©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

04/20/03

Easter

4/20/03

Happy Easter!

We are going to do something during the next few minutes

that, in 20 years of our life together as a church,

we have never done before -

we are going to spend some time together

at the actual crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

I love happy endings.

I love happy endings so much

that, if I know a book

or a movie does not have a happy ending

I won’t read it or watch it.

Real life has enough hurt,

and pain,

and suffering in it already without volunteering for more.

I think probably it is, at least in part,

because of my love for happy endings

that, during the past 20 years,

whenever I’ve looked at the tiny amount of time allotted to us for Easter mornings,

I have chosen to spend most of that time focused almost exclusively on the resurrection of Christ

rather than the crucifixion.

And clearly, the account of the life of Christ

truly does end with the most wonderful happy ending the world has ever known.

But this morning we are going to spend about half of our time together

presenting the setting that gives the good news of Easter morning

such power,

and such meaning.

We’re not going to end at the foot of the cross,

but we are going linger there long enough

so that we can better appreciate what comes after.

And, because I don’t know how to do this any better,

I’m going to let the Apostle Peter do this for us.

Once again

we’re going to enter into his mind,

and see through his eyes.

We are going to join Peter

on what was possibly the worst morning of his life.

It is the morning immediately following his public denials of Christ

at that late night mockery of a trial

that ended ultimately in Jesus being sentenced to death.

But, if you remember your gospel accounts correctly,

you’ll remember that Peter left that trial before he saw the end result.

After his public denials of his Lord,

when he finally realized what he’d done,

we are told that he fled in shame and humiliation

and ran out into the darkness.

I don’t know where Peter spent that night,

but for the purposes of what we’ll do during the next few minutes

we’re going to assume that he just curled up and slept for a few hours

in some forgotten alley in Jerusalem.

As we join him, he’s just waking up.

I don’t know what woke me. Perhaps it was the growing stench of the surrounding filth as it warmed in the morning sun. Perhaps it was the increasing noise from the street at the end of the alley. I do know, however, that the world to which I returned was unlike any I had ever known before. It wasn’t the filth. It wasn’t the odor. It wasn’t the noise. It was something else altogether, something deep within me, at the very core of my being.

Simon was dead. My heart continued to beat. My lungs continued their endless expansion and contraction. My senses continued to relay information to my brain. But whereas once there had been hope and life and aspirations and desires and a purpose for being, now there was only pain and shame and emptiness and death.

The increasing turmoil from the street at the end of the alley finally broke through my pain. I stood and then wandered toward the commotion. There seemed to be some sort of a parade in progress. Both sides of the street were lined with people yelling and pointing at something passing by in front of them.

At first all I could see were the mounted Roman soldiers, swords drawn, pushing their way through the multitude, making a path for those following behind. Then I turned and saw the reason for this procession. Three men stumbled along behind, flanked on either side by armed guards. Each one carried a large wooden cross on his shoulders. It was another one of those hideous Roman executions in progress.

The first two men were keeping pace with the demands of the soldiers, but the third man was having trouble. Even from this distance I could see what appeared to be streams of blood running down his face and neck and onto his naked shoulders and chest. He was wearing something on his head. He was bent nearly double, so I could not see his face. Then, just as he approached the entrance to the alley, he collapsed under the weight of the cross and fell face first into the dirt. The cross fell to the ground at his side, and for the first time I saw his back, or what was left of it. The flesh hung in shredded strips of what had once been skin and muscle. The brutal beating must have taken place several hours ago, for much of the blood was now dried and caked, though numerous red streams still oozed from the deeper wounds. I could now see that the thing on his head was actually a kind of mock crown, woven from the branches of some sort of wicked thorn bush. The long spikes pierced deep into his head, causing the blood to run freely down his forehead.

Never had I seen a man so brutalized prior to his execution. I could not imagine what his offense must have been to justify such treatment. For several seconds he did not move. Then he groaned and rolled onto his side, and I looked into the bruised and swollen face of my King.

The soldier nearest him walked over and gave him a sharp kick in the side, demanding that he pick up his cross and continue on. Jesus brought himself to his hands and knees and then tried to hoist the wooden crossbeam back onto his shoulders, but the loss of blood and the damage inflicted on his back and shoulder muscles made it impossible for him to support the weight. He dropped once again to his knees, allowing the rough wooden surface to scrape across the raw flesh of his back as the cross fell to the ground.

The frustrated guard looked at the spectators along the side of the street opposite me, then laid his hand on a man nearly my size, pointed at the cross, and told him to pick it up. The man stepped into the street, hoisted the crossbeam onto his shoulders, then reached down and helped Jesus back onto his feet. With the weight of the wood off his back, Jesus was able to continue on, and the gruesome procession once again moved forward.

When the last guard passed by me, I stepped out into the street and fell in line. I suppose I should have feared recognition, but I was far beyond fear. The depth of unrelenting, inescapable anguish within me eclipsed every other emotion throughout the remainder of that day. It no longer mattered whether or not I was recognized. It no longer mattered whether or not I too was executed. Nothing mattered any more. The source of all life would soon be dead. How could it possibly matter whether or not my body continued to live?

