Sin and Jesus Christ's Sacrifice

Olive trees are not the prettiest kind of tree. As they grow older, they tend to grow very short squat. They send out branches that are quite gnarled, twisted. The bark isn't all that pretty.

It's rather ugly. They're just not a very majestic tree at all. They're actually quite ugly, and the older they get, generally the uglier they get, too. At the bottom of the western slopes of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, facing the old city of Jerusalem, there's a grove of truly ancient olive trees there. Many people think these olive trees are as much as 2,000 years old, that they may actually date back to approximately the time of Jesus Christ. And olive trees, like a lot of trees, when they're cut down, they actually send out roots or shoots coming up from the root system of that. So even though the tree itself may be cut down, the roots will still send out those shoots. And it's quite possible that this grove of olive trees there on the Mount of Olives may truly date back to 70 AD, when the Roman army surrounded Jerusalem. And they cut down, Josephus records, that they cut down every tree within miles of Jerusalem to provide wood for their siege engines, and to crucify the thousands of Jewish prisoners during that war against Jerusalem. Now, nearby, not far from this grove of trees there, is a shallow cave in the Mount of Olives. Archaeologists explored that cave years ago, and in the floor of the cave, buried underneath that, they found the foundations of an olive oil press. At that time, the workmen, 2,000 years ago, would have harvested olives from this orchard of olive trees, brought the olives into this olive press, and squeezed them, pressed them, crushed those olives to produce olive oil that was used for food, for fuel, and even for medicine at that time. In the Gospels, we find mentioned several places of a particular location on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives, a place called Gethsemane. Gethsemane in Aramaic means olive oil press. Apparently, the location of this cave and these ancient olive trees is, as near as we can tell, the Gethsemane of the Bible. You can go there and you can visit it today. Some of you have, I know. In just over a week, we will assemble together to commemorate events that began in that garden of Gethsemane some 2,000 years ago. But before we do that, at the Passover, we are commanded to examine ourselves and to consider the meaning of those events to reflect on their significance for all of us, for all of humanity, for each of us, individually, most important of all. What I'd like to do today with the Passover coming up in just over a week is to review those events for all of us to go through them, to think about them, to consider their meaning, their implications, and to hopefully gain some additional insights and to want Jesus Christ went through in becoming our Passover sacrifice for us. If you'd like a title for this sermon, you could call it Sin and Jesus Christ Sacrifice.

Every year during the Passover service, we read through the Gospel accounts.

There, we read about Christ's last Passover with His disciples. We read about Him washing the feet of the disciples. We read about Peter resisting and saying, no, not me, Lord, you're not going to wash my feet. And Christ gently rebuking Him. We read about Judas leaving the Passover meal to go and make the final arrangements to betray Jesus. We read about Jesus instituting the symbols of the bread and wine to symbolize Him giving His blood and His body for us. We read through several chapters then of the book of John, where Jesus gives His final instructions to His disciples. And finally, we close the service with Matthew 26 in verse 30, which describes how Jesus and the disciples closed that Passover service with a hymn that evening almost 2,000 years ago. They sang a hymn and departed. What I'd like to do now is pick up the story beginning in Matthew 26 in verse 30 and read through the story of what happened after where we leave off in the Passover service every year to continue reading about those events, to read about how the symbolism of the bread and the wine, the symbols that Christ gave, how those were fulfilled within the next 24 hours, and to take a closer look at Christ's sacrifice for us. So let's pick up the story here beginning in Matthew 26 in verse 30. It says here, "...and when they had hung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." And what happens next apparently transpires as they are walking from what would have been within the city of Jerusalem over to the Garden of Gethsemane there. So apparently Jesus and the disciples are talking as they're walking along this Passover night under the light of the full moon there in Jerusalem. Verse 31, "...that Jesus said to them, All of you will be made to stumble because of me this night, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter answered and said to him, Even if all are made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble. Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you that this night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter said to him, Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And so said all the disciples." So Peter, in other words, wasn't the only one who pledged his undying loyalty to Jesus. All of the disciples did. All of them. They all said that they would defend him even to the death. And yet, subsequent events show sometimes our words are more than what we're able to live up to.

