Before we begin today, I think it is worth taking a few moments to reflect on some things taking place around us right now.
First, this past Friday was the 19th anniversary of 9/11. That September morning in 2001 was a dark day in the life of our nation; it was a dark day for humanity. It was shocking and jolting. It was a graphic and flagrant manifestation of evil. It was hard to fathom how people could be so filled with hatred, anger, and a disregard for others.
Part of the reason it shocked us was because it made us face the reality the humanity is not able to think, reason, or progress beyond the capacity of evil to destroy. It brought us face to face with the reality that people are not necessarily good. For Christians, the specifics of the 9/11 attacks were shocking and surprising; but understanding depraved hearts conceived and executed the plan was not new or surprising.
Many people were quick to blame God for 9/11; as in, “Where was God that morning?” We sometimes act as if we have the expectation that God is going to make things ok for me, for us, at all points. When things go wrong or in a way we do not like, we begin to question God’s goodness, faithfulness, or love for us. That was 9/11.
Second, the smoke that has made our air unhealthy has come from overwhelming wildfires that are raging across the west coast. A number of our families have loved ones who have been evacuated or are likely to be evacuated to get out of the way of flames that are not contained in any way.
We have some experience with deadly wildfires. It is terrifying to realize just how little control we actually have over the world we work so hard to manage. All the things we invest so much time and energy to acquire, treasure and preserve can be gone in a few moments.
Many people are quick to be angry with God for the damages and losses. “If God is good,” they reason, “why would He take everything from me?” We take God’s blessings for granted, believing that because once we were blessed, God is required to always and perpetually bless us. When something is taken away, we feel like God has cheated us.
Third, we are continuing in the midst of this pandemic. I am not going to belabor this point because you all know what it feels like. People are exhausted with loneliness and despair, like this virus is never going to leave. They want God to make it go away and “let us get back to normal.” We wonder why God would allow something like this to happen.
Fourth, there is the election. We are in a season when the very fabric of the nation seems to be tearing apart. There does not seem to be much binding us together any longer. We worry about the integrity of the voting, we worry about the integrity of the process and how many things are being manipulated by forces acting in secret. We worry about other nations tampering. We are confident that the other party – whichever that other party is – is trying to steal the election. How does this happen? If we sing “God bless America,” God should bless America, right? We expect God to bless us no matter what we decide or how we act, right? That’s how it is supposed to work, right?
Of course not.
My point in this introduction is that we are in a time when we are hearing and seeing people have a lot of expectations of God with very few inclinations to submit to God. We wonder why God seems so far away when we need Him. We count on God to act according to our expectations and, well, consider how we treat God when God does not act according to our expectations. That’s where we get to our text today.
Read Mark 15:21-47
This is the Word of the LORD.
It might sound strange, but this is actually a wonderful passage to preach. As I mentioned last week it is important to see these events on multiple levels so that we can appreciate the great love God has revealed for us in Jesus Christ. This is the pinnacle of God’s love expressed. We look at these verses every year during the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, so this may be familiar territory for many of you. Nonetheless I want to go through some of the detail so that we can marvel at “how much higher God’s thoughts are than ours.”
In order to appreciate why this is good news and why it is called “Good Friday,” we need to know that Mark considered this to be Jesus’ coronation ceremony. We need to read it with that in mind.
As Americans we have at least a passing curiosity about royalty. We watch and wonder about the Queen of England. Most people are aware of that there are highly structured, highly detailed, highly formal etiquette requirements that all her events follow. Everything – literally everything – is planned such that any minor variation or deviation is noticed. I have seen articles online this year parsing the meaning of specific pieces of jewelry that the Queen wears, “was she secretly signaling her support for Megan Markle?” Every word, every movement, every meeting has meaning and significance. If you recall Prince Harry’s wedding or Prince William’s wedding, you may gain the appreciation for how much protocol is involved in a royal procession like they had.
The same is true for Jesus. I can see your raised eyebrows. Really? The mob arrest, the kangaroo court at the high priest’s, the sham trial before Pilate, the torture and everything else is part of the protocol for the royal procession of the Messiah?
Yes.
I. The Royal Procession
Everyone played their parts. Everything went according to plan. Let me bang through some of the details:
- They compelled Simon, father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. Ordinarily, a prisoner would carry his own cross. The soldiers were continuing the joke; as in, “It’s not right for a king to be burdened with manual labor.”[1]
- They offered Jesus wine mixed with myrrh. This drink would have worked like a narcotic to minimize the pain Jesus was experiencing during the crucifixion process. Jesus refused it. Why? Mark did not tell us, but it seems as if Jesus needed to experience the fullness of God’s wrath as part of his role as savior and redeemer.
