Our Crucified Lord

(Passion Narrative)

A. Introduction

We’ve spent the Lenten season asking ourselves of Jesus: What kind of king is he; what kind of kingdom is he ushering in? And what does he expect of his subjects? Of us?
The latter first, what does he expect of his subjects? Had we had church last week, we would have learned (and there are hard copies of the text in the back), we would have learned that on the night before he died, Christ taught his disciples and us four things:

A “New commandment that we love one another.”
Through his example in the washing of feet, that we serve one another.
That we love him by obeying his commandments. Love one another, serve one another, love Christ by keeping his commandments.
And four, we learned in his garden prayer, “Not my will but thine be done.” That we love God by submitting to his will. Love one another, serve one another, love Christ by keeping his commandments, love God by submitting to his will.

B. Body

What kind of king is this? He was first a very flesh and blood king. Christ was fully human and as such fully suffered for us on the cross. But by the end of the first century, the first heresy of the church arose. The Greek influence was saying that God would never submit to the cruelty of the cross. It was stamped out by Jesus’ followers. The disciples knew and John especially knew because they had seen him in the flesh, they had touched him. John said, “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (1 John 1). John was standing there with Jesus’ mother and saw him on the cross, he witnessed the issuing of the water and blood from his side when the spear was thrust into his side. John knew, John knew that Jesus was flesh and blood and there was no limit to how far this king would go to love us, to forgive us, to reconcile us, to restore the breach between God and us.

It is one thing to sacrifice.
It is quite another to lay down one’s life for us.
And yet another to do it by suffering the cruelest for of pain devised by man—for us. Nails driven directly through his nerves. Excruciating pain as he lifts his body to grasp for air only to do it again for hours until there is no strength, no breath left and he dies a terrifying death of suffocation. Excruciating, a word derived from the cross itself. And all that after he had been scourged, flogged, bits of metal and bone stripping the flesh and muscle as he was whipped again and again. Yes, it is quite another thing to under go the cruelty of crucifixion.
Then it’s even another thing to suffer the indignation of being hung on a tree, cursed by God, taking the whole of sin on oneself, being so ugly with sin that for a moment he was forsaken by God. Yet Jesus would say even to the God who had forsaken him, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

A king who loves without limit.
A king who would put himself through any circumstance, and suffering, any injury, any sickness, any guilt, any shame, even death itself to be able to say “I know what you’ve been through, I’ve felt it too and I forgive you.”
There’s a story of a man and wife who early in their marriage, the wife was unfaithful and for over 20 years could never forgive herself, living with guilt and shame that was a deep scar on their relationship, creating a void, a breach between them. Their relationship was never again the same. After 20 years, one day working in the garden together, the man said, “Dear, you know I love, I forgive you.” “How dare you, how dare you forgive me. You have no right to forgive me.”
In Jesus we have one who dared to be the kind of king who could forgive me in any circumstance because he had experienced every circumstance even being forsaken by God.

C. Close

Our closing him, “When I survey the Wondrous Cross,” closes, “His love demands my life, my soul, my all.” How dare we not give him our all.
Let us close together, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” Amen.