Verse 36, Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to the disciples, Sit here while I go and pray over there. Gethsemane was apparently a place they often went to when they went to Jerusalem. The cave where this olive press is located is a warm and dry spot. It can be somewhat rainy there that time of year when the spring rains. And it was large and dry, and during the spring Holy Day season it wouldn't have been in use because olives are harvested in the fall and processed there in the fall and winter. So this would have been a nice warm spot for travelers coming to Jerusalem for the Passover feast for people like Jesus and his band of disciples to stay there. There was water from the Kidron Brook just a few yards away, not very far at all. And it was only about a 10 or 15 minute walk up to the temple, which you could see across the valley from the Garden of Gethsemane there. It was also a relatively quiet and peaceful place where Jesus could spend the time with the disciples or just communing with God himself in prayer, as he does here. And so they went to this place, this quiet olive grove just outside Jerusalem, and then a string of ugly and twisted events began to unfold. Because on that night and in this place, Jesus would begin what would later come to be known as his agony. Verse 37, and he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, this is James and John, and he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.

So notice first here Jesus Christ's state of mind, that he is sorrowful and deeply distressed. In other words, what is going on is he is in absolute mental agony because he knows what is going to happen. He knows that the pressure is building. He knows from the prophecies what is going to take place, and he knows what is going to happen to him. And the pressure is weighing down heavier and heavier and heavier. Then he said to them, verse 38, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death. It's easy to gloss over those words and not really catch what is being seen here. What Jesus is saying is that he would prefer to die right then and there, rather than to have to go through what he knows is coming.

That's what this is telling us here. He's so mentally tormented he wants to die right then.

Continuing, he says, stay here and watch with me.

He went a little further, verse 39, and fell on his face and prayed, saying, oh, my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not his eye will, but his you will. So he's not just praying on his knees. He's actually prostrated, laying down on his belly with his face to the ground, probably scooping up handfuls of dirt in his prayer and the mental agony that he's going through. And what is this cup that he that he prays that would pass through him? Well, it's the same cup that he had talked about with his disciples just an hour or two earlier, the cup of his blood that was soon to be poured out as a sacrifice. Verse 40, that he came to the disciples and found them asleep. And he said to Peter, what? Could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again, a second time he went away and prayed, saying, Oh, my father, if this cup cannot pass away from me, unless I drink it, your will be done.

Again, he wants this cup to avoid it. If there's any way it can be done, any other way for him not to have to go through that. Verse 43, and he came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. It had been a long night. They no doubt enjoyed a fine meal earlier that evening, and then the Passover service. So it's rather light getting up into the early hours of the morning.

Verse 44, so he left them and went again and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

Now, what is going through Jesus Christ's mind at this moment when three times he goes to God, and he's so distressed, as Luke describes it, he was sweating, as it were, great drops of blood.

And he urgently pleads with God not to have to go through what is coming, what's going through his mind. What would you be thinking about at a time like that?

What would be going through your mind? I think what Jesus Christ is feeling here is pure, raw, dread of what is coming, of what he knows he has to face in the coming hours. His agony included not just the fear of death, death that he knew, absolutely knew was going to happen later in the afternoon, but of all the things that had to take place before then. Again, things that were prophesied, things they knew were going to happen.

I think a lot of times we tend to think of Jesus Christ's sacrifices in too narrow terms. We think of it only in terms of his death for us, but his giving his life for us to pay the penalty for our sins. But his death was actually only the final act of a whole series of events that unfolded that we'll go through here. Intellectually, we know the words that he shed his blood to pay the penalty for our sins, but do we really grasp, do we really understand fully what that means?

What we'll come to see today is that his sacrifice included much more than we probably haven't given a whole lot of thought to. We understand that Jesus died for our sins, but why was it necessary for him to go through all the agony? Why did he have to suffer? Why couldn't the Romans have just drug him outside the city and stoned him to death?

