So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. (John 19:17-18)
Death is a common experience of life. All who lived in the past died. Every one of us now living will die sooner or later. Approximately five thousand Americans die every twenty-four hours. Almost two million deaths occur in our country every year. There are twenty-four thousand funeral homes to take care of the arrangements.
On Good Friday we often forget that there were three crosses on Calvary, a criminal on each side of Jesus. These two men died just as much as Jesus died. Jesus could not have been any more dead than they were. Why then do we Christians make so much of the cross of Jesus? How is Jesus' death different from all other deaths? We tend to make a special issue out of Jesus' cross. We wear it as jewelry. The cross is a mark of our religion. We even sing, "In the Cross of Christ I glory." When we look at the place of The Skull, we must remember the words of our text: "... and with two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them."
His Death Was No Different
Was Jesus' death different because he suffered? That could not be the answer, because the two men crucified with Jesus suffered equally with him. The hurt of the nails in hands and feet was as bad for them as for Jesus. The three equally shared the agony of the noonday heat and the torture of strained muscles. Since Jesus' legs were not broken, perhaps the other two suffered even more physical pain than Jesus did.
Since the time of the cross, people have continued to suffer just as much, if not more, than Jesus did. We have had the horrors and tortures of the Nazi and Communist concentration camps. People have been brutally treated, If you want to know what millions have suffered in our century, you need to read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. In this book you will find nauseating descriptions of man's extreme inhumanity to man. What you read in that book you can hardly believe. Jesus' death was not different because he suffered. Was Jesus' death different because he was innocent of the charge against him? Indeed, Jesus was innocent of any wrongdoing. He did not make himself a worldly king. He did not break God's law. The world agrees with Pilate who told the Good Friday mob, "I can find no fault in him."
But, there were others throughout history who were put to death even though they were innocent of wrongdoing. Centuries before Jesus, a Greek Philosopher, Socrates, was forced to drink the cup of hemlock which killed him because they said he perverted the youth of his day. History witnesses to the fact there was not an ounce of truth in it. Today people, likewise, are experiencing death without deserving it. About a year ago, there was a Mrs. Ward who, on a weekday morning, went to her church for Bible study. After the class, she went to a shopping center in Atlanta to buy a coat. While she was shopping, there was a young man who was looking for a woman who reminded him of his hated stepmother. He noticed Mrs. Ward and was certain she was like the stepmother. He waited until she finished shopping and then followed her to her car in the parking lot. He got into her car and threatened to shoot her. She offered him money not to shoot. She even offered herself as a victim of rape, but he refused. Finally, he took the coat she just bought, put it over her head, and pumped a couple of bullets into her head. Why? What evil had she ever done to this stranger? He killed her just because she reminded him of his stepmother, whom he hated with a passion. There are countless others throughout history who similarly died innocently. Because Jesus was innocent does not make Jesus' death different.
Was Jesus' death different because he was a martyr to the cause of God? Indeed, he was a martyr. He suffered and died because he stood for the cause of justice, truth, and love. He paid the price for the establishment of God's kingdom.
But, there were others in history who died as martyrs to good causes. We think of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. Like Jesus, he died at the hands of his enemies and, when he died, he prayed for their forgiveness. There was the martyr, Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake. We have many others like John Huss, Savonarola, and William Tyndale. Coming down to our own time we have a Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a martyr of the Nazis. You might even add to the list Martin Luther King, Jr., a martyr to brotherhood. Jesus was not the only martyr in the history of the world. That cannot be the reason that Jesus' death was different.
Still, we claim that Jesus' death was different. For almost two thousand years now we have been observing Good Friday as the anniversary of his death. We make more of his death than that of any person who ever lived. Why so?
