A couple of weeks ago we began asking, “do you know him” meeting Jesus, in the beginning, as the Word who was God and was with God. We saw his divinity as we recognised his creative power and authority at work in the creation of time, the universe, and everything in them. We heard from John how he became flesh, and lived with us, as one of us – completely human and still divine. Last week we saw how, in his ministry on earth, he was like a shepherd, coming to seek and save the lost. At one point, when he was talking about what a good shepherd is like, in John 10, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
Jesus is the good shepherd, and he did lay down his life for the sheep, and it is this laying down of his life that we’re going to focus on today.
Now, it isn’t that long since Easter, and Good Friday, when we spent a lot of time thinking about Jesus’ death and his crucifixion. But, as Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth, a little bit after the part we read today, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified”.
Arguably, knowing Jesus as the Crucified one is the most important aspect of knowing him. Paul certainly seemed to think that talking about Jesus and his crucifixion was fundamental in introducing people to Jesus.
We know from Acts chapter 18 that Paul spent at least 18 months in Corinth, preaching and sharing the good news of Jesus – of Christ and him crucified. Now, if Paul could preach on this subject for 18 months and not exhaust it, I am not going to be able to cover everything in one sermon, in fact I’m barely going to scratch the surface. But, perhaps I can highlight some important aspects of Jesus as the crucified one that you might use as starting points for your own thinking and praying, on your own or in your small groups over the coming weeks.
I think that the first thing to say is that Jesus chose the cross. He didn’t have to. It is clear from his prayers in the garden of Gethsemane the night before he died that he didn’t want to go to the cross. But, he chose to obey the will of the Father and to submit to this death.
He chose it when he left heaven. He chose it in every word and thing he did in his ministry that provoked it. He chose it as he set his face to go to Jerusalem. He didn’t have to do any of these things. So why did he?
Firstly, because if fulfilled the promises of God given through the prophets. These promises run as a theme all the way through the Old Testament. God promised Abraham that through him and his descendants all humanity would be blessed. God freed the people from slavery in Egypt, with the blood of the lamb on the door posts protecting the people from the angel of death. God promised that a descendent of David would rule for ever. God promised to send someone to save his people, a chosen and anointed King. Jesus was crucified in order to fulfil God’s promises.
He did this so that we could reconciled to God. Right back in Genesis 2, we read that humanity turned away from God. We chose then, and have been choosing ever since, that we don’t want God to be God of our lives, we want to be in charge. We disobey God and do not love God. We turn away from God. Adam and Eve used to walk with God in the garden.
Then they decided to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and started hiding from God, who came looking for them. By our sin we are separated from God – this is partly from our side – we turn away, and partly from God’s side – God banished Adam and Eve from the garden. And so, the rift needs healing by bringing both sides together – as Jesus does in himself. He is God and Human, and was crucified as God and perfect human. As he died the curtain in the Temple was torn in two – the thing separating from us from God was destroyed. We are now free, in Christ’s crucifixion, to enjoy God’s presence.
This is all very well in theory, but how do actual people react to encountering the Jesus, the crucified one? Perhaps looking at the reactions of some of the people who were there on the day of his crucifixion will help us to explore this a bit.
Let’s start with Simon of Cyrene. We know very little about him, except that he was from north Africa, but there are some things in the way that he is described that seem to me to be suggestive of some things.
Mark says that, “He was passing by on his way in from the country.” What does this suggest? We know that it’s Passover time. We know that Simon is from a place many days journey distant. Was he coming to the festival, but had been delayed on the journey and was arriving late? The fact that he was passing by suggests that he wasn’t there as one of Jesus’ disciples, or even knew who Jesus was. He was on his way somewhere else.
Mark also describes him as “the father of Alexander and Rufus”. Which leaves me wondering: How did he know this? Why did he include it? He can only have known it if he, or one of his sources, had spoken to Simon and got to know him well enough to find out the names of his sons. The most likely reason I can think of for including this detail is that Mark assumed that this initial readers would know who Alexander and Rufus were, that they were part of the church community.
So, whilst we can’t know for sure, it seems to me that Mark is showing us that Simon went from someone who didn’t even know Jesus, was just passing by, to being part of the church, along with his sons. It was an encounter with Jesus, carrying his cross, that was the first step on this journey for Simon.
We know even less about the Roman centurion, but we do know that his encounter with Jesus in his crucifixion provoked him to acknowledge that Jesus was truly the Son of God – an astonishing outcome.
Others who encountered Jesus on that day didn’t have such a positive reaction. They sneered at him, insulted him, taunted him. I wonder why. How broken do you have to be yourself to see someone else being tortured to death, and react by heaping on your own contributions of hatred. Maybe it’s something to do with the human tendency to turn on those who we believe have disappointed our hopes and let us down. They thought he was going to save them, they don’t believe he can now, and so they let loose. Paul, in the bit of his letter to Corinth that we did read suggests that the cross is a stumbling block and foolishness to some, and no-one likes to be made to stumble.
I don’t really know, as the hymn says, “why, what has my Lord done, what makes this rage and spite?” But, I do know that people do still react like this today. We shouldn’t be surprised when we talk about the cross, that some people react negatively.
As well as those who had never met Jesus before, and those who hated him, there were also those there who loved him, knew him well, had travelled with him and supported him in his ministry. A group of faithful women, including at least two Marys and Salome. They stood with Jesus in his most painful time. They are the ones who saw what happened in Jesus’ final hours and provided the material for Mark, Matthew and Luke to write their accounts of that day. They knew Jesus already, but as they saw him die, they came to see in a new way the depth of his love, and became witnesses to that love and to his call to us to take up our cross and follow him.
In a few weeks we will celebrate Ascension, as we think about Jesus returning to heaven. We know from the resurrection appearances that Jesus’ resurrected body still bears the scars of his crucifixion.
He is Jesus, the crucified one. He chose to die on the cross so that he could fulfil the prophecies and promises of God and reconcile us to God so that we could enjoy God’s presence again.
Do you know him?
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