Were You There?

The passage that I've chosen for this message this day is not a normal Easter Sunday passage.

I mean, we all remember the stories of Jesus raising from the dead and the women

going to see him, but this is found in Isaiah chapter 55. It's prophecy.

Isaiah 55 · chapter mention

It's prophetic about Jesus, and we're going to read that today.

Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance

that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering,

like one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he bore the burden of our sin upon himself, and he carried our sorrows,

yet we consider him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

He was pierced for our sin and disobedience.

He was crushed for our wickedness.

The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray.

Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the wickedness

of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

He was led like a lamb to slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants?

For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the sins of my people, he was stricken.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer.

And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring

and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hands.

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied.

By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the

spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death and was included among the sinners.

For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the sinners.

We are here because of the story of salvation.

We are here because of the price that Jesus paid for the punishment of our sin.

We are here because long, long ago, in a place far away,

the Son of God died on a Roman execution stake,

not at the hands of Roman troops or the Jewish mobs, but because of the love

of a God who desired for his children to be returned to his family.

We are here for mercy's sake, and for that we can say amen. If it were not for

Christ and what he has done, we wouldn't be here.

There would be no church in which to worship.

There wouldn't ever be a reason to worship, but we are here because at just

the right time, God sent his Son to provide for our redemption in a way that

could not be satisfied by the blood of bulls and goats.

Yet it started out long before that. We are here because even before the beginning

of time, God had a plan wanting to have a beautiful father-child relationship.

He knew we would fall into disobedience and sin and need the blood of a lamb

to satisfy his own wrath for our souls.

Yet in his great mercy, God gave himself as the Son of God as the final sacrifice

and the one sacrifice for everyone, for all mankind.

We're here because Jesus paid that penalty once and for everyone.

The message is clear. God's word says that we were created in his image to have

perfect and permanent fellowship with him, but man walked away from that relationship

in defiance to the love of God.

And it wasn't just Adam who sinned, it was each one of us.

The Word of God said, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God's complete glory.

And the Bible also says that much like wages, because of our sin,

we have earned the death penalty, both physical and spiritual.

But we are here because God loved each one of us so much that he sent his only

son into the world that whoever would believe in him and follow him would be

restored to fellowship with God. Well, that's why we're here.

During this Lenten season and in preparation for this service,

I have been reading this passage from Isaiah and the accounts of the week leading

up to and including Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.

And something uniquely stood out to me.

I became vividly aware of the characters and the people who were chronicled

in the story of Christ's crucifixion and the thoughts that were revealed about them.

Their emotions and reactions to Jesus were vividly portrayed.

I remembered watching the movie, The Passion of the Christ, and I watched it

almost every year, and we watched it again on Friday night down in the basement.

And I remember that story, watching that movie for the very first time in a

theater in Peoria, Illinois.

And I remember seeing myself mirrored in so many of the characters of that movie.

And while we are here to recognize and remember what Christ has done,

the question that haunted me during this Lenten season and everyone before was this, were you there?

And Old Hymns asked, were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

And were you there when he rose up from the dead?

Paul wrote to the Romans that we indeed were there.

He wrote, while you were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In fact, another translation puts it this way, while we were still in our sin, Christ died.

His sacrifice more than 2,000 years ago was, for all of us, forever.

When I watched that movie, The Passion of the Christ, I became photographically

aware that every one of my sins, every disobedience, every lie, every lust,

every theft, every drug, every bout of selfish anger, and every gossip was a

lash into the back of Jesus and a nail. in his flesh.

Yet Jesus took the sin of all humanity upon himself and took the punishment,

for us so that I might be set free from the bondage of sin, and so can you.

What an awesome God that he would do that for us instead of just cast us out.

So here we are to remember the death of Jesus for our sin and the resurrection,

but the question I want us to answer this morning is, were you there.

Were you there with Judas when he sold out Jesus?

Everyone knows who Judas was. He's known for being the one to betray Jesus to death.

In fact, his very name is held to be synonymous with betrayal.

When you say the kiss of betrayal, the name Judas immediately comes to mind, right?

Judas's act of betrayal was not an impulsive act in the heat of the moment.

It was incubated into Judas' heart and mind over a period of time.