Different Because Planned
One reason for Jesus' death being different is that his death was planned. His death was promised throughout the history of the Hebrews, and thus his death was the fulfillment of prophecy. Jesus always referred to his death as being in accord with the Scriptures. The cross was a divine plan from the foundation of the world. God had it in mind from the time that Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden. From that time, God began a program of winning man back to him. When man became godless, God decided to clean up the world by the Flood and continued a new humanity in Noah and his family. But this went sour and God looked to a new people, the Hebrews. He called Abraham out of a pagan environment and led him to a new country where he was to be a great nation and, through him, the world would be blessed. God brought his people out of Egyptian bondage under Moses. He led them into a Promised Land and gave them a king. God put his hopes in David and made his kingdom great. But sin came in and the kindgom was divided and eventually taken into captivity. Then, we read how God put his hope in a saving remnant by which the world would be brought back to God. The remnant was his servant, Israel, about whom we have several servant poems in the Old Testament. The remnant did not pan out and so God looked to one person, his chosen one, a Messiah who came in Jesus of Nazareth. Through this one man, sin was absorbed and went out of the world and a man through Jesus could now find access and acceptance with God.
Because the cross was planned, the death of Jesus was voluntary. The cross was no accident. Jesus was not the victim of his environment. He was always master of the situation and reminded the people that he laid his life down on his own accord, that no one took away his life. This was God's word of salvation, and he was obedient to that will. In Gethsemane, he discovered the will of God to be his death and then nothing could keep him from obeying. Just before he died, he gave a shout of victory, "It is finished!" The work of salvation, the plan of salvation from the time of Adam, was at last completed, finished.
Since this is true, we need to realize that "now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation." This great work of redemption of mankind was completed on the cross. It was done for each one of us, for you and for me. If we do not repent and come to the cross, Jesus died in vain and we go to hell. Outside an apartment complex, you may often see a sign, "Immediate Occupancy." That is the way it is with the cross. It is for immediate acceptance. You can enter the home of God right now. There is no waiting to enter the Kingdom.
Different Because of Purpose
In the second place, Jesus' death is different because it had a purpose. The cross was a place of sacrifice. His death was an offering for sin. No other death had this meaning or purpose. For some years now, we have been emphasizing the love of God to the exclusion of the other side of God, his justice and holiness. When we sin, we deeply offend and grieve God. Sin is an offense and insult to a holy God who cannot stand sin. He is a jealous God who resents our going after gods that are no gods at all. Whenever we do wrong, justice demands a penalty. We see and readily accept that in sports. If a basketball player makes too many fouls, he must pay the penalty of being put out of the game. If a football team offends the rules, the penalty is a loss of a certain number of yards. That is part and parcel of life. God is a God of love, no doubt about it. But it is equally true that God is a just and holy God. When we go against God, we are subject to God's wrath. We have denied this in recent years, but at the same time we have been experiencing the judgment of God in terms of crime, wars, and political corruption.
The amazing thing is that this penalty of death was taken by God in the person of Christ on the cross. Christ was our substitute. As the Bible says, "there is no redemption without the shedding of blood." A price was paid for our sins in terms of the lifeblood of Jesus. Jesus said he came to earth to give his life as ransom for many. We do not know to whom the ransom was paid, but we do know that the cross made things right with God. Jesus took away the penalty of sin, the penalty of death by dying in our place just as he took the place of Barabbas. There was once a father and small boy traveling in a car. A bee flew into the car and the son was scared to death because he was allergic to bee-stings. The father slowed down and caught the bee in his hands. Then the bee got away and the boy again began to scream in terror. The father said to his son, "There is no need to fear. See, the stinger is in my hand. The bee cannot hurt you." When Jesus died on the cross, the sting was taken out of sin. Although we sin today, because of Jesus' death sin cannot hurt or kill us.
The purpose of the cross was to save us from death. That is why Jesus' cross is different. No one and nothing else can save a person from sin and from himself. Ann Landers received a letter from a wife who supported the nagging of husbands. She said she needed to nag her husband because he was sixty pounds overweight and drank a six-pack every night before retiring. She felt that she was right in nagging her husband to keep him from eating and smoking himself to death. In her answer, Ann made this significant reply, "You cannot save people from themselves." How true! Amen and amen!
