Have you understood the cross?

Well thanks, Lesley, for reading. And before we look at that Bible passage, let me lead us in prayer:

Father, Thank you for these words spoken by your Son Jesus when he was here on earth. Please help us to understand them and to hear you speaking through them today. In Jesus’ name, Amen

Three days after last Christmas I went to Sainsbury’s and, lo and behold, there already were the chocolate eggs and bunnies. They start the run-in to Easter early. And last week we started the run-in to the very first Easter, as recorded in Luke’s Gospel. So we’re in the bit where Jesus is getting near to Jerusalem and his death and resurrection. And in last week’s passage we saw him inviting people to enter the kingdom of God. In other words to stop saying to God ‘I don’t want you to be King over me’ and to re-enter the relationship with him that we were made for. And this week we’ll see that the key to re-entering relationship with God is Jesus’ death on the cross. And if you’re just looking into Christianity, you may still be wondering ‘Why is Jesus’ death so important?’ because it obviously is. After all, Christians have communion services like this to remember Jesus’ death on the cross, and they wear crosses, and have cross-shaped buildings, and they invented hot cross buns. So what is the cross all about? Well, would you turn in the Bibles to page 878. That’ll get you to Luke 18. And, top left hand corner of the page, you’ll see verse 31 to 34. And I’m going to read them again (Luke 18.31-34):

And taking the twelve [that is, the twelve apostles – the eye-witnesses Jesus chose, who provided the information for Luke’s Gospel, and the rest of the New Testament – taking those Twelve], he [Jesus] said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man [which was a name Jesus used for himself – so everything that is written about Jesus] by the prophets will be accomplished. For he [that’s Jesus] will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spat upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things.This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

So reading the Gospels, you need to remember that even though the apostles had some kind of faith in Jesus, it wasn’t yet fully Christian faith, because Christian faith is trusting in Jesus and his death as the key to relationship with God, but at this point, Jesus hadn’t died and risen yet. So, they couldn’t trust in his death yet. In fact, they couldn’t even understand it yet. Look at Luke 18.34 again:

But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

But in what he said here, Jesus gave two clues to help them understand the cross once it had happened. So let’s follow through how they came to understand the cross, and that’ll help us to ask ‘Have you understood the cross?’ So at this point, the apostles were saying to themselves, ‘The cross makes no sense.’ And that’s my first point:

1. The cross by itself makes no sense

Look down to Luke 18.31-34 again:

And taking the twelve, he [Jesus] said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spat upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things.

Now that doesn’t mean they literally understood none of those words. They understood full well what mocked and spat upon and flogged and killed meant. They just couldn’t understand why it was going to happen to Jesus. Which reminds me of the Chinese international student we had in a Christianity Explored group a while ago. She’d been loving getting her first ever look at Jesus by reading Mark’s Gospel – loving seeing his kindness and his compassion and his miracles of healing and his forgiveness of failures like us. And then they came to the week on his death on the cross, and she was in tears because why would something so awful happen to someone so wonderful? The cross by itself makes no sense, does it? And the apostles would have made more sense of things if they’d heard everything Jesus said but they only heard the suffering bit – and filtered out the rest. A bit like I remember doing, going to get an injection, aged 5. The nurse said ‘There’ll just be a small prick and then it’s all finished and you can have a Smartie.’ But I only heard the suffering bit – ‘there’s going to be a prick’ (which I imagined as something like my worst wasp sting) and I filtered out the ‘small’ and the ‘Smartie’. And I fought well, and they had to give up, and book me in another day. And here similarly, the apostles only heard the suffering bit; that Jesus would be delivered over to the Gentiles (Luke 18.32) in other words, end up perilously in the hands of the Roman authorities, that he’d be mocked – as if his claims were laughably wrong. ‘If you’re the Son of God, what are you doing up there on the cross?’ That he’d be shamefully treated and spat upon – by those who thought they’d won and felt they could treat the loser like dirt. And that he’d be flogged and killed (the two official parts of a crucifixion) one to leave you half dead, one to finish you off – by which the Roman Empire judged and got rid of those it didn’t want. And the apostles only heard about Jesus’ suffering – and filtered out the two clues that would have helped them begin to understand it. One clue was in Luke 18.31:

everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished

In other words, there was going to be purpose in Jesus’ suffering because it was part of God’s plan, pre-announced by the Old Testament prophets. And the other clue was at the end of Luke 18.33:

…and on the third day he will rise.

In other words, there was going to be victory in Jesus’ suffering. God his Father was going to raise him from the dead to show who really was right, who really had won, who really was judge. But the apostles filtered out those two clues and were left with the cross by itself making no sense at all. Which may be where you are right now. You could understand it if Christians said Jesus’ teaching was the most important thing, or his example of how to live, but why do they say his death is actually the most important thing of all? So point 1: the cross by itself makes no sense. Then point 2:

2. The resurrection means the cross must make sense

Look down to Luke 18.32-33 again:

For he [Jesus] will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spat upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him and on the third day he will rise.

And the apostles and New Testament writers say Jesus really did rise from the dead.

