Sermon Tone Analysis

I would imagine that Adam’s grandkids periodically had to pull one of the cousins aside and tell them, “Don’t ask grandpa why he doesn’t eat apples.

He seems to get really mad.” Eve cries out to Adam, “hey honey, I found some really delicious fruit over here,” and around the corner you may hear, “no way I’m falling for that one again!”

Do you think Adam every joked about the Fall?

Various Passages | April 9, 2017

I would imagine that Adam’s grandkids periodically had to pull one of the cousins aside and tell them, “Don’t ask grandpa why he doesn’t eat apples.

He seems to get really mad.” Eve cries out to Adam, “hey honey, I found some really delicious fruit over here,” and around the corner you may hear, “no way I’m falling for that one again!”

Do you think Adam every joked about the Fall?

We probably look at the sin in the garden and at times wonder why it was such a big deal.

It was just a piece of fruit after all.

And yet that one sin damned all creation and resulted in every person being born in a state of sin and misery, bound to their sins, and headed to an eternal damnation.

Apparently, it wasn’t just a piece of fruit.

Don’t we view our sins that way as well?

Don’t we make light of them?

Thomas Manton wrote, “We make light of sin, but Christ found it not so light a matter to expiate it.

Do but consider his fears and tears and strong cries when he stood in the place of sinners before God’s tribunal, when God ‘laid upon him the iniquities of us all.’[1]

There is no sin which bears no weight and was not part of that which demanded an infinite and perfect sacrifice.

Purpose Statement.

Meditating on the consequences of my sin, I am motivated to a love for my Father and a hatred for my sin.

[The concepts for this message flow from many resources, but let me commend to you two resources that strongly influenced this content, those being Wayne Grudem’s section in his Systematic Theology on Christ’s sufferings and Martin Luther’s message “The Sufferings of Christ.”]

Reflect on the depth of Christ’s suffering.

He lived a life of suffering.

Christ’s sufferings did not begin in the garden.

They are not confined to the “Passion Week.”

They began when he “took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.”

( NLT).

He was brought into the world with no status or position.

His family did not bestow on him great social honors.

Likely, the tabloid like heading for his mother’s pregnancy resulted in criticism and a cold shoulder.

The religious leaders seemed to be aware of these circumstances when they publicly accused him of being born of sexual immorality ().

The author of Hebrews informs us that “although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” ( ESV).

Being from Galilee was about as glamorous as being from Waterloo.

In other words he was born into humility.

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” ( ESV).

The Spirit led him into the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by Satan.

Alone and hungry, he suffered the attack of Satan.

His following ministry was marked by fame as went throughout all Syria () but not because people cared for him.

They wanted his food and his miracles.

The religious leaders opposed him at every turn, taunting him with derision and questions.

Luke writes, “the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him and provoke . . .

lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say” ( ESV).

How exhausting that must have been.

The Jewish people called him a “Samaritan devil!

Didn’t we say all along that you were possessed by a demon?” ( NLT).

They referred to Christ as “a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” ( ESV).

The Jewish leaders and their followers attempted to kill him numerous times and he barely escaped with his life (, , ).

Hardly are the sufferings of Christ limited to the moments surrounding his death.

He lived a life of suffering.

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” ( ESV).

He suffered immensely in his gruesome death.

While Christ’s life was a life of suffering, the climax of his suffering lie in the events surrounding his death.

Crucifixion would have been one of the most agonizing of deaths.

Josephus calls it “the most wretched of deaths.”

“Victims were almost always executed without clothing, probably to make them more susceptible to blows and to increase their shame.”[2]

The weight of one’s body would primarily be supported by their arms and hands which would have been fastened to the cross by nails.

While hanging they would struggle to draw in a new breath.

They would hang in such a fashion until they could no longer bear it.

Their need for air would require them to relieve the pressure on their chest and lungs.

To do so, they must push themselves up by placing all their weight on the feet which were fastened to the cross with nails and pulling upward on the nails driven into their wrists.

As they pulled themselves up, their back which had been flogged repeatedly and bore the open bleeding wounds would scrape against the rough wood of the cross.

Melito of Sardis.

He who hung the earth [in its place] hangs there, he who fixed the heavens is fixed there, he who made all things fast is made fast upon the tree, the Master has been insulted, God has been murdered, the King of Israel has been slain by an Israelite hand.

O strange murder, strange crime!

The Master has been treated in unseemly fashion, his body naked, and not even deemed worthy of a covering that [his nakedness] might not be seen.

Therefore the lights [of heaven] turned away, and the day darkened, that it might hide him who was stripped upon the cross (Pass.

96–97).[3]

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him.

33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

( ESV).

He suffered as he took on our sin.

While Christ suffered immensely in his gruesome death, the greater sting of suffering lie not just in the physical death but in that which he took on himself in his death.

He took on our sins.

We may not fully appreciate this reality because we struggle to abhor sin the same way Christ would have.

We have felt the pains of guilt and shame that come in our awareness of sin, and yet there is as well within us, at times, enjoyment amidst our sin.

Yet, Christ never felt the weight of shame and guilt for personal sin.

Jesus was perfectly holy.

He hated sin with his entire being.

The thought of evil, of sin, contradicted everything in his character.

Far more than we do, Jesus instinctively rebelled against evil.

Yet in obedience to the Father, and out of love for us, Jesus took on himself all the sins of those who would someday be saved.

Taking on himself all the evil against which his soul rebelled created deep revulsion in the center of his being.

All that he hated most deeply was poured out fully upon him.

Scripture frequently says that our sins were put on Christ: “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (), and “He bore the sin of many” ().

John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” ().

Paul declares that God made Christ “to be sin” () and that Christ became “a curse for us” ().

The author of Hebrews says that Christ was “offered once to bear the sins of many” ().

And Peter says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” ().[4]

He suffered as he was abandoned by his disciples () and His Father ().

As he grieves in the garden, he takes three of his closest disciples with him.

He tells them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

Remain here and watch” ( ESV).

We’ve all felt intense grief.

At times such as those we turn to those we most cherish and desire their companionship.

We need their presence.

And yet, moments later, one of Christ’s disciples betrays him as a host of soldiers come to take him away.

His disciples flee into the night.

One of them holds out, that is until Peter denies being associated with Christ.

At that moment Christ “turned and looked at Peter” ().

There were none that remained to see him through this dark moment.

Even more intense than the rejection of his disciples was the rejection of His Father.