Sin and Jesus Christ's Sacrifice

I didn't want to express my appreciation for Mr. Arnold SurmaNet. There is just a lot of wisdom in that. For those of you who have been in the work world for a number of years, I can certainly appreciate that.

A lot of good advice for young people there in particular. It's very, very, very true. If you've been blessed to find what you love in life and to be able to make that your occupation, that's a wonderful, wonderful thing. Olive trees are not the prettiest trees. Those of you who are familiar with it, they can live to an enormous age. And as olive trees get older, they tend to grow thicker, more short, more gnarled, frankly uglier. They tend to grow a very rough bark and limbs that get very twisted, very gnarled as branches break off and as a tree gets older and older.

At the bottom slopes of the Mount of Olives facing Jerusalem on the east side are some truly ancient olive trees that many people, myself included, believe are close to 2,000 years old. They may date as far back as the year 70 AD when the Roman armies, the Roman legions, rounded Jerusalem, laid siege to it, to the city, trapped everyone inside, and as the Jewish historian Josephus, flobbiest Josephus records, the Romans cut down every tree within 10 miles of Jerusalem to build siege engines, machines of war, battering ramps.

Towers. Siege towers. That sort of thing. And to provide timber for crucifying thousands of Jewish prisoners. When an olive tree is cut down, like a lot of trees, it sends out new shoots from the roots because the roots are still alive and new shoots will spring up. And thus it is that with those ancient olive trees at the foot of the Mount of Olives, some people believe that those are shoots that may have sprung up from trees that were cut down in 70 AD in the siege of Jerusalem.

And I think that is probably the case. Some of you have been privileged to go to Jerusalem and see those trees. Some of them are about this big around. The inside is actually rotted out with age, but the bark is still alive. So the trees are still, certainly not thriving, but still growing. And as I mentioned before, they are very ugly, very gnarled, very battered. Also in this grove of olive trees near the back of it, in the hillside of the Mount of Olives, is a small cave that is roughly about the size of this stage area here. It is not quite as high as this, maybe goes back a little bit further because it slopes back at an angle into the side of the Mount of Olives.

And when archaeologists explored this cave a number of years ago, in the bottom of this cave, they found the remains of an ancient olive oil press of the kind that was used 2,000 years ago in the first century A.D. And at that time, 2,000 years ago, workmen would have harvested olives from the olive groves nearby and would have taken the olives to this press and would have crushed them to generate olive oil that could be used for food, for fuel, and even for medicine.

And I've talked about that process in previous years in a sermon about that. And these ancient, gnarled, ugly olive trees that you can see there today are in a way representative of events that happened in this very place nearly 2,000 years ago. Events that were themselves ugly, unpleasant, would have been painful to watch, to witness, much less to experience. In just under four weeks, we will assemble together to commemorate the events that took place in connection with those events there in Gethsemane.

But before we do that, we are commanded to examine ourselves and to consider the meaning of those events to reflect on their significance to each and every one of us individually. And what I would like to do in our sermon time today is to go through and review those events, to go through them, to think about them, to consider their meaning, to consider their implications, and hopefully to gain some additional insights into what Gethsemane is going to do.

Every year, during the Passover service, we cover essentially the same scriptures. We go through the accounts in the Gospels about Jesus Christ last week. We read about how he washed the disciples' feet, which we do. Following his instructions, we read about the Apostle Peter's protests. We read about Judas leaving the meal to go out and to betray Jesus Christ. We read about Jesus instituting the symbols of the bread and the wine to commemorate his sacrifice of him giving his blood and his body as a sacrifice for us.

We read through several chapters of the book of John, where Jesus gives his final instruction to his disciples and to us today as well. Finally, we close the service with Matthew 26 and verse 30, as Jesus and the disciples did that evening almost 2,000 years ago, where they sang a hymn and then left the room where they had kept the Passover and departed to the Mount of Olives. What it would like to do now is to begin reading where those events leave off.

There in Matthew 26 and verse 30. I'd like us to continue reading through the Gospels. We'll read through Matthew's account and some from John. We'll see how the symbolism of the bread and the wine came to pass. To take a look and to examine and to consider aspects of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us.