It would all be over in a few minutes. Why couldn't they have just cut off his head with a sword? Something like that. And it would be over shortly. Why did he have to suffer? Why did he have to go through the agony? Is there a lot more to his sacrifice we haven't thought about? The bottom line is that sin brings a great deal to our, a great deal more to our lives than simply dying. Now think about that for a minute, because for each one of us, as we go through life, we experience a lot of suffering, a lot of middle anguish, a lot of agony that results from sin.

Sin brings a lot of frustration. It brings a lot of hurt, a lot of miserable things that come as a result of not just our own personal sins, but the sins of others around us. Sometimes the sins of people we don't even know affect us. The penalty for sin is not just dying. You might say, that's the easy part. The penalty of sin also brings agony and suffering. Jesus never sinned, so he never should have died. Jesus never sinned, so he never should have suffered the results of sin. But he did, because he took on both the suffering and the dying that result from sin.

And that is part of the lesson of the suffering that Jesus Christ went through before his death. For example, it's hard to go through a lifetime without at some point being betrayed. It's part of all of our emotional and mental makeup to need to be in trusting relationships with other people. It's why God designed us male and female, that we would marry, that we would have someone to spend our lives with, to be in a trusting relationship.

And yet it's inevitable, because we are human beings, that we will let others down. And we will ourselves be betrayed at times. People that we know and trust are going to let us down. Sometimes, betrayal can come from friends, from family, from husbands, from wives, even from other church members at times. Betrayal can come in many different forms, many different places. And so we see that at the beginning of Jesus Christ's suffering came an act of supreme betrayal, because betrayal is a result of sin.

And as a result of our sins that were placed on Jesus, it was necessary that he suffer betrayal and the agony that comes from that. As a book of Hebrews tells us, Jesus Christ was tempted in all points as we are. What that means is that although he was God himself, came to earth to live as a physical human being, he had to go through all of the experiences that we as human beings experience.

And again, he never sinned, so he shouldn't have had to suffer those things. And yet, for our sake, that he might be our faithful high priest and understand and be able to help us when we go through those things, he had to endure the results of sin, the suffering and the pain that we feel from sin. And so that is part of the reason that Jesus spent these final hours here in Gethsemane praying and weeping and even sweating blood because he was afraid.

Does that sound shocking to you that Jesus could be afraid?

Yet if he is our faithful high priest and had to experience and feel everything that we go through, he had to be afraid. He had to feel dread to be able to identify with some of us in situations that we face. For instance, if someone like Bob Borton who's been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer, how do you feel if a doctor told you, you only have three weeks or three months to live? What kind of emotions go through your mind at a point like that? What kind of dread do you feel? The fear of the unknown? The fear of what's going to happen to your family, your loved ones? What's going to happen to you? What's going to happen to your body?

It would be natural to feel absolute fear and dread in a case like that.

I have no doubt that Jesus felt absolute fear and dread because of the things that he knew was going to happen. To put it in terms that we could identify, what would happen? What would be going through your mind if you knew that you were going to walk out of services today?

And there was a mob waiting outside crying for your blood. And you knew from prophecy that they were going to take you, they were going to beat you, they were going to spit on you, they were going to strip you naked, they were going to torture you, and they were going to murder you, and there wasn't a thing you could do about it. And not only that, no one would come to your aid. Not a single person sitting here today would help you out, would be there with you to help you through that trial. What would be going through your mind? That's part of what was going through Jesus Christ's mind at this point to help us understand what he's going through.

That's a kind of dread and the agony and the distress that Jesus would have been feeling that night in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed repeatedly to God, Please, Father, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

So he faced this dread of what lay ahead. To give you some idea of how severe this was, Luke even records that an angel appeared to strengthen him at that time. Again, that's something easy to gloss over, but think about that. That shows you some of the pressure, the incredible mental torment that Jesus was going through, that God sent an angel to have to strengthen him to help him through this incredible trial.

Again, have you ever gone through a trial where it was necessary that God sent an angel to help you through that? Again, that shows the magnitude of it, and it's easy to gloss over that.

Being strengthened, Jesus rose from prayer to face betrayal from one of his chosen disciples. Continuing here in verse 45, Then he came to his disciples and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.