I saw a number of familiar faces around me as we moved through the streets. Jesus’ mother followed as close as the guards would permit. John walked beside her, his left arm around her, holding her close. Lazarus, Martha, and Mary were there together. A short distance away I saw my brother, Andrew. Our eyes met, but neither of us spoke. What was there to say? His eyes too were dark, swirling pools of pain.

When the procession finally reached Golgotha, the designated place of execution, the crowd fanned out at the base of the hill, watching the final steps in the execution process. The holes in which the crosses would be dropped had already been dug. The three crosses were laid on the ground, the three prisoners were laid on the crosses, and large metal spikes were driven through each hand and each foot. The soldiers then lifted each cross in turn and dropped them into the holes. Jesus’ cross was in the center.

Of all the images I retain from that day, it is the memory of the Master’s hands I recall most of all. I knew the touch of those hands as well as I knew the sound of his voice. I remembered the first time he placed his hand on my shoulder. I remembered the strength, and the acceptance, and the comradeship it communicated. I remembered the relief of feeling his hand gripping my arm as I sank below the waves that night I attempted to walk on the water. I recalled the countless times I was privileged to stand beside him, watching as he reached out and touched blind eyes, deaf ears, broken and deformed bodies, bringing sight, and sound, and wholeness with each touch. I remembered fixing my eyes on those fingers the day he took that little boy’s lunch and kept breaking and breaking and breaking the bread and fish. I kept trying to see how he was performing the wonder taking place before me. In my mind I saw him once again as he stretched out those hands from the bow of our boat the night I knew we were all going to perish on the sea. I remembered the instant calm that followed, the peace, the rest.

And now I stood at a distance and looked up at those hands, crushed and bruised, blood flowing freely down his palms from the jagged wounds surrounding the spikes driven through them. And these drunken fools gambling below him had no idea what they were destroying.

For nearly three hours I stood in silence and watched. No one spoke to me; I spoke to no one. There were many in the crowd who were mocking him. The priests and other religious leaders obviously considered this a cause for great celebration. Others, like myself, clothed themselves in their private shrouds of grief. At one point I saw Mary and John approach the cross together. Words passed between them and Jesus, but I could not hear what was said.

Then, when the sun was at its highest point, beating down directly above our heads, a sudden eerie darkness crept across the land. Those who came to celebrate his execution were disturbed. They tried hard to pretend it was just a coincidence, but it made them all uneasy. Boisterous laughter and ugly jests were replaced by subdued conversations. Those who viewed this as their victory seemed more reticent to look directly at the dying figure before them. If there was any possibility this man’s death was bringing darkness on the earth, was it possible he might bring even worse on those who were responsible?

For the next three hours, the darkness remained. Then, just as the darkness began to lessen a bit, I heard him speak his final words.

“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

His cry pierced the silence that now surrounded the cross.

And then, “I thirst!”

And then, finally, “It is finished!” followed by one great sigh and then nothing more.

He was gone.

His body now hung unmoving on the cross, and the only world in which I wanted to live instantly ceased to exist. My future was gone. My great hopes and plans were no more. But in the end it was not the loss of my future, it was not the death of my hopes and my plans that brought me this endless pain. It was knowing that tomorrow morning I would wake to a world in which he no longer existed. I missed him more than I had known it was possible to miss anything or anyone. How strange! As long as he still breathed upon that cross, I continued to draw some comfort from his presence in our world. But now a great sea of loneliness flooded into my soul and mingled with my pain, bringing new poignancy, new dimension to my agony.

As I stood there in that strange half-darkness, I suddenly felt the ground beneath my feet rumble and churn. It was as if the earth itself shuddered uncontrollably in its grief. There was nothing more for me here. There was nothing more for me anywhere. I turned and walked away into a night that would never end.

I have taken the time to share this with you this morning for several reasons.

First, I share it with you because,

after 2000 years of pretty gold and silver crosses and crucifixes hung on walls and around people’s necks,

and after layer after layer of religious coating,

it’s easy for us to loose sight of the fact

that the crucifixion of Christ was a real, horrible historical event,

an event carefully designed by God Himself

to communicate to us, His creation,

several crucial messages.

And at the head of that list

is the fact that this event right here

is the beginning of all correct understanding

of the true nature of our God

and of His attitude toward us as His creation.

I have heard it said,

and I know it is absolutely correct,

that it was not those spikes that held Christ to that cross,

it was His love for you and me.

I like the way the author of Hebrews put it when he called us to fix “our eyes on Jesus... who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame...”.

And the amazing thing

is that the joy he was talking about

was the joy of providing a way

in which He could forever remove the barrier of our sins against Him

so that He could then share a friendship with us for eternity.

When we look honestly at the death of Christ,

what we are seeing

is our Creator saying to each of us,

“This is how much I love you.

