Luke: The Innocent King Crucified (23:13-49)

Hello, friends, this is Pastor Creighton.

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The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Luke, chapter 23, beginning at verse 32.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Two others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with Jesus.

And when they came to the place that is called the skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

And they cast lots to divide his garments.

And the people stood by, watching by watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself.

If he is the Christ of God, his chosen one.

The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

There was also an inscription over him, This is the King of the Jews.

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us.

But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.

But this man has done nothing wrong.

And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

While the sun's light faded failed, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two, then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

And having said this, he breathed his last.

Now when the centurions saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent, and all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home, beating their breasts.

And all the his acquaintances and the woman who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

This is the gospel of Christ.

Praise you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, we come to you now to hear your word spoken to us.

I just pray, Lord, that you would touch our hearts and our minds, that uh to any distractions we're just following now, and that you just draw us closer to you.

And I pray us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

One of my favorite movies that I've seen lately and all time is called A Just Mercy.

And it is about a story of a lawyer, Brian Stevens' son.

Um, and he was a lawyer, young lawyer coming out of school, and he wanted to make a difference.

Pretty much like anyone who comes out of school really always wants to make a difference when they first come out and then they realize what's going on.

But this man wanted to defend people who could not afford legal representation.

And through his um figuring things out, he ends up help trying to help inmates who are on death row.

And he ends up working with these people who are seeking to appeal their sentences because they feel like they've been the trial has gone been unfair for them or they've been mistried or like the evidence wasn't right.

And one inmate who he begins to work with is named Herbert Leed Richardson, and he was convicted for killing a little girl.

And he he actually did it.

But the thing with this trial that it shows in the movie, and also in the book, because it's based on a book, the movie, it shows in the trial that they he was a Vietnam War veteran.

He was in the thick of the fighting, the most intense part of the fighting, and all his officers in his platoon told them he needs to go, he needs to go back, be sent home because of psychological issues that he's been having after being in all the fighting.

But no one would send him back, and they kept him there.

And that continues on, and then he finally gets sent back.

And he starts to live his life trying to be in society, trying to figure out how to live with PTSD.

And he just can't do it.

And somehow he ends up dating somebody and that falls apart.

But through all this, he is suffering all this mental issues in his life.

And then he ends through unfortunate events, he tries to win the girl back, but it fails.

And because he was dealt with mental issues, it went horribly wrong, and that little girl ended up unfortunately dying.

And so he got convicted for killing a little girl.

And in this movie, um, the lawyer Brian is trying to fight for the appeal because during the trial of this, before he came around, Herbert was tried extremely unfairly.

It would never happen now.

This happened over 50 years ago.

He was tried in a way that they never brought any of this mental stuff to into the evidence, into the play of the decision.

And they just went off the basic facts that this man was, they said he was evil, he was horrible.

This was in Alabama, and at the time racism was very rampant, and he was black, and everything was stacked against him, and he ended up getting convicted onto death row.

So then Brian comes in and he tries to fight for the appeal, and then last minute the appeal doesn't happen.

He loses.

And there's a very powerful scene where he's where Herbert is led to the electric chair.

And this leaves you with a sense of injustice.

Yes, he did the crime.

Yes, he deserves to deal with the sentence, to lit take the time, but it leaves you with the sense of injustice that he did not deserve to die.

That there was all these things that were against him.

There's also those cases you think about where people are convicted and they spend time in jail for over 20 years, and then new evidence comes out and it proves their innocence.

And then we feel like we like in us, we want this sense of justice for them.

It feels unjust.

And everything in our being wants them to be compensated.

Well, in Luke, we now come to the text where we see Jesus is on trial, and it's a very unfair trial, and he is condemned and killed.

He's been abandoned, he's been spit upon, he's been hit, he's been falsely accused.

And there's many different ways you can take this text.

Many sermons have been spoken on this text.

It can be going many different ways.

But we're going to look at three things today in this text.

And that is the innocent king accused, the innocent king mocked, and the innocent king crucified.

So if you haven't already, please turn with me, or flip to in your with your phone, to Luke chapter 23, verses 13 to 49.

Luke 23:13–49

And we'll begin.

