Each one of us is either a mother, a brother, a sister, a father, or a friend to someone. We have all felt the loss when a relationship or a relation passes from this life to the next. We know the pain, the depression and grief of that loss. (You may wish to insert a personal loss here.) I know and you know it.
Try to imagine the pain of Mary, Jesus’ mother; Peter, his disciple; John, a faithful follower; or even Mary Magdalene, a wretched soul saved by his loving spirit. Can you feel their horror as the hammer came down on that first nail? They heard his cry of anguish and the gasp of the crowd. Then silence as the second nail was snatched from the bucket and the Roman soldier moved to the next hand. The thump came again. Another cry of anguish and another gasp from those watching.
You look over and see the smug faces of the religious leaders. They feigned sadness, concern, or even a distaste for the actions before them but all along they lobbied, pressed, and lied to get this rabble rouser to the cross. Jesus had called them whitewashed tombs. He had pointed out that they had followed the letter of the law but could not recognize the Messiah when he stood in front of them. Yes, they feigned shock, pity, and sorrow but inside each one of the religious leaders were filled with a secret joy, a smugness of religiosity, and a depth of self-righteousness.
The Roman soldier moved to Jesus’ feet and crossed them. He was a practiced executioner. He placed his nail in the right place and brought back the hammer. He took pride in being able to drive it through and into the wood in one blow. He swung. The hammer struck the nail with a powerful thump. Jesus cried out in pain again. Those who love him gasped loudly. The colorfully robed Sadducees and Pharisees looked away, not in horror, not in revulsion, but to hide the satisfying smiles that wanted to escape their lips.
The soldiers raised the cross, an exclusively Roman method of torture and death, and dropped it into the hole. His flesh, muscles, and tendons tore as his full weight was now suspended by the large spikes driven into his body.
Do you think the religious leaders recalled Isaiah 53:7 where the prophet said, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter…?” Or Isaiah 50:6, “I gave my back to the smiters [scourgers], and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I did not hide my face from shame and spitting?” Or could the words of David in Psalm 22:16, “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers have encircled me; they have pierced my hands and my feet…” have come to their minds? When the soldiers played dice to see who got his garments did Psalm 22:18, “They divide my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture,” slip from their memories into their thoughts?
Did the disciples remember the many times that Jesus told them that the Son of Man must be lifted up and to die? Did they recall the moment a few days before when Jesus drew them aside and said, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” (Matthew 20:18-19) They certainly didn’t remember his comments or they would have been aware and hopeful of the third day when he would rise from the dead.
Peter was already a shrinking pile of remorse for he insisted he would never deny Jesus, yet he did the night before, three times before the crock crowed. The scripture never says where Peter had out-posted himself during the gruesome events. It does tell us where Mary, his mother, was. She stood and watched each nail. She heard his cries of anguish and felt the pain as only a mother can do. All of you who are mothers know what I mean. I have heard women say that since the moment one of their children was born, a part of their mind is attached to them. Their son or daughter was always occupying some space in their thoughts. There is a mother/child link that is never broken, never severed. If you are a mother listening today, you can understand Mary’s internal pain, her sadness, her grief. This was her son, dying before her eyes in the most gruesome of ways, in the most degrading of all manners of death. A death only reserved for the most grievous of criminals. Her son, who had healed the sick, given sight to the blind, cured lepers, and even raised people from the dead. Her son, who at a simple request from his mother’s lips had turned water into wine at a wedding. Her beloved son was hanging on a cross, blood dripping from his back and from the crown of thorns on his head. The pain inside of her must have been terrible. As a mother, you alone could know that. Mothers, you know her pain.
As a woman who had lived a very sinful life, Mary Magdalene had stood watching the events as well. Here was a woman who had experienced forgiveness in a magnificent way. Possibly no other disciple had been so radically changed. She knew the power of God to transform a human heart and yet she had to watch Jesus in a most powerless position. Her faith must have been rocked. As a person who knows the power of God in your own life, you can identify with what she was passing through.
As a pastor, I have sat with people who have become friends, as their last hours passed before them. I’ve seen the ravages of cancer take a strong man and turn him into a thin shell of himself. For those that had become my friends, it was not an easy thing to watch, to see, or to experience. You’ve done the same. You felt the pain of the loss, you’ve witnessed their approach to death, and you grieved when it finally came. Grandchildren and children have watched as a loved one expired after a painfully long period of slowly dying. You understand. The apostle John stood next to Mary, Christ’s mother, steadying her in this moment of anguish while he felt his own tremendous depression and pain.
Others stood there too — some mocking some jeering, some in pain, some just waiting for the afternoon’s entertainment to end. To many the death of this man meant little. To others it was a culmination of their wicked plan. To some it seemed like the end of a dream that had turned into a nightmare.
What about you? Can you imagine yourself in that crowd? You’ve just made a Lenten journey with a hope that your life would change, that your sacrifices would make you a stronger, better Christian and that you would be drawn deeper and deeper into a relationship with the Savior. How would you be feeling at this moment as you stared upon your Savior hanging before you shedding his blood?
Can you see why he is doing it? Do you realize that he is doing it for all mankind? Do you understand that he is being sacrificed like a lamb at the Passover for the forgiveness of sins? Do you realize he is doing it for me, for the person next to you, for your parents, for your family, for your children? Most of all do you realize that his death on the cross was for you? Your sins, my sins, all of our sins are the nails that held him to that cross. When he uttered those words, ‘it is finished,’ he had paid for every sin and now we simply need to accept it. For on the cross it was finished.
Amen.