“Christ’s Passion: Crucified” Mark 15:16-36 June 8, 2008

SI: This morning come to the pinnacle of Christ’s suffering—crucifixion.

No event has had greater impact on human history

and no event so profoundly connects this life to the life of the world to come

as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

INTRO: We were in Ft. Lauderdale this past spring break.

And while we were there, we did what we always do in Ft. Lauderdale,

we drove past the old apartment building on Commercial Blvd.

where we lived our first year as newlyweds.

But this time we said to each other:

We will be married 20 years this June. Let’s see if we can get a look inside.

So I knocked on the door it cracked open and I found a dark-eyed Brazilian man

staring at me. I quickly explained that we had lived here when we first married,

were on vacation, passing by and would he mind if we looked inside.

As I spoke, he was becoming more and more guarded and when I finished

he said no and started to shut the door.

I suddenly realized that he had not seen Allison standing there and he must have

thought I was some kind of weirdo trying to get in his apartment.

So I said, Wait, don’t shut the door! Here is my wife. Allison came around.

When he saw her his demeanor changed.

He said, Oh, the wife, yes, and he opened the door—and there it was

in all its glory. Our memories were refreshed as we took in all the details—

the tiny front room, the doorway to the one bedroom, the galley kitchen—

it was just as cramped and wonderful as we remembered.

When we got back in the car, we couldn’t stop talking about how great those

days were, and how much fun we had had, and how in love we were—

until finally our children begged us to change the subject because we were

grossing them out.

One thing lovers do is go back to special places. Seeing those old places—

restores your memories, warms your heart and renews your love.

Lovers of Jesus Christ should, on occasion, go back to that most special place—

the place outside Jerusalem called Golgotha where Jesus was crucified.

We often go back to the cross in prayer and meditation—

you probably do that every day, maybe even many times a day.

But on occasion we ought to actually go back to the historical account of his

crucifixion as it is recorded in the four Gospels.

Because that’s where you see the cross most clearly—in the story itself

as it comes from apostles and eyewitnesses, through Holy Spirit.

Mark’s account of the crucifixion is different from Luke’s and John’s.

In both Luke and John—Jesus speaks to various people,

there is more commentary, fulfillment of Scripture, Jesus’ words of forgiveness,

the salvation of the thief on the cross.

But in Mark, Jesus does and says almost nothing.

His only action his refusal to drink the wine drugged with myrrh,

his only words his terrible cry of rejection.

He simply suffers—terribly and silently.

Mark’s emphasis is clear—he wanted Christians throughout the centuries

to read his account of the crucifixion and see where Jesus’ love for us

brought him—to this terrible place of substitution.

Where he stepped into our place, took on himself our sin,

and suffered bitterly for it.

As lovers of Jesus we need to go back to this special place—

and drink in those details once again, and be reminded afresh that a man

shamed, despised and abandoned

is your key to eternal happiness and peace with God.

There is so much here, we’re just going to scratch the surface.

Two headings:

1. What you should see in this special place.

2. When you should go to this special place.

MP#1 What you should see in this special place.

Mark actually says very little about the physical details of the crucifixion.

In fact, did you notice—he doesn’t even describe it at all.

He doesn’t say anything about him being held down by soldiers,

nails being pounded through his hands and feet.

He simply writes: “And they crucified him.”

But the details that Mark does supply catch our attention and are intended

to show that the suffering of Christ went far beyond the physical.

Three aspects of Christ’s suffering are highlighted by Mark.

These are the things that lovers of Jesus should see.

1. Jesus suffered shame.

After he was crucified, Mark says, almost as an aside:

“Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.”

Mark didn’t need to add more details,

because a first century reader would know exactly what this meant.

It was common practice for crucified criminals to be stripped naked.

This is a detail of the crucifixion that sacred artists never paint.

In every picture of Jesus on the cross, there is always at least a scrap of cloth.

But the Bible says a lot about clothes and nakedness.

Remember, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they knew naked.

They hid from God, they made fig leaf aprons to cover themselves.

Once they had stood naked and unashamed before God and each other—

confident in their righteousness. But after they fall knew that the were not right.

Jesus hung naked in full view of all people passing by on way into the city.

He suffered the most terrible shame.

Why did he do it?

Listen to the words of the Anglican Bishop J.C. Ryle.

