The Cross

Good morning, welcome to NHCC, please open your Bibles to Mark 15.

Read Mark 15:21-32.

Pray.

Summarize the text, giving more necessary detail.

Path to the site of crucifixion- Via Dolorosa- not sure of the exact route, but likely would have snaked around quite a bit and had plenty of observers.

Twofold- first to show the people of Rome that they would be victorious over all enemies. Crucifixion was a mark of victory.

Second, to show enemies the consequences of rising against Rome. Crucifixion was a deterrent.

Somewhere along the way, Simon of Cyrene was compelled, or forced, to carry Jesus’ crossbeam.

Why is the detail given?

Simon probably ended up being well-known in the early church, meaning that he likely became a Christian and could attest to the events listed in Mark’s gospel.

Simon would have been brought in because Jesus was physically unable to carry his own crossbeam.

Remember, had been flogged, a beating that sometimes killed prisoners before they had the chance to be crucified.

Blood loss had likely taken its toll.

Athol Gill- “One of the profound paradoxes of Christianity is to be found in the fact that the one who was not able to carry his own cross is the one who enables us to carry ours.”

Mark gives very few details about the crucifixion, and there are likely a couple of reasons for this.

Crucifixion needed no describing. People were aware of what happened at the cross. They were aware of the brutality.

The very words given are meant to pull at our heartstrings.

We tend to think that everything needs to be made-up, to be shown to us in greater detail, but Mark intends for his words to have an impact.

The basic truth to be understood is that Jesus is crucified.

While on the cross, the soldiers cast lots for his clothing, as some pieces would have more value than others.

And finally, there was mockery from multiple groups of people, a detail we will highlight in just a moment.

Ever been burned by the fine print? Sometimes we need to study texts with a fine tooth comb

We tend to be overly familiar with the narrative of the cross. So looking at it with new and fresh eyes and attention to detail, what is it that sticks out? Three small details to be found in the text that have major implications.

1. The symbolism in the garments.

Everything in our text has to do with the humiliation of Jesus.

The journey of the road to the cross, carrying his own crossbeam.

The pulling in of someone to help- likely not an act of mercy, but instead a way of getting to Golgotha more quickly.

The mocking charge written on a sign attached to the cross.

The general setting of being executed between two robbers.

The derision from the religious leaders, those who were passing by, and even the robbers with whom He was being crucified.

Finally, the dividing up of His clothes by the soldiers.

Common knowledge that this would happen, so it is interesting that Mark included the detail.

Fulfillment of Psalm 22:18- “...they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

Reminds us that what is happening has long before been foretold. That God is in control, even in the humiliation of Jesus.

But there is likely even more occuring in this detail being mentioned.

Greek word for garments (himatia) shows up 12 times in Mark’s gospel.

Five occurences are pertaining to the clothing of Jesus, prior to His arrest, trial and crucifixion.

Three in Mark 5- account of the woman who touches the hem of Jesus’ garment and is healed.

One is in Mark 6- Author states that wherever Jesus went, people were pushing up to him to touch the hem of his garment. And if they touched it, they were made well.

One in Mark 9- The transfiguration, where the glory and majesty of Jesus are shown, and His garments become bright white, as no one could even bleach them.

Up to this point in Mark’s gospel, Mark has spoken of Jesus’ clothes in a way that shows Him to be who He is, God almighty, glorified, healer, deliverer, restorer.

Now, however, his clothes have been removed.

David Garland- “It reveals his utter degradation. The powerful healer and transfigured Son of God dies as a publicly humiliated human being.”

Remember, Mark’s words are enough. With his words, he reveals the lengths that Jesus went through in order to die on our behalf.

2. Crucified among the sinners.

If Jesus’ loss of garment revealed the humiliation of Jesus, then such humiliation is intensified by the company Jesus was keeping at the cross.

Jesus is crucified between two robbers.

Fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12- Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus spends his last moments of life being portrayed as a sinner, largely because He is crucified with sinners.

This should be no surprise to us.

Mark 2:16-17- And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus saw the value of those that the religious leaders would cast aside.

