when the Roman Empire the normal method for the execution of convicted criminals was the method of crucifixion and we are aware from the annals of history that there were tens of thousands of people who were executed in that manner but there's only one man whose death by crucifixion has the occasion of his death celebrated worldwide every year and that of course is Jesus of Nazareth and there are two reasons why his execution by way of crucifixion stand out in history and the first is because his execution was the execution of a king and second of
all because it is the understanding of the church and the faith of all Christians that the significance of his death by crucifixion is found not in the immediate sensation of physical pain that that manner of death involved but because it is the church's understanding that in that death an event of cosmic proportion was taking place namely it was an atonement for sin it's fascinating to me that those who were present at the scene of the death of Jesus looked at his dying and interpreted its significance in different ways From pilate's perspective it was the silencing
of a man whose views had incited a crowd to Riot from the Viewpoint of the authorities of the Jewish Nation it was a matter of expediency that this man be sacrificed lest his teachings bring down the Wrath of the Roman Empire upon the Jewish community from the vantage point of the soldiers who attended the death it was a job another day and yet one of them remarked at the end of that crucifixion truly this man was the son of God but if he were to be there as an eyewitness who would be able to discern
that what they were watching at that moment was a transaction of heavenly significance that what they were watching was a ransom being paid a satisfaction being made of the righteousness of God and of the justice of God that would not have been plainly visible to every Observer or eyewitness that's why it's so important for us to understand that event in light of its interpretation provided not only in the New Testament writings but also in all of the writings of the Old Testament that prepare us for that event now let's look briefly today at some of
the things that we need to observe about the death of Jesus in Matthew's account we are told that in the process of Christ's execution that the officials put a sign over his head that publicly manifested the charges against Jesus they put up over his head the accusation written against him this is in Matthew 27. verse 37 this is Jesus the king of the Jews and then two robbers were crucified with him one on the right and another on the left and those who passed by blasphemed him isn't that significant that the the manner in which
the scornful remarks that were made to Jesus in his death were interpreted by the gospel writers as blasphemy blasphemy is a kind of insult verbal insult that we reserve for the speaking of deity but indeed this was God incarnate who was being executed and so the biblical writers interpreted the the language that was used against him as a form of blasphemy they were wagging their heads and saying you who destroy the temple and build it three in three days save yourself if you are the Son of God come down from the cross and likewise the
chief priests also mocking with the scribes and Elders said he saved others himself he cannot save if he is the king of Israel let him now come down from the cross and we will believe him he trusted in God let him deliver him now if he will have him for he said I am the Son of God and even the robbers who were crucified with him reviled him with the same thing now what I want us to see today is this tiny little episode verse 45 tells us from the sixth hour until the ninth hour
there was Darkness over all the land and about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying Eli Eli Llama sabachana that is my God my God why have you forsaken me now it's tradition in the church during Holy Week to hold Services commemorating Jesus death on Good Friday and one of the common Traditions is for the preacher to give Exposition concerning the so-called words of the Cross those statements that recorded are recorded for us in sacred writ that Jesus uttered while being crucified we don't find all of them in any one gospel
they are sprinkled and dispersed throughout the four gospel accounts but I call attention to this one because this one more than any other has caused so much bewilderment among people who read the account why would Jesus in the midst of his death cry out my God my God why hast Thou forsaken me now we know that the words are borrowed directly from the text of Psalm 22. and I mentioned that when we looked at the Psalms in our historical survey of the Old Testament but it seems a strange thing that a man in the midst
of this kind of passion and pain would resort to quoting poetry and obviously the cry as it is uttered from the lips of Jesus though it may certainly involve an identification with the lament that is recorded in Psalm 22 directs our attention behind and beneath that Psalm to its deeper significance when I was ordained into the ministry a hundred years ago as was the custom in our church the person who is presented for ordination who is called the ordinand is given the privilege of selecting the ordination hymn and the hymn I chose for my own
ordination is a hymn that not many people know and the name of it is called tis midnight and on Olive's brow it is a haunting hymn that speaks of the agony that Jesus endured the night before his death as he prayed drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane when he asked God to let that cup be removed from him but as much as I love that hymn there is a verse in it or a portion of a verse that has always Disturbed me and that I would like to have the editorial authority to revise
it because in a spirit of Triumph the hymn writer says at one point of this Jesus who is pleading now with the father it says that he is not forsaken by his God and the reason I respond the way I do to that is that I think that those words miss the significance of this cry from the cross when Jesus said my God my God why hast Thou forsaken me beloved he wasn't simply feeling forsaken but he was forsaken and that forsakenness is dramatized in every tiny aspect of the narrative as we read it Jesus
was forsaken because he had to be forsaken because in order for him to satisfy the demands of the justice of God he had to bear in himself the full measure of divine punishment the full measure of divine wrath that the sins he bore for his people actually deserved in and of himself we know that Jesus was an innocent man and we say with pilate we find no fault in him but after he voluntarily took the transfer of the sins of his people and became the Lamb of God for them once God imputes the wickedness of
all of the sins of God's people to the person of Christ for that moment in history at that instant that Jesus was hanging on the cross he was the most obscene thing in all of creation because they're concentrated was the corporate wickedness of us all you see when Jesus was shrinking from the cross he wasn't shrinking from nails and thorns and Spears he was shrinking from receiving in his person the punishment of hell the fullness of divine forsakenness now to understand what's going on here in Matthew's account let me Rush forward for a moment to