Let's pick up the story now beginning in Matthew 26 and verse 30. Today, I'm obviously not using PowerPoint because this is not the kind of thing that's easily illustratable. We will be going through our arrivals here. So Matthew 26 and verse 30.

Then Jesus said to them, For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. And of course that will happen, not many hours from when he says this. But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter answered and said to Jesus, Even if all are made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble.

And Jesus said to him, Assuredly I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And Peter said to him, Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And so said all the disciples. Peter wasn't the only one. We tend to single Peter out because of his words, that he would never deny Jesus, even to the death, but yet they all said the same thing. As I read this, I can't help be reminded of hundreds of people that I've sat in a Passover service with over the years, who have said they would never deny Jesus, and yet where are they now?

Something that we need to all be... we can have good intentions, but sometimes we don't live up to those commitments, as the disciples here did. They all did. They all said they would defend him to the death and never deny him. Yet we know what happened. Verse 36, Then Jesus came with him to a place called Gethsemane, which means an olive oil press.

Again, I've talked about that in a previous sermon. And said to the disciples, Sit here while I go and pray over there. And this was a place where they often visited and stayed when they went to Jerusalem. At the periods of the Holy Days, Jerusalem was packed with perhaps a million or more people who came in, according to the instructions, to keep God's feasts. There, and this cave, again about the size of this stage, would have been a warm and dry place.

And the spring holy days begins the rainy season, or actually ends the rainy season in Israel. But it can be fairly rainy, so this is a place that is just outside the city, only a few hundred yards outside the city walls, and would have been a warm and dry place that time of year.

And because olives are processed in the fall of the year, at the end of the harvest, during the springtime, this would not have been occupied, would not have been a place of work. So this would have been a nice, warm place for Jesus and his disciples to stay. And they probably had a standing arrangement with the owner of this to stay there during the Holy Days seasons. So there's also the Kidron Brook, not far away, in the bottom of the valley, and it's only a 10 or 15 minute walk up to Jerusalem and the temple there across the valley.

So this would have been a relatively quiet and private place where Jesus could spend time with his disciples, or also go away in private by himself when he needed time alone, as he will do on this evening. And so they go to this place, this quiet olive grove, outside Jerusalem, and a string of very ugly and twisted events begins. And on that night and in that place, Jesus would begin what would later come to be known as his agony.

And it's a very accurate term for what would take place, as we'll see. Verse 37, and Jesus took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. This is referring to James and John, and these three are Jesus's closest friends among his disciples. Those he is closest to, we'll see, on a number of times in the Gospels where Jesus takes Peter and James and John, for events like the Transfiguration.

He's clearly closer to them than the rest of the Twelve. So he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. So notice here his state of mind, as it is presented to us by Matthew, that he is sorrowful and deeply distressed. Not just distressed, but deeply distressed.

In other words, he is in mental agony, as any of us would be if we knew what is coming. And Jesus knows from prophecy what is coming because he is the one who has inspired those prophecies. And he knows exactly what is going to take place. And he feels the pressure bearing down heavier and heavier and heavier. Verse 38, Then he said to them, Peter, James and John, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death.

Think about this. He is so mentally tormented, tortured, that he wishes that he could just die now and not have to go through what he knows is coming.

He said, Stay here and watch with me. He went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed. And think about this for a minute. He is not just kneeling down, as we would when we pray, but he has fallen on his face, meaning he is laid out on the ground. His face, his belly to the ground. And this is his posture as he is going through this. He fell on his face and prayed, saying, Oh, my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

What is this cup that he mentions here? Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Well, it is the same cup that he had explained the significance of to his disciples only seven hours, several hours before this. The cup of his blood.

Being poured out as an offering for our sins, as a sacrifice.

So he is there praying to his father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. He finishes his prayer, verse 40, then 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 indeed 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. And he came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So he left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. So three times this evening, he goes and prays to his father, If there's any way, any way possible for me not to have to go through this, please do it. But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

So what is going through his mind? You know, it's easy to read through these minds, but as I like to do, let's put ourselves in what he is thinking, what he is experiencing. Because that's where the real story lies. So what is going through his mind when three times he goes to his father? And Luke, we won't turn there, but Luke, the doctors, gives a detail, the other gospel writers don't. And that is that Jesus is under such stress that he is sweating drops of blood. And that is a real medical condition, where a person can be under such stress that the blood vessels underneath the skin rupture, and the blood oozes out into the nearby sweat glands, and the person literally sweats blood. It's interesting that Luke, the physician, records this, which the others don't. So this gives us an indication of how much stress, the mental agony and torment that he is experiencing at this time, and again, put yourself in his sandals. What would you be thinking, knowing what lies ahead in the coming hours? I think a lot of the distress, a lot of what he is feeling, was pure, raw dread.

