So we're in the midst of doing a small series on the passion of Christ up to
next week Easter Sunday and the passion of the cross, the passion of Christ, the
word passion is taken from the Latin term passion which doesn't mean romance or
feeling it means suffering and so we're looking at the sufferings of Christ this
morning and last year on this very same week we looked at the crucifixion and we
looked at it in a really raw and rugged way we looked particularly at the body
of Christ broken the physicality the brutality but Matthew's account is
very different than John's in some ways there are no heartstrings being pulled
in Matthew's account Matthew's account is strictly factual if you noticed it
just lays out the details of what happened the wine giving Simon of
Cyrene, Elijah, the darkness, the resurrection bodies, the temple curtains
he actually doesn't focus on Jesus hardly at all in this account it's about
the details mostly surrounding the cross of Christ but the center of the
passage is the only moment that he he hones down in on Jesus himself and it's
when Christ calls out my God my God why have you forsaken me and so we'll look
at the passage just like that first we'll look at what Matthew's trying to
tell us about the details and the details and that's this that the cross is
foolishness and then secondly we'll hone down in on the center of the passage on
Jesus words about being forsaken and I think Matthew there is trying to show us
that the cross is also the power of God so the cross is foolishness and the cross
is the power of God so first the cross is foolishness of course this phrase the
cross is foolishness or nonsense it comes from 1 Corinthians 1 and it comes
from Paul and Paul says that the word of the cross is nonsense to those who are
perishing but for those who are being saved it's the power of God what does
he mean well he doesn't just say that the cross is nonsense to those who are
perishing he literally says the word of the cross and in Greek that little word
is the word logos the logos of the cross and there's two senses to what he
probably means one is that literally the message of the cross is nonsense to
those who are perishing in other words the words themselves the gospel
preaching the gospel it's nonsense sounds silly to nonsensical to those who
are perishing but there's a further meaning and that's it's not just the
words of the gospel or nonsense but he's specifically referring to the logos of
the cross being nonsense and we know from John chapter 1 that the logos of the
cross the logos is Jesus Christ it's the person of Christ that's who the logos
is it's the communication the word of God and so what Paul's getting out here is
that it's not just the gospel that's that's silly or folly to those who are
perishing but it's the man it's Jesus Christ himself on the cross he is the
foolishness he is the silly one he's the nonsensical one to those who are
perishing and that's exactly what Matthew is getting at in the details in this
passage if you if you look to the passage carefully you'll notice that what's
central to all the details in the passage is the mockery it was the mock
it's the mocking that's so central and it occurs at four different levels in this
passage the first way it occurs even a verse before we started reading this
morning is that the Roman soldiers are the first to mock him in verse 31 it
says after they mocked him they put on a purple robe they put a crown of thorns
on his head but it goes on they then made in verse 32 Simon of siren carry his
crossbeam now this is actually a way of mocking Jesus because every single
person who's crucified by the Roman crucifixion is forced to carry their
own crossbeam that's just normal standard operating procedure but this man
can't do it and that's what they're saying somebody else will carry it for
you why because they're suggesting that he's weak they're suggesting he's weak
but it goes on verse 35 they ripped his garments off of them and then they cast
lots for them and every single painting maybe that you've seen of Jesus on the
cross from the Middle Ages or the Renaissance or whatever is is false in
the sense that most of the time they put a loin cloth on Christ on the cross but
there was no loin cloth Jesus Christ is absolutely naked on the cross he's not
wearing anything it was typical and the procedure that women would be crucified
facing the cross as an act of modesty okay after they've beaten them and hung
them on a cross they would at least give them the decency to face the cross but
men know men were faced outward men were completely naked facing outward and
that's Jesus is naked here this is part of his humiliation part of the scorn the
mockery verse 37 they put up the sign he's the king of the Jews and of course
this is sarcasm right this is not being serious they're joking in this moment
but it's not just the soldiers who are mocking him the second level of mockery
comes from the civilians the bystander so in verse 39 the people that are
passing by typically what they would do is they would hang crosses they would
crucify people along the road right so it's people walking down a road both
Gentiles and Jews because this is the week of the Passover and their hurling
insults at him but the word is actually more specific than the translators
offer here in our English text the word the little word is called is hey blaspheme
