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Why
the cross?
Readings:
Jeremiah 25:15-31; Matthew 26:36-46
My sister was recently
shopping with her daughter. My
niece, who’s 5 asked why there were so many chocolate eggs around. My sister said, they’re easter eggs to
celebrate easter – you know the time when Jesus died on the cross. My niece said ‘He died already?? But
he only just got born!’
But you can understand
that. Christmas and Easter have
run together very quickly this year.
But they also run together very quickly in the bible. When you read the Gospels you’ve only
just finished with His birth when you read that Jesus resolutely
sets a course for His death (Luke 9:51).
When you read about Jesus’ death you can easily find yourself
saying ‘But He only just got born!’
In the Gospels, a
third of these accounts of Jesus’ life are taken up by His death. That’s an incredible proportion. No human biography spends a third of
it’s time on the death of the hero.
You’re meant to remember the life, the achievements, the good
times.
This week, tragically,
Hayden Waller fell to his death in Austria aged 12. And they asked his school friends, how
they’d remember him. And of course they answered ‘We’ll remember him as
happy and full of life.’ That’s
how we remember our loved ones.
We like to remember them happy, successful, full of life. But Jesus wants to be remembered for
His death.
We have it written
into our church building for all time: Jesus said “This do in remembrance
of me.” What do we do to remember
Jesus? We break bread, the way
His body was broken. We pour out
wine, the way His blood was poured out.
We remember Jesus by remembering His death.
Why? Why this obsession with the death of
Jesus? Why the cross?
[SLIDE – Why the
cross?]
That’s what we’re
thinking about this morning. In
the run up to Easter we’ll spend the next three Sundays trying to
understand what the death of Jesus means. This week we’re going to think about why the cross
was necessary.
Because Jesus thought
it was extremely necessary. In
Mark chapter 8 Jesus told His followers He “must suffer
many things and be rejected… [He] must be killed and after
three days rise.” Jesus is
adamant, He has to hang on that cross.
In fact the bible
speaks of Jesus from all eternity past as sacrificial Lamb of God. (Rev
13:8) And into all eternity
future the bible says we will sing of that sacrifice as the very
centre-piece of creation (Rev 5:9-14).
The bible insists that time and eternity, heaven and earth find
their fulfilment in the One who was lifted up between heaven and earth –
rejected by both and yet reconciling one to the other. The cross is the centre-piece of
creation, the centre-piece of history, the centre-piece even of God’s own
glory. The cross is crucial, it
is the crux of all things.
And the reason why He
died is spelt out in the bible again and again. It’s no secret, the Old and New Testaments are united in
giving the answer why Jesus had to die:
The prophet Isaiah
wrote: He was pierced for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5)
The apostle Peter
wrote: Christ died for sins (1 Pet 3:18)
The apostle Paul
wrote: Christ died for our
sins (1 Cor 15:3)
The apostle John
wrote: He is the atoning
sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2)
Jesus died for our
sins. He was a sacrifice – He was
THE sacrifice for our sins.
Now there are other
things going on at the cross.
Massive things too. Christ
is demonstrating His love for the Father. The Father is demonstrating His love for the world. He is an example of righteous
suffering, He’s defeating Satan and the powers of darkness. Many things are going on at the cross,
but one thing you must say about the cross is that Jesus died
for our sins – He died in our place, on our behalf, as our
substitute, bearing our sin. He
stood in our guilty shoes and took the punishment that was coming to
us. Jesus died for our sins.
But many people still
ask – why the cross? Why this
horrific, bloody sacrifice? If
sin is such a problem, why doesn’t God just forgive our sins. Why not just forgive and forget?
The last words of one
poet reflect how a lot of people think.
Heinrich Heine said: “God will forgive me, that’s his job.” Many people think of forgiveness as
simply something God does. In
computer terms he just clicks on our sins and drags them into the trash
folder – all very clean and clinical and painless. So why do we need a cross, why doesn’t
God just forgive like that?
Let me spend the rest
of our time dealing with that question.
Here are two quick answers to that question and then one longer
one that sums the others up. Why
the cross?
The first
answer is
[SLIDE]
God is not a liar –
sin has consequences.
Back in Genesis 2:17 the LORD God told the humans, if
you eat from the forbidden tree you will surely die. And this is a constant theme in the
bible. God promises – the soul
that sins must die. (Ezekiel
18:4). The wages of sin is death
(Romans 6:23). The LORD promises
consequences for sin.
Interestingly it’s the devil that says to Eve – ‘You
won’t surely die.’ (Gen 3:4). The
devil says there won’t be consequences for sin, God says there will
be. If God brushes sin under the
carpet – the devil would prove the truthful one and God would be the
liar.
