30.10.06
Why I Am a Christian (4): The Death of Jesus
Colonel Herbert Jones is probably a name which is known to very few of you – some of you here are too young to remember him, but I do. I remember listening to the radio before I went to school that fateful morning in May 1982 and hearing of the bravery of this man. He was a Colonel in the Parachute Regiment, commanding 2 Para during the Falklands war. The British invasion of the Falklands had hit a barrier – a heavily fortified Argentinian gun position on top of a hill at a place called Goose Green. The Argentinians had already inflicted several casualties among the assaulting British paratroops – and the invasion was at risk of getting bogged down. But Colonel Jones, according to his citation, picked up a sub-machine gun and ran at the Argentinian gun emplacements causing his own death, but cracking the enemies’ desire for battle. The Argentinians quickly surrendered and British liberation of the Falklands rolled on – but all because of the death of Colonel H. Jones. Next time you are in London, go to the National Army Museum in Chelsea and you’ll see his posthumous Victoria Cross on display there. But there’s man who, in his death, achieved much. But I want to talk to you today about another kind of cross and a man who achieved even more in his death – I want to talk about Jesus.
So far, in this series, I have given you 3 reasons why I am a Christian – first, I live in God’s World; second, I am a reader of God’s Word; thirdly, I am admirer of Christ’s Life – today, I want to give you a 4th reason – I am a beneficiary of His death. But, before we go into what the Bible says about the death of Jesus, let’s just, for the sake of anyone who thinks that the Bible isn’t good enough to be trusted, talk about the Roman Historian Tacitus. In 115AD He was writing about Emperor Nero’s persecution of the Christians in Rome some 50 years before. He talked about Christians and their master: “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate”. If you want to doubt the death of Jesus, then you doubt not just the Bible, but secular history also – and if you want to do that, then why not just believe anything?
I want today to talk from the Bible about the death of Jesus – in my view, along with His resurrection, the most significant fact in all history. I want to approach it in terms of 3 questions which I have over His death – 3 anomalies which mean that His was a strange death; and 3 events which surrounded His death which give us the meaning of why He had to die and how it is that I, and you too, can benefit from what happened those 2,000 years ago in the Roman Province of Judea.
(1) 3 Questions
These are 3 queries I have about the death of Jesus which lead me to believe that His death was not like that of any other man. Over the course of history, many people have died with great nobility for their causes – but not this man – He died the most horrible death imaginable, but at the same time went through it with more dignity than any other person who has ever lived. And it’s these 3 things which nag away at me, and should nag away at you too, about the death of this greatest of men.
a. The Death of a Perfect Man – the Bible presents the Lord Jesus Christ as being the ultimate perfect man. It’s not that way with you and me. Even today, there are things you know you shouldn’t have said and thought – things which you would be ashamed of if everyone else knew about them. There are also needs this week which you could have met, but for selfish reasons you didn’t. Our love to our fellow human beings, what the Bible calls our neighbours, is far from perfect. But then, when we think of how far short we have fallen in terms of our love to God, we begin to tremble. The God who made us and who loves us deserves our lives, but we give Him, if He’s lucky, 1 hour on a Sunday morning – and not even that, for most of our time is taken up with ourselves and with our lives. Doesn’t God deserve more than that – does He not deserve the love of our whole hearts, minds, bodies and strength?
When you come to Jesus you find someone different – not just someone better than us, but someone whose life, humanly speaking, we find impossible to copy. When you think of the love of Jesus towards His fellows, and more importantly towards His God there’s really only one word you can use – perfect. Now the Bible tells us that our sin leads to our spiritual and physical deaths – it leads to alienation from God and from true meaning – nothing short of a walking death, and it leads to an eternal separation from God and His love. But my question is this: if that is true, that the wages of sin is death, why is the only man who never sinned dying? Why is He dying a sinner’s death when He Himself is purity in person? Surely there is more going on than just meets the eye!
b. The Willing Death of a Perfect Man – no man ever willingly walked towards death. Death is the ultimate terror for the human being – the ultimate in the unnatural. Soldiers don’t willingly walk towards death; even martyrs don’t willingly walk towards death – but Jesus walked towards it. On the night Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, a great troop of Roman soldiers and Jewish policemen came to arrest Him. His disciples unsheathed their swords and made ready to defend Jesus – the situation looked as if it may have got ugly. But then Jesus, with ultimate dignity and sovereignty said to his disciples, “Put your sword back in its place. Do you think I cannot call upon my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” This is a man, who at any stage of his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, could have got away – He could have hidden Himself in exile, He could have raised a rebellion against the Romans, He could have called down heaven’s armies – but He didn’t – He willingly went to the cross. He Himself said in John 10:18, “no one takes it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”
Modern liberalism seeks to portray the death of Jesus as the ultimate mistake – they portray Jesus as a poor effeminate weakling being dragged by butch men against His will to a man’s death – the effeminate Jesus and His masculine oppressors. But as you read the Bible you realise just how mistaken that view is – there has never been a more manly man than Jesus – He was not effeminate and He wasn’t dragged away against His will. This was no mistake, but a carefully choreographed act of God. The soldier who walks across no-man’s land to the German trenches isn’t in control of the German bullets. By contrast, Jesus was in complete control of every step of His journey south towards Jerusalem, in control of His arrest and in control of His death. Doesn’t this mean that there was more to the death of Jesus than just a valiant martyrdom or the world’s greatest ever miscarriage of justice?
