Series: 24 Hours that Changed the World                                                                         April 9, 2006 Sermon: Voices at the Cross                                                                                       Matthew 27:32-56

INTRODUCTION

This is the last Sunday on the theme: 24 Hours that Changed the World.  I know today is Palm Sunday.  You will have to forgive me for not preaching on that portion of scripture.  It may seem like a sacrilege to not preach on Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and everyone waving Palm Branches, etc.  But we’ve been looking at events directly related to the last day of Jesus life.  There are voices here that need to be heard; that is, direct speech attributed to persons standing at the foot of the cross.  You’ve heard countless Palm Sunday sermons on Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  But this is also Passion Sunday: the last Sunday before Easter.  Let’s make a deal.  I’ll promise you that next year I’ll preach on that portion of the gospel story.

But today, we’re looking at the cross and listening to the voices Matthew speaks of that could have been heard at the foot of the cross.  Other than the voice of Jesus, we hear voices of derision, confusion, confession and Jesus’ great cry of dereliction.  Let’s take them in that order.

VOICES OF DERISION

VV. 39-43

We’ve already heard these voices before and we hear them again.  Those deriding or mocking Jesus on the cross can be divided into two groups: people passing by who just happened to be out on a stroll seeing who was being crucified that afternoon (a grizzly pastime) and the chief priests, scribes and elders.  There was a basic theme to their taunting which could be summarized with the biblical phrase, “Physician, heal thyself.”  Jesus quoted this once and it meant, “Prove it.”  If you are a doctor, heal yourself.  If you have big words, we’ll believe it when we see big deeds.  Don’t talk the talk if you cannot walk the walk.”

There is a bit of an irony, from a human perspective, of Jesus, Son of God, Lord of All, hanging on the cross.  If you don’t know the rest of the story, it really does not add up.  You can hardly blame these folks for finding Jesus a bit of a sham; if he was Son of God, simply do Son-of-God things and we’ll believe you.  Namely, come down from the cross and we’ll serve you faithfully.  But if you stay up there, you prove yourself to be an impostor.  This is the voice of derision; but it only seeks clearly defined connections between claims made of one’s self and deeds done by one’s self.  We’ve all known people who could talk big talk but when push came to shove were complete paper-tigers.  To these folks, the cross proves Jesus is a paper-tiger.  Big words demand big deeds.

More than this, there is an interesting set of allusions to Psalms 22 in this passage.  You might know – it is well known – that when Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he is quoting the first verses of Psalm 22.  Psalm 22 is alluded to as an interpretive lens through which one must understand the cross – not proof Jesus lost and Rome won but as the suffering of the righteous yet to be vindicated.  The dividing up of Jesus’ clothing by lot (Matt 27:35) is foreseen by Psalm 22:18 and those passing by hurling insults at Jesus (our passage!) is foretold by Psalm 22:7.  These very insults are themselves a reference back to Psalm 22: “He trusts in God.  Let God rescue him now if he wants him” (Matt 27:43).  The implication is that even these taunts fit a divine providential plan that says, “Sometimes the righteous are misunderstood because people assume their sufferings imply that God is displeased.  But looks can be deceiving and God allows the righteous to suffer but will win in the end.”

I think we all can appreciate what these folks are saying.  But at the end of the day, they were desperately and shamefully wrong.  Why?  They couldn’t see the greater reality of the situation.  To them, Jesus was a sorry looser who made claims he could not live up to and who unnecessarily threatened the religious and political status quos of the day.  The reality is that Jesus is on the cross to establish a new status quo.  They couldn’t understand because they were committed to the old system of thought and couldn’t interpret this as breaking ground into a new reality: one where the cross would become not a symbol of Roman victory of Israel but of God’s victory over sin.  The verification they asked for was only three days coming.  It wasn’t Sunday morning yet.  It is Friday, but Sunday is coming!

VOICES OF CONFUSION

VV. 47-49

Silly people to think that Jesus was calling for Elijah.  Why Elijah?  Elijah was believed by many to be one who could come to the aid of those who were in great need.  Especially because Elijah had not died but had been translated from earth directly into heaven, he was believed to be able to come to the aid of others who were in need and close to death.  “Let’s wait and see if Elijah comes to help him!”  Again, we see the human inability to understand the heart of this Jesus the Christ.  Jesus again and again chooses the full pain of the cross, in spite of his prayer, “Let this cup pass from me.”  Even in our passage of scripture, Jesus refuses to drink the wine mixed with gall lest it lessen his pain.  Jesus at no point turns back from the brunt of the full pain of crucifixion.  But interestingly, it isn’t the physical pain of Jesus on the cross that interests the biblical writers.  As we shall see, Matthew’s focus of attention is upon the spiritual pain Jesus suffers.

But the point here is that Jesus does not reject the agony of the cross; he embraces is wholeheartedly.  Those who understand the reality of this situation know that Jesus isn’t going to call for Elijah; that would completely destroy the whole mission.  But at least this is a more understanding sentiment than the one previous.  They believe Jesus is the kind of person Elijah might come and help.  They believe Elijah could embody God’s mercy on this innocent person’s sufferings.  But again, even those with kinder intentions, misunderstand the cross without understanding God’s and Jesus’ purpose in this.  The great irony here is that the most perceptive thing said by anyone at the foot of the cross is a Roman centurion.