moon right and you can hear it blaspheme moon blaspheme they're not just
mocking him they're uttering blasphemies at him why are they doing that because
they're thinking about his own claims being the king of the Jews the son of
God God incarnate and their blast they're reversing the claims and they're
uttering blasphemies at him and saying look at you now basically is the idea
that's that is getting across further after Jesus cries out to God they think
that he's possibly caught out to Elijah and what's going on there is that in
Aramaic the little word the little phrase my God my God sounds like the same
word for the proper name Elijah so all that's happening there is they've
misheard him as they're walking by and when that happens basically in verse
49 a bunch of the people say okay let's sit back and see what happens this guy
he's called out to Elijah he thinks Elijah is gonna come say save him and the
idea is sit back and pass the popcorn they're treating it like this is an
entertainment like this is spectacle right like this is going to the movies
it's a particular form of mockery it's not just the Roman soldiers it's not
just the Gentile and Jewish civilians civilians are bystanders but
thirdly it's the chief priests and the authorities of course in verse 41 they
join in save yourself you fool save yourself are you the king come down from
the cross if you're the king and then the fourth and final level of mockery the
criminals in verse 44 it says that the ones that were being crucified next to
him they join in as well and begin to mock him you see the point is that at
every single level of society is being represented here in this picture and
they're all doing the same thing they're sarcastically mocking him they're
making fun of them in other words the suggestion Matthew is giving is the
same thing that that Paul's talking about in 1 Corinthians 1 and that's that
to so many the cross is nonsense the Lagos the man he's a fool he's he's a
God who is weak he's not the king he can't save himself he can't carry his own
cross beam he's naked and he's ashamed and that's the picture that Matthew's
painting for us meet your king right that's what he's getting across that's
what the people think and John Stodd in his excellent book The Cross of Christ
he asked this question following following Matthew he says what kind of a
religion would have a God who dies in weakness at the hands of his own
creatures no matter whether the background was Roman or Jewish or both
the early enemies of Christianity he says lost no opportunity to ridicule the
claim that God's anointed one the Savior ended his life on the cross this idea
was crazy in the Roman world this is well illustrated by a graffito from the
second century which has been discovered on a hill in Rome and it's on the wall
of a house and most scholars considered this to be the first painting of Jesus
being crucified after his death in the early centuries it's the first
surviving picture of the crucifixion and what is it it's a caricature it's a
crude drawing that depicts a man stretched out on a cross with the head
of a donkey see and look that Paul what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 1 and
what Matthew is painting a picture for us here doesn't stop in the early years
it's consistent throughout all of history that the cross is foolishness it's both
the response of religious and non-religious people throughout all
of history for instance Islam rejects the idea of Jesus on the cross because it
says that it's inappropriate no prophet of God could be crucified and killed in
such a weak way and so what the typical idea in traditional Islam is that
Jesus actually never did die on the cross someone took his place before he
was hung most of the time they say Simon of Cyrene he actually was the one that
was crucified so Jesus was never actually killed so but it's not just
Islam Gandhi the beloved Gandhi in 1894 he said this I might accept Jesus as a
martyr as an embodiment of sacrifice as a divine teacher but not as the most
perfect man ever born who died on a cross for the death of sin his death on
the cross might be a great example to the world but that there is anything
like a miraculous virtue in it I will not accept that okay but it's not just
religious responses in modern history it's also it's also non-religious
responses probably the most important atheist that's ever lived is a god by
the name of Friedrich Nietzsche who is a German philosopher who lived up to the
early 20th century and he wrote a very famous book called the Antichrist and
this is how he describes the cross in the book he says that human happiness is
the feeling that power is increasing right and so that means that the most
harmful thing for human happiness is an active sympathy for the ill
constituted and the weak and this means for Nietzsche that Christianity above
all above all religions above all ideas above all philosophies has taken the
side of everything that's weak in the world everything that's base everything
that's ill constituted it is the religion of pity he says it preserves
what is right for destruction and it thwarts the laws of evolution and he
says that the center of it all is a contemptuous God on a cross weakness
incarnate okay so this is the religious and they're non-religious but you can
see that in every part of history both ancient and modern the cross is foolish
ness right so today we hear the cross is unjust it's cosmic child abuse it's
