spread throughout the ancient world, Christians were consistently mocked. And they were mocked
in particular for worshiping a crucified man. The earliest known visual depiction of Jesus on the
cross is not a piece of Christian artwork. It's a crude piece of graffiti from about 200 AD in the
city of Rome. To the left is a man raising his hand in worship or prayer. To his right is a man hanging
from a cross depicted with the head of a donkey. The inscription says, Alex Aminos worships his God.
It's a cartoon scrawled on a wall ridiculing Christians and the cross. Lucian, a second-century
writer called the early Christians misguided creatures. They worship a man to this day,
the distinguished personality who introduced their novel rites and was crucified on that account.
They worship the crucified sage and live after his laws. Even in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul
acknowledged that the message of the cross of Jesus was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness
to Greeks. In other words, every culture in one way or another finds the cross of Jesus to be
offensive, distasteful, or even ridiculous. And yet today, over two billion people throughout the world
profess Christianity. And the cross is the most prominent and universally recognized symbol
of the Christian faith. And this weekend, Christians throughout the world gather
to declare that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. How and why did that ever happen?
Tim Keller once observed that every other founder of a major religion died in peace, old, and successful.
Moses lived over 100 years, having brought the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and to the edge of
the Promised Land. The Buddha lived 80. Having achieved enlightenment, he died surrounded by his disciples.
Muhammad lived into his 60s. He died in his home, having united Arabia into one Islamic kingdom.
Jesus died at age 33. He was betrayed, abandoned, mocked, beaten, and finally crucified.
Why would anyone look at this man and say, he's the one I want to follow? That's the faith for me.
Especially when Jesus had also said, if anyone wants to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his own cross and follow after me. What was and still is so strangely attractive
about this crucified man? That's the question I want to address tonight.
Tonight we've read Luke's account of how Jesus' life ended.
Earlier in the part before we read, Jesus was betrayed by one of his followers, repeatedly denied by another.
We read of his trial before Jewish leaders and before Roman authorities.
And despite two official not guilty verdicts, he was sentenced to death and handed over to a hostile crowd.
He was led outside the gate of the city to a place called the skull.
And Luke simply says in verse 33, there they crucified him.
He doesn't give us the gory details.
But everyone in the ancient world knew that crucifixion was both excruciatingly painful and exceedingly shameful.
I think we often think about how painful it would have been for Jesus.
If you even try to hold your arms out for 10 minutes straight, you start to feel it.
How painful it would have been to have nails driven through his wrists and his feet,
to be holding himself up by his arms for six hours,
gasping for every breath after having been beaten to a pulp and weakened by the loss of blood.
And that's all true.
But in the ancient world, it was the shame of crucifixion that distinguished it even more than the pain.
Pain and suffering were everywhere and mostly unavoidable in the ancient world.
But crucifixion was the most humiliating and imaginable.
Crucifixion was reserved for non-citizens of the Roman Empire,
for slaves, for violent criminals, and for prisoners of war.
The victim would be stripped naked, except perhaps for a loincloth,
suspended just above eye level of a crowd, poked and prodded, mocked and jeered.
Crucifixion was a public spectacle.
The Roman authorities intentionally located crucifixions just outside the main gate of a city,
in a most heavily trafficked area,
because everyone knew it wasn't really justice in any real sense of the word.
What it was, was a deterrent.
To remind everyone who was in charge,
and to warn anyone who wanted to follow a similar path.
That's how Jesus' life ended.
In humiliation, in pain, and in disgrace.
In Luke's narrative of the crucifixion, Luke shows us how several different people reacted
and responded to Jesus on the cross.
If you look in verses 35 to 39,
there are three groups of people who all cast their verdict on Jesus.
First, in verse 35, we see the ones he calls the rulers,
that is, the Jewish authorities.
They scoffed at him.
He saved others.
Let him save himself,
if he really is the Christ of God, his chosen one.
Interestingly, the Jewish leaders did acknowledge Jesus' power.
He saved others.
Now, that word saved can mean delivered, healed, or made whole.
Most likely, they were referring to Jesus' well-known works of healing people from sicknesses
and delivering them from evil spirits.
They acknowledged Jesus' power.
The second group of people is the Roman soldiers,
the executioners who mocked him.
In verse 34, they gamble for his clothing.