It's interesting that from the Garden of Gethsemane you can easily see right across the narrow valley, the Kidron Valley, to the walls and the Temple of Jerusalem, and all the roads going in and out of the city, and the bridge that would have crossed the valley going up to the gate to the temple there. It's no more than a few hundred yards away there. Frankly, I think that as Jesus was praying this third time, this final time, they could probably hear this mob of men making their way across that bridge and across the valley. He could probably hear the clanking of their swords and their armor. He could probably hear their voices. He could probably see the torches as they snaked their way across the hillside from the temple and up onto the side of the Mount of Olives where he is. He knew that they were coming for him. He knew what was on their mind. He also knew that he could have run away at that moment. It would have been very easily to just light out, run down the Kidron Valley, and run down to Jericho, and escape out into the desert there. It would have been very easy to get away. He had a full moon. Traveling at night wouldn't have been any problem. He could have run away and saved himself, but he didn't. For our sakes, he didn't do that. He couldn't do that. And while he was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, with a great multitude, with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now his betrayer had given them a sign saying, Whomever I kiss, he is the one. Seize him. Immediately Judas went up to Jesus and said, Greetings, Rabbi, and kissed him. This word, Rabbi, means master or teacher. So Judas is calling Jesus his master or his teacher, even as he is betraying him with a kiss, with a sign of love and affection. Verse 50, Jesus said to him, Friend, why have you come? I find it hard to imagine the depth of sadness. It must have been in Jesus Christ's voice when he said those words. Friend, why have you come? Jesus knew what the answer was, and Judas knew that Jesus knew what the answer was. But Jesus doesn't condemn Judas. He simply calls his betrayer, Friend.

And so Jesus experiences betrayal. Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took him. And suddenly one of those who were with Jesus, referring to the apostle Peter, stretched out his hand and drew his sword, struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear. But Jesus said to him, Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you not think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? Thousands of angels. At His disposal. How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen this way?

Again, He could have escaped, but He wouldn't. Luke records that Jesus reached out to the priest-servant and restored his ear and made him whole again. In that hour, that time, Jesus said to the multitudes who had come against Him, Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and you didn't seize me then. But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.

Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled. The Apostle John tells us that Jesus told the mob, Essentially, since I'm the one you're looking for, let the rest of these go. They're innocent. You're after Me, not them. And go they did. And even at that point, Jesus was looking out for them, looking out for their welfare, seeing to it that they would escape. None of them would be injured or captured in this. Jesus knew that He had to face what was coming all alone.

The betrayal of Judas was part of Christ's sacrifice because enduring betrayal is one of the things we suffer because of sin. Sin does not have consequences just for the sinner himself or herself. Sin affects the lives of everyone. One of the greatest acts of betrayal that a man can commit is to betray his wife or his children by committing adultery, fooling around with someone else's wife. The man who commits adultery betrays his wife, betrays his parents, betrays his family, his children. Sometimes he even sets the stage for a lifetime of suffering for his own children because of his abandonment of the family, breaking up that household. Same thing the other way if a wife abandons her husband and children. So it was necessary that Jesus Christ, who suffered, who did no harm, who never sinned, would have to suffer betrayal to know what it's like. The fact is that sin has consequences for those who are innocent, as well as that is also reflected in the abandonment of Jesus by all of his closest friends, just as children abandoned by their fathers will suffer when they have done no wrong, just as a wife abandoned by her husband will suffer. So Jesus had to suffer abandonment also by those he loved, by those he trusted, by those closest to him to know what it feels like to experience the consequences of sin.

Next we find that Jesus was made the victim of lies.

He ever been lied about and knew that somebody was going around spreading lies about you. How did it make you feel? I've had it happen to me. It probably made you feel dirty.

Disgusted. Violated.

And yet Jesus, too, had to experience many lies being told about him.

Verse 57, And those who had laid hold of Jesus led him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. But Peter followed him at a distance to the high priest's courtyard, and he went in and sat with the servants to see the end. Now the chief priests, the elders, and all the counsel sought false testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. So what this is saying is they found many people who would lie about Jesus Christ, but according to the legal rules, you had to bring in the witnesses and have them testify separately. And they couldn't find any of these false witnesses whose testimony would agree. Their stories didn't match up. But that didn't stop them. They just kept going until they could find witnesses to testify against him. But at last, two false witnesses came forward and said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.

