The Cross: The Price You Didn’t Expect

Good morning.

Last week, we started this series by looking at the moment Jesus entered Jerusalem — what we called The Entry — and we talked about how the crowd had very real expectations about who Jesus was and what he came to do.

They were looking for a certain kind of king, and a certain kind of power, and a certain kind of outcome.

And today, as we continue moving through that final week, we come to The Cross.

Now for many of us, that word is familiar. It’s meaningful. It may even feel central to our understanding of faith.

But I think one of the challenges for us — especially if we’ve been around church for a while — is that the cross has become so familiar that we’ve stopped noticing how unusual it actually is.

Because we live in a world that’s shaped by symbols.

If you think about it, some of the most powerful organizations in the world spend enormous amounts of time and money trying to distill their identity into a single image — a logo, a mark, something that immediately communicates meaning. Strength. Success. Status. Belonging.

One of the dreams of companies is to come up with a logo that just gets indelibly fixed in people’s minds.

A logo or a symbol that people will associate with a product that has a kind of a heart appeal… so when you see it, you not only think of a company, but you want to buy whatever it is that company sells.

Some of the smartest people in our world stay awake at night trying to dream up a logo and figure out a way to make it real clear and compelling. So when you see one, you think:

I’d like to be associated with what it is that logo stands for.
I’d like to be a part of whoever is associated with that company.
I’d like for what is reflected in that logo to be expressed in my life.
I want to be part of that.

And that brings us to a very important question… because for over 2,000 years now, the simplest expression of the Christian faith is a cross.

The clearest, most remembered, most widely recognized symbol of what it is that the Christian faith stands for is two pieces of wood stuck together on which criminals are executed.

An instrument of death is our corporate logo.

If you’re a follower of Jesus, this is the logo on which you’ve built your life.

And, of course, the question that screams to be asked is why? Why a cross of all things in the world?

I mean, think about this — if you were trying to create a movement that would attract men and women from all around the world to sign up for it, to be a part of it, why in the world would you choose something like this?

No one chooses a logo like this in our day.

How likely is it that PG&E would choose as its logo an electric chair with the slogan: “The Power is On”?

It ain’t gonna to happen.

I have a concern that in our world crosses just become so common you can pick one up in any jewelry store.

We see them all the time… and we forget the shock. We forget what it is that this really stood for.

This is not a sign of a winner. It’s the sign of death.
This is not a sign of abundance. It’s the sign of ultimate loss.
This is not a sign of status. It’s the ultimate expression of humiliation.

I think it’s one of the most profound mysteries of the Christian faith — that the God of this universe who holds all power and all wealth would choose as the essential expression of his heart and love and character — that it would be expressed by a cross.

And I want us all to understand this.

Whether or not you’ve come to the cross personally, whether or not it expresses your life… by the time you leave this room in a few minutes, I want you to be very clear about the meaning of the cross, about why it stands at the center of the Christian faith.

I want you to understand the pain of the cross, what it is that Christ suffered.
I want you to understand the power of the cross, the difference it makes in this world and the difference it can make in your life.
And I want you to understand what it means to be a man or a woman of the cross, what is it that Jesus invites his followers to do.

I want you to be real clear after this morning about the cross… because next week we’ll come together, and we’ll celebrate the resurrection.

But there would be no resurrection if it were not for the cross.

Let me say a little bit about the history of the crucifixion so we understand a little about the context of the cross.

In the ancient world, the Romans and others like them knew a lot about how to execute people. They did a lot of it.

They knew how to execute people very cheaply — they used burning and stoning. And they often did that.
They knew how to execute people swiftly — just the stroke of a sword. And they often did that too.
They knew how to execute people privately, quietly — they used poison.

Socrates, when he was killed, was forced to drink poison. It was a very dignified, private ceremony with him and a few friends.

So why crucifixion? Crucifixion was a much more cumbersome deal.