barbarism it's ultimate weakness it's a weak religion with a weak God at the
center of it it's foolishness Paul nailed it in 1st Corinthians 18 118 that's
exactly what people many so many have thought about it throughout all of the
centuries and this is how Stott summarizes that whole picture up he says
he's reflecting on the fact that the Christians adopted the cross as a symbol
of their identity in the early centuries of the church and he says the
Christians choice of a cross as the symbol of their faith is more surprising
when we remember the horror with which crucifixion was regarded in the ancient
world we can understand why Paul's message of the cross was to many of his
listeners utter foolishness and madness how could any sane person worship as a
God a dead man who's been justly condemned as a criminal and subjected to
the most humiliating form of execution this combination of death crime and
shame puts him beyond the pale of respect let alone the pale of worship and
so stott asked why would people cling to the cross so that's point one the
foolishness of the cross why would people cling to the cross the foolishness
the Logos of God and point to the power because the cross Paul tells us is the
power of God so the cross is foolishness to some but to those experiencing
salvation the cross is the power of God why did so many cling to it in the
midst of this this very same picture that so many have called the cross
foolishness throughout all the centuries the cross changed the world the cross
revolutionized life around the Mediterranean the cross started a
revolution the cross has turned the world upside down it's changed the
entirety of our culture all because of what happened here at Golgotha in the
first century and why is it where is the power what is it about this that is the
power of God that Paul saying in the midst of a world that sees something so
foolish and so weak hanging there on the cross what is it well first what we
know what this means is that the cross just like Jesus life is incredibly
divisive right it's incredibly divisive people come before the cross and they
either bow in its shadow or they trip over it and stumble it's always been
incredibly divisive the Romans the Jews the Gentiles the criminals the
authorities the bystanders Gandhi Muhammad and Friedrich Nietzsche all
could not handle it all could not they stumbled over the cross right and you
know what that means that means at some level in first encounter the cross is
foolishness to every single human being to all of us because because just like
they did in the first century humans measure success we measure achievement
we measure the idea of what it means to be powerful according to the cultural
standards of our time right the Jews expected the Messiah the Son of God the
King of the Jews to come in to march straight to Rome to start a political
revolution and to take over to restore the kingdom of God that's what they
expected right and it's the same exact expectation of the Son of God that
Friedrich Nietzsche has of a modern man he expects power he expects competition
he expects revenge right he expects somebody to come in and take what's
theirs right it's the basic notion of power that you see in a toddler it's
easy it's simple it's the notion that I'm gonna get what's mine it's the notion
that's at the heart of every single human being it's human nature this is our
idea of power right and so it's not surprising that at some level every
single human being in all of history has come up against the claims of the cross
come up against the man of power and said that's not power that's weakness that's
foolishness right because that's human nature that's human nature but the cross
the cross subverts all ideas previous ideas in history of what it means to be
powerful of what it means to be strong of what it might mean to be the Messiah
and what it says to us is that power the power of the gospel the power of God is
actually victory by losing victory by losing oh my what kind of power is this
where is this power so the two things briefly about this power what is this
power it's first the power of choice and it's secondly the power of forgiveness
so first the power of choice now if you paid careful attention to the to the
text and particularly to the mockings and the text maybe you started to catch on
that Matthew just like Mark in his writing of the passion is intending this
to be seen as ironic right it's ironic it's it's not just supposed to come
across at face value but it's ironic look have you read the rest of the story I
bet you have have you read the chapters that come after this one just think
about the mockery the mockery is this from from the Roman soldiers Jesus you
said you're gonna tear down the temple and in three days you're gonna build it
back up again look at you now right but did Nietzsche read the rest of the story
did you read the rest of the story look what happens in three days the power the
man of God the power of God on the cross what does he do he resurrects from the
dead okay of course right what does this mean this means that the mockery is
ironic because the cross the man on the cross the law goes on the cross he's
there because he wants to be you see this is voluntary he the idea here that
Matthew's painting is he's not being crucified he's chosen to do this it's
not simply passive he's commanding it and he made that very clear it wasn't a