Last week, Tess and I went away for a night, and the blurb in the hotel room said it’s part of the Robert Parker collection. And Robert Parker turns out to be a Church of England minister who, on the side, has five hotels, and is worth 20 million. So I found an article about him and here’s a quote:

Mr Parker struggled with many of the beliefs of the Church. He couldn’t accept a literal reading of the Bible. He says, “Most of my fellow clergy are sucked in by traditional theology which I can’t hack. People don’t walk on water. People don’t rise from the dead. You’ve got to say, ‘The Gospel writers obviously knew that, and were trying to tell us something else.’ ”[Mail Online 27 May 2012]

To which Luke, along with all the other New Testament writers, would say ‘No, Mr Parker, I wasn’t trying to say anything else. I was saying: Jesus literally rose bodily from the dead. So either believe it or reject it. But don’t re-interpret it.’ And if you read to the end of Luke you find that by Good Friday evening, Jesus’ dead body was literally sealed in a tomb. And that on Easter Sunday, the tomb was literally found open and empty of everything but his grave clothes; and that multiple eye-witnesses literally saw Jesus alive again, bodily resurrected from the dead. And that means the cross must make sense because if God raised Jesus, to show that he was his Son, and that the world’s judgement on him couldn’t have been more wrong, then that means God must have allowed the cross to happen in the first place. And that means God must have planned the cross – he must have allowed the cross for a purpose. And that’s what the apostles began to realise from the moment they knew Jesus had risen from the dead.

And one lesson from that is this; if the worst thing that’s ever happened (namely the death of God’s Son at the hands of men) was part of God’s plan, allowed for God’s purposes, then we can trust that the worst things that happen to us and around us are also somehow part of God’s plan, allowed for his purposes. That doesn’t mean we’ll have the comfort of understanding why they’re allowed – often we don’t. But it does mean we have the comfort of knowing that God hasn’t lost control or lost interest – that those worst things didn’t just happen because he couldn’t help it or doesn’t care. So that’s point 2: the resurrection means the cross must make sense. That was one clue Jesus gave to help the apostles understand it – which they began to, from Easter Sunday. The question is: what sense does it make? And that brings us to point 3:

3. The Old Testament makes sense of the cross and resurrection

Look down to Luke 18.31 again:

And taking the twelve, he [Jesus] said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished”

So Jesus was saying his rejection, suffering, death and resurrection were all part of God’s plan, pre-announced by the Old Testament prophets. So let’s look at the most striking example of that. Would you turn back in the Bibles to page 613. So we’re parachuting into the Old Testament – the part of the Bible written before Jesus but pointing forward to Jesus. And we’re landing in Isaiah, who lived 700 years before Jesus. So look down to Isaiah 53.1, where God gave Isaiah a vision of Jesus’ coming as if it had already happened – which is why it’s in the past tense:

Who has believed what he has heard from us?And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

So Isaiah imagines the LORD God rolling up his sleeves, like we might before doing a bit of DIY – baring his arm for the job of rescuing us from our rebellion against him. Only God’s arm turns out to be a person – distinct from God, and yet God. Isaiah 53.2-3:

For he grew up before him like a young plant,and like a root out of dry ground;he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,and no beauty that we should desire him.He was despised and rejected by men;a man of sorrows, [so now God’s arm – this person distinct from God and yet God – has become a man… a man of sorrows] and acquainted with grief;and as one from whom men hide their faceshe was despised, and we esteemed him not.

So there’s the rejection of Jesus – being mocked and shamefully treated and spat upon, as Luke 18 says. And it’s all part of the plan, pre-announced by the prophets. And then comes Jesus’ death – look on to Isaiah 53.5-6:

But he was wounded for our transgressions;he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement [ie, judgement] that brought us peace,and with his stripes we are healed.All we like sheep have gone astray;we have turned—every one—to his own way;and the Lord [that is God the Father] has laid on him [that is God the Son]the iniquity of us all.

So transgression, inquity, sin – they’re all words for our rebellion against God – for everything about us that leaves us under God’s judgement. And Isaiah says in his death, Jesus willingly stepped in as our substitute, to take the judgement we deserve, so that we might be forgiven back into relationship with God. So the cross is the key to that. We don’t come back into relationship with God or stay in relationship with God by being good enough, but by being forgiven for all the ways we’re not good enough and never can be. So maybe during communion later you could have Isaiah 53 open to help you reflect on the cross. But Jesus’ resurrection is here as well. Look on to Isaiah 53.10:

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;[So the cross was God’s plan before it was human evil.]he has put him to grief…

But look what comes next, because this is talking about Jesus after he’s offered up his life for us:

…when his soul makes an offering for guilt,he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Which begs the questions: Who has offspring after they’ve died? Who has long life after they’ve died? Who can put God’s will into action after they’ve died? And the answer is Jesus because he rose again, and his offspring are all the people he brings into God’s family through faith in him and his death, and his life will now never end. And until he comes again, he’s putting into action God’s will that God’s world-wide family grows as we spread the gospel world-wide. Jesus’ rejection, suffering, death and resurrection are all there in Isaiah. So now listen to Luke 18 again (Luke 18.31):

And taking the twelve, he [Jesus] said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished”

So that’s point 3: the Old Testament makes sense of the cross and resurrection – by telling us why we needed it, and what it was going to achieve for us. So, just like we saw in our 'Christ in the Psalms' series, we’ve got to read the Old Testament to know Jesus better. We mustn’t just be ‘New Testament Christians.’ So, do you understand the cross? Just listen to Luke 18.34 again:

But [at the time of this conversation in Luke 18] they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

And elsewhere, Luke uses that word ‘hidden’ to talk about things we can’t understand and accept – unless God works in us. So if this doesn’t make sense to you yet, can I encourage you to keep coming, to keep looking into the Bible with us, maybe to join Christianity Explored – but also to start praying that God would work in you to show you why you need what Jesus did for you on the cross. And if this does make sense to you, don’t think it’s because you’re smarter than others, and worked it out. If you see your need of Jesus’ death, and you’re trusting in him today, it’s only because God worked in you to get you there. And the only appropriate response to that is humility and praise, and that’s the response we’re going to make in our next song.