You might convict somebody of being insane on that accusation, but it's not worth executing somebody for. And of course, that wasn't exactly what Jesus Christ had said anyway, but they weren't going to let that stop them. Verse 62, And the high priest arose and said to Jesus, Do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against you? But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest answered and said to him, I put you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his clothes saying, He has spoken blasphemy. What further need do we have of witnesses? Look, you have now heard his blasphemy. What do you think? They answered and said, He's deserving of death. So Jesus was convicted, not on the testimony of the false witnesses, but actually on the judge's interpretation of his own words there.

Then they spat in his face and beat him, and others struck him with the palms of their hands. They're slapping him around like that, pummeling this innocent man, saying, prophesy to us, Christ, who is it that struck you? Mark's gospel adds that they had blindfolded him.

So here in what is supposedly a court of law, the highest court of the land, the judges, the officers, the guards, and gathered around like a pack of wolves to spit in the face of this innocent man, to slap him around, to beat him, to get their punches in on a man who would not defend himself. Again, this is the kind of suffering that sin brings.

And Jesus had to feel that humiliation, that hurt, that pain of being beaten to a bloody pulp by a mob. Why did he have to go through this? Again, he never sinned, but sin brings humiliation. It brings beating. It brings pummeling, sometimes physically, more often mentally, emotionally. Sin leads to bruising and pain and hurt. It doesn't really require God to do anything specifically to punish you because sin, for the most part, brings consequences.

By its very nature, sin hurts people. It hurts you. It hurts people you know and love everyone around you. And so Jesus had to suffer the humiliation and the beating that was due to us for our sins. Skipping down to the next chapter, Matthew 27, verse 1, As the saying goes, what was he thinking? What did he think would happen?

Apparently it wasn't until he saw Jesus condemned to death and knew what was really going to happen that really hit him. What he had done? That he had betrayed innocent blood. And he realized what he'd done. Then he went back to the chief priest and he said, no, this has been a terrible mistake. He's an innocent man. Let him go. And they said, that's your problem. It's not our problem.

They said, as it says here, what is that to us? You see to it. Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. It's a terribly tragic story, but the lesson here is that the consequences of sin cannot be undone.

Sin cannot be undone, not by anything that you or I can do at least.

Being sorry is not enough.

When sin happens, blood has to be shed.

Pain has to be felt.

Because what happens with sin is not necessarily punishment, but consequences.

And there is a difference because God can punish us, and he does sometimes, if it's in our best interest. And he punishes us for sin, so we'll learn not to sin, so we won't repeat those mistakes.

But what happens mostly from sin isn't punishment, but natural consequences that follow from sin. And when it's done, it can't be instantly undone. You can't just say, I'm sorry, and all the consequences go away. It doesn't work that way. Because sin is a natural law, and it sets in motion events that bring pain, that bring suffering, that bring agony and humiliation.

And here in the actions of Judas and the suffering of Jesus, we see this being played out.

That being sorry is not enough because sin brings consequences. And the only way we can be delivered from those consequences is by the suffering and the shame and the blood of Jesus Christ. Skipping down to verse 11, Jesus answered him not one word so that the governor marveled greatly.

Now at the feast, the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished. And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas, who, weirded in the other gospel accounts, was a robber and a murderer. Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release to you, Barabbas, or Jesus, who is called Christ? For he knew that they had handed him over because of envy. So Pilate, in other words, knew that this is all a setup. It's all a sham. It's all a mockery of Jesus. And he thought, apparently, that the people would come to their senses and realize this. So he asked that Jesus be released.

But it didn't happen that way. That's not the way it played out. In a sense, we are like Barabbas, freed from death because an innocent man dies in our place.

Verse 19, While Pilate was sitting in the judgment seat, his wife sent him, saying, Have nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said to them, Which of the two of you do you want me to release to you? And they said, Barabbas. Pilate said to them, What then shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ? And they all said to him, Let him be crucified. Then the governor said, Why? What evil is he done? But they cried out all the more, saying, Let him be crucified.