secret that's that's why they're able to mock him like this because the fact
that he had determined this to be the case was not a secret right just listen
to these verses and mark 9 the son of man he had already predicted will be
betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him and in three days he will
rise again because Jesus said that just the chapter before this as he's eating
a Passover meal with them he says he said to the disciples Jesus said do you
not know that the son of man is about to be handed over to crucifixion to death
and the disciples respond by saying no no not you not the son of man you can't
go you can't die right and this is what he said do you remember what he said
said to them do you not know that if I wanted I could call upon my father and
he would send 12,000 angels to my aid in a moment right look if you're willing to
read the text what you see here is this isn't this is an utter weakness this is
the man of power that's put himself on the cross this is voluntary this is
voluntary condescension it's Iran the mockery is ironic and you don't even
have to go to the end of the Gospel of Matthew to see that you don't even have
to go to the end all the way to the resurrection because it appears in our
own text you see in verse in verse 54 the centurion the head of the soldiers
there's an instance where Matthew's offering us something of a tragic humor
episode because what happens when Jesus commits himself to the Father when he
gives up his spirit all of a sudden there's an earthquake rocks split open
darkness descends over the land people that had once been dead are now walking
around in the city and the curtains temple is torn into and the centurion
is reflecting on all this in this moment and he says this must have actually
been the son of God you see it's ironic it's a trap it's tragic humor look they
crucify a lot of people in the ancient eras in the first century and nothing
like this picture ever happens nobody else that they had ever crucified had
ever at the moment of his death split rocks open caused an earthquake caused
resurrected bodies to appear in the city of Jerusalem but it never happened
before right this is not this is not the normal death of a man being
crucified and that's because this is voluntary condescension God become man
in other words Jesus let death swallow him so that he could destroy death from
the inside out that's the purpose that's the point right so that's the first
thing the second thing and the final thing is the power of forgiveness and
most important the power of forgiveness at the very center of this passage is the
cry Jesus cry in Aramaic my God my God why have you forsaken me and the the
common the translators won't quite go far enough with what's happening here
because it's not a cry the word that's used there for the Jesus's
voice the sound of his voice is that's the only time that word ever appears in
the entirety of the Bible and it's much more in English the best thing we can do
with it is just to say miserable scream it's loud it's torturous it's
despondent okay it's not just a cry it's a scream it's torturous and one of the
things to notice that is that look if you're trying to perpetuate belief in
Jesus Christ a man who is crucified on a cross as the Messiah as the Son of God
in the first century what you don't do is you don't include this episode you
don't include the part where Jesus all of a sudden cries out in despondent misery
and Aramaic why have I been forsaken right that it doesn't it doesn't look
like power it looks like weakness right and why is it there because it happened
the only way we can account for this being in the text is that it happened
and that they're trying to give a true account of precisely what took place it
happened now this this is not what when when people in the past have thought a
lot about this people like Nietzsche and others and they've looked at this the
forsaken son Jesus Christ being forsaken at the cross and said basically you see
this is foolishness his own father gave him up this is this is this is proof
this is what it looks like for Christianity to be broken to not work
right but first this is not a plan going wrong okay because what's happening
here actually is that this is the fulfillment of the Old Testament
prophecy okay when Jesus cries out and says my God my God why have you forsaken
me he's quoting he's quoting from Psalm chapter 22 and this is in Psalm chapter
22 is a psalm with David and just like all the Psalms of David when David writes
a psalm when he writes a prayer he's typically talking about something that's
happening in his own life something's bad has happened to him and he's praying
he's grieving over it and but this song this song Psalm 22 is unusual and Old
Testament scholars will talk about this a lot they'll say look for all the other
Psalms of David we can figure out exactly what it was that David was so
upset about that was causing him to write these prayers and these Psalms but
not Psalm 22 because in Psalm 22 he says things like this my God my God why
has thou forsaken me my garments have been stripped from me my bones have been
broken my heart is melted you laid me in dust you've laid me down in the ashes
of death this never happened to David he there was no experience in David that
makes sense of this right it's prophetic it's Christological you see what it