It required four soldiers and a centurion to oversee them.
It took hours, sometimes days.
It was a lot more time consuming.
It cost a lot more money.

Why would they use crucifixion?

Well, they used it when they wanted to do two things.

They used it only in those cases when they wanted to maximize the pain… maximize the agony that the condemned man would suffer because crucifixion could be drawn out and take such a long time.
And then secondly, they used it when they wanted to maximize the public humiliation of the person being crucified.

The custom was that the man who was condemned would be forced to place the crossbeam on his back and then there would be a long procession through the heart of town.

They would deliberately take the longest road, the most crowded route, where people would see what was going on.

And soldiers would go in front of the condemned man. And one of them would carry a sign proclaiming the crime of which the condemned man was accused, and pronouncing it to the whole community.

Their intent was that by the time they got to the place of execution, it would be a public deal.

They would attract a huge crowd of people who were supposed to taunt and humiliate the person that was hanging on the cross until he died.

The idea was that the condemned man would be made a public spectacle, and it would be a public event with lots of people… like a sporting event in our day.

Now one of the reasons the Romans did this was they were trying to occupy hostile territory like Israel. And those people were apt to want to rebel and to gain their freedom and independence.

The Romans wanted to discourage anyone who would try to do that. So crucifixion was used most often in cases of treason or insurrection.

It was such a cruel form of death that it could not be used by law on Roman citizens — only on foreigners or slaves. If you were a Roman citizen, no matter what you did, you couldn’t be crucified.

It was a painful death… and I want you to understand something about the pain that Jesus experienced on the cross for you and for me.

Now the average criminal would suffer quite severe, physical pain.

In many cases, as was the case with Jesus, the condemned man was first beaten.

They would use a whip with leather straps and small pieces of metal or bone attached to those straps, which were designed to cut into the flesh.

It would cause bleeding that was so severe that if the centurion didn’t calculate it real carefully, it was not uncommon for the man to die while he was being beaten because of the loss of blood.

After this, the crossbeam of the cross would be placed on that same back, on those same shoulders, and he would carry it through the town to the place of execution.

There the cross would be laid down on the ground, and the condemned man would be laid on the cross.

And the soldiers would take the left hand and a spike, about six inches long, and drive it through the left wrist, just below the hand. And then they would take the right hand and drive that spike through the right wrist into the wood of the cross.

Then they would take his feet, right foot against the cross, left foot in front of it, and either bind them or take a spike and drive it through the arc of both feet and drive it into the wood of the cross.

Then they would raise the cross, and on it the condemned man would have to raise himself up in order to exhale.

This would place his full weight on the nail that went between his feet, ripping the nerves between the metatarsal bones in his feet, causing searing pain.

And when that became unbearable, and he had to inhale, he would sag down, which would place all the weight on the nails between his wrists, causing searing pain.

And the Romans deliberately left the arms and the legs of the crucified man slightly flexed so the victim could do this for a longer period of time as a way to prolong the agony.

He would be left on the cross for hours, exposed to heat or cold, the skin on his back lacerated by the movement up and down a splintered cross — a back that had already been beaten, while he struggled for breath.

And this would go on for hours, sometimes days, until the condemned man would eventually die… most often of suffocation.

This is the physical suffering of an average criminal on a cross.

And Jesus really experienced this for you and for me.

This is what was going on when he looked down from that cross on the soldiers who were crucifying him and the mobs that were taunting him and prayed,

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34)

Here’s what’s interesting — The gospels actually say very little about Jesus’ physical suffering on the cross.

In the Gospel of Mark it just says,

And they crucified him. (Mark 15:24)

They say very little about his physical experience on the cross… because Jesus’ deepest suffering, his most significant suffering, was utterly unique.

Here’s the difference between what Jesus went through and anyone else on the cross.

He was experiencing a form of spiritual suffering that you and I can only dimly imagine — that made his physical suffering almost inconsequential.

And I must ask you today as best you can to reflect on this.

