John 18-19

Staring at Life!

            How long do you need to sit and stare? How long does it take to absorb the image of a statue or monument? How long do you need to hold that picture in your mind and know that if you see it again, it won’t be any different? Maybe a minute. An hour or so. It doesn’t take long to notice everything there is about a painting or statue or natural landscape. We enjoy such sights for the experience, yes; but once you’ve seen it, it’s not new anymore. And yet, here we are again sitting before a cross. Two beams of wood in an ordinary shape. There’s nothing fascinating about the cross in itself. But we can’t help but stare. We can’t help but look at it again in deep contemplation. Maybe there’s something we missed? Maybe there’s something that’s different about it now then when last we looked? Maybe it’s just a trick of the eyes. For you see, if there’s anything we learn tonight, it’s that the cross confounds us. The cross doesn’t fit into any little box we want to put it in. It surprises us because it’s not what we thought we saw. For how can a normal cross also be extraordinary? How can a vehicle of death also be a vehicle for life? How can something so evil also be good at the same time? 

            For we come tonight, not to sit and stare at a plain empty cross, but to see again our Lord’s passion. We come to kneel before the cross in contemplation of all that had to happen here. For the cross is indeed both death and life, evil and good, an end and a beginning. Lest we look away too quickly and miss our Lord’s greatest work, he calls us to sit and watch. Wait. Look at it again. And so, let us learn tonight:

SEE IN THE CROSS, NOT DEATH, BUT GRACE AND ETERNAL LIFE!

I.

            We can’t hide our faces from the horror that happens to our Lord. We must begin with him in the garden, knowing that it’s because of us that he has to suffer. As Jesus is in the garden praying, the soldiers come to arrest Jesus. To most, a band of soldiers standing against you would look like defeat. Even the disciples end up fleeing in terror because of the sight. But Jesus stands there offering himself up. “Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, ‘Whom do you seek?” John 18:4. Whom do you seek? Do you know who he is, or not? For it’s more than a question of identity. Like Judas, many who claim to know our Lord know only their version of him, and also like Judas, we betray the real Jesus when confronted by him. This is why the soldiers stagger backwards. They’re starting to see Jesus for who he really is, one who knows his fate, yet accepts it.

            For we need to see him who is arrested and follow him as he goes before the chief priests and before Pontius Pilate. We’re supposed to see the man who is thrice justified before those who seek to accuse him, yet convict him on blatant lies. As Pilate says to the crowds, “I find no guilt in him,” John 18:38. But it was our voices that cried out against Pilate. It was the crowd gathered there that demanded he suffer. And indeed, Jesus did. He would receive the forty lashes across his back. Forty lashes that were meant to rip flesh from the bone. Forty lashes that were meant to satisfy the insatiable hunger of the crowd. But it wasn’t enough. For so the soldiers would mock him by hammering a crown of thrones into his head. They would strip him and give him purple robes. But even that wouldn’t be enough. Yes, the cries would echo out louder for his life. “Crucify him, crucify him!” John 19:6. But here is where we need to watch him most. Amid all the cries, what does he do? He looks back at you, silent. For if we look intently, we’ll understand that those who are guilty, those who deserve his punishment… are us! We’re the ones covered in the filth of sin. We’re the ones who deserve to die! And his stare should pierce us to the heart.

II.

            Despite all this man has suffered, he’s remained silent in view of it all. He alone has borne the burden because he knew you couldn’t. So let us now walk with him to his cross. For on top of the hill outside the city, they have set to crucify three men. Jesus, they put in the center, as though to make an example out of him and two criminals on either side. They would force Jesus to carry his own cross, bloodied and beaten, only to lay him down on it and nail him to the cross. See the weight he would carry with him! Not just the weight of the wood, but the weight of all your sins. He suffers this great evil being done to him… because he doesn’t want it for you. For so see him hoisted upon the cross in agony as he calls out to God. Consider the suffering you have put him through that He who is the fountain of living water would even say “I thirst,” John 19:28. On the cross, Jesus experienced the fullness of God’s wrath. He experienced complete and utter separation from the grace of his Heavenly Father. God made Jesus drink to the full the cup of wrath destined for you… so we could receive the cup of his grace.

            So, look. Look at Jesus as he hangs on the cross. And when you look, consider what you see there. The evil we see there isn’t because of Jesus. It was because of us and our sin. And the death we see there was meant to be ours, but has now become his! So that, when people look at Jesus dying on the cross, they say this is the end of his life, his ministry, his work. And he says, “NO! This is only the beginning!” For hear the final word from Jesus on the cross, as he says, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit, John 19:30. What is finished on the cross? Was it Jesus? NO! It was your sin that was finished. It was death that was finished! It was Satan’s reign over God’s good world that was finished! Because Jesus had brought them all to their end in his own death on the cross! For this is why we must, we must never look away from the cross. Because on the cross was the death of our savior who took our place. On the cross, we see the evil of our own sins, but the goodness and grace and mercy of God now being poured out for you! For so, we call today GOOD Friday… because through the cross we find eternal life!

            Here shall we sit and stare all the days of our lives to see the cross and remember what our Lord has done this night. He has given himself in our place, to take our sins, to die our death, so we may never be cut off from God, either now or forevermore. In Jesus’ name! Amen!