Verse 36, one of them pretends to be a cupbearer,
offering this king cheap, sour wine.
They were the ones who posted the inscription in verse 38.
The inscription above the cross,
which declared the legal charge against the one being crucified.
It was treason, for he had claimed to be a king.
And so, they wrote, the king of the Jews.
And they mocked him.
If you really are the king of the Jews, save yourself.
Finally, in fiercest of all, in verse 39,
one of the criminals hanging there next to him railed at him.
Aren't you the Messiah?
Save yourself and us.
Rescue us all now.
Then I'll believe in you.
The taunting went from bad to worse.
And in each case, the refrain was,
save yourself.
Now, if you've read the whole Gospel of Luke,
you might recognize the echo of another voice
that spoke to Jesus three times.
Back in the desert.
If you really are the Son of God,
why don't you take an easier way?
And yet, all of these voices
were operating on a very common human assumption.
Their assumption was this.
If Jesus really was the king of Israel,
if he really was God's anointed king,
if he really was God's chosen servant,
his life should be ending in honor and triumph
rather than in shame and defeat.
Now, we might not want to identify ourselves
with the scoffers and the mockers
and the blasphemer,
but their working assumption
is a very widespread human assumption
that appears throughout the world
and even in many religions.
You could call it the law of karma.
Whatever you do,
for good or for evil,
it'll come back to you someday.
Or you could put it this way.
God preserves the honor
of his faithful servants and prophets.
That's what God should do, right?
Or you could say,
because I'm a good person,
God should make me happy.
However we put it,
that's how we usually think
God should run the world.
God should run the world
if he's really good
and if he's really in charge.
He should make us happy if we're good.
He should deal well
with his faithful servants.
And he should pay us back.
He should...
You get what you give.
And when the world doesn't seem to work
according to that principle,
that's when we often question
the character
or the reality
or the active involvement of God
in the world in which we live.
Nobody in the ancient world
expected God's chosen one,
God's righteous servant,
God's anointed king,
his own son,
to be brutally tortured
and humiliated and killed
and strung up on a cross.
No one expected it.
And so most people looked at Jesus
being crucified
and concluded that he was not
any of those things.
There's only one person
in Luke's narrative
who presents
a dissenting voice
in favor of Jesus.
Now, there are others
in the story
who express sympathy for
or even, we could say,
solidarity with Jesus.
There's Simon of Cyrene
in the posture
of a true disciple
carrying the cross
behind Jesus
in verse 26.
There's the women of Jerusalem
who sympathetically mourn
for him
in verse 27.
There's the people
who simply stand there
watching
in verse 35.
And later on,
after Jesus dies,
in verse 47,
a Roman centurion
will praise God
and declare
that Jesus was truly
a righteous man.
But while Jesus
is hanging there
on the cross,
there's only one person
in Luke's narrative
that says anything
positive about him.
It's the second criminal
hanging next to him
on a cross.
Luke doesn't tell us
much about these
two criminals.
We don't know
their names.
We don't know
their backgrounds.
We don't know
the details
of their crimes.
They seem to have
had no prior
acquaintance with Jesus.
Luke refers to them
simply as criminals.
The word could also
be translated
evildoers,
bad characters.
The gospel of Mark
calls them robbers,
indicating that their
crimes involved violence.
The same word
was used for revolutionaries
like Barabbas
who had led
violent uprisings.
Mark also tells us
that those who were
crucified with him
also reviled him
in Mark 15, 32.
In other words,
at the start of the day,
both criminals
were hostile
to Jesus
on both
sides of him.
But somehow,
in the course
of the day,
one of them
switched
sides.
Now, perhaps
the second criminal
was troubled
by the bitterness
and irrationality
of the first criminal's
attack on Jesus.
verse 40 says
he rebuked him.
In other words,
he told him off.
He might have used
some choice words
that Luke perhaps
may or may not
have preserved
exactly.
Don't you fear
God at all?
Don't you realize
we deserve
what we're getting here?
We both know
we've done
some pretty bad things.
how can you demand
that he rescue
himself
and us?
You've gone
way too far.
But he doesn't
just tell off
his fellow
criminal.
He defends
Jesus.
He says,
this man
has done
nothing wrong.
And then finally
he makes
a simple plea.
Jesus,
remember me
when you come
into your kingdom.