But God’s not a liar, there are always
consequences for sin. None of it
will be forgotten, all sin – ALL SIN – will receive its due
punishment. Either we bear our
own guilt or Christ bears it for us on the cross, but no sin goes
unpunished. The cross guarantees
it.
Second brief answer as to why the cross:
[SLIDE]
We cannot pay
ourselves.
George Bernard Shaw
once walked out of a talk on the cross saying ‘I will pay for my sins
myself.’ He hated the idea of
Jesus paying for His sins. Isn’t
that a very common feeling? We
would rather be responsible and pay off our own debts wouldn’t we? And so some people try to pay their
own way, spiritually speaking.
They think of religion like a pair of scales that need balancing –
Bad things on one side and good things on the other and let’s hope the
good outweighs the bad. But that
doesn’t work. It doesn’t even
work in the human realm.
If I shake you by the
hand on the way into church and punch you in the face on the way out, are
we even? No!
Listen, it’s a good
thing if we’ve hurt other people to try to make amends for that. But none of our good things actually
erase the past. And here’s the
real problem. The bible says we
can never pay off God.
Romans 11 asks: ‘Who
has ever given to God that God should repay them?’ (Rom 11:35) Answer: No-one!
Everything we have is on loan from God. We can’t present God with
our credit – all we can offer to God are our debts. So how will you make atonement with
God? Are you trusting in your
righteous acts to outweigh the bad stuff? The word of God says: ‘All our righteous acts are like
filthy rags’ to Him. (Isaiah
64:5). We have no bargaining
chips with the living God. If you
are looking to the judgement and trusting in any of your good deeds – in
anything good or worthy in yourself – you are mad. It would be like the drowning man who
tries to pull himself out by his own hair. It will not work.
We are in over our heads and we have nothing to offer God. We cannot pay for our sins ourselves.
Tonight the film
Atonement is up for 7 Oscars. It
tells the story of a 13 year old girl whose lies ruin the lives of
many. Later in life she longs to
make atonement but it’s too late.
The film is utterly tragic.
To fail to make atonement with people is hard anough, but now
think of your life with God.
All your sins, ultimately, have been against Him. And the bible says you cannot
make atonement for them. You
cannot make things right with God.
Our good deeds do not
atone for our sin, our talents do not atone for our sin, tears do not
atone for our sin, time does not atone for our sin. Feel the tragedy of that. Because that is a tragedy far worse
than Hollywood has ever imagined.
We are helplessly guilty before God. Unless Christ atones for us, we are
eternally lost. Why the
cross? Because we cannot pay for
our sins ourselves.
But now finally,
Why do we need the cross? Well
this answer sums up all the other answers.
[SLIDE]
We need the cross
because of the incredible seriousness of sin.
Ten centuries ago the
then Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm, wrote that if anyone imagines that
God can simply forgive us as we forgive others that person has ‘not yet
considered the seriousness of sin.’
God hates
sin. Think of the Almighty
intensity with which God feels things and hear me when I say God hates
sin. Sin is not simply the
transgression of a moral code.
Sin is our total rejection of the God who bleeds and dies for
us. Sin is our personal hostility
and mutiny against a God who longs to gather us in His arms. Sin is everything that vandalises His
creation, sin is tearing apart the world that belongs to His Son and it’s
what nails Him to the cross when He comes to save.
God hates sin and He is right to hate sin.
Think of the crimes of
Stephen Wright or Mark Dixie.
Who, this week, could remain unmoved by their brutality? Who could fail to be outraged by their
crimes? It is good to be angry at
evil. If we’re not angry at evil
there’s something wrong with us.
But bible assures us, the One who sits on the throne of the
universe is good because He hates sin.
Here’s how Psalm 45 describes Christ – the
King of God’s Kingdom:
[SLIDE]
Psalm 45
6 Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a sceptre of
justice will be the sceptre of your kingdom. 7 You love
righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you
above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.
Christ is the happy King of the Kingdom,
enthroned by His Father because He loves what is right and
He hates what is wicked.
It is a good thing that the LORD hates wickedness. Christ sits on the throne of the
universe because He loves what is lovely and detests
what is detestable.
And what does He find detestable? Well let’s look at one list from
Proverbs:
[SLIDE]
Prov 6:16-19
16 There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to
him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent
blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are
quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
The LORD hates these things. With omnipotent rage He detests
them. And He’s right to hate
them, they are hateful. But
notice what’s in there: pride and lying and murder and
gossip. The Stephen Wrights and
the Mark Dixie’s are in there, but Glen Scrivener is in there too. And so are you. We are all in the dock and we’re all
found guilty – not by a dispassionate judge but by the LORD of heaven who
is consumed by righteous anger against us.
