The Sign of Mystery
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Luke 23:33 When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… It was about nine o’clock on that first Good Friday morning when that gruesome little parade travelled up the road to where three crosses were prepared. The procession which featured a bloodied, beaten mess of a man finally reached Calvary. And that is where that bloodied, beaten mess of a man, our Lord Jesus Christ, was crucified.
Some of the men began to dig the hole for the cross. When they were done, the crosspieces, which had been prepared ahead of time, were fitted together. Then they laid Jesus’ body on the beams. Another man positioned the first nail – the size of a railroad spike – on our Lord’s hand, then raised the large hammer and drove that spike home. Perhaps it took more than a few swings before he moved on to the second spike in the other hand… And finally a third spike was driven through both feet at the same time.
It is also possible that Jesus’ arms and feet may have been bound tight with ropes because the nails might not hold the body racked with pain. Then some soldiers raised the cross upright, and there was a dull thud as it fell into the hole dug for it. Blood started to flow from our Lord’s hands and feet. The aching, tearing pain of crucifixion continued toward its unthinkable and horrible end.
Ever since Calvary there have been thousands of people in the world who have tried to make Christianity reasonable. Countless books have been written on the evidences of Christianity. These books have been designed to prove that, after all, Christianity is a very reasonable thing, that you can think it through, that it appeals to thought processes and logic.
But much of this is very dangerous nonsense; and the reason is that Christianity is not reasonable, at least not in the normal sense of the word. It is true, of course, that we can move around inside it by intellectual processes. We can formulate doctrines which are an exact reflection of the teachings of Holy Scripture. We can reason from one proposition to another as theologians have done for thousands of years. We can work out conclusions on the basis of the inspired Word of God.
But the great basic truths of the Christian faith and confession are always and forever beyond human reason. We cannot prove them by the ordinary laws of thought. As we examine our Christian faith, we go farther and farther until, ultimately, we always come to a jumping-off place. We arrive at the place where reason ends.
Calvary is that kind of place – a place of mystery, a place of wonder. Calvary is the final, burning focal point of the strange heavenly ways of God. We must always remember this as we come to the Cross ourselves or when we try to bring others into its healing shadow.
Here, where we are now standing on the edge of the crowd at Calvary, is the ultimate mystery – it is the mystery of the Cross. This is the riddle of God which can be solved only by God and in God and through God’s Word. Admittedly, this just does not make any sense, at least not humanly speaking. This scene is not reasonable – this cross, this mob, and God hanging on that cross. And as we ponder this, the first question that comes to mind is, What is behind all this? How did it happen?
The answer, of course, does not come from reason, but from faith. Here we are, face to face, as nowhere else in time and history, with the mystery of the evil in man, the last, dark, bitter mystery of sin.
Many centuries ago, St. Anselm, a 9th Century Benedictine monk and Christian philosopher, said to a young man who had his doubts and misgivings about the Christian Gospel: “You have not yet considered the seriousness of sin.” He could very easily and accurately say that to us still today.
It is true that our minds do not like to consider the seriousness of sin. We feel that, on average, we are fairly good people. Our friends are fairly good people. People of other races and nations may sometimes be bad, but not us. We need to get rid of this burden of guilt. We must move forward. We must trust in the essential goodness of mankind. We must believe in our power to remake our environment. We must try to lift ourselves by our bootstraps into a new and better world.
The pill is a complete benefit for those people uk tadalafil who cannot make their erection hard adequate to be in a position to engage in sexual activity. The Treatment Options The treatment options that are available sildenafil viagra generico http://deeprootsmag.org/2013/12/06/cuddle-time/ involve several different routes. More time spent on four play to enhance sexual arousal is a levitra on line general solution. Certain substances like alcohol, fatty foods and grapefruits do not allow the drug to viagra 25 mg act properly, so avoid them.
But while standing at the foot of the Cross, all of that is seen for what it truly is: ignorance and nonsense. Here at the foot of our Lord’s cross we stand face to face with the mystery and power and devastation of sin. This is not a crowd of unreasonable, thoughtless men. This is a mob of bad men, evil men, and they have come to crucify their God. The man hanging on the cross was in His early 30’s. He had committed no crimes.
For three years Jesus had been engaged in an amazing mission of healing and love, preaching repentance and salvation in Himself as being the very fulfillment and fruition of all of the Old Testament prophecies. He had gone about doing good, healing the sick, raising the dead, preaching peace and eternal life. And what did He get for his troubles? Those to whom He preached and for whom He did all those good and marvelous things were now killing Him, and they couldn’t wait for it to be over. The last thing Jesus saw of humanity before He died was a mob of screaming faces. The last thing He heard was a curse. The last thing He knew was hate and pain.
And so, we turn again to God’s Holy Word to find the answer to the mystery. We believe and understand from Holy Scripture that sin is always hate; it is first of all hatred of God, but also hatred of man. It is the breaking down of all connections between heaven and earth. It is the separation of God from man and man from man. And in this we discover the reason for the cross. It is the end of our long separation, our loneliness, our wandering, and our transgression.
Sinful mankind is loved by God who provides for all our needs of body and soul, and we throw it out the window. We were promised a heavenly home, and we turned away from it in hate and sin. We had a Friend once, and we left Him to die on the cross because of all our sins. The cross is only the last and ultimate expression of the dark terror in our souls, the bitterness of our lives, and all the brutality and tyranny and injustice and greed which has piled up since Paradise Lost.
So, having stared into the darkness of our sin, we now turn back to the Cross; and there we begin to see light shining into our darkness. Things are become clearer.
What is it that keeps Jesus on the cross? Was it the three nails? Those metal spikes fashioned by human hands couldn’t possibly pin down God. There must be something else which holds Him to His dying…
And there is. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, is there on the cross because He wants to be there; He decided to be there; He willed this event and deliberately allowed Himself to be nailed to that cross. He had planned to hang there from the very foundation of the world. And so it is neither the nails nor the ropes that hold Him to His dying. It is His pure, perfect, and eternal love for you and me and all mankind, and nothing else.
And that, dear fellow redeemed, is the miracle and the mystery of forgiveness – that God in Christ CHOSE to be there on that cross in order to pay for your sins, all of them. He CHOSE to be tortured and mutilated and killed in this exact way in order to suffer and die for your sins, all of them. And that is both the horror of sin and the love God has for you. It is all strangely simple with the profound simplicity of God.
Some say that Christianity is a very complex thing, and they find it difficult to maneuver their way through its message. We, however, can never forget that all of it is in two sentences and that all of it is terribly personal. There is, first, always the cry of the defeated soul: “God be merciful to me, a miserable sinner.” Then there is always the answering prayer and cry of Jesus our Lord and Savior, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This is the whole story. Christianity is always the story of people who know that, as St. Paul writes, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God, through His only-begotten Son, gave us life and peace.
Indeed, sin placed Jesus on the cross – your sin, my sin, the sin of the whole world and of people in every time and place. But Christ went there willingly, and lovingly, because it was the only way – the perfect way – to pay for all those sins.
And we get to go home from here tonight having heard again that Christ took our place on that cross; Christ suffered our suffering; Christ died our death. And in ten short days we will celebrate with abandon His resurrection from the dead – which is our resurrection too.
Everything that Christ has is ours. In Him we live forever.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