c. The Agonising Death of a Perfect Man – the cross was a horrific instrument of tortuous death. It was reserved only for the most hated of criminals. The Romans were very experienced at not merely executions, but also of extending the pain of its victims. To die on a cross was an ignoble, horrible death. However, many men have died terrifying deaths full of pain, but have endured them with more stoicism than Jesus did. On the night of His betrayal, we find Jesus weeping as He considers the cross pleading with God that if there is another way then it should be taken – but many men have gone to their fates not weeping and not desiring it to be another way – they’ve gone nobly, staring into the face of death with a smile on their lips. This is a conundrum for us – why was Jesus, the most manly of men, so terrified of death, when other men and women have been so unafraid of their terrible deaths? Here’s a man who trusts in God, and yet others who have trusted in God have gone to their martyrdom’s with far less fear in their eyes than Jesus did – why?
On one hand you can answer this question by realising that Jesus alone really understood the terror of death. Others have smiled at death because they didn’t know what lay beyond the grave. Some have tolerated death because they thought it was freeing them from a hell on earth. But Jesus really understood the hell that lies beyond death. But there is another answer – death for Jesus wasn’t merely the stopping of His heart – it was far more. Other people have died more excruciating physical deaths than Him – but I will guarantee that no-one has ever experienced the pain of another kind of death He was dying that day – a spiritual death. The Bible tells us that on His shoulders, He was bearing the wrath and anger of God against our sins – He was being slaughtered like a sacrificed sheep to take our sins away. You and I have never really experienced the full wrath of the infinite God – but Jesus did. And that’s why His death was so agonising, and that’s why He entered into its experience with far more trepidation than a stoic or a madman. To suggest that Jesus was an effeminate weakling does no justice to the Jesus of Scripture – and if so, there is only one other explanation of His terror as He faced the cross – and that is that the Cross for Him was more than a physical death. And so can you not see that there is far more to the death of Jesus than meets the eye – that it wasn’t simply a human death?
So for these three reasons, I am convinced that the death of Jesus Christ is more than a travesty of justice, or a frail man being dragged against His will. There is more to it than that. Can you not see that too – isn’t that where the evidence logically leads?
(2) 3 Events
Things happen and no-one knows why. Sometimes things that happen don’t seem to have any answers. And for many people, the death of Jesus falls into that category – a great inexplicable nothing – an injustice, a travesty – don’t look for the meaning, just admire the sacrifice. But one of the most important events in the history of the Universe cannot and will not be left without explanation. We thank God that in His wisdom and grace He furnished the raw data of the cross with 3 explanatory events – three things which happened at, or around the exact time, of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, which give us unique access into why Jesus died, and how I can say, 2,000 years later, that I benefit today from what Jesus did then.
1. Darkened Sky (Matthew 27:45) – at noon, on the day Jesus was crucified, the sky suddenly went dark. At noon, the sun is at its highest position, and theoretically, the sky should therefore be at its brightest – and yet, darkness came over all the land. Not just the hill where Jesus was being crucified, but over the whole land of Judea – and who knows, perhaps over the whole world itself. Jesus was dying upon the cross and the sun went out – why, and what has that to do with you and me today?
In the Old Testament darkness often indicated judgement. For example, in Joel 2:10 the reaction of the earth to the judgement of God is, “the earth shakes, the sky trembles, the sun and moon are darkened and the stars no longer shine.” What is going on here is a cosmic judgement where an angry God is bringing universal judgement down upon this dying figure upon the cross. But again, I’m going back to the anomaly I flagged up for us all – if it is sin which brings forth God’s anger, why is the only man who never sinned subject to the darkness of the infinite wrath of God? Why is this figure upon the cross – this perfect Son of a perfect God – dying not just in physical agony, but also in spiritual agony – for I am under no illusion that the darkness outside was just a reflection of the darkness of His own heart for these three hours? Is it not because Jesus on the cross was not dying for His own sins, but for ours? Do you remember that I said that the wages of sin is death – that a perfect God cannot tolerate sin and will punish it? Well here we see the punishment of our sin – not His sin – but ours. God punished sin in His own Son and the sky went dark as the full force of an infinite God was vented on the soul of His Beloved Son.
Now I want to apply this event: first, shouldn’t you be afraid when you think of the anger of God against sin? After all, if you have not trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ God is still angry with you and there is a date set for the darkness to fall upon you. But secondly, notice that the darkness lifts at the ninth hour -when Jesus dies. The light shines again; the wrath of God is exhausted and Jesus has completed the work of forgiveness. The darkness will not fall again upon the soul of Jesus – He has endured infinite torment and now the light shines to show that His work is finished. And that means that if we place our trust in this Jesus who died upon the cross at Calvary, we can know the forgiveness of our sins – we don’t have to pay the penalty – and there will be no more darkness of judgement and punishment for us.
