Crucified Expectations

Good Friday is what it looks like when human expectations crumble.

Simon of Cyrene probably expected to have a normal day. He surely wasn’t anticipating that he would be seized and compelled to carry a cross for a criminal. And when he did see the criminal whose cross he would carry, he had no idea that criminal was the only sinless man to ever walk the earth.

The Pharisees expected Jesus to die and stay dead. They didn’t believe He was the Son of God, and if there was any uncertainty about that on their part, they would’ve expected Jesus to come down from the cross. And when it seemed like their expectations had been affirmed as they watched Jesus hang apparently weak and helpless on the cross, they mocked Him and insulted Him. The Pharisees expected Jesus to be a fake, a phony, and a counterfeit. But as the curtain of the temple tore, and ultimately, as the stone would roll away three days later, the Pharisees’ expectations were shown to be nothing more than a house of cards.

Good Friday shattered the disciples’ expectations. Deep down, they surely didn’t expect the events that would take place on that fateful day. They didn’t expect for their Rabbi to die. He seemed invincible to them. As Jesus breathed his last, everything the disciples had built their hope upon was dead and now their lives were in real danger. God didn’t work as they expected and now their understanding of God and the world was crashing down.

Good Friday is what it looks like when human expectations crumble. *[PAUSE]*

And the same could be said of the past year we’ve just lived through. No human expectation made it out of 2020 unscathed.

Jobs lost. Celebrations cancelled. Graduations postponed. Vacations vacated. Weddings downsized. Funerals foregone. Travel terminated. School shifted. Friendships faded. Mental health decimated. Tensions rising. Painful politics. Hate rampant. And millions dead.

None of us could’ve expected what we would live through this past year. In fact, the events of this past terrestrial turn have been so unexpected that we can’t even grasp or fathom the amount of loss and pain that has been experienced. The reports of the death and destruction of the last year is honestly just too much to process and comprehend.

This Vision 2020 year showed us that we are neither prophets nor the children of prophets. For many of us, we stepped into 2020 excited and expectant of what the year might hold for us. We were enthusiastic about what God might do and the next steps we might take. And yet, a year later, many of us feel like we’ve stumbled backwards rather than sprung forward. Basic elements of our everyday lives have been taken away or put on hold.

Our expectations of reality and the world have crumbled. And so have many of our expectations of God. Many of us are tempted to wonder if God was truly good and truly loving and truly powerful how He could allow such death and destruction. We’ve questioned God. We’ve been enraged at Him. We’ve pointed fingers at Him and wondered how the last year could really be the best course for reality. And when we cry out to Him, we seem to hear nothing in return. For many of us, God seems so silent that we wonder if He even speaks or if He’s even there. Has everything we believed about Him been wrong?

This past year has been like one, long Good Friday where our expectations of God and the world have crumbled to the ground.

*[PAUSE]*

But there’s one more set of crumbled expectations from Good Friday that we haven’t talked about yet: those of the Roman Centurion. He expected for Good Friday to be a normal day. He probably carried out crucifixions all of the time. And he surely would have expected a normal set of crucifixions that day. Except there was one problem: he wasn’t dealing with a normal man. He was dealing with Jesus. When he looked and saw the darkness, when he saw the destruction and storm, when he saw all that was happening around him, his expectations crumbled, but in a totally different way than the disciples, or the Pharisees, or Simon of Cyrene.

With Jesus dead in front of him and Christ’s very blood on his hands, the Roman centurion finally understood and had all of his expectations transformed. His whole view of the world changed. He wasn’t a theologian. He didn’t understand the fine points of theology. He couldn’t expound the fine points of Christology or explain the hypostatic union. He hadn’t read a single word of the New Testament. But nonetheless, in his limited understanding, he had a clear and present knowledge when he looked at the cross: he knew Jesus was the Son of God. And with that revelation and Jesus’s very blood on his hands, the centurion’s expectations were transformed.

In many ways, that’s where you and I sit. We all have expectations. And this last year crumbled them. And because of our sin, we have Jesus’ blood on our hands. We are as guilty for His death as the Roman centurion.

How will we respond when our expectations of God and the world crumble? Will we mock God like the prideful Pharisees? Will we question everything we thought about God like the disciples? Or like the centurion, will we declare Jesus to be exactly who he says He is?

When the storms of life rage, when the clouds seem to darken, when destruction and uncertainty abound, will we crucify our expectations so that they might be redeemed?

It was in the midst of the storm that the centurion finally saw who Jesus really was. Without the storm, without the darkness, without the death, the centurion would’ve never seen Jesus for who He really was.

It was precisely in what appeared to be His weakest and darkest moments that Jesus was deeply at work. It was at those darkest moments of human history that humanity was about to be saved.

If Jesus can work in the midst of storm and darkness, and if He can reveal Himself even then, imagine the glories He might show us on the other side of the storm. Sometimes it takes the storms and darkness for us to finally crucify our expectations and get a glimpse of who God really is.

As we look back on this past year, our expectations of the world and God may crumble, but it is God who builds beauty out of ashes.

I have no idea what all God has been doing through the darkness of this past year, but I know this: God has been at work, even if we can fully see or understand it. If

God can take the most destructive event in all of human history—the crucifixion of the Son of God—and turn it into the greatest act of salvation, imagine what He could do with this past year!

It is only when we gaze at the cross that we can begin to see Jesus for who He really is. And is at the cross that we are most powerfully reminded that God is always in the business of redemption; even when the storm rages.

Like I said, Good Friday is where human expectations crumble. And pay heed: even the expectations of the most experienced believers and greatest theologians are not safe when they gaze upon the cross. No matter how many times we gaze upon the cross, there are still new glories to be found.

In the cross, we see the King of Kings enthroned through a criminal’s death. In the cross, we see the climax of human history.

In the cross, we see the worst sin of man used to atone for all the sins of man. In the cross, we see hope for the hopeless.

In the cross, we see forgiveness for the unforgiveable.

In the cross, we see power through weakness.

In the cross, we see life through death.

In the cross, we see Satan’s victory plan of killing God to be the very means to his defeat.

In the cross, we see the love of God in the midst of the hatred of man. In the cross, we see the securing of indestructible joy.

We could gaze upon the glory of Jesus at the cross for all of eternity and still not exhaust the riches that lay within Him. And we will see and proclaim those glories forever. Yet, the centurion didn’t need an eternity to begin to proclaim the glory of Jesus and the cross. It was in his first gaze at the cross that he began to see and declare. As we gaze upon the cross tonight, may we see the glory and work of Jesus even in the darkness, have our expectations crucified, and with the centurion, boldly proclaim, “Truly, this man was the Son of God!”