What was so
strangely attractive
about Jesus
to this
crucified
criminal?
What made
him switch
sides?
Like most
of the biblical
authors,
Luke very
rarely makes
explicit statements
about people's
motives
and inner
thoughts.
But he gives
us one
strong
hint
in verse
34.
There they
crucified him
and the criminals,
one on his right
and one on his left,
and Jesus said,
Father,
forgive them.
for they know
not what they
do.
That's the
one word
of Jesus
that the
criminal
most certainly
heard.
And it's a
word that
absolutely
sets Jesus
apart.
It is
unique,
and it was
completely
unprecedented.
Throughout
history,
many presidents
and kings
have extended
pardons.
But almost
always,
they pardon
people
who have
shown loyalty
to them,
or who have
many powerful
and persistent
advocates,
or who they
judge to have
received unfairly
harsh sentences
for relatively
minor crimes,
or people who've
spent most of
their lives in
jail,
and now they're
very old and
relatively and
probably harmless.
many people
have faced
unjust trials
and have
even faced
death with
calmness.
You might
think of
Socrates
in Greece
who faced
his death
with relative
calmness
and stoicness.
but he
said nothing
about the
jury that
had convicted
him.
Even the
greatest heroes
of the faith
before Jesus
did not pray
that their
enemies would
be pardoned.
Probably the
most famous
group of
martyrs at
the time of
Jesus were
the Maccabean
martyrs.
some Jewish
men and
women in
the second
century BC
who had
died for
their faith
under a
brutal Roman
tyrant.
They maintained
their faith in
God even to
the point of
death.
But they
also cried
out for
vengeance
and threatened
their persecutors
with judgment.
Very
understandably,
King David
even in
Psalm 69
prayed that
his betrayers
be cursed,
blotted out
of the book
of life and
not listed
with the
righteous.
There's
something even
right about
the desire
for justice.
I'm not
saying that's
a wrong
thing.
You find it
throughout the
Bible.
But no
martyr before
Jesus prayed
that his
tormentors
would find
forgiveness.
Of course,
those were the
heroes of the
faith,
the martyrs.
How many
of us
have cursed
others in our
hearts,
told people to
go to hell,
cut people out
of our lives
with no
possibility of
future reconciliation
for far
less than
Jesus endured?
There's a
children's song
that puts it
very simply.
It says this,
it says,
tell me,
would you say
what Jesus
said if they
did those mean
things to you?
Sometimes children's
songs can get
right to the
point.
Would any
of us
spontaneously
and freely
pray such
a prayer
without having
first seen
and been
deeply
transformed
by Jesus
himself?
What
great
mercy!
What
marvelous
patience!
love!
What
unselfish
love!
Who is
this man?
More
concerned
for his
tormentors
than for
himself?
No
wonder
the criminal
concluded,
this man
has done
nothing
wrong.
There's
no one
else
like him.
but
there's
one more
thing
that the
criminal
must
have
seen.
Not
only
Jesus'
absolute
uniqueness
but also
his
amazing
openness.
Who
was
Jesus
praying
for
in
verse
34?
Father,
forgive
them
for
they
know
not
what
they
do.
Was
he
praying
for
the
soldiers?
They're
the
ones
who
in the
second
half
of the
verse
cast
lots
to
divide
his
garments.
They're
the
ones
who
would
have
nailed
him
up
on
the
cross.
Was
he
praying
for
them,
the
execution
squad
who
were
simply
doing
their
jobs
and
had
no
idea
who
he
really
was?
Or
was
he
also
praying
for
the
religious
leaders
who
also
didn't
recognize
him
for
who
he
really
was?
But
really
Jesus'
prayer
in
verse
34
cannot
be
limited
to
just
one
group
of
people.
Charles
Spurgeon
said,
I love
this
prayer
of
Jesus
because
of
the
indistinctness
of
it.
Father,
forgive
them.
He
does
not
say,
Father,
forgive
the
soldiers
who
have
nailed
me
here.
He
includes
them.
Neither
does
he say,
Father,
forgive
sinners
in
ages
to
come
who
will
sin
against
me,
but
he
means
them.
Father,
forgive
them.
Now,
into that
pronoun
them,
I feel
that I
can
crawl.