When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult, a riot, is about to take place here, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person you see to it. And all the people answered and said, His blood be on us and on our children. Then Pilate released Barabbas to them, and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Now, scourging was a terrible punishment in itself. It was done with a short whip of leather with various pieces of metal or bone embedded in it that would function almost like hooks in that they literally ripped the flesh from the body there. They tear it, gouge it, and literally rip a man to shreds. And there's plenty of historical records that many a man died just from the scourging, from the blood loss and the shock from that before he was even crucified. John's Gospel says that after the scourging Pilate again brought Jesus out before the crowd, apparently thinking surely they'll see this man has been punished enough and that they would release him and let him go. But again, all they did was cry out for his death. Verse 27, Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole garrison of soldiers around him, and they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, king of the Jews! Then they spat on him and took the reed and struck him in the head.

So here's yet another round of humiliation, of beating, of being spat upon and mocked, ridiculed. And yet it was all necessary because there are two elements to the Passover symbols that we take. We know of the wine that symbolizes his blood, that is poured out in our place, but there is also the bread that symbolizes his bruised and battered and bleeding body.

We won't turn there, but 1 Corinthians 11 and verses 23 and 22 says, where Paul writes to the Corinthians, and he says, For I receive from the Lord that which I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And what we're talking about here is how Christ's body was broken, was bruised and beaten and bloodied, symbolized by the Passover bread. His body was a part of the sacrifice that he had to make too, not just his blood. And so was the shame and the humiliation, the spitting and the mocking and everything else that happened. Verse 31, and when they had mocked him, they took the robe off and put his clothes on him and let him away to be crucified. Now as they came out, they found a man of sirens, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear his cross. And in a way, even this is symbolic because it shows that we don't bear the consequences of sin alone. Because again, sin affects everyone around us.

Everyone around us bears the penalty for that sin, even total strangers.

Sin hurts everyone, not just the sinner only. Verse 33, and when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, place of a skull, they gave him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when he had tasted it, he would not drink. What they're trying to do is give him a mild painkiller to numb some of the excruciating pain that is going through his body at this time. But there is no painkiller to ease the consequences of sin. So Jesus rejected it.

Then they crucified him, divided his garments, casting lots, and it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet. They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing, they cast lots. What this means bluntly is that they stripped Jesus naked, and they nailed him to the wooden beam, and they raised him up. And he hung there, suspended between heaven and earth, to die. The only things he had left to his name is clothing. They gambled away, to see who would get to keep the most valuable piece of clothing from a condemned criminal.

Sitting down, they kept a watch over him there, and they put up over his head the accusation written against him, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and another on the left. And those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying, You who destroyed the temple and built it in three days, save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise, the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said he saved others. Himself, he can't save. If he's the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we'll believe him. We'll believe him then. Yeah, right. He trusted in God. Let him deliver him now, if he will have him. For he said, I'm the Son of God. Even the robbers who were crucified with him reviled him with the same thing. So even now, a few hours from death, the humiliation doesn't end. And crucifixion was intended to be humiliating. It was intended to be a public spectacle. It wasn't done in private. It was done to be a deterrent to the people to show them the costs, the consequences of rebelling against the Roman authorities. It was done in a public place. Crucifixions were typically carried out along a public road. And in this case, it probably took place right outside one of the gates of the city of Jerusalem. And keep in mind that at the Passover feast, there would have been literally tens of thousands of people coming and going in and out of the city gates. And here is Jesus hanging there and people walking by, blaspheming and mocking Him, ridiculing Him.

Still, even at this point, not a shred of sympathy continuing to ridicule Him.

I'd like to switch now to the Gospel of John, because John's account adds a few more important details for us to think about. John 19, verse 25. John 19, verse 25. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His sister Mary, the wife of Clothas, and Mary Magdalene. Verse 26 of John 19. When Jesus therefore saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then He said to the disciple, John, behold your mother. And from that hour that disciple took her, Mary, to his own home.

Now many of you are mothers. Maybe you can identify with the scene here.