The writers of Scripture say that on the cross… “he who knew no sin…”

never experienced guilt
never a moment’s shame
never the pain of regret
only pure innocence throughout his entire existence
he who knew no sin but became sin for our sake

Think for a moment about the darkest thing you’ve ever done.

You have something… I know I do.

It would cause you the most intense pain and humiliation if it were flashed up on the screen for this whole room to see.

Maybe you’ve betrayed a marital vow.
Maybe you went through an abortion.
Maybe it was an act of deceit that caused you to lose a job or a friendship.
Maybe it’s a habit or a pattern that you would be so ashamed of if other people knew about it. Your whole life is about keeping it a secret.

I don’t know what it is, but I know you’ve got something. I do too.

Remember the sense of pain over that, how you’d give anything to have it back?

Now imagine experiencing the weight of that sin and countless other sins that you’ve committed, some of which your conscience is too dulled even to remember or notice.

Add to that not just the guilt of your sin, but the guilt and pain and shame and regret, the destructiveness to the soul of every sin ever committed by every human being who has ever lived:

every act of physical abuse
every murder from the beginning of time from Cain and Abel right down to today… and into the future
every seduction
every betrayal
every deception
every genocide
every mean, spiteful word
every greed-driven business deal
every sacrifice of integrity
every lie

Imagine feeling the horror and despair of all of that sin in one heart.

Imagine experiencing the judgment and anger of a holy, righteous God toward all of that sin… imagine if it was directed at you.

And think about this: Jesus, his whole life long had never experienced anything other than perfect intimacy with his Father — joy-filled, delighted, servant-filled love and community with his Father through all eternity.

Jesus had never known a single moment of what it’s like to be lonely.
He had never known a single moment of what it’s like to be unloved by his Father.
And on the cross, the Scriptures say he cried out these words:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)

What would it mean to be forsaken by God?

In this world none of us will ever know.

Some of you know something of the feeling of being estranged from God or distant from God or feeling like God’s hand of favor is not on your life… but none of us knows what it is to be forsaken by God.

Even people who shake their fists in the face of God and defy him experience good gifts from him.

He wakes them up every morning.
He fills their lungs with breath.

On the cross, Jesus experienced something we can only dimly imagine… and that is the horror of what it would be to be utterly forsaken by God —

complete spiritual darkness
spiritual aloneness
utter forsakeness
utter abandonment
utter hopelessness

That’s why in the Garden of Gethsemane he said,

My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. (Mark 14:34)

The sorrow was so great on him at that point that he thought he might die.

You see, his physical suffering was nothing compared to this.

He was mistreated by the authorities.
He was mocked by the crowds.
He was abandoned, deserted, and betrayed by his best friends.

But his real suffering was a spiritual suffering that you and I can hardly imagine.

The writers of Scripture say that on the cross:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. (Galatians 3:13)

He experienced supernatural suffering and guilt that you and I will never know… so that you and I can experience a supernatural healing and forgiveness that we could never earn.

Now this leads to the second aspect of the cross — the power of the cross.

It was very apparent to onlookers that what took place on the cross when Jesus died was an act of extraordinary, spiritual power.

We’re told in Scripture that when Jesus hung on the cross, the land became dark. It was kind of expressing the spiritual darkness that was going on.

And then the earth shook.

We’re told that when he died there was a veil in the temple that closed off what was called the Holy of Holies, this place where God was thought to dwell in a special way. So a veil sealed it off, and only a high priest could go in there, and only once a year.

And when Jesus died that veil was ripped in two, top to bottom.

A centurion looked up at the cross and said, “Truly this is the Son of God!”

This is an act of extraordinary spiritual power… and I want us to understand the kind of power that was released on the cross.

First, there was the power of forgiveness because on that one man, on Jesus Christ, on the cross, was the collective guilt of the human race, including your guilt and mine.