It is
like a
chariot
of
mercy
that has
come
down to
earth
into
which a
man may
step
and it
shall
bear him
up
to
heaven.
Father,
forgive
them.
the
criminal
heard
that
prayer.
Perhaps
he
thought
something
like,
if this
Jesus
is
praying
for
mercy
for
his
tormentors,
perhaps
he
has
mercy
for
me
as
well.
Jesus,
he
says,
remember
me
when
you
come
into
your
kingdom.
Amen.
There's a
similar prayer
in Psalm 106,
verse 4.
The psalmist
prays,
Remember me,
O Lord,
when you
show favor
to your
people.
Help
me
when you
save
them.
It's
purely
and simply
a plea
for mercy.
with nothing else attached. The criminal doesn't boast
of any personal merit, of any good works, of any moral achievements. He doesn't attempt to
impress Jesus with his religious knowledge. He makes no claim to deserve anything good.
He only expresses simple trust in a bold prayer, Jesus, remember me with mercy when you finally
become king. He looks at Jesus, the man who had saved others but wouldn't save himself, and he sees
the one who was prophesied by the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years beforehand.
Isaiah wrote this,
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their
iniquities.
The righteous one poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.
Yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
The criminal looks at the man rejected and despised and mocked and condemned and says,
That's my king. And Jesus turns to him and gives him the most amazing promise.
Truly, I say to you, today, you'll be with me in paradise.
One person wrote, Whatever the criminal expected when he made his request, the promise of Jesus is
vastly out of proportion to it.
It's not simply a hope of some indeterminate future day.
It's a promise today.
It's not you may be.
It's not you can be.
It's not you might be.
It's truly, I say to you, you will be with me in paradise, in the presence of God himself,
in the place of eternal joy.
Amen.
How could Jesus make such a promise?
According to the Bible, paradise had been lost long ago.
Adam and Eve had once lived in paradise.
They had once dwelt in the garden of God.
But then they decided that they wanted a world without God in charge.
They desecrated God's temple.
They spoiled the garden, and so they were exiled.
And we've continued to spoil and pollute the world and take advantage of one another
and mess up the good gifts God has given us ever since.
When they left paradise, Genesis says God placed warrior angels, cherubim, with a flaming sword
flashing back and forth to prevent anyone from ever accessing the tree of life again.
You see, we're all born in exile.
We're all born far away from our true home.
Every religion tries to tell us how we can get back home, how we can find our way back to paradise.
But only Christianity says that God Himself came to us and opened the way Himself in the person of Jesus.
You see, when Jesus died on the cross, and when He experienced all the humiliation and shame
and took upon Himself the sin of the world, He went under that flaming sword,
flashing back and forth, the sword of divine justice.
He paid the price that we could never pay.
He endured what we could never endure,
so that we might have a way in to God's presence,
so that we might be able to enter into paradise simply on the basis of what He accomplished for us.
period.
John Christostom, the fourth century Egyptian preacher, put it this way,
the criminal made his way into paradise with a mere word on the basis of faith alone.
It was not so much a case of His sound values prevailing
as the Lord's loving kindness being completely responsible.
What did the criminal say?
What did he do?
Did he fast?
Did he weep?
Did he tear his garments?
Not at all.
On the cross itself, He won salvation.
He went from cross to heaven, from condemnation to salvation.
That's the amazing grace that Jesus offers.
Forgiveness of sins.
Assurance of eternal life in His kingdom, a life that begins today.
For anyone who acknowledges Him as King and cries out to Him for mercy.
You see, what's so humbling about Christianity
is that the only way you can come to Jesus and enter into His kingdom
is to come behind this repentant criminal.
Many people wouldn't have wanted to walk into the same room as that guy.
The only way in is to come right alongside every other undeserving sinner
who acknowledges Jesus' kingly authority and cries out to Him for mercy.
But you see, if he can call out to Jesus and be received into His kingdom,
a criminal, an evildoer, a man who just moments ago had been cursing Jesus
along with everyone else, anyone can come and be received by Jesus today.
Father, forgive them.
Do you see that in the person of this criminal, God was answering Jesus' prayer?
And God has been answering Jesus' prayer ever since.
God has been answering Jesus' prayer ever since.
If you're a follower of Jesus, would you come and worship at His feet
and give Him eternal thanks.
Let us pray.
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Amen.