Sermon Tone Analysis

*Sermon Worksheet & Manuscript*

*Robert L. Hutcherson, Jr.*

*Quinn** Chapel A.M.E.

Church*

*                                        Sermon Preparation~/Delivery*

                                                     *Luke 23:26-34*

*/“Were You There?

– Simon Of Cyrene”/*

*The Rev. Karla J. Cooper, **Pastor*

*/April 6, 200/**/7/*

                                                      “*/Good Friday”/*

\\ \\ Sermon Worksheet & Manuscript

*TEXT*

* *

/"When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.

And following Him was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him.

But Jesus turning to them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.'

Then they will begin TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, 'FALL ON US,' AND TO THE HILLS, 'COVER US.' For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?

Two others also, who were criminals, were being led away to be put to death with Him.

When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.

But Jesus was saying, Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves."

(Luke 23:26-34 NASBR)/

 

*BODY*

 

*My name is Simon.

I come from Cyrene in North Africa.

And I would tell you of the day that changed my life forever.

The day that changed my life dawned like any other that spring in Jerusalem.

There is a freshness about the early morning in the Judean hills; the air is crisp and clean, and the dew sparkles on the low vines; they grow them along the ground there to catch it.*

*I remember how excited I was.

For years, I'd lived for that day.

It's every Jew's dream, of course: to be in Jerusalem for Passover.

But it was my dream too ... to celebrate it there ... at least once.*

*Jerusalem** is beautiful.

I was not disappointed in it.

Till I came there I'd thought my home town in North Africa the most beautiful in the world - 2,000 feet up it, and you look down from it to the Great Sea sparkling blue - marvellously blue - in the sun.

I was a fruit farmer there, as my father was, and as I planned for my two sons, Rufus and Alexander, to be.

Date palms.

That plantation was my pride and joy.

and the view from it a bonus I never tired of.

Beautiful for elevation Cyrene is.

But so is Jerusalem ... so white and compact and ... regal, somehow, like a shapely crown on its proud hill.*

* *

*And the Temple!

It took my breath away.

Magnificent!*

*I'm not ashamed to admit I wept through the whole of the evening sacrifice that first time.

My feet were standing in its courts!

And to see the smoke rising from the great altar into Jerusalem's sky, the temple singers wafting it heavenwards on their chorus, and the priest in white, his arms uplifted.

I tell you my very soul felt lifted up to God.*

*And then, as I say, the Day of the Passover dawned, and we all washed and dressed in a fever of anticipation.*

*We were early leaving the village, We wanted to spend the whole day with our hosts and help with the preparations.

We overtook a flock of bleating sheep on the way in, I remember ... no doubt the last of the Passover lambs for sale in the Temple.*

*The Passover has always had a solemnising effect on me.

I don't think any but a Jew could ever understand the feeling we have for it.

I remember the Rabbi we talked with in Alexandria when we visited the synagogue there on our long journey, said to us, when he learned we were pilgrims, "In every generation, each individual is bound to regard himself as if he personally had gone forth out of Egypt."He was quoting the rubrics, I knew, but I understood him very well.

Every Passover I felt it ... felt as though I were an Israelite in Egypt, sheltering behind the blood-spattered door in the dim light of our home from some nameless dread out there in the eerie moonlight, while we ate the roast meat, and the dry, biscuity bread.

*

*I'm not sure I ever truly understood it all, but I remember the feeling was always strong with me that our protection from the death that threatened all the land outside was that we sheltered under the blood of the lamb that was God's provision for that meal.

I never could see the killing of that sweet creature (the children always loved it by then ... they'd made a pet of it) without a feeling that innocence was being violated most cruelly.

Was there no other way we could be given safety when God laid the stroke of His judgment on the land?*

*Such thoughts were far from my mind, of course, as we climbed the hill to the city gate in the early morning sunshine*

*There was an added air of excitement in the city that morning; a lot of talk about the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee - all sorts of tales about healings and miracles, even the raising of a dead man in a nearby village.

People had been talking of nothing else for days.

Marvellous stories.

He'd led some sort of procession into the city at the beginning of the week, and created no end of a stir in the Temple … even been hailed as the Messiah, I was told.

"But you mustn't believe all you hear," they said.

Nothing much seemed to have come of it all.

When I'd been in the city the day before, nobody seemed even to know where he was.*

*Once we were through the gate, the city was unbelievably crowded, and the noise of shouting people was deafening to my quiet country ears.*

*But I remember, as we jostled our way along the narrow streets between the tiny shops, how there seemed to be a sort of lull; and then over the relative quiet there came the sound of another crowd - as though some sort of procession was moving toward us.

There was an ugly sound to it; it sent a shiver through me.*

*After Pontius Pilate had ceremoniously washed his hands and declared, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it," the crowd shouted back almost gleefully, "His blood be on us, and on our children."

The only thing left for the mob to do then was to rejoice over the success of their freshly-washed robes of self-declared righteousness.

Had the Jews put Jesus to death in their own way, He would have been stoned; but since they were doing it the legal way…the Roman way…He was crucified.

The history of death by crucifixion is an old one.

Alexander the Great borrowed it from the Persians.

Then it was copied by the Carthaginians.

And finally it was adopted by the Romans who used it to execute slaves, thieves and prisoners of war.

*

*But the Romans considered death on a cross far too cruel for their own citizens.

It was because of this that, according to rather firm tradition, Paul was beheaded by a sword instead of being crucified as was Simon Peter.

*

*There had been the trial before Annas, the three trials before Joseph Caiaphas…the preliminary trial, the regular trial, and the repeat trial…the one early in the morning to make everything legal and within the letter of the law.

There had been the trial before Pilate and the trial before Herod.

And there was the final trial before Pilate.

*

*In addition to this, Jesus had gone through endless mental and physical torture.

There had been the pain of three times finding Peter, James and John asleep while having Judas betray Him with a kiss.

There had been the pain of seeing Peter slash off a man's ear with a sword.

There had been the pain of seeing His disciples flee.

There had been the pain of being bound and having His hands pulled high between His shoulders.

There had been the pain of being before Caiaphas.

There had been the pain of being scourged by the order of Pilate.

*

*The man delivered by the procurator to the mob was already half dead.

He was a pitiful sight with the crown of thorns on His head and His raw back and swollen face.

*

*As the mob faced Jesus, they faced a man who was utterly worn out.

After His hours of agonized praying in Gethsemane He had gone from one weary trial to another, and He had not had a bite of food or a drop of water since the Last Supper the night before.

*

*What happened then happened so quickly we never had a chance to avoid it.*

*Round a corner came a bustling, shouting mob, walking half backwards while they watched some spectacle that was moving along behind them.

They were on us before we knew what it was.

Behind the people jostling at the front there was a squad of Roman soldiers, and behind them, in the space they were barely able to keep clear, there were three men one behind the other shouldering heavy cross-beams.

*

* *

*There was a soldier in front of each of them carrying a wooden sign.

They always did that in crucifixion processions - a warning to the general public by advertising the crime the man was being executed for.*

*"Dysmas, Robber and Rebel" the first sign read.