The innocent king accused, verses 13 to 16.

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people.

And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him.

Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us.

Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him.

I will therefore punish and release him.

Now what's going on?

In verse two, the Jewish officials and the crowd bring Jesus to Pilate, and they make all these false accusations against him, saying that Jesus was promoting not giving tribute to Caesar, that Jesus was spreading false lies.

And they bring this to him.

And then Pilate sees what they're doing, and then he realizes that Jesus is a Galilean.

So he sends him to Herod, who's that's where his jurisdiction was.

And then Herod, through the events that you read in the verses right prior, sees that Jesus is innocent and then just mocks him and sends him back to Pilate.

So then we come here, and Pilate declares that Jesus is innocent.

And then they double down on the accusations against Jesus here in verses 18 to 25.

But they all cried out together, Away with this man, release to us Barabbas, a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder.

Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, Crucify, crucify him.

And a third time he said to them, Why?

What evil has he done?

I have found in him no guilt deserving death.

I will therefore punish and release him.

But they were urgent, demanding with the loud cries that he should be crucified.

And after their voices per prevailed, so Pilate decided that their demand should be granted.

He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder.

And for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

See, again, Pilate says that Jesus is innocent.

This is a clear mistrial, what it's going on here.

And what they're demanding, the crucifixion, is that that was reserved for the highest form of treason or murder.

The Romans used it as a way to make a point.

It was always in a public space right outside the gate where everyone would come in.

It was a very, it was a thing that was the Romans considered it horrendous, the Jewish people considered it horrendous.

Everyone around considered it horrendous.

And this is what the Jewish leaders are wanting to happen to Jesus, falsely.

And they want Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus to be released.

Barabbas was, he was caught, as it says, for insurrection, and insurrection is where they do a violent, the person leads a violent uprising against the government.

And he was a murderer.

Barabbas is a man by cultural standards of that time, deserves to be crucified.

He would have been a poster child for it.

And then Jesus is a man by his cultural standards that doesn't.

But interestingly, the loudest wins.

It's the classic saying that nothing new is under the sun.

We hear that now, that it's always the loudest person that wins, even if the person that's not the loudest is innocent.

But here we also see, we see the gospel being played out right away.

There's many gospel, little snippets of the gospel in this text, and one of them is Jesus taking the place of Barabbas.

Barabbas is a type of, it's in the Bible, in a lot of theology, there's a thing called a type.

And a type is something that represents something within the Bible.

And Barabbas is a type right here.

He is someone, he represents all of us.

He represents the person who deserves to be take the punishment, to hit his to be the one who's convicted for trial and to go to death.

But Jesus comes in, the one who is innocent, and takes his place.

This is the gospel right here.

This is the true message of the gospel.

But what happens next?

Let's see what happens next.

The innocent king mocked.

Verses 26 to 38.

And as they led him away, they seized one, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country and laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus.

Now what was going on here, just quickly, is that when someone is convicted to be crucified, they would scourge him first.

This is a form of whipping.

I don't know if anyone here has seen the Passion of the Christ, but it's that, it's that.

It's this grotesque whipping, the whip normally have bones and metal and glass pieces on it.

And they would whip it against the person before they are crucified.

So this is why Jesus can't carry the cross, because he is barely alive as it is already.

And in this time, Roman officials could take whoever they want and they have to do whatever they command them to do.

This is why when you if when you read the Gospels, you always you hear when Jesus says, if someone asks for you to walk a mile, walk for them two miles.

He's talking about the Roman officials when they ask them to do things.

It's to go beyond out of their way to do more.

But did you notice how many people mock?

Oh, sorry, I gotta continue first.

I'm going getting ahead of myself here.

Gotta keep reading first.

Verse 27.

And there and there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him.

But turning to them, Jesus said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

For behold, the days are coming when they will say, Blessed is the barren and the wounds that have never bore, and the breast that never nursed.

Then they will begin to say to the mourn mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills cover us.

For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when the when it is dry?

Two others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with him.

And continuing on, we I just read it.

So did you notice who mocked him here?

The Jewish people, the Jewish leaders, the criminal, and the Roman officials.

