In View of God's Mercy: Good Friday

The Cross is Serious Business

There was once a young boy who was constantly having problems in school. He did not take his studies seriously and behaved badly in the classroom. He found new ways to get into trouble. Ultimately his misdeeds led to expulsion from that school.

The boy’s parents were eager to find some way to get him to shape up and turn his life around. They had raised the boy in a non-religious context, so he had no spiritual upbringing or familiarity with Jesus Christ. But since the parents were desperate, they enrolled their son in a Christian school about which they had heard good reviews. They hoped that this new school context would change the trajectory of his bad behavior.

Remarkably, their hopes were realized. After several weeks of attending the Christian school they noticed a dramatic change in the boy’s attitude and actions. His academic performance improved; his grades were significantly higher. The teachers reported that he was respectful to them and well-behaved among the other children.

The boy’s parents were delighted at these positive reports from the new school. So they asked their son what had made the difference. Why had he changed his behavior at school so dramatically? The young boy gave an unexpected reply. He said: “When I entered that school building, the first thing that I noticed hanging on the wall was a figure of a man nailed to a cross. When I saw that, I knew that they meant business!”

Even though this boy didn’t understand who was on the cross, or even the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross, one thing he did get right—the cross meant business! God did mean business when Jesus died on the cross. Indeed, the severity of the cross demonstrates just how serious God was in carrying out the business he had come to earth for.

Why did Jesus suffer such a horrific death on the cross? Why would the eternal God put himself through such a painful and shameful experience as a public execution on the cross? It is all because of God’s mercy to us. In the cross God meant business, and that business is his mercy.

I. Christ is God’s Merciful Sacrifice

The Bible makes clear that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for sin. There is something about sacrifice that has made it extremely high profile in most religions. Many of the religions of the world have some kind of blood sacrifice imbedded into their ritual. This emphasis on sacrifice demonstrates the fact that humanity knows deep down that it is somehow in debt to God. And most of us recognize that the payment of that debt must be in blood.

Christianity offers a unique answer to the question of who sacrifices. Other religions demand that humans sacrifice to God to appease his wrath. But the Bible states that God did the sacrificing on our behalf. And he sacrificed himself. As Hebrews 9:26 puts it, Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

This is Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice for sin. It was a sacrifice because he paid for it with his blood, with his life. It was substitutionary because it was our sin he was paying for. The apostle Paul writes: “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus Christ had no sins of his own, yet he was filled with our sins as he hung on the cross. And he suffered death for those sins, death on a cross.

It is in view of God’s mercy that we gaze upon the cross to see our substitutionary sacrifice. Christ is indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is indeed the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He sacrifices himself in mercy toward us. On the cross, God means business by offering himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sin.

II. Christ is Our Merciful Savior

The result of the cross, the result of Christ’s offering himself as a sacrifice for our sin, is that he is now our Savior from sin. All of our sin was placed on him and he bore its penalty to the full, even to death. This means that our sin is removed from us; we are freed from its curse and condemnation. By God’s mercy Jesus has saved you for eternity!

The gospel reading from Luke 23 describes how when Jesus was crucified an inscription was fastened on the cross which read: “This is the King of the Jews” (v. 38). It was the practice in Roman crucifixions to put above criminals’ heads the list of crimes for which they were being executed. Pontius Pilate ordered the words written above Jesus’ head, “This is the King of the Jews,” even though Pilate himself declared Jesus to be innocent of any crime.

But our epistle reading today reports that in the spiritual realm another list was fastened onto the cross of Christ. Colossians 2 says that God forgave us all of our trespasses, “by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (v. 14). Nailed to the cross was a list of all the laws of God that we had broken, every commandment that we had transgressed. Every sin that we have ever committed was fastened to the cross of Christ. So when Jesus died, all of our sin was canceled. The record of our debt was wiped clean, finished, forgiven! Jesus Christ took all the curse of God’s law upon himself and paid the debt fully, as Paul states in Galatians 3:13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’”

On the cross, Jesus experienced the fire of God’s wrath against sin. He accepted God’s judgement against sin in the stead of sinners. He tasted death for everyone. The result is that you are delivered from God’s judgment. God’s judgment against sin has been spent at the cross of Christ. There is now no judgment, no condemnation, for you who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

As you trust in the merciful work of Jesus on the cross, there is no condemnation from God against you now or in the future. You look back to judgment, not ahead to it. You look back to the cross of Christ, to the merciful Savior who suffered God’s holy judgement in your stead. The fire of God’s righteous wrath was fully satisfied in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He is your merciful Savior who bestows on you God’s eternal mercy!

Conclusion

In pioneer days out on the Great Plains there was a great fear of prairie fires. The wildfires would sweep across the landscape, burning up everything in their paths. The fires would travel so fast that no human could outrun them. When the homesteaders would see a wall of fire and smoke approaching, they couldn’t flee. But there was a way they could be saved.

While a massive prairie fire was still at a distance, the pioneers would take fire from their hearths and start a second fire on a nearby field. This fire would thoroughly burn the terrain near them until it was spent and ashen. A large patch of ground was now scorched and black. Then the pioneer families would move to the middle of the area of burned-out ground as a place of safety. When the wall of a fast-moving wildfire finally arrived, it parted and moved around them, not coming close enough to harm them. You see, it could not burn the place that had already been burned. The threatening conflagration could not touch those who stood in the already-scorched earth.

As a believer in Christ, you are rescued from the coming fire of God’s wrath against sin by going to the place where that fire has already burned. You go to the cross of Jesus Christ and you stand in his mercy. On the cross two thousand years ago your sin was punished by the fires of hell. Jesus suffered the full curse of your breaking of God’s law. He experienced God’s wrath against every sin you ever committed or will commit.

The good news is that God will never punish you a second time for the sin that was paid for by Christ once and for all on the cross. It is done. It’s past! From the cross of Christ come the words, “It is finished!” You are rescued from the fire of judgment because of Christ our merciful Savior. In his cross you have mercy!

At the cross, God meant business—the wondrous business of mercy. At the cross, God means business—the wondrous business of your salvation.