means is that when Jesus cries out on the cross my God my God why have you
forsaken me that this is the fulfillment of the gospel that was
preached beforehand this is the God who has the power over history you see this
has been prophesied of old but even more than that
secondly what does this mean what does it mean what does it mean for Jesus to
cry out for father to have forsaken the son what does that mean this is
impossible to penetrate into to suppose that we can get out what it means for
the son to be forsaken by the father it's a cliff that we cannot jump over but
the image that we're given in the passage is that as soon as this happens
darkness descends upon the land and again what's happening that this is a
fulfillment of the Old Testament you see anytime in the Old Testament that God
showed his wrath on on numerous occasions he would blot out the son he
would cover the son in hell is often described or Hades in Old Testament as
the place of outer darkness and you see what we're being given in this passage
is a physical manifestation of what it might have been like for the son to be
forsaken it's utter darkness what it's saying to us in this moment when things
become dark as it's saying that this is the son entering into the hell of hells
and this makes sense and here's why when Jesus says the words my God my God this
is the language of the covenant my God you see God had come to Abraham in the
Old Testament and he has said I will choose you and you will be my people I
will make out of you a great nation and I will say to you you will be my people
you will call me my God right the people are to say my God and I will say back to
you God says my people this is the language of the covenant and when God
made the covenant he said to the people of Israel and to the people that it
actually applies to everyone who's ever been created as children of God do this
obey me love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength live
under my commandments keep the Torah do what I've commanded you and love me and
you will live and you will be blessed right and what happened you know if
you've read many of the stories in the Old Testament you know that time after
time time after time the people cry out my God my God but it's not because they
deserve it every single time they fall every single time they break their
promise every single time they break the covenant and you see what's happening
here Jesus Christ is the only man under heaven who ever entered into this world
and obeyed perfectly he's the only man who ever came into this world and did
exactly what he was supposed to do who obeyed the law who loved the Lord his
God with all his heart soul mind and strength he's the only one who's ever
done it and that means that he's the only man in history who ever had the right
to actually say my God my God he's the only one who ever actually could say you
truly are my father my God and had the right to do so based on his own
perfection but the only one who ever had the right to do it at the time that he
does it instead of hearing you are my son all he gets is the deafening silence
of the divine wrath you see why because he stood in our place what's happening
here is the power forgiveness the God man standing in our place look this is
this is so anti-modern and so not popular and so controversial for me to
say in the 21st century world but what the cross is demanding and why it's so
hard to look at the cross is anything else but foolishness is because what
the cross is demanding of every single human being in the entirety of the world
when they face up to it when they come up to get sit is to is for them to
recognize that they are guilty that they stand before God as a sinner deserving
of the wrath of God and that's what makes it so difficult to say power of God
instead of foolishness right it's so much easier to say foolishness because
foolishness doesn't require you to determine yourself to be guilty but
that's exactly what the cross is the cross is the pronouncement to every
single human being that you are guilty and at the same time that you were loved
incomprehensibly but in order to get the second half the love incomprehensible
you have to face up to who you are you fat have to face up to your guilt I was
listening to a pastor recently talk about a story of a man who had committed
adultery and he had cheated on his wife and he came to a kind of a typical
modern therapist and he was talking to the therapist and they knew each other
well and he said you know I've cheated on my wife it's happened more than once
and the problem is most of all I don't feel guilty and she's she said well
what's so wrong what's the problem this is beautiful this is a gift this is
freedom if you don't feel guilty that means you're not constrained by the
relationship it means you don't have to be burdened it means you can let go it
means you can move on if you don't feel if you don't have a feeling of guilt and
what's to hold you back right you can do what you want right and this is what
the guy said to her he said I get what you're saying but actually I thought
that that's what it would be for me but actually it makes me despair that I don't
feel guilty and he said the sense of guilt is all that I had left to tell me
that there was something above me that actually mattered that there that there
was a good that existed above me something transcendent that could actually