- Mark wrote that Jesus was crucified at the third hour – meaning the third hour after dawn. Time served an important role in Mark’s narrative. He used words like immediately, suddenly, as soon as, and at once as cues to the larger truth of the dawning and in-breaking of the kingdom of God. So it is with the time markers in this passage of the crucifixion. If you recall last week and the beginning of Chapter 15, the chief priests brought Jesus to Pilate very early in the morning. Pilate brought Jesus in front of the crowd, mockingly declared Jesus to be King of the Jews, and then handed him over to be crucified. The soldiers prepared Jesus for the parade to the cross. They put a robe on him and fashioned a crown of thorns. They mock saluted him, “Hail, King of the Jews.” By the third hour of that same day, Jesus was on the cross – the throne. Think about how quickly that happened.
- Additionally, there is significance in the word “hour.” This is that This is the hour that judgment on sin takes place.
- Then, they put the charge against Jesus on the cross with him, “The King of the Jews.” It was meant to mock Jesus, the chief priests, the leadership of the temple, and the people. In short, it was a Roman taunt against God’s people. Their taunt only served to highlight God’s victory.
- They crucified him with two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. This seems like a stigma of shame – but it is rather an indication of his glory. Mark’s gospel does not have a scene of the risen Jesus in glory. The closest picture of Jesus’ glory was during the transfiguration when Jesus appeared between Moses and Elijah. This, however, explains Jesus’ response in Chapter 10 when James and John asked to be on his right and his left when Jesus comes into his glory. Ron Kernaghan observed, “Is it not the very essence of his ministry that he identified with sinners and placed his life irrevocably in God’s hands? The stunning glory of the Messiah is that he gave his life to ransom sinners. Once again what appears to be further mockery turns out to be an ironic statement of truth.”[2]
- The taunting continued. Interestingly, we get confirmation that Jesus did affirm his identify because the chief priests, scribes, and elders continue to sarcastically refer to him as the Messiah and King of Israel – note: not King of the Jews, they used the covenantal language of Israel. There would have been no point to their doing so if Jesus had not made it clear to them that he was claiming those titles for himself.
- The fullness of the taunting that included the others crucified with him is the ultimate picture of God’s love revealed for us. Paul wrote it this way in Romans 5, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
- When it was noon – or, more literally translated, at the sixth hour – darkness came over the land until three in the afternoon. No words, no taunting, no action is recorded beyond the darkness. There is the sense of silence – and dark silence at that. Here, we have is the mystery of the incarnation: the Holy One of God, the Messiah, having taken upon himself the sins of the people, now enduring what is described in Deuteronomy, accursed by God hanging on a tree and utterly alone.
Jesus cried out from the cross with the words from Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is important because it moves from the despair of isolation from God to restoration and praise. It moves from, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” to “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.”
- After crying out Jesus died. He breathed his last. At the point of his death the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
- Then we get the centurion’s confession. Peter’s confession in Chapter 8 was Israel’s confession, here we get the confession of the gentiles, the people, the nations.
The procession to the cross was God’s plan for the coronation of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords. From a human perspective, it was a picture of failure and defeat. The circumstances would not lead any human to any other conclusion. But not God – for God, this was the victory parade of love establishing the kingdom Jesus proclaimed.
Friends, this is the issue we have in our world right now. Circumstances are dire. People do not want to believe. They say they would be willing to believe if things are proven to them through empirical means; however, that is not faith. Augustine famously wrote that “I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.” The writer of Hebrews taught, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things NOT seen.” The glory and beauty of the cross can only be seen through the eyes of faith – that is, believing what Jesus said it meant. Without those eyes of faith, the cross can only be what the Romans intended it to be: a horror show of humiliation, despair, and defeat.
With the eyes of faith our verses today are the very foundation of the good news. This is why Jesus came. This is what the Messiah was always intended to do. God reached down through the darkness and the brokenness of sin to redeem us from the consequences of our own rebellion. God did it. For me. For you. For us. For his children. For his kingdom. God did it.
The practical application today is that we are to share this message with a world desperate to hear good news. We have been commanded, commissioned, and charged to share by bearing witness. We can only bear witness to what we know: the gospel we have received and its application in our own lives. Yet we are to share regardless of whether the world will receive and accept it.
