Victory at the Cross
Mar 14, 2010
Everywhere you go in Christian circles and indeed in the Western world, the cross plays a prominent role. For us the cross has become a sacred symbol. It adorns churches across the globe, and many women wear it around their necks. This is especially ironic and even weird when we realize that the cross for the ancient Romans was a means of execution. Why do we glory in the cross?
It was the Apostle John who gave us this account of what has become known as the last words of Jesus from the Cross. There are 2 of these in this passage, “I thirst” and “It is finished!” It was on the cross that Jesus bore the sins of the world, our sins—every last one of them, no matter how small or big, no matter how insignificant nor egregious.
In our Scripture passage John, the beloved disciple, brings us face to face with 2 realities and truths about the cross.
1. John brings us face to face with the reality of the human suffering of Jesus. Suffering is no stranger to us, is it? From the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake, to the concentration camps of the German Nazis and the Russian Communists, to the misery of Normandy and Iwo Jima and too many others to mentioned, collectively we know about human suffering.
John wrote his gospel about 90AD. Even in his day there sprang up weird splinters within Christianity, one that had grown in popularity called Gnosticism. This brand of Christianity believed that spirit was good and matter was evil. From that belief they reasoned that Jesus, being good, could not have taken on an actual human body because the body is matter and physical, and if matter is evil, then we either have to rethink the core of our belief system or assume then that Jesus was spirit and not physical. They then taught that Jesus never did have a physical body, but was a phantom in human form in which the Spirit of God took shape. So when Jesus walked he didn’t leave footprints in the dirt because he was spirit only.
Obviously then if Jesus was not a human person then He really did not suffer on the cross and in fact went through the entire ordeal without any real pain. While the Gnostics believed they were honoring God and Jesus with this understanding, they were really destroying the core of God’s salvation. How could Jesus redeem us if He didn’t become as one of us? He had to become like us so He could make us like Him.
Somehow these early Christians either missed or reworked the Bethlehem event describing that God took on human form as a baby. Maybe this is why Paul wrote to the early Philippian Christians describing Jesus as “Who, being in very nature God…made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” The word “nature” is the same word describing both the intrinsic essence of God and of humanity.
That is why John stresses that Jesus experienced thirst on the cross. And why later after the resurrection Jesus invited Thomas the Doubter to touch His hands and side so Thomas could feel for himself the nail prints and the spear wound. And why John clearly stated that Jesus ate fish with the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee. John clearly makes a point that Jesus was a real man who suffered and died on the cross.
Let’s look for a minute at the cross as a form of Roman crucifixion. Most if not all of us view the ancient Roman Empire with great admiration--from their architecture to their civil law to their aqueducts to their roads and to their cities. Some years ago I toured the ancient Roman city of Jerash in Jordan. As we toured the ruins I noticed the rectangular stones on the roads were laid down on angles like pavers. I also noticed that every so often there were round flat stones interspersed among the rectangular stones in the roads. I remarked to a friend that they looked like manhole covers. As the tour guide explained later, the angled pavers prevented the chariot wheels from getting caught in the joints between the stones, and the round stones were access to the underground sewer system! Was I surprised that what I said in jest was very real in the Roman society.
In the midst of all the Roman high culture comes the handling of criminals. In a word the Romans were merciless. Crucifixion is one of the worst ways to die and is not accident that the Romans employed such a method to dispatch those who dared to annoy the Empire.
In crucifixion, the victim was first whipped with a ‘cat of nine tails’ to an inch of their lives and many didn’t even live to be crucified. The victims with nails through their hands/wrists and their feet were hung on the cross about 10 feet off the ground until they died. They often hang there for days through the heat of the day, the cold of night, and through the torture of thirst and of flies and gnats burrowing in their open wounds. Vultures would pick at their flesh as their lives waned. Many victims would go mad before their death. A grim method was used at times for victims who lingered on. Their limbs would be crushed with a mallet (sledge hammer) until they died. This is what happened to the criminals crucified with Jesus.
Crucifixions were not a pretty sight and were not held in some private isolated spot to protect the dignity of the crucified. Much like the old town square hangings these executions were held along the main roadways for all to see to serve as a detriment to any public criminality or ideas of rebellion against Rome. The victims hung naked on the cross adding to their public shame and scorn. The Romans did not bury the dead victims of crucifixion. They were simply taken down from the cross and left for the vultures and dogs. In Jerusalem the crucifixions were held on a hill outside the city known as Golgotha, the place of the skull or what we call Calvary. This hill overlooked the Valley of Gehenna, which was the city’s trash dump. In this valley the residents of Jerusalem burned their trash and so the Valley of Gehenna was a perpetual fire that always burned and never went out. It was into this trash dump that the crucified bodies were dumped—into the never-ending fire.
Compare this with how the Jews, God’s people handled those condemned to death. What a difference between Jewish law and Roman law. In Deut 21:22 we read, “If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him the same day, because any one who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” The Jews did not mutilate the condemned nor added to the pain and suffering. The Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, was required to have 2 burial places ready for those suffering from the death penalty. It is ironic that many today lift up the Romans as an example of fine culture, and at the same time vilify Christians for our supposed lack of compassion. We have to keep it all in context!
Was this then a ghost then, a phantom hanging there on Calvary’s cross? No, it was the real human-bodied Jesus born at Bethlehem, baptized by John the Baptist, and crucified by the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate at the encouragement of the Jewish religious leaders. While we so often romanticize the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering, which Jesus endured for our salvation, the reality of what Jesus experienced is beyond imagination. We simply cannot dismiss the horror, the inhumanity and the physical pain that Jesus went through. John clearly stresses the very real suffering by Jesus.
But John doesn’t only give us the gory details of Jesus’ death. 2. He also brings us face to face with Jesus’ triumph. What were those words of victory? “It is finished!” It is interesting to note that only John gives us the exact words. The other three gospels tell us that Jesus died with a great shout upon His lips (Mt 27:50, Mark 15:37, Luke 23:46). While some may be inclined to think this to be a disparity in the gospel accounts, in the Greek the English sentence, “It is finished” is actually only one word, ‘tetelestai.’ Jesus, weakened from the beatings, the crown of thorns and hanging on the cross, was able to die with a shout of triumph and victory on His lips. This was no weakened cry of defeat, no sigh of resignation. This was a shout of joy and of victory won. It was shout of “Yes! It is done! I have won the battle!”
Why do we glory in the cross? Because it is the great fulcrum upon which the history of mankind is balanced. At the cross the great battle between good and evil, between righteousness and sin is over, once and for all done! Satan has been defeated. His power and control over this world is broken, his time is limited. He operates in this world not as a conqueror but as a sniveling, evil, conniving liar that he is. “He is a liar, and the father of lies!” Jesus tells us. Because of Calvary, no longer do we have to be under Satan’s control and influence. No longer do we have to follow his ways. No longer to we have to sin. No longer do we have to live miserable, petty, defeated lives. No longer is the ultimate end the eternal fire in the Valley of Gehenna.
Because of Calvary, we have a choice, and that choice confronts each and every one of us. Will it be God’s way, or the way of the prince of this world?