Think of it. Jesus, Jesus' mother Mary, is standing there watching her son die in the late afternoon sun. And yet she sees Him with the end of His life drawing near. Take this one extra moment to see to His mother's care.

To see that she would be cared for, that she had a place to go, that she wouldn't be left alone. And it's sad, too, that of Jesus' immediate family, He had at least four brothers and two sisters that we know about. Where were they? They're nowhere to be seen. At that time when just a little bit of support from family would have meant so much, they're gone. So are all the apostles except for John. They didn't want to have anything to do with Him, particularly at this point when He's being executed as a common criminal. The only people there are His mother, His mother's sister, Mary Magdalene, and John, who's writing this down. After this, verse 28, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it up to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, it is finished, and bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. Therefore, because it was the preparation day that the body should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the feast of unleavened bread His drawing near, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who is crucified with Him.

The idea behind the breaking of the legs was to speed up their death, because sunset is drawing near.

And death by crucifixion usually meant that the victim suffocated to death, because he's hanging there and going through this for hours on end. Sometimes it literally took days for a man to die when he was crucified, but to breathe the victim would have to raise himself up, because he's nailed through his feet onto the post, and he'd have to raise himself up to draw breath. And of course that would be excruciatingly painful, because you have to raise yourself up on these iron nails driven through your feet, with those gaping wounds and all those nerves and all that. It was excruciatingly painful. So eventually they would just give up. They could no longer have the strength or endure the pain that it took to do that, and then they would hang there and suffocate to death. It's a very agonizing way to die. But by taking a club, as these Roman soldiers here were doing, they would smash the prisoner's leg bones, and they would hang down and could no longer support themselves, and they would suffocate within a few minutes. Verse 33, But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen, this is John writing of himself, has testified, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth so that you may believe. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, not one of his bones should be broken. And again another Scripture says, They shall look on him, whom they pierced. So John is saying that he was an eyewitness to this, and he saw what happened. But why does he point this out? You may not realize it, but one of the big theological debates that's going on for the last 2,000 years is how exactly did Jesus die? It's commonly thought among many denominations that Jesus died of a broken heart, or that he simply suffocated there, as was common with crucifixion. But there's a problem with that that we indicated here, and that is because dead bodies, if Jesus was dead when the Roman soldier jammed that spear into him, dead bodies don't bleed because your body is pressurized. Your heart is pumping blood, and that's why when you cut yourself the blood either gushes out or oozes out, depending on the severity of the cut. But dead bodies, the heart's no longer beating, so the blood doesn't flow out. But yet when the soldier stabbed Jesus, blood and water gushed out. So Jesus bled to death.

And it's important that he bled to death because every sacrificial animal for 1,400 years that had been put to death as a symbol of Jesus Christ died, they all died the same way, by having their throats cut and bleeding to death. So it was important that Jesus Christ bleed to death. That's what the prophecy was all about. That's what the symbology was all about. It's what all the types for 1,400 years of the animal sacrifices were all about, that Jesus' blood would be poured out for us. So John assures us here that he was there, and he saw Jesus Christ die by the slash of a blade and the pouring out of his blood.

The problem arises because it indicates earlier that Jesus cried out, it is finished and gave up his spirit. And here later a soldier comes along and stabs him in the side with a spear. And one suggestion, and this is accurate according to the language, that this is a parenthetical expression stating that he's already dead because a soldier had stabbed him. And that is supportable in the Greek. Another possibility is that merely because Jesus gave up his spirit, he may simply have gone unconscious and was essentially brain dead, although the heart was still beating. And when he stabbed him, the blood then gushed out because the heart is still bleeding. I saw that with my own father's death a number of years ago. He was sitting up and talking, and suddenly he went unconscious and his spirit left him.

He essentially died brain dead, and then they tried to revive him for half hour or so later. His heart was still beating, but he was clinically dead in terms of brain function. Regardless, the real cause of Jesus's death was the pouring out of his blood in the same way as every sacrifice that had been offered at the temple in the tabernacle. And so, after all the pain, and the beating, and the betrayal, the abandonment, the spitting, the mocking, the scourging, our Savior died. His sacrifice was now complete.