Paul's elucidation of this event that he gives to the church in his letter to the Galatians in Chapter 3 of Galatians Paul begins with a rebuke to his readers oh foolish Galatians who has Bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified now Paul is then enlarging upon the significance for those galatian Christians of that crucifixion and he says in verse 9 than those who are of Faith are blessed with believing Abraham verse 10. for as many as or of the works of the
law are under the curse for it is written cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them but that no one is justified by the law and the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by faith and then in verse 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree now the language that Paul uses here to the Galatians to teach
them about what it means to have faith in Christ and the benefits of placing one's trust in Christ is he is understanding the death of Christ not in Roman terms but in Jewish terms he directs the people's attention back through the centuries to the Old Testament to the old Covenant that was established in Antiquity and pers and principally to the book of Deuteronomy where in the book of Deuteronomy God sets forth before his people a list of blessing and of curse where he said all of those who keep the terms of the Covenant will be
blessed in every way blessed will they be in the city blessed will they be in the country blessed will they be when they sit down blessed will they be when they stand up and so on but then he said for those who violate the law of God who break the terms of the Covenant cursed will they be in the city and cursed will they be in the country cursed will they be when they sit down cursed will they be when they stand up blessing and curse those are the Dual motifs of the whole structure of
the Covenant relationship that God establishes With His People Israel and when we looked at the celebration in the Old Testament of the day of atonement you recall that on that occasion there were two animals that were used on the one hand there was the lamb that was slain as an offering to be given as a propitiation to God but there was also the scapegoat that ceremonially had the priest the high priest lay his hands on the back of the goat and then send the goat off into the Wilderness out into the outer Darkness away from
the camp away from the presence of God and all of those things in the Old Testament were pointing toward this moment this intersection of history when Christ is crucified and Paul is looking at the Cross of Christ in terms of its fulfilling the curse and he not only says that Jesus satisfies the curse Jesus becomes the curse as it is written cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree and so we ask simple questions about the death of Jesus why wasn't he stoned that was the Jewish manner of execution that was the method imposed by
the law of Israel for capital offenses Jesus is not stoned but rather he is hung upon a tree fulfilling the deuteronomic prophecy of the curse cursed is everyone who hangs upon tree the Old Testament Prophet say of the servant of the Lord who will bear the sins of his people that part of of the punishment that he will receive is that he will be delivered to the Gentiles remember the scapegoat he sent outside the camp out away from the Jewish community the Gentile world was considered by the Jewish people to be the place of aliens
strangers a place associated with the outer Darkness where the grace of God was not shining in its brightness or concentrated in its strength and so the Messiah has to be delivered to the Gentiles now not only is he delivered to the Gentiles and scourged and beaten and mocked at their hands but it is very significant that he is crucified not in Jerusalem Golgotha the place of the skull which was the site of the execution of Jesus of Nazareth was outside the walls of the city outside the confines of the Temple outside Mount Zion outside the
city of God just as the scapegoat had been driven outside the camp so the sin bearer of Israel must be executed outside of the holy city and what's the significance of Matthew's account that from the sixth hour to the ninth hour a strange paranormal phenomenon took place this this is a time of from noon till three in the afternoon the middle of the day where in the desert it was the time ordinarily of the Pinnacle of the brightness of the Desert Sun but on this occasion whether it was a complete solar eclipse or what it
was we don't know but as it were God turned the lights out and allowed his son to be killed in the context Earthly context of darkness in the middle of the day now again if we understand the cursed motif of the Old Testament I mentioned the Hebrew benediction earlier where when the Jew wanted to give the Supreme benediction to his friends he would say may the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you may the Lord lift up the light of his countenance
and give you his peace if you look at the Hebrew imagery in the benediction you will see that to the Jew the Supreme experience of the blessedness of the human soul was directly related to the vision of God the ultimate promise for the people of God is that someday we will see his face and we will be bathed in the Glorious Radiance that emanates from his being we will enter in to the effulgence of his glory where the veil is removed and the angel with the Flaming sword is put aside and always the scripture speaks
of that in terms of unprecedented Brilliance and brightness of light the Lord making his face shine upon his people lifting up the light of his countenance but those are images that describe to the Jew blessedness and to understand the opposite of the blessing to understand the curse of God means we look not to the light but to its antithesis to the absolute Darkness where not a hint of the Rays of the glory of God penetrates into the outer Darkness World there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth where the glory of God doesn't penetrate only
the wrath of God is to be found that's what it means to be cursed and here is Jesus In This Moment Of History where God the Father turns the lights out on his son and as it were the father turns his back on this obscene incarnation of human sin and curses him for you and he cries my God my God why hast Thou forsaken me because he is experiencing the fullness of hell the thing that most amazes me about the cross is that as Jesus Bears this torment that we'll never understand in this world he
still addresses God in the terms of familiar intimacy the repetition of his name indicates that God is not his enemy and when it's over he says it is finished into thy hands I commend my spirit that in the midst of the curse the son of man trusted the father and drank the couple of divine Wrath for us