Your guilt was on the cross with Jesus.
My guilt was on the cross with Jesus.
Your sin was on the cross with Jesus.
My sin was on the cross with Jesus.

And so the writers of Scripture say — the blood of Jesus cleanses us from every sin.

And this means you, whatever you’ve done, can be utterly forgiven by God.

You can walk out of here this morning with a clean conscience.
You can just be a washed child of his.

Why?

Not because you’ve earned it or deserve it or have been so good. It’s just the power of the cross. It’s the power of access to God.

When that veil was ripped in two, what that expressed was people thought of this holy place where God dwelt as something that people couldn’t get to because of their sin.

And when that was ripped in two, it was like God was saying, “You know what? I just want you to have full access to me. You come to me anytime you want to. You just live in my presence all the time.”

That’s nothing to be taken for granted.

Even in this world we don’t get access to real powerful people very often.

We took our kids to Disneyland when they were little.

We were hanging out where the Disney celebrities come out.

When Minnie Mouse came out, she got mobbed.

All the kids wanted the same thing from Minnie Mouse.

They didn’t want stuff from her. They didn’t want her to say anything. Do you know what they all wanted her to do?

Touch them.

All the kids were jumping up and down. They kept saying, “Touch me. Touch me.” They just wanted to be touched.

We saw Goofy later. All the kids were jumping up and down and saying, “Touch me. Touch me.” They just wanted to be touched.

We saw Cinderella and all the little girls were jumping up and down, “Touch me.”

Later we saw Chris Hemsworth, and all the grown women were jumping up and down…

No we didn’t see Chris Hemsworth, but if we did, I’m sure all the women would want him to touch them.

You see, even in this world, we don’t have access to powerful and famous people very much.

And the human race lives under the sad truth that we’re sinful, and God is holy, and that we’ve been cut off from him.

“And on the cross,” God says, “the veil is ripped in two. You approach my throne, the throne of grace, with boldness.”

If you ever need wisdom.
If you ever need guidance.
If you ever get discouraged and need comfort.
If you ever get lonely and need a friend.

God says, “You just come to me anytime.” Fallen and sin-stained as you and I are, God says, “You come to me anytime.”

Where do we get the power to do that?

It’s from the cross.

The cross is also the power of reconciliation.

People can be reconciled, not just to God, but to other people.

Paul was writing to a church at Ephesus, and in Jesus’ day, the biggest enemies were Jewish people and Gentiles.

They would crucify each other.
They were bitter enemies.
They wouldn’t speak to one another.
They wouldn’t eat together.

And Paul said when he was writing to this church that when Jesus Christ died on the cross…

He made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. (Ephesians 2:14)

On the cross Jesus tore down what Paul describes as the dividing wall of hostility that had separated Jewish people from Gentile people.

It was torn down, and people that had been bitter enemies could become brothers and sisters.

It happened as a matter of historical fact in the church.

And it still does. It still happens today:

black and white
male and female
estranged people
parents and children
husband and wife

When they discover that the ground is level at the foot of the cross, and there’s really only one kind of people — people loved and made by God in his image, people fallen in sin, people redeemed by the death of Christ on the cross — then people get reconciled.

What makes that happen?

The power of the cross.

Then there’s victory over evil.

Another amazing thing that happened on the cross Paul writes about when he writes to the Colossian church.

He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:14-15)

He says that when Jesus died, he disarmed spiritual powers and authorities opposed to God. Jesus made a public spectacle of them on the cross.

That’s what the people thought they were doing to Jesus — making a public spectacle of him, shaming and humiliating him.

But when Jesus died on the cross, he was really showing the ultimate triumph of the self-sacrificing love of God and saying any darkness that tries to stand in the way of that will be defeated.

Sin and guilt and death were ultimately defeated on the cross.

That’s the power of victory over sin.

Part of what that means is…

You don’t have to be defeated by sin.
You can begin to change.
You can begin to experience transformation even in this fallen world.
You don’t have to be trapped or stuck.

