORY, WE NOTICE THE FOLLOWING THREE SCENES:
I-NOTICE THE TESTING OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN: Matthew 26:36-45
This was Satan last attempt to get Jesus to skip the cross. In the first garden, the first Adam faced the tree of good and evil. In this garden, the second Adam is getting ready to face the tree of Calvary. One ruined the human race, this one redeemed the human race
A-We See The Saviour’s Prayer: 39
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
Jesus knew what was coming. He knew He had been born for this purpose. He knew that He was the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev.13:8). However, the full emotional impact of what was about to transpire "began" at that moment to flood over Him.
Fell on his face Luke says "he kneeled down." He did both. He first kneeled, and then, in the fervency of his prayer and the depth of his sorrow, he fell with his face on the ground, denoting the deepest anguish and the most earnest entreaty. This was the usual posture of prayer in times of great earnestness
The "cup" that Jesus dreaded to drink was the outpouring of the holy fury of God’s wrath on sin.
It was not the physical torture of the cross that drove Jesus to such life-ending sorrow but the full understanding that He would within a few hours "bear the sins of many" (Heb.9:28). He who "knew no sin" would "be sin for us" (2 Cor.5:21). He would bear "our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Pet.2:24).
These Scriptures teach us that Our Saviour was a prayer warrior. He had said earlier, not faint in prayer, and here we see Him practicing what he preached.
Alta Vail of Emporia, Kansas, tells in Sunshine magazine how she found a new way to pray while ironing. One day she was thinking about the different kinds of lines—bus lines, clothes lines, fishing lines, telephone lines. Why not a prayer line? she asked herself. So she strung a short rope across one corner of her kitchen where she irons and hung cards on it with names of people she knew needed prayer. As she irons, she prays for each person by name. Not surprisingly, news has spread and she gets regular requests to “hang me on your prayer line.”
B-we See The Saviour’s Pain: 38
Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.
The word “sorrowful” in the original is much stronger than the one translated "sorrowful." It means, to be pressed down or overwhelmed with great anguish. This was produced, doubtless, by a foresight of his great sufferings on the cross in making an atonement for the sins of people.
Jesus was surrounded in sorrow. He was downing in it. He was so overwhelmed with what would happen that He was very close to "death."
Luke adds (Luke 22:44) that, being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. This tells us not all the blood was shed on the cross
Song-My Saviors Love. One of the verses says, "For me it was in the garden He prayed, ‘Not My will, but Thine.’ He had no tears for His own griefs, but sweat drops of blood for mine. How marvelous, How wonderful! And my song shall ever be: How marvelous, How wonderful is my Savior’s love for me."
Luke adds that amid his agonies an angel appeared from heaven strengthening him. His human nature began to sink, as unequal to his sufferings, and a messenger from heaven appeared, to support him in these heavy trials.
I wonder who that angel was? Was that high distinction given to Gabriel, who came to tell the Virgin of the Savior’s birth? Or, perhaps, was it one of those angels who came to minister to Him after the Devil had departed from Him in the wilderness at the time of His first temptation? Jesus had asked the three disciples to watch with Him and to strengthen Him in His agony; but when they failed and slumbered while He agonized,
God passed their great opportunity over to an angel who did not fail Him.
-Clarence E. Macartney
C-We See The Saviour’s Peace: 42
He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
He was obedient unto the Father’s will. The crisis is over, now He ready to face Calvary. The victory has been won.
Alex Grant, pioneer missionary to the Straits Settlements and China, once got up in a meeting in Singapore, and read solemnly Habakkuk 3:17—“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall...yield no meat: the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: YET WILL I REJOICE IN THE LORD.”
Pausing a moment, he said: “What could the Devil do with a man like that?” and sat down. A sermon in a sentence.
D-We See The Saviour’s Plea: 41
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Watch-Greater trials are coming on. It is necessary, therefore, still to be on your guard.
And pray Seek aid from God by supplication, in view of the thickening calamities.
That ye enter not into temptation That ye be not OVERCOME and OPPRESSED with these trials of your faith so as to deny me.
Temptation often comes not at our strongest, but our weakest moments. When we are at the limit of our patience, love, etc., we are tempted to be un-Christian. Beware, Jesus’ temptation began after 40 days of fasting.
People usually are more impressed when they see us act under pressure. One weak act may spoil a whole lifetime of witness.
II-NOTICE THE TRIAL OF JESUS BY THE JEWS:
We see the unreligious acts of the religious
A-Notice Their Prejudice: John 1:46
And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.
Nathanael’s response is so much like our own many times. We discount people because of external difficulties. Nazareth was not a desirable place. He knew that Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up, was not mentioned in the Old Testament prophecies. He questioned whether any good thing could come out of Nazareth
The chief priests and scribes had determined that Nazareth, at this time, was become so abandoned that no good could be expected from any of those who dwelt in it, and that its wickedness had passed into a proverb: Can any thing good be found in Nazareth?
A man should judge of nothing by first appearances, or human prejudices.
