Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

This morning, we see Jesus on the final road to the Cross.

Way back in Luke 9:51, Luke said:

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

Jesus has now arrived at the moment that He has been trekking toward since Luke 9.

He is a walk to Golgotha away from bearing the sins of His people and receiving the wrath they deserve.

We will see Jesus on what has come to be known at the Via Dolorosa.

“The Way of Suffering”

And as He walks toward Calvary, we see two different pictures.

And they say something to us about discipleship and the nature of this Christian life where we follow Jesus and walk in His footsteps.

Let’s take a look at the text:

SIMON OF CYRENE (v.

26)

Verse 26 says, “As they led Him away...”

Let’s stop here to talk about the state of Jesus’ physical body at this point and to talk about the task ahead of Him—one that would be challenging for someone who physically fresh and rested

At the end of Jesus’ political trial before Pilate, He was beaten.

Scourged.

Mark 15:15 “So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.”

Scourging was executed with a whip that was deviously constructed.

It was engineered to produce as much human suffering as possible without actually killing someone.

The whip had leather tails with pieces of bone and metal woven into it.

The historian Eusebius said that when the Romans used it on Christian martyrs, the martyrs “…were torn by scourges down to deep seated veins and arteries, so that the hidden contents of the recesses of their bodies, their entrails and organs, were exposed to sight.”

It is likely that the scourging left Jesus bloodied.

It is possible that He has bone and cartilage exposed by the horror of the whip.

All of this fulfills what was written by Isaiah:

Isaiah 52:14 “As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—”

After Jesus is scourged, He is mocked by the Romans.

Once it is time for the final walk to the Cross, the customs would take over.

As the condemned, Jesus would be placed in the center of a quarterion—a company of four Roman soldiers.

Then, a crossbeam, weighing about 100 pounds, was placed on His shoulders

And then, Jesus would have to carry that beam half a mile, to Golgotha, the place of execution

A hill outside the city because it was unlawful to crucify Him inside the city.

To carry a crossbeam half-a-mile and up a hill is a challenge for most people.

But Jesus was a blue-collar worker in the prime of His life, so on a normal day, this would likely not be an issue

However, this is no normal day.

He has not slept.

He has been under insane spiritual, physical and emotional stress.

He has stood multiple trials.

And He has been beaten within an inch of His life

And He is unable to carry the crossbeam.

What will the soldiers do?

They did what they had the right to do by Roman law—they involved someone from the crowd.

Luke tells us that they seize Simon of Cyrene (v.

26)

Simon was a common Jewish name.

Even just within the 12 disciples, we have two Simons.

Cyrene is modern-day Libya in Northern Africa

The historian Josephus tells us that it had a significant Jewish population

Simon will carry the crossbeam for Jesus all the way the place of execution

And amazingly enough, we think that this experience was so life-altering for Simon, that he became a brother in the Lord.

We think this because of how Mark write in Mark 15:21

If this was just some random stranger never to be heard from again, we would not know the names of his sons.

We might know his name, since he has been involuntarily involved in the most important moment in world history, but we wouldn’t know his sons.

But there is even more to it than that.

Traditionally, we have understood Mark’s Gospel to be Peter’s biographical account of Jesus’ life, as dictated to Mark.

And we have understood it to be directed to Gentile believers—initially the Gentile believers at the church in Rome.

So it seems like Mark includes this note about Rufus and Alexander because Rufus and Alexander are well-known in the Roman church.

And Paul confirms this in Romans 16

And as far as Cyrene goes, the Gospel took off there and the local church in the city played a big role in the early mission work of the church

Acts 11:20 “But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.”

How involved was Simon in that work?

Maybe we will find out in heaven

But the bottom line is that while the Romans thought they were picking a random guy out of the crowd, that wasn’t the case in God’s plan.

According to God’s sovereign grace, He had Simon picked out so that Simon would not just carry the cross of Christ.

He picked Simon out so that Simon and his household could meet their Lord, if our historical puzzle piece work is correct.

THE MOURNERS (v.

27-31)

We move on to verse 27 and see that a large crowd is following Jesus.

A great multitude of people.

Some of His committed followers would have been in the crowd.

Horrified and perplexed.

Some would have been confused, manipulated by the religious leadership into lending their voice to the chants for crucifixion.

Some were the corrupt leaders who had concocted this whole thing

But we see there are also these women who are mourning and lamenting (v.

27).

These are not followers of Christ.

These are professional mourners.

They would show up to scenes like this and beat on their chest and weep and wail.

This is similar to the group that shows up in Luke 8:52-54

They have probably shown up here because Jesus has gained prominence

While these woman are professional, there is no reason to think they are not sympathetic to Christ.

But sympathy is not devotion.

They are not His followers.

They are not His disciples.

But He speaks to them and issues them a warning.

A merciful alarm regarding what is to come.

A merciful warning in the form of a brutal prophecy.

He is saying that they should not weep for Him, but for themselves because a judgment is going to come down on Jerusalem that will be so terrible that people who usually call themselves cursed (women who can’t bear children) will call themselves blessed.

Things will be so bad that they will be relieved to have not brought children into the world.

What are these days that that are coming that Jesus speaks of in verse 29?

It is 70 AD.

It is the judgment that will come down on Jerusalem for how they treated the Son of God.

And it will come in the form of the Romans laying waste to the city

Jesus warned of this especially in His Olivet Discourse.

When we were walking through that text, I shared about the atrocities that occurred and what Rome did to the Jewish people in and around Jerusalem during that time.

They starved them out.

They locked them in the city and let them starve.

The historian Josephus reported that 1.1 million Jewish people died and 100,000 more were taken captive

Jesus tells the mourners that in those days, the people will cry out for the mountains and hills to fall on them and cover them, in hopes of avoiding God’s wrath.

We first see language like that in Hosea, as the prophet warns of what will happen when the Assyrians come and take the Northern Kingdom of Israel captive in 722 BC:

Hosea 10:8 “The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed.

Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us,” and to the hills, “Fall on us.””

The same is said of how people will respond to Final Judgment in Revelation 6:15-16

It is described in the same language because what happened in the judgment of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC and what happens in Jerusalem in 70 AD was a preview of how things will be when Jesus returns and comes again