Why not?

Because of the power of the cross.

That’s why for 2,000 years, at the center of the Christian faith stands not a candle, not a star, but a cross!

That’s why the apostle Paul says,

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,

To them the cross just stands for humiliation and death. And what they’re after is victory and abundance and status.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)

Jesus said some of the most sobering words ever recorded in human history, words that have changed more lives than any other words. He said:

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)

So now I ask you: Have you chosen to be a man or woman of the cross?

Have you?

Have you told God privately in your heart, “Every day when I get up, God, I’ll take up my cross. I’ll be a follower of Jesus. And whatever is in my life that is displeasing or dishonoring to you, I’ll crucify it.”

Have you become a man of the cross, a woman of the cross?

You can go down different roads if you want to.

You can be a person of wealth
Or a person of status
Or a person of power
Or a person of pleasure
Or a person of comfort

A lot of you have the kind of resources, the kind of abilities, the kind of gifts. You can walk a long way down those roads if you want to… and you can accumulate a lot of the kind of symbols that say you’ve won in this world.

Or will you have the courage and the character to say:

I’m going to be a man of the cross.
I’m going to be a woman of the cross.
I’ll take up my cross today.
I will seek to live my life with a self-sacrificing, self-giving love.
And I’ll mess up sometimes, but tomorrow I’ll take up the cross again.
And the next day I’ll take up the cross again.
And as best I can, with God helping me, I will live as a man of the cross, as a woman of the cross until the end of my life comes.
And then I will receive fullness of life from the one who gave his life on the cross for my sake.

Before our time together here is over, we’re going to take communion together.

And I think it’s really important to remember that the first time Jesus served the Lord supper it was to a group of highly flawed, highly imperfect people. It was a meal for people who had failed.

Show of hands — how many of you have ever failed in your life?

How many of you would say, “I’ve never failed but the person next to me sure has?”

The bread and the cup are for people who have failed. It’s for immoral people. It’s for people who have made mistakes with their lives. It’s for people who have hurt others and who have darkness inside of their hearts.

It was for people like Judas, people carrying secrets that no one else knows about, even those closest to you.

It was for people like Peter who brag about their spiritual commitment and their spiritual maturity, only to fail to live up to them.

I want to encourage you in this service and in the coming week to do a little more self examination than normal and to acknowledge those imperfections and those sins and bring them to the God who invites imperfect people like you and me to this table of grace.

Sometimes we just need to slow down long enough to see and feel our sins.

Today is a tremendous opportunity to begin that exercise. Slow down long enough to do a heart examination.

I’m not just talking to those of you who are searching for God right now in your life, and I know many of you are, but I’m also talking to those of you who are already followers of Jesus but maybe we’ve gotten a little careless and a little sloppy and haven’t been paying attention to the subtle compromises that are working their way into our lives.

It can happen so fast can’t it?

Those little excursions with your thought life.
Those little white lies we tell to cover our tracks and to save us some embarrassment.
Those little flirtations with immorality.
Those little sins kind of get a grip on us bit by bit.

Because I’ve been there, I know how you think in a moment like that. Many of you, you don’t want to slow down long enough to really examine your sins and enter into that experience because it is going to force you to deal with that.

This kind of rebellious resistance in us says, “Don’t make me deal with that,” and you wear masks with family and friends, those closest to you, because you don’t want them to know.

But the longer you wait the more and more layers get built between you and God and the further and further away you feel.

The more you pray it feels like your prayers aren’t getting any higher than the ceiling. Times like this kind of become moments to endure — just get it over rather than enjoy inducing life giving opportunity for your soul.

A Sunday School teacher had this rebellious, disruptive, mischievous little guy in her class and she couldn’t do anything with him and finally one day in her frustration she grabbed hold of him, shook him and said, “Young man I believe the Devil’s got a hold of you!”

He looked at her and said, “I believe he does, too.”