A man lost an ax and suspected his neighbor’s son. Everything that his neighbor’s son did looked suspicious to him: The way he walked, the tone of his voice, his countenance, and his gestures. But when he recovered his ax in digging a ditch, he could not see anything suspicious in his neighbor’s son at all.
B-Notice Their Plot: John 11:53
Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.
As Jesus was approaching the end of his earthly ministry, a special meeting was held by the Sanhedrin, or the Jewish religious leaders of his day. These enemies of Jesus decided to get together and have a meeting. By the way, it’s interesting that those who opposed Jesus the most were not atheists or pagans, but they were very religious people. They were people who substituted empty rituals for a real relationship with God.
During World War II an American plane was flying a mission in Africa. Under the cloak of darkness they flew toward their destination of Benghazi in North Africa. A strong tail wind pushed the plane much faster than expected. When the instruments revealed they had reached their destination, the crew members apparently kept flying in disbelief of the gauges. They felt the instruments must be wrong, so they pressed on looking for a beacon light that was already miles behind. Eventually, the plane ran out of fuel, and the entire crew died when they crashed in the desert. Why did the crew die? They thought "I can’t believe this!"
Religious people blow it when God reveals his direction for them and they say, "I can’t believe this.
C-Notice Their Profits: Matthew 21:13
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Judea was subject to the Romans. The money in current use was Roman coin; yet the Jewish law required that every man should pay a tribute to the service of the sanctuary of "half a shekel," Ex 30:11-16. This was a Jewish coin, and the tribute was required to be paid in that coin.
It became, therefore, a matter of convenience to have a place where the ROMAN coin might be exchanged for the Jewish half shekel. This was the "professed" business of these men. Of course, they would demand a small sum for the exchange; and, among so many thousands as came up to the great feasts, it would be a very profitable employment, and one easily giving rise to much fraud and oppression.
They had a greed problem and they have a lot of kin folks in our day.
III-NOTICE THE TORTURE OF JESUS ON THE CROSS:
The cross is more than a ornament, but an offense, a curse, a place of suffering.
A-The Pattern Of The Cross: Luke 23:34A
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
This is a fulfillment of the prophecy in Isa 53:12: "He made intercession for the transgressors."
He prayed rather than retaliating, He prayed rather than condemning, He prayed rather than quitting. This is a pattern we ought to practice in our daily life.
Men of the world seek for "revenge;" the Christian bears reproaches and persecutions with patience, and prays that God would pardon those who injure them, and save them from their sins.
When Jesus died upon the cross, bound by the divine love for poor, lost sinful mankind, His love was unselfish.
B-The Payment Of The Cross:
Hebrews 9:12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
Socrates, Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, or any other man who has ever lived, has died. But only the death of Jesus Christ has resulted in our being freed from the penalty of sin and death.
The story is of the little ragged, wretched, starved, emaciated boy who goes to a country school, and they have passed the rule that any boy that is found stealing a lunch will be beat with thirty stripes on his naked back. Upon a day, a lunch is stolen, and the school finds out it is that wretched, hungry boy. So he’s brought before the class, and he is accused. And he admits that he stole the lunch. He was starved and hungry, and he stole a boy’s lunch. The class had passed the rule: on his naked back, thirty stripes. Well, when he bared his back for the teacher to hit him thirty times, little skinny fellow, emaciated and starved, the great big fellow whose lunch the boy had stolen, says to the teacher, “Teacher, let me take the punishment due the boy.” They agreed that he could do it, so he bends over, he bends above. He leans over—huper, that’s it exactly. He bends over, above the poor, starved, emaciated lad, and the stripes that should have fallen upon the little boy fell upon him. That is it exactly. (WA Criswell)
C-The Preview Of the Cross:
I believe when we look at the cross and all of its suffering, we see a preview of the suffering in hell. We see on the cross, pain, thirst, darkness, separation from God, and etc.
But thank the Lord, for those who believe, he suffered our hell for us.
CONCLUSION: Dr. Alexander Whyte tells the story of a man who dreamed that he saw Jesus tied to a whipping-post, and a soldier was scourging Him. He saw the whip in the soldier’s hand, with its thick lashes studded here and there with bits of lead, which were intended to cut into the flesh. And as the soldier brought the whip down on the bare shoulders of Jesus, the dreamer shuddered when he saw the marks and bloodstains it left behind. And when the soldier raised his hand to strike again the dreamer rushed forward intending to stop him. As he did so the soldier turned around and the dreamer recognized himself.
Let us never take the Calvary story lightly, for it is because of Calvary that we experience God’s wonderful salvation.
When Jesus came to Golgotha,
They hanged Him on a tree;
They drove great nails through hands and feet
And made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns,
Red were His wounds and deep;
For those were crude and cruel days,
And human flesh was cheap.
When Jesus came to Birmingham.
They simply passed Him by;
They never hurt a hair of Him,
They only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender,
And they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street,
and left Him in the rain.
—Paul T. Culbertso
Note-Some materials from Coy Wylie, Jerry Vines, Howard Harden, WA Criswell,& Mike Fogerson.