Another section of Scripture that we read about during the Passover service every year is a prophecy found back in Isaiah 53 and verse 1. Let's turn there. It offers a very different perspective from the things we've read, but yet it ties together very well. We've read Matthew's perspective and some from John's perspective, his eyewitnesses who were there who saw these things and wrote about what they saw and what they experienced. Let's read here about another perspective, a prophetic perspective, and what this all means for us because there are two aspects to think about here as we read through Isaiah 53. One is the theological aspect, again, of the sacrifices that were symbols and types of Christ's sacrifice, models of what was to come, what was to happen to the Messiah. But the far more important aspect here in Isaiah 53 is the personal aspect of what this means for each one of us. Not to us as part of a group, part of the congregation here in Fort Wayne, part of the United Church of God, part of humanity as a whole, what it means for you and me individually and personally. Because hopefully after we've read through today we can better understand and appreciate what Isaiah is saying here. Isaiah 53 and verse 1, 1, Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground.

He has no form or comeliness, and when we see him there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected by men. And as we've seen, Jesus was certainly despised by men, despised by his own countrymen, the tribe of Judah, by those who arrested him, by the priests, by the officers and guards, by the mob of people that stood there shouting for him to be crucified, by those who walked by and mocked him and ridiculed him even as he hung there on the cross, dying.

He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and he certainly knew not only sorrows and grief, but excruciating physical pain and fear and humiliation. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. His closest friends and followers, his disciples, all of them fled, his own brothers and sisters. They fled, they abandoned him.

They hid their faces from him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Put yourself in Isaiah's sandals for a minute here to think about this from his point of view. Do we see ourselves as this passage portrays us? It's easy to think about Jesus Christ's sacrifice in the abstract, and I've certainly done this for years. We tend to view it as a historical event that happened 2,000 years ago, and we know and understand intellectually that Jesus had to pour out his blood for us, for our sins. Intellectually, it's fairly easy to grasp.

But do we see ourselves as this passage portrays us? Do we see ourselves as Isaiah understood this when he wrote this? Because he knew what this was all about. Because when you sinned under the Old Covenant in Isaiah's time, you took up to the temple a little lamb or a goat. It was perfect. It was unblemished. No physical flaws of any kind. And you took it up. You typically raised it from birth, almost like a pet sometimes in the family. And you took it up to the temple, to the priest. And there you stood before the altar with the priest. And you and the priest would lay your hands on this little lamb or goat, and you'd confess over it your sin.

And the priest would hand you a knife, because the person giving the offering had to do this. It wasn't the priest. You would take that little lamb or goat, and you would pull its head back, and you would slit its throat. And the blood would gush out. It would pour over your hands down onto the ground. And there was no doubt in your mind, in those circumstances, why that animal died. That it was your sins that that animal's blood was being shed for. Not the country's, not your family's, not your neighbor's, not your husband's, not your wife's. It was your sins that caused that animal to bleed and die before your eyes there.

Is that the way you see Jesus Christ's sacrifice?

Is that the way you understand it? That's what this is saying here.

That process, the trespass offering, was very effective in making the point that the little lamb or the kid died for your personal sins, for yours alone and no one else's.

Again, is that the way we recognize Christ's sacrifice as a pure and innocent and flawless little lamb, dying because of our sins, what we had done.

Verse 7, He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before it sheers is silent, so we opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation? He was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgressions of my people he was stricken.

In other words, the stroke of a priest's blade, or in Christ's case, the spear blade, should have come on us, because we deserved it. He didn't. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many. Justify means to make righteous again before God, as he has done for us. He shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities, their sins. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the grade, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death. And he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many. As I mentioned so many times in this chapter how he bore our transgressions, our sins, and took it on himself. And he made intercession for the transgressors. And even as Jesus was dying, he made intercession for the transgressors, fulfilling this prophecy, saying, Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing. And as our high priest, he now constantly makes intercession for us as well, because he experienced all that we can experience. He went through everything that we can go through, and he learned from what he suffered so that he can be our faithful high priest. He knows what we're going through. Do we know and fully appreciate what he went through for us?