What has got a hold of you?

What has got a hold of your thoughts? What has got a hold of your behaviors and your words that really shouldn’t have a hold of you?

The God who invites us into a relationship with him knows about our imperfection. He knows about our moral wrongdoings twelve years ago, he knows about our moral wrongdoings twelve hours ago and that’s why we need the event of the cross to touch our souls.

I think deep down we all long for that.

I think God brought some of you here to say to you, “You may have given up on me but I haven’t given up on you.”

God brought you here to say, “You may not believe in me but I believe in you and I want to invite you who are distracted, I want to invite you who are imperfect, I want to invite you to look my way this week and remember.”

That’s hard for many of you who grew up in a performance based home, where you had to achieve, where you had to get the A’s or you didn’t feel like you were valuable and you didn’t feel like you mattered.

That’s hard for some of you who grew up in a home where you didn’t have a father who knew how to demonstrate love. He demonstrated maybe the opposite to you.

But you have a heavenly father who has gone to an incredible extent to love you. You have a God who sent his one and only son and he watched him die on a cross and he watched him be buried in a tomb because that God couldn’t bear the thought of spending forever without you at his side.

It’s that God who invites you today says, “Whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve become, it doesn’t matter! Please come home.”

Jesus knew that disciples, who would watch him whipped, beaten and nailed to a cross, who would watch him suffer, who would watch him die, who would watch him be buried in a tomb… he knew over time that they would forget the significance of those days.

Because sometimes something that’s so familiar to us, that we’ve seen and heard a thousand times, there’s this familiarity about it that can make it less significant.

A pastor friend of mine told me a story about taking his daughter to a passion play that was being put on by another church in his community. It was a tremendous play, and he had his tickets right down on the front row. He had his six-year-old daughter with him.

And he said he remembers getting to the scene of the crucifixion and it was so violent. He’s sitting next to his daughter thinking, “Oh man, I don’t know if she can handle this.”

There was Jesus and the two others up on crosses in nothing but a loin cloth, and blood is flowing and he’s worried about his daughter.

And she looked at him and said, “Dad.” He said, “Yeah hunny?” She said, “Do you think they’re cold?”

Do you think they are cold? His daughter is distracted wondering if they are cold.

A few moments later the cross was lowered, they look his lifeless, limp body off the cross and they marched his body right by my friend and his daughter and they took the body to a tomb.

Behind this kind of death march, this funeral procession, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is following and she’s wailing and weeping.

Again he’s worried about his daughter… and she looked up at him and said, “Dad.” He said, “Yeah hunny?” She said, “I’ve heard this story a thousand times.”

You know one of the haunting fears I live with? Maybe you do, too. It’s that I’ve heard this story a thousand times, and maybe I would miss out on remembering him as he asked me to do.

Jesus invited his disciples to eat this bread and drink this cup… so that they could taste and touch and see and hear and smell, so that if they were doing it for the thousandth time they would remember as if it were the first time.

I think if Jesus were here, we know he is here in the spirit, but if he were here in body, I think he would say to us hurry junkies in the room, “This is a gift to you. This week is an invitation for distracted people to slow down. It is an invitation for imperfect people to open themselves up to God’s activity in your life. It is an invitation to remember.”

So as we take communion together today, this is not a moment to perform. It’s not a moment to prove something. It’s simply a moment to remember… and to receive.

If you’re someone who has placed your trust in Jesus, even if that trust feels small or incomplete, communion is open to you.

And if you’re still exploring, still asking questions, still unsure what you believe, you’re free to simply observe. There’s no pressure to participate.

As you take the bread, remember that his body was given.
As you take the cup, remember that his blood was poured out.

And as you do, take a moment — not just to think about it… but to receive what it represents.

Let’s take a moment and pray together.

We’re going to invite you to exit your row to the left, come forward, receive the bread and the cup, and then return to your seat on the right side of your row. That just helps everything move smoothly.