This is what I am willing to do

in order make it possible

for you and Me to be united forever.”

Any correct concept of God,

any accurate perception of Him

must begin with an understanding

of the level of love for us that He communicates to us through the cross.

This right here, at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ,

is the only accurate doorway the human race will ever have

through which we can begin to enter into a correct understanding of our Creator.

And there’s something else going on here, too,

something that has the power to disarm

one of Satan’s most powerful lies used against the Christian.

Before we come to Christ

we spend a great deal of mental and emotional energy

trying to hide from our own immorality.

We tell ourselves we’re as good or better than the next guy.

We tell ourselves there really is no such thing as absolute morality.

We tell ourselves that doing good atones for doing bad.

(Sandee and I saw a movie recently

in which a group of hardened soldiers

were heading into a battle that could easily end in their own deaths.

Just before they went into battle one of them said to the other,

“For our sins...”.)

The problem is,

when we’ve done all our brave acts,

and all our good deeds,

our sins still haven’t gone away.

And before we come to Christ

we all find someplace to hid from their reality.

But once we turn to the Lord,

and recognize our need for a Savior,

for the first time we can begin to face ourselves and our sins honestly,

placing those sins onto Christ.

But here’s the trap.

Once our Lord gives us the courage

to face ourselves honestly,

it is not at all uncommon for Satan to then use that honesty

as a weapon with which to attack us.

He will come along side us,

point to our past failures,

or to our continued failures and struggles in our lives and say,

“Look at that! Do you really think there is no punishment for that?

Do you really think there will be no judgment for these sins?”

And if we don’t understand what’s going on,

he can once again bring us under a tremendous load of guild,

and fear,

and condemnation.

But one of the many things God was accomplishing for us

when He died in our place on the cross

is to answer forever the question about the payment for our sin.

And when we look at ourselves

and see there sins that we know matter a great deal,

sins that we know must demand judgment

and require some payment to be made,

the best thing we can do

is to run straight at those accusations,

and then, with our eyes fixed on the cross,

to say to ourselves

and to our accuser,

“Yes! This does indeed demand judgment.

It does indeed demand payment.

And look here!

Look at my King on this cross.

He really was judged.

He really did suffer,

He really was condemned for my sins,

and through His death

He made the ultimate payment.

I know it doesn’t seem right,

but the debt for my sins really is paid in full forever.

Amazing love, how can it be

that You would die

to set me free.”

But that isn’t where the story ends,

not by a long shot.

In fact, the picture of Jesus Christ on the cross

is most of all the backdrop

to what took place three days later.

We human beings

are absolute masters at getting things backwards.

We just naturally assume

that life precedes death.

We’re born,

we live,

we die.

And all the time we are clinging so tightly

to this little bit of nothing

that we believe to be life.

But through Jesus Christ

our God once again told us the truth -

He told us we have it all backwards.

Life does not precede death,

but rather death precedes life.

When Peter witnessed his Lord breath His last breath on the cross,

he honestly thought it was the end of all hope.

But in reality it was just the beginning.

For, three days later,

when Jesus stepped out of that tomb alive,

He entered into a life

and a relationship with His people unlike any He had ever known prior to His crucifixion.

It was a life in which God the Father placed Him far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come,

a life in which the Father put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church...

a life in which now, through His Spirit,

He could literally dwell within every one of us who turn to Him,

creating within each of us a new heart,

and then recreating our lives, one step at a time, from the inside out.

Paul says it so simply, and so well.

GAL 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Through His resurrection from the dead

He demonstrated His absolute victory over sin and death.

But He did far more than that.

He also demonstrated our victory as well.

our victory over sin

and our victory over death.

JOH 10:27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;

JOH 10:28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.

And as long as we’ve gone this far

let me take it one step farther.

For, you see,

just as death preceded life with Christ,

so death precedes life with us.

Did you notice Paul’s phrasing in that statement he makes in Galatians 2:20?

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me...

I have been crucified with Christ...

And let me just conclude this morning

by telling you that with each of us,

as with our Lord,

our entrance into the true life God longs for us to know

always requires the death of whatever we have been using as our substitute to His life within us.

With the Apostle Paul

it meant the death of all that prestige and power within the Jewish community

that he had worked so hard achieve.

It meant the death of all of his success goals in life.

And with each of us

God’s work within us frequently follows the same pattern.

Have you been fighting with your God recently?

Has He been calling you to Himself

in some way that, right now, looks like the end of life as you know it?

Have you been finding yourself praying your own brand

of that same prayer our Lord prayed just prior to the crucifixion...

"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me...”?

If so, let say simply,

you can trust your God in this.

You can trust Him to give you the strength you need

for whatever lies ahead.

And you can trust Him to recreate your death

into your own personal glorious Easter morning.

You see, resurrections are one of the things He does best of all,

and resurrections are all different than birth.

Birth inevitably ends in death.

But resurrection brings about a new life within us that will never come to an end.

ROM 6:8 ¶ Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

ROM 6:9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.