The Gospel According to Mockers

Our Lenten series this year has focused on the enemies of Jesus. And on this Good Friday, Jesus is surely surrounded by enemies. In the words of Psalm 22, which Jesus prayed from the cross, “Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion . . . Dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me, they have pierced my hands and feet.” Yes, the powers of evil are all swirling around Jesus on this afternoon. The question for us to ask though, is “do they confess the truth about Jesus?” Oh boy, do they ever.

Now we just heard the full story of the crucifixion from Matthew’s Gospel, but I want to draw your attention especially to the people who mocked Jesus in verses 39-44. The passers-by, members of the Sanhedrin, and even the bandits crucified with him all mock him mercilessly. Their impious slandering of Jesus is so obviously sarcastic and cruel that it isn’t obvious at first how much truth is hidden in what they’re saying, but when you look at it again, you could practically write a creed from the statements they make about who Jesus is. They obviously got some things fatally wrong. They failed to understand who Jesus was and what he came to do. But they also got some very important things right in spite of themselves.

What They Got Wrong

First its important to know what they got wrong. There are three different groups that we’re told join in the slander of Jesus: First the passersby, that is, average people going about their day, coming in and out of the city, who have heard about Jesus and who stop to get a look at him. Second, we have the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people. Those three categories together make up the Sanhedrin of the people of Israel, which orchestrated Jesus’ execution. Third and finally we have the “robbers” who were co-crucified with Jesus, and these are probably violent revolutionaries. One commentator translates “robber” as “terrorist.” They’re people who are willing to use violence against Romans or even other Jews for the glory and freedom of Israel. In sum, this is a representative sampling of Jesus’ people Israel: the average joes, the official religious establishment, and the extremists, and they’re all joining in the mockery and the rejection of their King.

And the reason they reject him is because they can’t understand the cross. In their minds, the crucifixion is proof that Jesus couldn’t possibly be the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of Israel. A real king wouldn’t let himself get crucified. “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” they say, unknowingly echoing the tempter in the wilderness, “If you are the Son of God, make these stones bread . . . if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” And the Sanhedrin takes up the taunt, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants him.” They are practically quoting Psalm 22, but they are quoting the words of the Psalmist’s enemies, the almost demonic forces who mock him. They look at Jesus on the cross and see it as proof that Jesus doesn’t trust in God, or that God does not want him. But in coming to that conclusion they end up speaking for the devil and his demonic hordes.

This is what happens when people try to come to conclusions about how God feels or what God should be doing by looking at the circumstances that they see. There are people in our world today who will tell you that if you really trusted God, then you wouldn’t be suffering, he would save you right here and now if he loved you. “If you just had enough faith and prayed hard enough, God would heal your cancer, or you wouldn’t have to struggle with anxiety or depression, or the person you love wouldn’t have had that accident.” People who think that way look at suffering and conclude that you don’t really trust in God, or that God must be punishing you. But when people say that they are speaking for Satan and his demonic forces, just like the mockers at the crucifixion.

They should know better. They should know that God’s faithful people have always trusted God, even while suffering unjustly, knowing that God loved them and would eventually prove faithful to them, even in spite of their present circumstances. That was every bit as true of the Messiah as it is for the rest of God’s people. Jesus did trust in God, and God did desire him and love him more than anything. The crucifixion couldn’t change that.

What they Got Right

But in spite of their tragic misunderstanding of Jesus and their slander, these representatives of the people of Israel practically preach a sermon about who Jesus is: Yes, Jesus is the Son of God, he is the King of Israel. Yes, Jesus does trust in God, his Father, and he is the beloved Son whom his Father desires and delights in. Jesus is even now letting the temple of his body be destroyed in order to rebuild it in 3 days. They even rightly predict that when Jesus “comes down” from the cross they would believe in him; After Jesus rose from the dead, some of the priests and leaders of Israel did come to believe in Jesus.

But perhaps the truest thing they say is “He saved others, he cannot save himself.” Yes, Jesus did save others. He rescued them from the domain of sin and death, and even now he is saving others; as he suffocates and bleeds out he is completing the work that will save all of humanity. Saving others is who Jesus is. And that’s why he cannot save himself. Jesus cannot listen to the taunts inviting him to come down right now from the cross and show his power. Of course he could; he doesn’t lack the power to save himself. But he will not, he cannot, use that power if he is going to save others. If he is going to save us. Yes, God will ultimately deliver Jesus in the resurrection. Jesus will “come down” and be free from the cross and the grave. The temple of Jesus’ body will be rebuilt. But first it has to be destroyed. Jesus has to be forsaken by God in this moment while the powers of sin and death do their worst against him. God will ultimately deliver Jesus through death, but he will not deliver him from death right now. Yet Jesus still trusts his Father through it all. He remains God’s beloved Son.

So if you are looking around at the world or at your life and seeing suffering that just doesn’t make sense, don’t let anyone tell you that that proves God has rejected you. Present circumstances are not a reliable guide to how God feels about you or what his plans are. What is a reliable guide is what Jesus was willing to go through to save you. I can promise that God does want you and he does love you because Jesus himself joined us in horrific and unfair suffering. He felt for himself what it was like to be abandoned by God to death. Jesus refused to save himself so that he could save you. If even Jesus, the King of Israel and God’s beloved Son, felt forsaken by God and still continued to entrust himself to God, why should it be any different for us? Trust in the God who saves his people from death and remember the words of the suffering Psalmist: “God has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.” God heard the cry of Jesus, and he hears your cries as well. He won’t turn his face away. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.