The Crucifixion: What We Did and What We Get? (Good Friday 2019)

Rembrandt's sixteen thirty three painting The Raising of the Cross is one of his most remarkable works.

In the background there are shadowy figures that loom and lurk.

Behind the cross itself, which takes center stage in the painting and slanted at about a forty-five degree angle are two giant-like men who with their shoulders are pressing the cross upward as what appears to be a Roman soldier with his back to the audience stands at the front of the cross, pulling it forward.

And there at the base of the cross, illumined by the only light in the painting that comes from Jesus' bare flesh, is the face of another wearing a blue artist's beret.

Rembrandt painted himself into the painting.

I think through the eyes of faith he saw himself as the central figure whose sins put Christ on the cross.

And there, through the eyes of faith, though it was an event that took place sixteen hundred years earlier, was able to see his sins on Jesus.

And I think like Rembrandt, we must do the same.

Through the eyes of faith, put ourselves on center stage at the base of the cross, pulling with the mob to raise it.

We have to see our sins on Jesus.

We have to see ourselves at the crucifixion.

Seeing ourselves at the crucifixion means that we see that our sin caused his pain, his suffering, his death.

The text begins emphatically in verse four.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

And then it seems to contradict itself, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

In other words, what's the author doing here?

Surely he's borne our griefs and our sorrows, yet we didn't think of him that way.

How are we to think about that passage?

I've been to an awful lot of football practices when I was a younger person, and I've seen an awful lot of running for bad behavior.

But one scene sticks out in particular that's greater than the others.

Off in the far corner of the end zone, there were two linemen running the steps of the stadium, and they ran those steps for an hour.

And all of us, as we stood around watching them suffer, wondered, what did they do wrong?

I wonder what it I wonder what they did to cause that kind of punishment.

That's what's going on in this text.

It says, Surely he has borne our griefs and sorrows, and yet everybody around him esteemed, thought of him as he was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

In other words, he bore our griefs, our sorrows, and yet everybody else around, including us, thought, what did that guy do wrong?

How do we know that?

Verse 2 tells us, for he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground.

He had no former majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him.

He was in fact despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces.

He was despised and we esteemed him not.

And yet the text is emphatic.

It wasn't his sin.

He bore our sorrows, he carried our griefs.

Surely carrying another's grief is painful to do.

Parents say to their children, and friends say to other friends when they're going through hard times, I wish I could take it away from you.

I wish I could bear it for you.

I would take it if I could.

And we say it as earnestly as we might, and yet the reality is bearing another's burden like that, the weight of it would crush us.

And so I want us to imagine that Jesus, our Savior, bore the grief and sorrow of the world.

All the sin, not just that you've ever done, will do, or will ever do in the future, but of the entire world God heaped on his son.

And in the most vulnerable of positions available to mankind, remained on the cross.

Why didn't he come down?

Why didn't he say enough?

To rescue you.

And so we have to see our sin on him.

We've got to see that our sin caused that pain and suffering.

We've got to go there.

But when you see yourself at the crucifixion, we're not only seeing ourselves at the crucifixion by causing the pain, we're also seeing ourselves as ones who receive the glory.

It almost just doesn't comprehend, it doesn't make sense, and yet that's what the text tells us.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his stripes we are healed.

This word peace and healed when taken together brings the idea of wholesomeness, of oneness, of shalom, that everything is as it should be.

What happened there on that cross?

How do we receive the glory?

It's a fancy word called double imputation.

To impute means to assign to someone else.

And so God imputed, assigned to Jesus, his son, your sin and mine.

He gave his son our sin.

And then, because it's double imputation, he gave, he imputed, Jesus' righteousness, his glory to you.

He took your sin and he put him on, put it on his son.

And he took his son's righteousness, his glory, and he put it on you.

Friends, though we'll talk an awful lot about that glory on Sunday morning, it's Friday.

And I think in order to have a full appreciation for the dark, for the glory and the light, we must first sit in the darkness.

And so that's why our service this evening will conclude by singing the hymn in Christ Alone.

We're not going to sing the entire hymn.

We're going to save the grand and glorious final stanzas for Easter morning.

But instead, we're going to, as we sing, imagine ourselves at the crucifixion.

And with the eyes of faith, see our faces and hear our voices among the mockers and scoffers.

And as we sing the final verse that is printed in your worship guide, we will extinguish the candle representing Christ as the light of the world.

And then we'll be dismissed in silence.

But Sunday's coming.

Heavenly Father.

What you accomplished through your son on the cross rescued the world from eternal damnation.

You put our sins on your Son.

And you took his glory, his righteousness, and put it on us.

What wondrous love.

And so as we sing the words, might we be convicted that it is only in Christ alone that our hope is found.

And as we reflect and see ourselves at the crucifixion this evening, would we remember that we live on this side of Sunday and that Easter's coming?

All praise be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

Amen.