Please believe me when I say we are all in
the dock. But if you don’t
believe me, listen to the word of God.
Psalm 14 says:
The
LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any
who understand, any who seek God. 3 All have turned aside,
they have together become corrupt; there is no-one who does good, not
even one.
This is God’s verdict. Do you now feel the seriousness of
sin? This is why our readings this morning were so heavy. I chose them because they speak of the
judgement that you and I face in our sin. They speak of the cup of judgement.
In Isaiah chapter 51
it is described as the ‘cup of God’s wrath.’
[SLIDE – Psalm 75]
In Psalm 75, we read a
striking picture of the cup:
“In the hand of the
LORD is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; He pours it out and
all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.”
A cup full of foaming
wine mixed with spices. And to
drink it is to drink down the very wrath of God. Can you picture this cup in your
mind? Full of death and judgment
and the anger of God.
Well in Jeremiah it
gets even worse. Everyone
is in line to drink from this cup.
[SLIDE – Jeremiah 25]
“Take from my hand
this cup filled with the wine of my wrath… You must drink it!.. I am
calling down a sword upon all who live on the earth, declares the
LORD Almighty.”
All must drink. This is a root and branch judgement of
the whole earth. By rights you
are in the queue for this cup and, by rights, so am I.
But think of our
second reading.
[SLIDE off]
Think of the garden of
Gethsemane, the night before the cross.
Here God the Son steps in to drink the cup.
Verse 37 tells us “He began to be sorrowful and troubled.” Verse 38 He confesses, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow
to the point of death.” Verse
39, He falls with His face to the ground. And we want to know what is it? What is it that makes the LORD of heaven fall on His face
in overwhelming sorrow?
Verse 39 – it’s the cup. Jesus prays "My Father, if it is
possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you
will."
Look who is about to drink the cup? Christ – God the Son. The One who sits on the throne, the
King who loves righteousness and hates wickedness. He has climbed off His throne and come
down to drink the cup of His own judgement. No wonder He is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of
death.
And why does He drink? Verse 42, He prays:
"My
Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I
drink it, may your will be done."
Unless Jesus drinks the cup, the cup is not
taken away. Unless Jesus drinks
the cup – you have to and so do I.
The cup must be drunk.
Judgement must fall. Sin
is serious. But here Jesus offers
to drink it for us. He prays
‘Your will be done’ Father. And
so He goes to the cross. And
there He takes the judgement. He
stands in our guilty shoes and, as it were, drinks down this cup of
judgement. He dies in our place,
on our behalf, bearing the punishment for our sins.
We often sing these words in church – hear
them again now:
On
the cross where Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied,
For
every sin on Him was laid, Here in the death of Christ I live.
Why the cross? Wasn’t there some other way to make atonement? Wasn’t there some other way for God to
offer forgiveness? You know Jesus
asked that question once? In the
garden of Gethsemane He begged the Father repeatedly for another
way. And heaven was silent. There is no other way.
If there was, if there
was another way for our sins to be dealt with – don’t you think Jesus
would have taken that way??
If there was another way of salvation – why did Jesus drink that
cup, why did He suffer godforsaken hell on the cross?
There was no other
way. Only by Jesus Christ and
only by Him crucified can we ever escape the judgement that is
coming.
Have you
escaped the judgement that’s coming?
Have you? There are
consequences for sin. You cannot
pay yourself. God will judge the
world. In Australia, where I’m
from, bushfires are incredibly dangerous. A wall of flames fifty foot high travelling 50 kilometres
an hour can easily kill.
Sometimes when you can’t outrun the flames the only thing you can
do is burn out a piece of land in advance of the blaze and then shelter
in the burnt-out ashes. This
works because the place that has been burnt will not burn
again. The place that’s already
burnt is the place of safety.
Friends, Jesus Christ is that place. He has faced the anger of God and He’s calling you to join
Him in the place of safety. Come
to Christ, come to the One who was crucified. He will save you.
The place that’s already burnt will not burn again. The bible says ‘Jesus rescues us from
the coming wrath.’ (1 Thes
1:10). He can rescue you this
very morning. Call out to Him.
And for all of us,
we’ll probably hear the word Jesus many times this week. In the office, on the sports field, on
TV. Most often used as a swear
word, but however it’s said – it means the same thing: “He died for
me”. So whenever you hear
it, why don’t you echo that in your heart. Let’s try it now – I’ll say Jesus – you say in your heart
“He died for me.” Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. However you
say it, it means the same thing.
Jesus stood in your place.
He drank your cup. He died
for you.
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