(Started the Service with the first three verses of “Were you there when they crucified my Lord”. Did it very reflective, had the scripture read Luke 23:44-49 then preached the message. After the sermon went into high power resurrection songs, ie My Redeemer lives. I was afraid I’d drop dead half way through the message and nobody would read the rest of my sermon and I’d be buried outside the gates as a heretic.)
Jesus was wrong! That’s right on that Good Friday so many years ago Christ was proven wrong. He had fought the good fight but he had lost. In the eyes of the world, in the eyes of His followers and in the eyes of his enemies Jesus Christ the carpenter from Nazareth had been proven wrong.
Everything he said about being God, everything he had said about his Kingdom, everything He had said about His power. Every statement He ever uttered, every promise He ever made, everything had been shown to be a lie because Jesus was wrong.
If Jesus had lived it would have been different, but he died and so He was wrong, dead wrong.
The Jewish Leaders were Right. It was Jesus who was marching out of step, not them. He was a liberal, trouble making activist. I mean, think about it, things had been happening the same way in Israel for thousands of years. What right did this young upstart preacher have to come in and try to change things all around?
He wasn’t a Rabbi, he wasn’t a Levite, he wasn’t a scribe or a Pharisee. He was just a carpenter, he was a newcomer to Jerusalem, he was only thirty three years old and he was wrong.
So why should they change? After all it was the Sadducees who were the lawmakers, not Jesus. He just didn’t understand how things were done. What right did he have to tell them as he did in Matthew 22:29 Jesus replied, “Your problem is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. Well they had shown him, because they were right and he on the other hand was wrong.
How dare he call them vipers, how dare he call them fools, how dare he call them hypocrites. Who did he think he was anyway? And then he had the utter gall to claim to be the equal to Jehovah God. Well they were right and he was wrong, dead wrong!
Pilate was Right He was right because he was smart. Pilate knew what he was doing, he was every inch a politician. He saw trouble coming and he already had too much trouble in Jerusalem. There Jews were on the brink of revolt. Perhaps it had happened when he had put the images of Caesar on the flag standards in direct defiance of the Jewish law. Maybe he was wrong that time, or perhaps it was when he financed the municipal water supply with money he had seized from the temple treasury, he may have been wrong that time too.
I mean Pilate had enough trouble; he didn’t need all the problems that this young Nazarene carpenter represented. Pilate had the authority of the Roman Empire behind him; at the snap of his fingers he could have levelled Jerusalem. And this young peasant had the nerve to stand in front of him and say (John 19:11 Then Jesus said,) “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above.” Oh yeah, right, well Pilate proved him wrong.
Pilate feared the trouble that the Jews could raise with his superiors but then again there were his superstitions about this one who called himself God.
What should he do, please the Jews or set this harmless preacher free? So he crucified him, but hey it worked out for the best. Pilate was right and Jesus was wrong, dead wrong.
Barabbas was Right According to custom each year at the Passover celebration the Roman Governor would set one prisoner free. And so Pilate asked the crowd, “Should I release Jesus the Christ or Barabbas the murderer?” It would have been so easy for Pilate to have released Christ if the Crowd had of asked him to. But no, the crowd yelled, “Free Barabbas, crucify Jesus, free Barabbas, crucify Jesus.” And he so he did.
So you see Barabbas was right and Jesus was wrong.
But who was this Barabbas? Well his name was probably Bar Rabbis which in the Greek means Son of the Rabbi. I’m sure some people are thinking; typical preacher’s kid right? Maybe his dad was one of the leaders who called for the death of Jesus. We do know that Barabbas was one of the Zealots, those who wanted to rid Israel of Rome. And the Zealots didn’t care what it took, murder, robbery, terrorism.
Now tradition tells us that Barabbas was not this man’s first name. Remember our old buddy Peter? Sometimes in the gospels he is referred to Simon Bar Jonah, or Simon the Son of Jonah. Tradition has it that Barabbas had a very common first name, a name that he shared with many other Jews, one that he even shared with a young carpenter from Nazareth. You see tradition tells us that the Zealot’s complete name was Jesus Bar Rabbis.
Two Jesus’, one who preached love, and one who preached hate, one who preached peace and one who preached war, one who preached forgiveness and one who preached vengeance. Two Jesus, as different as day and night. And one walked away a free man and one died on a cross. Barabbas was right and Jesus was wrong, dead wrong.
The Roman Guards were Right. These men represented the power of Rome; they were impartial and interested only in doing their job. They had probably been brought in from Caesarea Philippi to help keep the peace in Jerusalem during the Passover celebration. They didn’t know who Jesus was and if they had of known they wouldn’t have cared.
If Pilate declared that he was a criminal and deserved to be crucified then as far as they were concerned he was a criminal and deserved to be crucified. And so they split his clothing amongst them and nailed Jesus to the cross. And they were right and he was wrong, dead wrong.
His Disciples were Right. Was there any real reason for all of them to die? Self preservation is nothing to be trifled with. God himself put that survival instinct in each one of us. I mean think about it, if Jesus was wrong now, then he must have been wrong all along. Maybe he really didn’t know what he was talking about. Turn the other cheek indeed and look where it had gotten Jesus.