call me out of my weakness right you see the sense of guilt for us moderns for
us 21st century people is one of the last things we have left in our culture
that actually affirms for us that there is a transcendent God you see as much as
we hate to feel guilty guilt points you to the fact that there is truly a good
outside of you a transcendent a standard a perfection something that is making
demands of you from the outside and at the same time what guilt says to us is
that there may actually be hope that somewhere somehow somebody is perfect
maybe there's hope that we can get out of this mess right that's what the sense
and the feeling of guilt says to us Christianity's answer is that that
answer is the logos of the cross which is foolishness and power the man the man
of power on the right he's that he is the answer to this great problem it's
called the great exchange see us Lewis calls it that he who knew no sin became
sin for us you see so that and here's the second half of the exchange while we
were still sinners we became righteousness in God it's the great
exchange he for me I for him he bore my sin so that I get his righteousness look
we'll just close with this we're out of time it's so important to know and to
remember here the difficult truth that Jesus is not wearing anything on the
cross that he's naked and that he's ashamed why this is an image in a picture
of what it means for him to be forsaken because what he's doing here is he's
putting on exactly what Adam bore in his sin you see the picture of what it means
to be a sinner in the very first moment of the curse is what it's to be naked it's
to be naked and ashamed it's to realize that this is not right something is
wrong with me and that Jesus Christ is the second Adam he's the last Adam he
bore everything that Adam merited in his sin so that we could have his
righteousness only the God man could possess a power like this the power
forgiveness Nietzsche was so wrong you see so wrong why did he do it why did
he do it it's not enough to simply say and we're actually closing with this
it's not enough to simply say he did it for the forgiveness of sins it's not
that's actually not enough that's the legal aspect of the cross and that's so
beautiful and so true his guilt our guilt born in him we get his righteous
that's the legal aspect but there's more why did he do it you get this the
slightest image of why when the temple curtain is torn into you see the temple
meant that God's presence on this earth is restricted it's isolated not because
he doesn't have the power to be everywhere he does but because of sin
because of curse he only comes down and meets humanity in one place that's the
covenant what's happening here is that when the temple is torn into at the
cross of Christ it's an announcement that God came to make his presence
universal with human beings all of humanity all over the place all the
time you see the point he didn't just come to be the legal representative for
your sins yes he did that he came for you not just for your sin but for you as a
person he came to get you you see and so every time you come up against the cross
what you have to say what you have to tell yourself is you have to use two
little words you have to say for me what is this what is the verb aratio the
flagellation the beating with a whip with shards of bone and metal what is
the naked crucifixion with splinters upon his back what is the suffocation that
he underwent it's physical brutality it's for me but even more he went into
the hell of hell is the abyss of the abyss forsaken by the father total
exile why the answer for me you have to say to yourself for me and so this week
this week in our tradition we and I promise this is literally the closing
this week in our tradition we say in our tradition every single Sunday's Easter
Jesus Christ is alive he died once for sins and at the same time the world and
the church in the world in our culture sees a specific date for Easter every
every year that that that the world recognizes it's a celebration of spring
of winter turn to spring of resurrection and that's okay and we and at the same
time we profess every every Sunday's Easter right but this week does offer
you an opportunity to reflect it is a sacred week by so many across the world
and even when children who don't who think that this is foolishness or don't
know about it at all you know they pick up that Easter egg they draw some bunny
on a sheet of paper somewhere at some park or something maybe just for a
moment just like at Christmas time they'll put down the reflection on the egg
and they'll think what is this image of the stone rolled away of the cross what
is this mean and they'll ask their parents and the answer is that Jesus
Christ is for us he's for the world he came for sinners so I invite you to
reflect this week on the cross for me for us let's pray father we thank you
for the crucifixion for the death of the Son of God because in him we have been
made righteous if we would only see our guilt and believe Lord we ask that
whether we've listened to the gospel once or a million times that you would
awaken us to the fact of the power of God it's unbelievable there's nothing
like it it's never been replicated no one has ever come close to being the
power of forgiveness that Jesus Christ is for us and so we ask Lord that you
would help us to own it I pray this in Jesus name amen