We know, at least from John's gospel, that Judas had gained a growing control

of the purse of the master's money.

When the woman poured expensive perfume on Jesus' feet, it was Judas who complained

that the perfume could have been sold and that money used more wisely.

Isn't it appalling to think that the use of money to bring glory to God can

cause such divisiveness?

But Judas wasn't always that way. He began his travels with Jesus as one of

the chosen twelve. He was with Jesus every step of the way during his ministry.

He watched as Jesus gained popularity through the miracles that he performed,

the people he healed, and the downtrodden and accused who he lifted up.

He knew that Jesus had been sent by God on a mission to redeem a lost world to himself.

But somewhere along the line, Judas lost sight of that mission.

Somewhere along the line, he began to wonder what he could get out of all of this for himself.

And as we know, the root of all sin is self.

We start out in a relationship with Christ in which we are enthralled with him.

We are consumed and grateful for his love and mercy, and we can think of nothing

more than pleasing him. No one ever starts out following Jesus for the intent

purpose of stabbing in the back, right?

But then as time goes by, the miracle of our own salvation becomes kind of old hat.

The life and stories of Jesus become almost repetitive.

The church and Bible studies become mundane, and we begin to look for more excitement.

Our human nature desires more for

us more wealth more fame more power more prestige and when we just like Judas

come face to face with the reality that Jesus's work is not of this world we

are faced with the temptation of selling him out as well so were you there alongside

Judas when he betrayed the son of God,

Were you there with Peter when he denied knowing Jesus?

Peter also had been with Jesus for his entire ministry.

In fact, he was one of the first apostles chosen by Jesus. He was part of Jesus's inner circle of three.

He was the rock, which is what his name meant.

He was the loudmouth of the group, the rough and callous blue-collar tradesman

who could deal with any of life's struggles.

He was a self-made man. he was the brave

and stoler one he was a take charge kind of

guy he had been the one to step out of the boat

and walk to jesus on the stormy waters he had been the first of the apostles

to declare that jesus was the son of god the christ the messiah sent from god

how on earth could the rock falter how could this apostle with the mouth the

size of a foot some suddenly become sheepishly silent.

How could this strong man of the faith become as wimpy as the lion in The Wizard of Oz?

Maybe it's because his walk with Jesus was more in his hands than it was in his heart.

Maybe he, like us, had become so busy doing Christianity that he had failed to be a Christian,

intermingled in the mass of the broiling crowd around him that had turned on

Jesus, and the crowd of those who wanted answers and demanded them now,

in the midst of the ridicule that Jesus'

opponents heaped upon him, the rock became soft and mushy and turned his back on Jesus.

Is it possible that we have done that same thing? Have we become so busy doing

church that we have failed to be the church?

When the insipidly boiling crowd around us is demanding answers,

when the world is pounding its immorality down our throats, when the intolerant

Christ-haters are demanding our tolerance,

when the scene becomes ugly and we're pushed for our answers,

and even when the true seekers want to see the faith to which we profess,

have we ever just kept silent.

Or tried to stay out of the fray and not get involved. There's a question I

want each one of you to think about, and you can write this down and think about

it over time or right now.

If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Were you there with Peter when he turned his back on the Son of God?

Or were you there when the religious leaders rebuked and ridiculed Jesus and

falsely convicted him of a crime deserving the death penalty.

You know, these were the lifelongers.

These were the ones who had overseen the church their whole lives.

Their great-grandfathers and their great-grandfathers had been priests.

Their fathers were priests.

And now they were the priests in control of everything about the Jewish life and the Jewish faith.

God may have written the articles of religion when he gave the Israelites the

Ten Commandments, but they had written the bylaws and the constitution.

It was their class of leaders who had written the Jewish book of discipline

with all of its do's and don'ts.

It was their committee that determined all the little rules of their faith and

prescribed certain punishments or indulgences for violations.

They were the ones who were responsible for making sure the people adhered to

every jot and tittle of the law.

They were the ones who were getting fed and getting fat from the sacrifices

and the proceeds of the sales in the church that they controlled and profited from.

And now, this self-proclaimed Messiah was turning over their tables.

Jealousy and loss of control has its ways of ruffling feathers, doesn't it?

This Jesus was changing their natural Jewish pecking order, and they were going

to be left with a short stick.