Because of the cross, the way is open for man's return to God. Now he can be reconciled. God will accept him, forgive him, and love him. But, the question is whether modern man wants to be forgiven, wants to be accepted by God as his child. President Ford offered an estimated 100,000 draft dodgers and deserters clemency, amnesty, and forgiveness. The response was most disappointing. He extended the time twice. By March 31, 1975, only 16,000 applied for clemency. Eighty-five percent spurned the gracious offer. Apparently they did not want forgiveness because they felt they did no wrong. How many of us turn down our Heavenly Father, our King? He offers us plenary mercy and full forgiveness, but we go our merry way of sin. Modern man needs to be asked, "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?" What a tragedy that God opens his arms to us and we refuse to come! God sends no one to hell, but by refusing mercy and life, we send ourselves to perdition. Jesus says, "I died for you, my children, and will you treat me so?"
The Person on the Cross
Jesus' death was different because of the person on the cross. This really made the difference in the three crosses on Good Friday. Two were only men. In the middle there was a man also, but more than a man. Here was the Son of God who repeatedly prayed as a son, "Father." The unbiased Roman soldier exclaimed, when Jesus died, "Truly this was a son of God!" Wasn't Paul right when he wrote, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself"? There is no other way to explain the perfect life, the absolute poise, arid the beautiful death of Jesus. We come to the conclusion that on this cross was God in Christ, the Messiah, Lord, and Redeemer.
This fact of the person on the cross changes things. We get more concerned and excited over the cross than over any other death, no matter how innocent or beautiful it might have been. If this was God in Christ on the cross, then at once I am conscience-stricken by my sin. Now I see how horrible sin is. I see what sin does to God - it puts him on a cross. We exclaim, "Oh no, is this what my sin did?" A spiritual song asks, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord ... Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble ..." From this time on, I cannot ever again sin lightly. I must hate and detest sin with a passion. I cannot do that to the One who loved me and gave himself for me.
If God is the person on the central cross of Calvary, then a man must stand in awe and adoration. To think that he loved us enough to suffer all of that for sinners such as we! We look at the figure on the cross: a cross-crowned brow, a sweaty face, bleeding hands and feet. There is no beauty in him. He is despised and rejected. We want to turn our faces from him. The look is too horrible to take. Yet, there is something about him in his suffering that draws us. We cannot help but adore him even as he is. We say:
O sacred head now wounded,
With grief and shame weighed down.
Yet, though despised and gory,
I joy to call thee mine.
If Jesus is God on the cross suffering and dying for us, there comes a deep sense of gratitude that calls us to follow and be his slave forever. Such love demands all we have and are. Gratitude wells up within us and we cannot be satisfied until we surrender all. Count Zinzendorf was not a "holy" youth, but one time he visited a palace where a large painting of the crucifix hung on the entrance wall. It captivated him, and he looked and looked at it a long time. On the base of the picture was the question, "This I have done for thee; what hast thou done for me?" These words struck him in the heart. He decided then and there to give his life to Christ. In due time he became the leader and missionary of the Moravians, some of whom came to this country seeking religious freedom. This is the only appropriate response to something as great and meaningful as the cross. Isaac Watts puts it this way:
But drops of grief can n'er repay
The debt of love I owe.
Here, Lord, I give myself away;
Tis all that I can do.
Without a doubt, the greatest reason for Jesus' death being different from all other deaths in history was the fact that his death lasted but three days. All other men died and stayed dead. Indeed, Jesus raised a few from the dead but this was resuscitation, not resurrection. These were raised only to die again. Jesus rose from the dead never again to die. On this Good Friday we watch him die as one of three on crosses. We need this experience of death with him, for if we die with him we shall also live with him when he rises on Easter. So, this is not only a remembrance of the world's most unique death, but it is an occasion for our dying to self and sin. How glorious will Easter then be - we shall have new life, new beings in Christ!