He was humiliated beyond imaginable.

He was lied about, he was mocked about, he was nailed to a cross in the verses that we're gonna look at, and then they gambled for his clothing in front of him as he hung there.

There is nothing more humiliating than that that I can picture of.

And then he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

We see the heart of Jesus here.

We see one of love and forgiveness, even though he is suffering, even though he has been falsely accused, falsely tried.

And he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

This is a very good example for how we are supposed to treat our neighbors.

For those who may not understand why we are Christians, why we follow Jesus, and they mock us, or maybe they laugh at us.

Maybe you're in a coffee shop and someone laughs at you because you have your Bible out.

We are supposed to pray this, to be imitating Jesus, saying, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

We're supposed to be examples of Christ.

Now, Jesus, as he hangs on the cross, gets this plaque put above his head that says the King of the Jews.

Now, the Jewish perspective of this is that all through the Old Testament, they're expecting this triumphant king to come and rescue them from oppression and to rule the nations.

And then the Roman perspective, when they first accuse Jesus in verse 2, they put Pilate in a tight spot because they say he's declaring he's a king and that they should not give tribute to Caesar.

So Romans in this situation need to stamp out the person who is saying this stuff.

So that is why they put the king of the Jews on it, to show an example that anyone who promotes uprising, anyone who says they're a king other than Caesar, has to be killed, has to be done with.

Now, in the next couple verses, we see the beloved verses that many people hold on to, and they are great verses, and we're gonna look at them right now.

Verses 39 and 42.

One of the criminals who were hanged hanged rallied at him, saying, Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us.

But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence and condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.

But this man has done nothing wrong, and he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And he said to him, Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Now you might be thinking, Well, I've read the other gospels, but it doesn't say it here.

That doesn't say it.

It just says that the two criminals were rallying against him, were mocking him and saying things against him.

But that that is something that we shouldn't have to worry about.

We don't need to worry about how there's differences like that in the Gospels.

For this moment, in this situation, when you read about it, it just talks about that the other gospel writers, because the Gospels are pointing to Christ and they're trying to show Jesus in all these different ways.

Each one has a main theme.

And in Luke's theme, it's the kingdom of God.

That is the main theme.

So what Luke is doing here is showing later on in the crucifixion story.

At the beginning, when you read about this, the two criminals were going again, like we're mocking Christ.

And then later on, one of them comes to their senses and starts to realize who Jesus is.

That's how there's the differences, that's how you explain that difference.

And again you see Jesus is declared innocent, this time by the criminal.

It shows us also when Jesus says, Today you'll be with me in paradise, that when you die and you have your faith and trust in Christ, you instantly go to Christ.

There's no waiting around.

It's instant, it happens right away.

These are sweet words.

These are words to hold on to, especially anyone who's going through severe sickness or facing death.

That when you have put your faith and trust in Christ, you hear the words, today you'll be with me in paradise if you're facing the end.

These are words you can remember.

You can thank Jesus for saying these words.

It also shows us this scene that we need to make a decision about if Jesus is Lord or not.

See, there's two criminals.

One believes and one doesn't.

We see the state.

We see the state of the two criminals.

It's dire, it's hopeless.

They have nothing to offer.

And then one of them asks for help.

The criminal who had nothing to offer only had a plea.

And that was Jesus Remember Me.

You might be thinking, well, what does this have to do with me?

Well, look at what happens next.

The innocent king crucified.

Verses 44 to 48.

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

While the sun's light failed, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

And having said this, he breathed his last.

Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent.

Again you see Jesus declared innocent.

And all the crowds that had assembled for the spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home, beating their breasts.

And all his acquaintances and the woman who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

You might be thinking, well, why would God allow such an unjust thing to happen?

If this man is declared innocent by so many people, why would God allow this?

Why would God allow this person, Jesus, his son, to go through such suffering, such agony, such humiliation?

Why would a loving God allow this?

Well, the Bible story, the Bible narrative is a story of redemption.

But at the beginning of the story, there's a fall.

And what goes on here is during the fall that you read in Genesis is that because of the fall, because humanity wanted to make themselves like God, they created this separation between man and God.

There's no chance for redemption.