2. Dead Men Rising (Matthew 27:51-52) – at the point Jesus gave up His spirit and died, the text tells us that there was a great earthquake. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people were raised to life. Now the word earthquake has kind of lost its force and meaning – but not for anyone who has ever lived through an earthquake. It is probably the most terrifying natural phenomenon, where the very ground you walk on shakes and splits. Buildings fall into rubble and trees are uprooted – huge rocks are split into fragments by the friction of plate tectonics – it is like the earth groans in frustration at the death of its Lord. But it does so for a reason – it shakes in order that the tombs of holy people would break open and that they would be raised to life. Now what does it mean – what is the force of this event?
Is it not simply this: that when Jesus died, these dead people were brought back to life? Or in other words, He dies, we live! The Bible tells us that our sins and transgressions render us dead – Ephesians 2:1 tells us “you were dead in your transgressions and sins”. But the impact of the death of Jesus is that He makes us alive – He takes away our sins and gives us His new life – “eternal life” – a life which will go on for ever, not just wonderful in its quantity, but its quality and fullness also. If you are a Christian believer today, you are truly alive in a way no-one else can be. But also Jesus gives us life in that when we die He immediately takes our souls to be with Him in heaven. Our bodies may sleep in the grave, but He takes our souls to be with Him – on the cross Jesus turned to the man next to him and said, “Today, you shall be with me in paradise”. And finally Jesus will give us life on the day He comes again to judge the world, He will give life to our mortal bodies – those bodies which have died and decayed – He will remake them into bodies of glory which shall never die again. I don’t know what happened to these holy people who came back from the dead when Jesus died – but I do know that when our bodies are reunited with our souls, we shall for ever and ever enjoy the brilliance of new bodies.
The whole point is this: the death of Jesus brings us life – Jesus, on the cross, died, but in dying was victorious over death – death can no longer hold God’s people. You might be saying to me today – “It all sounds good, but so what? What difference does that make to my day to day life?” And I confess at times I struggle to apply these teachings like I should – but not this one. This society is terrified of death, does everything it can to deny its existence and yet has a morbid fascination with it, like a cat with a cobra. But this society will never beat death – death is as painful now as it has ever been to those who lose a loved one. This society is not victorious over death – but I know someone who is. His name is Jesus and His death brings life. And my question for you is this: do you want His death to bring you life – do you want the forgiveness of your sins; you know that death isn’t the end, you were made that way – do you want paradise? That is what Jesus offers through the splitting of the rocks.
3. Torn Curtain – the last event is probably the most significant of all three. The curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. You understand of course, that this curtain was placed in the Jewish temple to keep worshippers from the holiest place in the temple – the place where God’s presence was said to dwell. This curtain was designed to keep sinners away from a perfectly holy God because if this perfect God was to see sin face to face, He must punish and destroy it – “no man may see me and live”. This curtain was the barrier between men and God; because of this curtain they could never truly know what God was like or really know the benefits of being one of His children – you see the curtain was always in the way.
So what was happening when the curtain got ripped away? Jesus’ death removes the barriers between men and God and allows men to know God as He is in a new and exciting way – in a way they never could before. Whereas before there was always a barrier between you and God; Jesus, through His death on the cross, has now taken it away. The human heart has a hole in it – and that hole is god-shaped; trust me when I say it to you that every human being knows that there is a lack and a need which needs to be filled and they try and fill it with all kinds of things – but there’s only one things that will fill this hole in the heart –and that is God. Human beings, you and I, were made to know God. But there was always something between us; a barrier, a curtain that meant I could never know Him as I wanted to – and so I was always groping for meaning in a wilderness of mirrors. But then Jesus died for me and the curtain is gone and I can know God – the sin which kept me away from Him is taken away and God is now safe to know. Don’t you want that to be your story – that whereas before you were wandering without meaning and wracked with guilt, now you know why you exist and you know what it is to walk free from guilt and shame? God has torn the curtain – the way is open – if there’s an objection to you coming to know God today its not from His side – it must be from yours.
Given all I have said today, I think there can be only one reasonable and logical response. That is the response of the Roman Centurion who watched the death of Jesus and all the events which surrounded it. Here was an experienced Roman soldier, hardened to the harrowing spectacle of crucifixion – a man who perhaps had helped nail Jesus to the cross – a man experienced at causing people terror. But the things he saw that day made him terrified and as he looked up upon the dead body on the central cross he exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God”. Now if this man could have said that and his understanding was fairly limited – what about you and I – shouldn’t ours be so much greater and therefore shouldn’t our response be not just to acknowledge that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God – that He’s special – but also to trust and place our faith in Him and in all He has done on the cross! Don’t you know that if you trust in Him today then all He died to give, He will give you? And on the basis of the cross, I plead with you to come to know this Jesus. AMEN