Perhaps Barabbas needed some followers, now there was a winner. They’d have to talk to him on Tuesday after everything had settled down over the holidays. The meek will inherit the earth. Sure, all it had gotten Jesus was a cross and a borrowed grave.
The disciples were right when they choose to lay low for awhile. What would they have accomplished by taking a stand? Whey should they all have to die. If Jesus had of shown them he was right by calling down an army of angels, well that would have been a horse of a different colour.
But it was all in vain, Jesus wasn’t God and they were just fishermen. The disciples were right because they were alive and Jesus was wrong, dead wrong.
Popular Opinion was Right. On Palm Sunday the crowd had sang hosanna and waved palm branches and if a Roman or a Jew had of laid a hand on Jesus, there would have been a riot. Oh they were right about Jesus on Sunday, but then on Friday they shouted “Crucify Him, Crucify Jesus.”
Just like today, how many people praise his name and sing Hosanna on Sunday but on Monday they live for themselves and take his name in vain? Popular opinion had proclaimed Christ a king and now it was proclaiming him a Criminal. And popular opinion was right and Jesus was wrong. He was crucified and he was wrong, dead wrong.
Luke 23 ends on a very final note. Jesus was gone, dead, buried and silenced forever. Everything that Jesus had said, everything that Jesus had taught, everything that Jesus had done was gone and would be forgotten, because Jesus was wrong.
For two days Jesus was wrong. By every measure that is used by the world Jesus was wrong. Dead wrong because on Friday Jesus had died. Jesus clashed with all the selfish distorted values and morals of a fallen society and he died because nobody can fight a monster that big and win.
He took on the sins of the world, the collective evil from creation onward and from all outward appearances he had failed.
But the story doesn’t end with chapter 23, instead it continues into chapter 24, stand with me again for the reading from God’s word. Luke 24:1-9 But very early on Sunday morning the women came to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone covering the entrance had been rolled aside. So they went in, but they couldn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. They were puzzled, trying to think what could have happened to it. Suddenly, two men appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed low before them. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking in a tomb for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He has risen from the dead! Don’t you remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again the third day?” Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened.
On the third day when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb to prepare their master with the spices donated by Nicodemus instead of find Jesus they found Angels. But wait if Jesus was wrong then how come he wasn’t still in the grave? If Jesus was wrong then where was he? For two days the world proclaimed itself right. For two days Jesus appeared to be wrong, but on the third day and for eternity Jesus Christ was proclaimed the winner. Jesus was right and the rest of them were wrong.
If Jesus had of remained in the ground he would have been just as wrong as Mohammed, Confucius and Buddha. If Jesus had of remained dead he would have remained dead wrong. Just another misguided prophet who thought he was right.
And because Jesus of Nazareth was right on Easter day, fifty days later on the day of Pentecost those first 120 Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit and Christianity was proven right.
On Good Friday, Christianity heard the bells of Hell peal out the death toll of Jesus Christ and the movement he founded. On Good Friday Simon Peter cowered under the gaze of a little servant girl. On Good Friday the believers were of many accord, each one interested only in their own welfare, each Christian concerned only with their own salvation.
But Christianity didn’t lose because Jesus Christ didn’t lose. And because Christianity didn’t lose good won’t lose. There are times that it looks like Christianity is beaten but time and time again we struggle back to the surface and emerge victorious. Oh our doctrine may fail us and our leaders may disappoint us but Christianity will not be kept down. And as we look around at the evil in this old world sometimes it appears that Satan has the upper hand, sometimes it would appear that Satan is victorious. We see abortion, hunger, war and deceitfulness. We see illness, pain and suffering. We see scandals from inside and outside the church.
And as the world looks on it chants; “Jesus is wrong, Jesus lost, Jesus is wrong, Jesus lost.” But we have only to look beyond Friday when it appeared that Jesus was wrong to Sunday when Jesus Christ rose triumphantly from the grave throwing off the shackles of death and proclaiming himself right for eternity.
Jesus was right, he was right on Palm Sunday, he was right on Good Friday, He was right on Easter Sunday and he will remain right as will his church. Because Jesus Christ did not lose we will not lose. In winning the victory over death on Calvary’s mount so many years ago Jesus won the victory for us. When Jesus won over death, he offered us the power to win over death.
Now Jesus did not win on the cross so we could have the Easter Bunny, and Jesus did not win on the cross so we could have chocolate eggs, and Jesus did not win on the cross so we could have a long weekend in the spring.
Jesus Christ won on Calvary for one reason and one reason only, and that was to give you and I the opportunity to have eternal life. I would suspect that if you gave Jesus a list of things he would like to have been doing over the Easter weekend that dying on a cross would have been somewhere near the bottom of the list.
But Christ died on the cross so you wouldn’t have to and he rose again to demonstrate that he was even in control of death.
I hope you enjoyed this message, PowerPoint is available contact me at denn@powerpoint4preaching.com or visit us on the web www.powerpoint4preaching.com
