The Cross

Matthew 27:33ff

The cross is at the center of our faith. I had a brilliant theology teacher who regularly insisted to preachers that every message should somehow end with the cross. He practiced that even when he taught Sunday School! That cross led to resurrection, but without the cross, the resurrection would be meaningless. And had the cross been the final word, we would not have heard of Jesus today.

I always think of Paul's life of Christ in a nutshell found in Philippians 2:5ff. The pre-existing Christ was willing to empty Himself to become human (the mystery of the infinite becoming finite!), and not a powerful human, but a servant who was obedient to His Divine Master even to the extent of dying the horrible, disgusting, and shameful death on a cross.

Pilate had given in to mob rule. He allowed he crowd to dictate his decision to send Jesus to the cross. Part of that process was scourging, a vicious whipping that killed many who could not endure it. Then Jesus was compelled to carry the crossbeam (the upright remained in the ground from its last use), but broke under its weight. A man named Simeon was recruited to carry it for him. Incidentally, that man may be mentioned at the end of Paul's letter to the Romans.

The soldiers dropped the crossbeam into place and nailed Jesus to that cross. Scripture says they placed a sign over him as was the custom to show why this man was being executed. The charge Pilate had placed was: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. In many art works you will see the letters INRI above the crucified Christ. They are Latin letters, and Latin had no J, but used I where we would expect J. So INRI abbreviates Jesus of Nazareth, King (Rex) of the Jews.

Part of Jesus's humiliation were the taunts of bystanders, including “the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. One sign of their spiritual bankruptcy was their trash talking and mocking the dying man – for that matter, any dying man.

Then from noon until three in the afternoon darkness covered the land. Night fell early, symbolizing the temporary reign of evil. In fact, there has been no darker day in history. In the midst of that darkness, Jesus called out, “Eli,Eli, why have you forsaken me.” Some of the crowd thought he was calling on Elijah to save Him. Actually, He was quoting Psalm 22, which tracks the crucifixion experience remarkably well to have been composed centuries before. It's another example of Jesus leaning on scripture, especially Psalms and Isaiah. I do wonder whether Jesus was only grabbing hold of the opening half of the Psalm that describes the intense pain He was going through. If He was referring us to the whole chapter, in verse 23, the writer turns a corner and pledges to proclaim the deliverance by the Lord and praise Him. In other words the Psalm that begins in pain, ends in victory.

At that point, Jesus died. His last words were, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” Note that He really did die. His heart quit beating and He lost consciousness as far as this world is concerned. There was a strong movement in the first century from those influenced by Greek religion to believe easily that Jesus was divine. They had trouble believing He was really human, because to them spirit was good and matter was evil.

Standard orthodox theology states that Jesus was fully God and fully man. Only as a human who did not sin could He offer Himself as a sacrifice for sinful humanity. But always remember through the resurrection God vetoed sin and death and hell, proclaiming that He has the last word and final victory.

Matthew then tells us the temple curtain was split in two from top to bottom. He apparently meant the curtain that hid the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the temple, from view. That was a thick curtain, comparable to a theater curtain today. Traditionally that ripping declared that access to God was now open to all through Jesus.

With all of this, an earthquake rocked the whole area, and even the graves cracked open. Many dead people came alive for awhile, “holy” people, and appeared to people in the city – I would guess loved ones. Why this happened, I have no clue. Let me know if it's revealed to you.

Finally, the centurion in charge of the crucifixion detail, after experiencing all this commented, “Surely this was the Son of God.” Note a hard-boiled Roman soldier was moved by this Man, whom the Jewish religious leaders despised. As usual, the Bible gives us a choice, but demands that you choose.