He wrote this in answer to the question:

Why did Jesus suffer the shame of hanging naked on the cross

“It was that we, who have no righteousness of our own, might be clothed in the perfect

righteousness of Christ and not stand naked before God at the last day. It was done so that

we, who are all defiled with sin, might have a wedding garment, wherein we may sit down by

the side of angels, and not be ashamed.”

Jesus suffered shame so that we could be righteous.

2. Jesus also suffered contempt.

Luke and John, record little displays of sympathy—for example—

women weeping in crowd, John and Mary at the foot of the cross.

Mark focuses attention on the unrelenting contempt of every person

Jesus faced as he went to the cross and then hung there.

Starts with the Roman soldiers who mocked him with crown of thorns,

and the robe. When they said, “Hail, king of the Jews” were expressing

their contempt for Jews in general through mockery of Jesus.

Mark also mentions that “those who passed by hurled insults at him.”

Crucifixion took place right beside a road into Jerusalem.

Jerusalemites out for morning business, pilgrims coming to feast saw him.

Same people who had shouted, Hosannah, on Monday now shouted insults.

Seeing him on the cross filled them with disgust that they had cheered for him.

Couldn’t believe they had thought this man would save them from Romans.

“So. You who are going to destroy the temple and build it un three days,

come down from the cross and save yourself!”

Mark next mentions the contempt of the religious leaders.

Interesting about their comments—unlike passers-by, never addressed Jesus.

Contempt toward him so great—spoke entirely in third person—talked about him.

“He saved others, but he can’t save himself. Let this Christ, this King of Israel come down

now from the cross that we may see and believe.”

Finally, Mark mentions the two thieves.

We know from other Gospels, one of thieves repented, defended Jesus.

But Mark focuses on fact that at beginning, both heaped insults on him.

Jesus did not even have the sympathy of his fellow sufferers.

Why did he experience this contempt? Listen to J.C. Ryle again:

“It was that we, vile as we are, might have glory, honor, and eternal life through faith in

Christ’s atonement. It was done that we might be received into God’s kingdom with triumph

at the last day, and receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.”

He suffered contempt, so that we get the glory and honor.

3. Jesus suffered abandonment.

Jesus never complained about what people did to him.

When they arrested him, falsely accused him, abused him, mocked him, spit on

him, stripped him and crucified him he did not cry out.

But what made him roar with agony? What cry with a loud voice?

When he realized, God was gone.

God’s merciful presence was gone, the warmth of his love was gone.

And he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

When Jesus suffered God was not absent. God was present.

But His merciful presence was gone.

The warmth of His love was gone.

His attentive ear was gone.

His fatherly aspect was gone.

All that remained was a terrifying sense of God’s unmerciful wrath.

What would it be like to be totally cut off from the goodness of God—

and to have his face turned toward you in utter judgment?

It was so awful, that darkness descended for three hours—

and the suffering of Jesus was hidden from view.

Why did he suffer this way? He was forsaken, so that you will never be.

He suffered God’s wrath, he knew the merciless justice in that darkness—

alone before the judge—

So that you will always have the warmth of the

father’s love, and his attentive ear, and his smiling face.

How do you usually see the cross?

You usually see it as a beautiful symbol.

You see it as jewelry around woman’s neck.

You see it in a stained glass window or on the steeple on a church.

You see it embossed in gold on a Bible.

The cross should be beautified. It is glorious.

But sometimes you need to go back to the Gospels and see the shame,

the contempt, the abandonment that he suffered for you.

You need to go back and read the old words of those who where there—

and take in all the terrible and wonderful details that will

restore your memory, warm your heart, and renew your faith.

That brings us to the next point.

MP#2 When you should go to this special place.

There are a number of occasions when lovers go back to the special places.

And there are many times when it is good for Christians to open their Bibles

and go back to the crucifixion—times of temptation, times when sacrifice

required, even during times of success and victory.

But I want to talk about the one time when it is perhaps most important that

you go back to the cross and that is when you have suffered a great loss, a great

tragedy, hurt, or cruelty. In those times, you must go to that most special place.

One of the wonderful mysteries of the Christian faith is that

in times of deepest woe, when things are dark, when evil seems strong—

Christians find help in the cross.

The sufferings of Jesus bring the deepest comfort and hope.

In fact, when you read autobiographies of Christians who have gone through

horrific suffering and evil, you always find them turning to the cross.

I know many of you have read Corrie ten Boom’s autobiography, The Hiding Place.

She was a Dutch woman, arrested by the Nazis for hiding Jews.

She and her sister Betsie were sent to a concentration camp where Betsie died.

