Sermon for March 25th (Crucifixion and Resurrection)

                We start today at the cross.  Not in the garden.  Not at creation.  Not before the fall.  But with a man hanging, from his hands and feet, by nails hammered into his very bones, until his lungs collapsed under the weight of his own body.  We start here, at the cross, because we need to know why it had to happen.  Why did Jesus had to die.  Why do we have to look at Him?  It’s disturbing.  He’s disgusting to look at.  The prophet Isaiah said, “his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness”.  Jesus looks at us with arms wide open offering forgiveness and we shudder and turn away and say, “Go away Jesus.  Don’t you know there are little kids in the room?” 

                But we have to start at the cross or else we will forget that our story starts and ends here.  We need to know why he was put up there!  Why did Isaiah say, “He had no beauty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”?  We sing songs like “Draw me Close to You” or “I Want Jesus To Walk With Me” when the truth is that nobody wanted to be anywhere near Jesus when he was still alive on the cross.  “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”  We loved Jesus when he was healing or casting out demons, but when he was dying for our sins everyone—everyone—abandoned him and turned away from his hideousness.

                We start today at the cross because when we confess our sins each and every week, we need to confess that deep down we HATE this part of the service.  It exposes the truth about all of us.  Jesus Christ had to die on a cross because we didn’t want him.  Jesus Christ had to die because of our sin.  For if any one of us ever actually chose to follow God, if any one of us ever truly surrendered our will freely to God’s way, if any one of us really wanted to receive forgiveness from God rather than earning our place in heaven on our own then Jesus wouldn’t have had to die on that cross.  If you could have been saved any other way—even one of you—there would have been no need for the cross.  If we were really as spiritual as we seem, then Jesus Christ died for nothing.

                We start at the cross today to confess that, yes, he needed to die for me and for you.  He had to suffer for me and for you.  We would have it no other way.  So turn away.  Hide the eyes of the little ones.  The truth isn’t pretty.  Just don’t think that your forgiveness came without a cost.  The cost has nothing to do with your ego, or your Sunday morning, or even your life given up in service to others.  The cost of your salvation was paid with the precious blood of Jesus Christ and with His innocent suffering and death.          

The cross where our Savior suffered gives us a clear picture of our sin and its cost.  We were “caught in the act” as an old professor of mine put it—caught in the act of crucifying the Son of God.  There are no exits or escapes for sinners like us.  When Jesus was lifted up, we were caught red handed—our hands were stained with the blood of Jesus.  We know why Jesus had to die, but there is more to it.

                The prophet Isaiah said, “Surely he took our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” 

                God is holy.  Sinners, like you and me, are not allowed in the congregation of the righteous scripture says.  Why?  Because we are slaves to sin and the wages of sin are death.  We cannot live with God because we deserve only death—we cannot be alive if we are dead?  God is a God of justice and so, when a sin is committed, blood must be spilt to pay for the crime.  This is where the sacrificial system came into play in the Old Testament for the Jews.  When an Israelite sinned, instead of taking their life as payment, God was merciful to them and accepted the blood of a lamb instead.  In this way, God’s sense of justice was satisfied and the sinner’s life was saved. 

                Why did Jesus have to die?  Scripture says that he gave his life as a ransom for many.  We did not have the promise the Israelites had—animal sacrifices wouldn’t work for us.  We all deserved death for our sins, and, according to God’s justice, blood must be spilt.  We had no hope.  But, when the time was right, because God is such a merciful God, He sent us a lamb that would die for our sins.  That lamb was Jesus, the Son of God.

                That’s what the verses from Isaiah are talking about.  Jesus took the pain that we were supposed to take, he bore the suffering we deserved.  Understand this, we deserved the crucifixion, but Jesus was punished in our place.  Those who surrounded Jesus on the cross thought he was dying for his blasphemy or because he had gotten on the wrong side of the religious authorities, but the truth was that he was pierced for our transgressions.  He died because God demanded a sacrifice for sin—Jesus became the sacrifice we should have been.  The peace you have today with God, by faith, came about because of Jesus’ death on the cross. 

                The story began with the cross, but it didn’t end there.  God demanded justice.  God demanded death—the wages of sin.  And that is what the cross gave Him.  The death that we all deserved.  Just as death was brought into the world through the sin of one man, Adam, through the one man, Jesus, sin was paid for once and for all. 

                Why is the death important?  As Christians, we cannot simply lay our sins on Jesus and hope that His suffering can fix everything—it won’t.  Yes, our sins nailed Him to the cross, but don’t forget what happened next.  Your sins didn’t just put Jesus on the cross, your sins died up there with Him.  They are gone.  They are paid for.  They are no longer seen by God, but have been washed clean in the blood of Jesus. 

                I had a little green and white parakeet named Chippy when I was in Elementary school.  He was a great bird.  I also had a cat named Benjamin.  He was a bad cat.  I introduced the two of them often and hoped that they could be friends, but one day when I came home from school, I learned the truth about how friendly cats and birds can be.  Chippy had been mauled by Benjamin and only survived the rest of that evening as I cried and watched him die.  We put him in a little white box and my dad took him away.

                Some time later, I was looking for something in our garage when, lo and behold, I found the little white box with the name, “Chippy” written on it.  But he wasn’t in there.  I remembered how he had died and how it had really been my fault all along.  First, I felt really bad all over again, but then I got really mad at my dad who had just thrown my bird in the bushes behind our house instead of giving him a proper burial!  I guess I thought we’d just keep my dead bird forever, but dad understood death better than I did.  When something dies, it’s gone for good.  You don’t keep going back to take another look.

                So often, when we repent of our sins and stop doing them, even after we have heard our forgiveness and been absolved, we pick the same old sins back up thinking they are still ours.  We mull them over, feel guilty all over again and play the tapes of our mistakes again and again in our head.  We act as if Jesus is still suffering on that cross, but we are wrong.  Those sins died on the cross with Jesus.  Your forgiveness is a done deal.  The story starts at the cross, but ends with a death.  Jesus died for you.  Amen.