Earlier that week, Jesus had ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem amidst a throng

of joyous followers, and they saw their power slipping away.

They had remarked in fear, look how the whole world has gone after him.

This newcomer, this rebel rabbi, this traveling teacher was going to unseat

their entire board of directors, and they were going to be swept from power

if they didn't act quickly to suppress him.

This Jesus was changing everything and their religion was no longer their grandfather's oldsmobile.

Isn't it disturbing how we can be so afraid of the things that come with growth

that we stifle it with the Twati syndrome?

You know what Twati is, T-T-W-A-D-I.

It's, that's the way we've always done it syndrome.

While we voice the words that we want God to do a new thing,

we're afraid of losing our control of those same things.

Were you there with the Jewish religious leaders when they falsely and illegally

tried to crush this new movement of the Son of God?

Were you there with the crowd as they shouted out for Jesus to be crucified?

Crucify him! Crucify him! They shouted. Of course, you weren't there with that crowd.

None of us would be. Who were these horrible people who made up that large number of a crowd?

Could these people be the same ones who five days earlier had celebrated the

triumphal entry of this miracle worker, Jesus?

How could they turn on Jesus so quickly, but yet humanity seems to love it when

someone comes and champions their own selfish causes.

Politicians know that all they need to do to be elected is to promise to give

everything to the people,

even if their words are full of empty rhetoric, and even though they're only

giving back a portion of what they've already taken from you.

Almost said that wrong. People love it when food is provided to them at no cost

and healings occur so readily.

It was the time of the Passover and Jesus had come into their city with miracles and healings.

He had raised the dead Lazarus to life just a few days before.

Five days earlier, he had been their conquering king and their mighty deliverer.

They believed he would free them from Roman oppression, but crowds could quickly

turn from fervency to complacency to apathy and even to violence.

The Jewish leaders started the questioning that stirred one by one in the minds

of those in the crowd, and now they were calling for Jesus' death.

And people don't like hard teaching and lessons of obedience.

People don't like the constraints saints of righteous living.

And just like a pack of vicious wolves all at the scent of first blood,

crowds are made up of blind followers

feeding on the weak and injured and oblivious to the evil within them.

Years ago, a woman's screams were heard from a bridge in New York City.

A gang of men, too cowardly to do it individually, had ganged up on her and

savagely ripped off her clothes and were repeatedly raping her.

They finally stabbed her multiple times and threw her lifeless body off the

bridge into the river below.

And yet, as horrible as that crime may seem to us, it's only part of the story.

You see, when the neighborhood crowd heard the woman's screams for help,

many of them simply pulled the shades down on their windows to block out the

scene and not be bothered with that woman's troubles. It wasn't their problem.

Still others silently watched from the safety of their apartments,

refusing to get involved, and yet somehow enjoying the theatrical scene of sex

being played out in front of their eyes.

But the worst part is that several others actually came down to the bridge,

to the scene, to watch close up and even cheer on the brutal gang.

No one tried to stop them. No one even called the police. They were caught up

in the mob mentality that loves to see others put down because it makes us feel more superior.

This crowd of people condemning Jesus had been caught up with everyone else,

or they had simply remained silent and had turned a blind eye to Jesus' arrest and crucifixion.

The Bible tells us that a large crowd of people gathered at the crucifixion

and simply watched in silence. Yes.

Nobody doing anything. I wonder how many believers throughout history have become

complacent in their faith or have simply chosen to remain silent and not get involved.

They have believed that Jesus is the Son of God, and they have accepted forgiveness

for their sins, but they have chosen not to have their own lives truly changed by the Christ.

Jesus is that miracle worker who has provided forgiveness, but that's as far

as it goes for some people.

After all, there's no reason to go overboard and become fanatic, is there?

There's no reason to actually let Jesus be the Lord of your life, is there?

There's no reason to identify yourself as one of Jesus' followers and stand

up to a world of sin, is there?

Were you there with the crowd when they stood by and did nothing for Jesus?

Were you there with the thief on the cross hanging alongside Jesus.

Actually, there were two criminals who hung there on either side of Jesus.

Very possibly they were partners of Barabbas whose place Jesus took on the cross.

Very possibly these criminals were part of a gang of thieves wrecking terror

on the people of Jerusalem during the Passover week.