VOICES OF CONFESSION

VV. 51-54

A Roman centurion sees what has occurred at Jesus’ death; strange occurrences: earthquakes, preliminary resurrections, etc.  Interestingly, in both Josephus and the Talmud, there are traditions of the temple doors opening of their own accord in the middle of the night.  The Talmud reference says this happened about 40 years before the temple’s destruction which would place it right around 30 AD.  In fact, the Talmud reference has one of the greatest rabbis of all time, Rabbi Jochanon ben Zakkai rebuke the doors of the temple saying, “O Temple, why do you alarm yourself?  I know full well that you are destined to be destroyed for Zechariah be Iddo has already prophesied thus concerning you (Zech 11:1).”  The huge doors of the temple would likely have been opened by an earthquake of some sort.  This is a very strange convergence of evidence and I’m not sure what to make of it.  You can draw your own conclusions.

But in the Matthew narrative, the centurion sees these natural phenomena which accompany Jesus death and he and others are terrified and say, “Surely he was the Son of God.”  In so saying, he became a precursor of all of us who also confess what he confesses.  It is interesting in Mark’s gospel, this confession comes as something of a climax of the whole book.  The book starts with the words, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  The centurion at the end of the book hears Jesus cry out on the cross and says, “Surely this man was the Son of God.”  The book begins and ends with this confession; Jesus who is Messiah is more significantly God’s very Son.

The centurion when he said this probably didn’t understand exactly what this meant.  To him, in his worldview, it may have simply meant that Jesus was a divine heavenly figure or a person deserving of divine heroic status.  Persons of great worth were often transformed and worshipped in the ancient world – called Heroes – Sons of the Gods.  Jesus is a hero and worthy of divine worship in the Roman sense.  But to the gospel writers, this confession was truer and deeper than the centurion perhaps himself realized.  Jesus, the gospel writers proclaim, is truly God’s very Son.  There is great irony here – at the end of Jesus’ life a Roman centurion makes the great confession about who Jesus is.  He doesn’t see the cross and say, “Look what a looser this man was.”  He somehow got a different message from the cross, one that told of Jesus’ status as God’s Son.

The great irony is that someone on duty at the cross, who is doing his time and waiting to return to his wife and kids in Rome, is of all people standing there, the most perceptive.  He’s not deriding Jesus, not confused, he sees things clearly, although perhaps through the lens of his worldview.  God uses this man’s words as a voice of truth yet from an unexpected source.

WERE YOU THERE?

Imagine yourself at the foot of the cross.  Where would you be placed?  Would you be a skeptical observing, “Look Jesus, you are a fake and this proves it.  If God loves you, call to him and have him save you!  Then we’ll believe you!”  If that is you, then God has a word for you.  There are reasons for your skepticism.  You aren’t simply looking for proof, you are shielding your eyes from spiritual realities that can transform you.  But you don’t want to be transformed.  You like the old way because it leaves you in control.  Your skepticism is not as rational as you like to think.  It is based on your desire to not have this Jesus as your Lord.  Jesus message to you is, “It may be Friday, but Sunday is coming!” 

If you are with the crowd waiting to see if Elijah comes, then you are a different case.  You are the person who wants to hang out with Jesus’ followers just to see if anything interesting happens.  You like the music, you follow because it makes you feel good about yourself, or whatever.  You aren’t against Jesus, you just are not going to put your neck on the line for him.  You are a rather casual follower.  Your take on religion is, “I’ll go so far and no further.  I want to see how this will help me, but I’m not going to take up too much time.”  You’ll always find more excuses to keep from taking Jesus very seriously; none of them are very good.  If the Centurion is right, then you need to start taking this Jesus life as your life.  You need to start making Jesus a real priority; he is God’s very Son dying for you for heaven’s sake.

VOICE OF DERELICTION

VV. 46

There is one more voice at the cross, but it doesn’t come from the foot but the head.  This is Jesus’ cry out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  As I said before, it is very interesting how the gospel writers do not emphasize the physical suffering of Jesus.  How many times have you heard extensive descriptions of the agony of Jesus at the cross?  If you are like me, you can hardly remember.  But the NT doesn’t emphasize Jesus’ physical suffering.  It hardly mentions it.  It is obvious enough.  But what the gospel writers emphasize is Jesus’ spiritual suffering; Jesus agony at his separation from God.

We’ve already mentioned also that Jesus is quoting Ps. 22 here.  There is a point to this quotation.  It allows us to interpret Jesus’ death not so much as a sign of God’s disapproval and wrath but as the misunderstood sufferings that accompany God’s true servants.  Those who do not understand stand by the side and say, “Look, if God loves you, let him come rescue you.”  The Psalmist knows that sometimes suffering is misunderstood but he trusts that God’s final victory.  “For He (God) has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (vs. 23-24).  The Psalm closes with words of confident praise, “Posterity will serve Him, future generations will be told about the Lord.  They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn for he has done it.”

So this quotation of Ps. 22:1 helps us to understand the cross as having a deeper meaning; God’s curse is not taken on Jesus because Jesus is sinful and worthy of death.  No, Jesus is becoming cursed by God and in so doing taking the curse that we ourselves deserve.  All of that isn’t in Ps. 22 (you have to add some of Is. 53) but there is more.

Simple message – Jesus endured separation from God so we don’t have to.  The veil was split from top to bottom as a signal of this very thing – immediate access to God’s presence through Christ’s sufferings.  I believe that this is the heart of the gospel – a life transformed by a relationship with God – within the veil.  This is the core of the gospel and the fundamental purpose for this church.  We are here to preach and practice an intimate union with God – that is, to go through the torn veil – based on Christ’s own agony.  So where are you at the foot of the cross?  The skeptic?  The confused?  The confessing?  Or the Transformed?