They had a little Bible with them that the guards never found.

Corrie wrote:

Sometimes I would slip the Bible from its little (sack) with hands that shook, so mysterious had it become to me. It was new; it had just been written. I marveled sometimes that the ink was dry. I had read a thousand times the story of Jesus’ arrest—how soldiers had slapped Him, laughed at Him, flogged Him. Now such happenings had faces and voices.

Fridays—the recurrent humiliation of medical inspection. We had to undress completely. We were forbidden even to wrap ourselves in our own arms, but had to maintain our erect, hands-at-sides position as we filed slowly past the grinning guards. How there could have been any pleasure in the sight of these stick-thin legs and hunger-bloated stomachs I could not imagine. Surely there is no more wretched sight than the human body unloved and uncared for.

But it was one of these mornings while we were waiting, shivering in the corridor, that yet another page in the Bible leapt into life for me. He hung naked on the cross. The paintings, the carved crucifixes showed at least a scrap of cloth. But this, I suddenly knew, was the respect and reverence of the artist. But oh—at the time itself, on that other Friday morning—there had been no reverence. No more than I saw in the faces around us now.

“Betsie, they took His clothes too,” I whispered. Ahead of me I heard a little gasp. “Oh, Corrie. And I never thanked Him.”

What was it about the cross that helped Corrie and Betsie?

It was knowing that Jesus had suffered what they were suffering.

He had suffered nakedness and shame and mockery—for them.

So often, the very pains you are suffering, you find in the Jesus’ crucifixion.

Sometimes there is a feeling that God has abandoned you.

God, where were you when this awful thing happened?

God, why didn’t you help me?

Why don’t you easy my pain?

In spite of those prayers, it seems he is not answering.

Even that experience of being abandoned by God, we find in Jesus’ crucifixion—

in his own cry of abandonment. And it is as you cling to that, and know he

suffered it too, that you find hope.

So whatever you are suffering, you can look for it and find it in the cross.

But I think the cross does even more than that—it not only assures us

that Jesus suffered what we suffered, it give dignity and meaning to our suffering.

A few months ago I mentioned Armando Valladares’ autobiography,

Against All Hope. It’s on the book table.

Valladares spent 22 years in the prison camps of communist Cuba.

Over the course of those years, transferred from prison to prison,

he met many political prisoners.

One of the most amazing men he met in prison was an elderly man

with white hair and brilliant blue eyes who all the other prisoners called

“the Brother of the Faith.” He is real name was Gerardo.

But his faith in Christ was so real, prisoners gave him this nickname.

Valladares tells how over and over, at the times of greatest cruelty,

when prisoners being beaten to the ground by sadistic guards—

the Brother of the Faith would cry out the words of Jesus from the cross:

that are found in Luke’s account of the crucifixion.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

When he would cry out, the other prisoners would be filled with faith.

And it was with those words on his lips that he died.

How do you end an story like this?

Listen to the way Armando Valladares ends his autobiography.

As he tries to sum up the essence of those 22 years in Castro’s prisons.

In the midst of that apocalyptic vision of the most dreadful and horrifying moments in my life, in the midst of the gray, ashy dust and the orgy of beating and blood, a man emerged, the skeletal figure of a man wasted by hunger, with white hair, blazing blue eyes, and a heart overflowing with love, raising his arms to the invisible heaven and pleading for mercy for his executioners. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” And a burst of machine-gun fire ripping open his breast.

Do you see what he is saying.

It was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ that gave meaning and dignity not only

to the suffering of these men but even to their deaths.

It was the words of Jesus Christ from the cross that gives victory over even

the most horrible things that people can do to one another.

And so even though the story ends in death, it ends in triumph.

And isn’t this what we so often what an assurance of when we are suffering—

that it has a purpose. That something good will come of it.

That God is working out some higher and greater end.

We find that assurance in the cross.

Now, Christ Covenant friends, if our Christian sisters and brothers

who have walked the paths of the most extreme suffering

have given testimony that they have found incredible strength

and comfort and dignity in the cross—then you can too.

What are you suffering?

What loss? What cruelty or hurt?

Go to that special place.

Open your Bible to the Gospels, turn to the last chapters—

drink in those details once again, and be reminded afresh

that a man shamed, despised and abandoned

is your key to eternal happiness and peace with God.

An old hymn says:

“When the woes of life o’ertake me, Hopes deceive and fears annoy,

Never shall the cross forsake me: Lo! it glows with peace and joy.