There's no chance for them to save themselves.

What was required was a perfect sacrifice.

And as you As we read in this text, it talks about the curtain of the temple as being torn.

It was torn in two during Jesus' death.

Now, what that symbolizes is in the Old Testament, when the people of Israel made, when God made a covenant with them, and he asked them to do sacrifices for their sins and for other things.

He required them to make a sacrifice, to take a lamb, a perfect lamb, and make a sacrifice.

But that was only a temporary fix.

It was like putting duct tape on something, a temporary fix.

What needed to happen was there needed to be a perfect lamb, the Lamb of God.

And that is who Jesus is.

Jesus is the one who God brings in in his loving kindness into the world, his only son, to live a perfect life, to take on our sins, not his own, because he was sinless, and to live a perfect life and die for us.

He stood in our place condemned, where we could stand in his place, glorified in front of God.

But something is interesting here when we look about this text and we reflect on it.

Only the criminal on the cross knew who Jesus was.

Only the one who was hanging beside Christ knew who he was.

I recently had a chance to talk with some a couple about bird watching.

And what they talked about was the chase, was always finding the new birds, and a little bit of competition between the other people who do birding.

They have an app where they can record what they see and it creates a competition.

But more importantly, it's to observe the beauty of the bird and their natural habitat.

See, when you go birding, you take a moment and you stop and you watch the bird.

You watch its habits, you watch it interact with the other birds.

You see the beauty of its feathers and its mannerisms as it interacts in nature.

That's the drive of going bird watching, is to see God's creation, these beautiful birds and the intricate feathers that he created in these birds.

And this is something we can bring into this text in that you see it in the criminal on the cross.

He is looking at Jesus.

He's not looking at anything else.

See, if we don't observe Jesus and his actions and the perfect work of the cross, we're gonna miss it.

We're gonna miss the gospel.

It's so easy to become busy and miss the point of the gospel.

And especially as now we come into the Advent season, Christmas season, it's so easy to become busy and forget about why we do, why are we celebrating Christmas?

And that is the birth of Jesus, the Son of God.

That is God bringing in the Lamb of God into the world for the redemption story that you that we celebrate at Easter.

It's so easy to miss that.

We have to be like the criminal on the cross, just looking to Jesus, saying, Jesus, forgive me, remember me.

See, Jesus offers forgiveness to anyone who looks on him and believes.

He is Lord and Savior of the world.

Nothing else can save you, only faith in the King of the world.

The Jewish people wanted a king to rule all nations.

God gives the true king we need to forgive all nations.

In the scene I describe at the beginning, as the inmate, Herbert, walks down the last hallway he'll ever walk in his life to go to the electric chair.

The song, the old rugged cross, plays.

He asks for that to play as he goes down the hallway.

Now, this song, I have a personal um soft spot for this song.

It's when I came back to church many years ago.

I heard this song and I was blown away by the song.

It is something that is so I hold on very um, I think about it every week, this song.

Um but it's something that's interesting when you think about the movie, and then you think about this text and the gospel story, is that we're all on death row.

We're all living a death sentence.

One day we'll all die.

One day we'll all have to face God and stand before Him in judgment.

What song will be playing as you walk down the hallway?

What song?

Will it be the song about your accomplishments, things that you did, all about you?

Or it will be or will it be about that cross?

That old rugged cross.

See, the the lyrics of the song are so profound.

I'm just gonna read it.

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame.

And I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.

So I'll cherish the old rugged cross till my trophies at last I lay down.

I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it, exchange it someday for a crown.

Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction for me, for the dear Lamb of God left his glory above to bear it, to bear it to dark Calvary.

In the old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine, a wondrous beauty I see, for twas that old cross Jesus suffered and died to pardon and sanctify me.

See, all we have to do is say, Jesus, don't forget about me.

And he's he will say, He will welcome you into his kingdom with open arms, as he hung on the cross with open arms.

Let us pray.

Thank you, Lord, that we can, as we celebrate the birth of your son, we can look to the future of the cross, that we can always turn to the cross.

Father, help us to remember Jesus and his work on the cross amidst the busyness of life.

Father, help us to always look to Jesus.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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