Further, now is the time when we need to be sharing the gospel with others. We need to share it when times look most bleak, when circumstances would point to any other outcome, and when it seems like things cannot get any better and it is hard to imagine them any worse. In the time when there are no real obvious pathways forward, here is the one real way, the one real truth, the one real life.
II. Sunday is Coming
Our verses today – if Mark simply stopped the gospel here – would not look like good news. Mark did not stop the gospel here. There is a Chapter 16. I do not want to rush to get there before next Sunday, but I also am not going to pretend it is not there. Jesus told the disciples there would be a chapter 16. It was just tough to believe and tough to imagine as they watched him hang on the cross.
Tony Campollo tells the story of his home church; a predominantly African-American congregation. He talks about how responsive is the congregation during speaker’s presentations. He talked about a time when he got up to speak in the church, got a great response from the congregation, and sat down next to his preacher feeling pretty good about himself. He said to the preacher, “Pastor, it’s your turn. How are you going to top that?” The pastor smiled and got up. Campollo said that the pastor’s message had a one line theme, but it told the whole story.
“It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.”
Brothers and sisters, please make note of this: what Christ did in his walk of obedience and his death on the cross was profoundly life changing. It was history changing. It changed everything.
What Christ did on the cross almost two thousand years ago changed my life. Yes, I was born in a Christian family and knew about Jesus and the Bible stories from a time as young as I can remember. But I also had a time when I had to engage the truth of the gospel personally and truly – I was convicted that Jesus took my sin on the cross. For me, that moment of truth came during a time preparing to be received into membership in Westminster Presbyterian Church in West Chester, PA. It came when I realized that I could give the session correct answers to their Bible questions, but I had to be ready to say, “I believe.” In order to say, “I believe,” I had to take a good hard look at my life – to look at my life the way God sees my life – and what I saw was the sin described in the Bible. What I saw were my futile efforts to justify myself, to make myself righteous by the things I did and the way I presented myself to people. What I saw was the struggle I was losing trying to do things without Jesus and there – for the first time, really and truly – I understood my need for a savior. I understood the tax collector beating on his chest. I understood the woman telling Jesus, “Even the dogs eat the scraps from the children’s table.” I understood the father saying, “I believe, help my unbelief.” I understood all over those expressions of brokenness and failure, and I prayed, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I said yes to the promise.
What was that promise? Jesus was accursed on the cross for me. What we see of Jesus on the cross is what was meant for me; it is what sinners should get. Instead, Jesus took on himself what was meant for me.
I have not lived a perfect life since then. I have sinned. I have rebelled. I have been proud and I have chosen selfishness over the needs of others. I have defended what’s mine and I have looked down on others who have fallen. I confess that to you and I confess that to God each and every time I pray; often several times a day.
All that being true, I am not consumed by despair. Why? I am not consumed by despair because I have the hope that is given me through the promise of grace in Jesus Christ. Growing up, I heard the phrasing “cleaving unto Christ,” and I had the mental image of holding onto Christ with every ounce of energy I have. What I have come to understand is that cleaving unto Christ is good; but the truth is that Christ has ahold of me. He is the author of my faith – the pioneer. He also is the perfecter of my faith. He will bring unto completion that which he has begun in me. It has not been completed yet – as I stand here before you – but I am his work in progress. I still know the reality of Friday; in so many ways, I am still in the midst of Friday. But he is here with me. Sunday is coming.
What Christ did on the cross almost two thousand years ago changes how we see things in the world today. Would you agree we are in a Friday time right now? The natural world is in chaos. The human world is in chaos. But as dark, as awful, as despairing as the picture is right now, I am telling you that there is more to say. It’s Friday. Sunday is coming.
Even on that Friday, there was reason to hope – even if no one around the cross remembered. The centurion saw it –this Roman soldier who was given eyes of faith to see, “When the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’” The centurion’s confession is our confession. Jesus was the Son of God who had told the disciples multiple times, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”
Jesus was describing God’s royal parade. Pilate declared him king. The soldiers robed him and crowned him and set him on the throne. They raised him on the cross between two sinners. The chief priests and scribes’ taunts proclaimed him Messiah. To them, his death looked like the end. They were not looking to see God.
However, like the centurion, when we stand facing Jesus, we too declare, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” And we know: Sunday is coming.
Amen.
[1] Ron Kernaghan, IVP New Testament Commentary, Mark, p. 330.
[2] Ibid, p. 330-331.