They had no desire to be with sinners, but Jesus saw the need of sinners.

Not only did He live with sinners, He died with them. And even in the crucifixion did not stop building His Kingdom, as we see in other gospel accounts.

Consider the great challenges to us.

Jesus was constantly with His disciples, but took the Gospel where it most needed to go…to those who knew nothing of it.

We are to live the same way- plugged into the life of the church and taking the Gospel to the lost.

3. Staying on the cross.

Consider with me the mission of the Messiah, or the Christ.

He is a deliverer. One who will deliver Israel. He will deliver those who are incapable of delivering themselves.

We have seen glimpses. Jesus has saved some.

Woman with bleeding issues. Or at the end of Mark 4- saving the disciples in a storm.

He has saved their lives, but such salvation was a shadow compared to the substance of the salvation that was to come.

Many viewed the Messiah as a figure that would save Israel from the threat of Rome, but God had a much greater salvation in mind.

People would be saved from sin, from spiritual death, from abandonment from God.

Thus, the Messiah would not be One who was out for Himself, and His own safety.

Jesus has been hammering in this message. He would be a Messiah that dies for His people, and His disciples are to be people who would follow Him by laying down their own lives for others.

Mark 8:31- And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mark 8:34-36- And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

This is what is to be expected of the behavior, and the mindset of the Messiah.

So why is it that everyone is trying to get Jesus off the cross?

Satan in the temptation in the wilderness, Peter rebuking Jesus, and now the religious leaders in their mockery.

Chief Priests and Scribes once again cannot fathom a Messiah stripped of dignity, hanging between two robbers.

So they say one thing will convince them of Jesus’ identity as Messiah- if He comes down off the cross.

Note the irony of what they are asking- If Jesus proves Himself to the religious leaders, then He is no longer a Messiah, a deliver and a savior.

David Garland- “Their jeers underscore Mark’s point. He saved others- the disciples in the midst of a sea storm; the woman with a hemorrhage- and he truly cannot save himself. Were he to save himself, he could not save others from something far more deadly than storms or illnesses. The nails do not hold him fast to the cross; the love of God constrains him.”

This is the point that I’d like to leave us with this morning, to be rolling around in our hearts and minds over the coming week and beyond.

Jesus stayed on the cross. He knew who He is, and He knew what must be done.

He was driven, even to the point of death, by His devotion to the Father, the glorification of the Father, and by His love for sinners.

Do you know yourself loved in this way? Not so simply as Jesus has gone to the cross for you, but that He stayed there for you. He endured the pain, the misery, the mocking.

Remember- the One who could not carry His own cross equips you to carry yours.

We see the suffering Messiah and are reminded once again that our life will be marked by suffering on behalf of others.

Jesus loved us as sinners, lived among the sinners, died among them, as a reminder that we are to pour out our lives on behalf of others.

His dignity was not a top priority, His defending Himself was nowhere to be found, He simply was stripped of all appearance of godliness in order to serve others.

We ought to live the same life.

Galatians 2:20- I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

What is the point being made by Paul here?

Our lives are marked by a tight squeeze on our dignity, on our control, our power over circumstances and others.

Jesus simply put all of that away in loving and dying for sinners.

If we recognize our own crucifixion with Jesus, our own carrying of our cross, then Christ lives through us in the same way.

All other life is life according to the flesh, and it is meant to melt away as we are transformed in the likeness of Christ.

I can come up here and simply say- Live like Jesus. But I want to be, and I want you to be, captivated and convinced by the text. I want you to see it here.

These are not the words and instructions of your pastor, they are the reality of having been loved and saved by Jesus Christ.

Are you convinced of such love? Are you challenged to live differently because of the cross?

Closing questions- This week, will we, in following Jesus, have our outer garments of power, control, glory and dignity removed for the purpose of loving and serving others?

Will we see that the expanding of God’s Kingdom comes through a dying to self for the glory of God and the good of others.

Will we find ourselves among the guilty, the sinful, the needy?

And will we, by God’s power through His Spirit, remain there, when the rest of the world is telling us to rid ourselves of our cross, to replace our garments and leave the guilty behind?