The deliverance of the cross - 8 April 2009 |
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Perhaps you remember when the news broke of the genocides that took place in the early 90’s during the Bosnian war. Or perhaps you’ve heard reports of abuses during the conflict in Iraq, or of the appalling mistreatment of young children closer to home.
These events are not just ‘bad news’; they’re sickening. They’re hard even to listen to. They’re so ghastly that TV presenters sometimes warn us beforehand, ‘You may find some of these images disturbing.’
We find something similar in Psalm 22. This Psalm is the first-hand account of how a king – King David of Israel – suffered terribly at the hands of his enemies. Like all the Psalms, it speaks also about a greater king, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Psalm 22 vividly depicts the trial, suffering and death of Jesus.
As we read through the Psalm, perhaps you noticed how accurately it describes the events of the first Good Friday.
Consider how Jesus was rejected by so many of his own people. Then look at v. 6:
I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
Consider how the chief priests and the scribes taunted Jesus, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe’ (Mark 15:31-32). And then look at vv. 7-8:
All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; ‘He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!’
Consider how Jesus hung naked as the soldiers gambled for his clothing. Then look at vv. 16-18:
Dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones – they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.
This Psalm – written many hundreds of years before Christ – paints an eerily accurate picture of his suffering and death. And it’s an image we might well find disturbing.
I wonder, what would you think about a man who suffered in this way? If you heard a report on the radio of such a barbarous act of torture, how would you feel about the victim? Perhaps you would feel pity. Perhaps you would feel outrage – how could people do this to each other? Perhaps you would feel helpless, frustrated, powerless to prevent such a shocking injustice. All of these feelings would be quite understandable.
But how would you feel if you discovered that the victim had suffered willingly? If he had resolutely set out for the city where he knew he would be tortured, if he had rebuked those who tried to stop him? If he had prayed that his heavenly Father would actually bring about his death, and despite his understandable terror, had willingly submitted to his Father’s will? Perhaps you would think he was insane. Yet Jesus did all these things (Luke 9:51; Mark 8:31-33; 14:36; John 17:1).
Surely you would want to know why. What drove the Lord Jesus Christ to suffer willingly in this way? We hear a hint of the answer from his own lips during the final minutes of his life. As Jesus hung on the cross, he quoted from part of Psalm 22. But he didn’t choose any of the verses we looked at previously, despite the accuracy with which they describe his experience. Instead, he quoted the very first words of the Psalm: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (v. 1)
This tells us what was foremost in Jesus mind. It was not the physical trauma of crucifixion; it was what lay behind it: the anguish of being forsaken, abandoned, by God. According to the Bible, being abandoned by God is a punishment for sin. God abandons those who have abandoned him, following gods of their own making. This is something that all people have done, in one way or another, and so this terrible fate is what all people deserve.
This takes us to the heart of the meaning of Good Friday. Christ suffered the punishment that sinners like us deserve, in our place, so that we might be spared from it. What made the cross so appalling was not, in the end, the crown of thorns and the nails. It was not the rejection of his own people and the brutality of the Romans. It was the experience of divine wrath, abandonment by God, that Jesus endured in our place. And Jesus suffered this in order that we might be delivered, rescued from it.
This is the deliverance of the cross.
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Bible, Easter meditations, Minister's Blog