Very possibly they had come into town, especially for the week-long festival

leading up to the Passover, Passover just to rob unsuspecting homeowners and

shopkeepers and worshipers and had gotten caught up in murder.

Nevertheless, Jesus was being hung in the place of Barabbas,

and these two men knew it.

The one thief got caught up with the cries of the crowd and was ridiculing Jesus

even though he hung on a cross too.

But it was the other thief that seems to be our model, the one who rebuked the

first criminal and admitted that while they deserved death for their sins,

Jesus had done nothing deserving of death.

He seemed to repent, and Jesus appears to recognize that repentance.

Then this criminal turned to Jesus and said, Remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus replied, Today, you will be with me in paradise.

There's a little of the thief in each one of us, isn't there?

For grace to have its hold on us, there must be an acknowledgement that the

Son of God was a sinless man, that he was God, and that he died in our place.

We deserve death, not him.

For grace to have its hold on us, we must come forward and confess our sinfulness to God.

For grace to have its way with us. We must accept Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life.

You know, I can identify with every one of these people.

Certainly, I've confessed my sinfulness and accepted the forgiveness of God,

but at times I've been timid and have turned my back on Jesus and become complacent

and silent when I should be vocal.

And at times, I've even betrayed Jesus by sinfulness, and I I watched as those

nails were put into his flesh and that his back was ripped apart by the cat of nine tails.

But there's one person in this scene who I want to identify with the most.

There's very little mention of him in the story, and we don't even know his name.

But the story that is told about this man in just a few verses is profound and

powerful. standing at the foot of the cross when Jesus died was a Roman centurion.

I love how the Bible describes this encounter.

The Bible tells us that when this centurion heard Jesus's words and witnessed

everything that had happened, this man praised God and exclaimed,

surely he was the son of God.

Man had witnessed everything that had been done to Jesus. He had seen the Jewish

leaders falsely accuse and condemn Jesus.

He had seen the Jewish leaders stir up the crowd against Jesus.

He had watched as Jesus' followers had hidden themselves away in fear for their own lives.

He had heard the rebukes and ridicule from the crowd.

He had watched as the people spat on Jesus and mocked him as he was taken up to the hill of Golgotha.

He was there when the sky grew dark and the man named Jesus cried out,

My God, my God, why have you turned your back on me?

He was there when the earth shook and the rock split and the tombs broke open.

He had been there when Jesus had been horribly brutalized with the cat-o'-nine-tailed

whips. He had been there when the nails were driven into Jesus' wrists and feet.

He was there when Jesus' blood flowed down on top of him, But the scene that

gripped him the most was when he was standing at the foot of the cross, looking up at Jesus,

the Son of God, who softly spoke to his father, Father,

forgive them because they do not know what they're doing.

Unless this man Jesus was who he said he was, how could he endure all this pain?

Unless this man, Jesus, was who he said he was, how could he be silent and not fight back?

Unless this man, Jesus, was who he said he was, how could he be humble enough

to ask God to forgive these people instead of killing them?

In the despair and the agony of his own sin, the centurion cried out,

surely he was the son of God, and that's where I want to be.

Even though I acknowledged my own sin over 50 years ago and turned my life to

Christ and accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord, that's where I want to be.

I want to stand at the foot of the cross and marvel at the love of God in Jesus Christ.

It was my sin that pulverized him. It was my sin that drove the nails through

his flesh and into the wood.

It was my sin that he took upon himself. It was my sin that he died for.

And I want to stand at the foot of the cross and have the blood and spirit of

Christ pour over me again and again and transform me into the likeness of Christ.

And in absolute humility of spirit, I want to shout out what the centurion,

and surely he is the Son of God. How about you?

If you have been a complacent part of the crowd, if you have denied knowing

Jesus and have not been bold to declare your faith in him, if you have betrayed

him by your own behavior and words,

if you have rebuked him and not allowed him to bring changes into your life

like he wants to, I invite you to come.

If you, like the thief, have never confessed your sinfulness, I invite you to come.

And if you simply recognize your own part in his death because of your sins

and want to humbly exclaim that Jesus is the Son of God, I invite you to come and kneel at the cross.

This is Resurrection Sunday, and Jesus is longing to raise you to no life.