Pure, raw dread. Of what is coming. Of what he knows he has to face. Because his agony that he goes through on this day, on this evening, is not just the fear of death, death that he knows is going to take place within the next 24 hours before sundown the next day, but the fear of everything else that has to happen first. Intellectually, we know that Jesus Christ's sacrifice was his death, his giving, his life for us, to pay the penalty in our place for our sins. But what was his death? His death was really only the final act of a whole series of things that had to take place. Intellectually, we understand the words that he shed his blood, poured out his blood for us, and that we deserve to die for our sins, but he died for our sins in our place. But don't we really understand what that means? What we'll come to see today is that his sacrifice included a lot more than we probably have not given that much thought to.

By that I mean we understand intellectually that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and it's easy to understand on an intellectual level, but why was it necessary for him to go through the agony? Why was it necessary for him to be tormented? Why was it necessary for him to be tortured like that? Why couldn't they, if death was all that was required, why couldn't they have just taken him outside the city and stoned him to death? And it's all over in five minutes. If death was all that was necessary, why couldn't they have just taken a sword and beheaded him? Stabbed him with the spear, and it's all over with. Why was it necessary for him to suffer in the way that he did?

Was his sacrifice simply the fact that he was crucified, hung up to die, and that a soldier thrust the spear into his side, and he cried out with a loud voice and died? Is this how we understand the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to be? Yes, that's true. That's absolutely. But is there more to the story that I haven't really thought about or understood? Why did he have to suffer so much, in addition to dying? Well, the bottom line is that sin brings a great deal more to our lives than just suffering.

Than just dying, rather. Think about that for a minute, because as we go through life, we know that life includes a lot of pain. A lot of agony, a lot of misery that comes from a lot of different sources. Life brings a lot of frustration. It brings a lot of hurt, and a lot of other miserable things that come into our lives as a result of our own mistakes, as a result of our own sins, and the consequences that we bring on ourselves, but also as a result of other people's sins that affect us.

What I'm saying here is that the penalty for sin is not merely dying. That's the easy part. A lot of the penalty for sin is the hurt, and the pain, and the misery, and the agony that comes along as a result of sin. Did Jesus ever sin? No, he didn't. So he never should have died. He never sinned, so he never should have suffered and experienced the results of sin. And yet he did. And as part of his sacrifice for us, he took on not just the dying that results from sin, but also the suffering that results from sin.

And that is part of the lesson of the suffering that he went through before his death. For example, it's hard to go through a lifetime without being betrayed. It's hard because it's in our mental and emotional makeup to need to be in trusting relationships with other people. God designed us that way, too.

We need to know people. We need to have close relationships and friendships with people we trust. And yet it is inevitable, because we are all human, that people we know and love and trust are going to let us down. And that betrayal can come from friends, can come from other church members. Frankly, it can come at times from even a spouse, a family member, a loved one like that.

Betrayal can come in many forms and from many different places. And also, because we are human, we will let others down as well. It's not just others who can betray us, we also can betray others. We can abandon others, as happened with Jesus and his disciples. So at the beginning of Jesus Christ suffering, what comes first? Betrayal. Betrayal. Because betrayal is a result of sin. And so, as a result of our sins that were placed on Him, it was necessary that Jesus suffer betrayal.

As the book of Hebrews tells us, we won't turn there, but He was tested, He was tempted, tried in every way as we are, but without ever sinning. So He had to go through all of the experiences and to feel the pain and to feel the misery and to feel the suffering that all of us go through as a result of sin.

He never sinned, and yet it was essential that He experience and understand the pain and the misery and the mental torment that come into our lives as a result of sin. And that is part of why Jesus spent those hours there in Gethsemane praying and weeping and even sweating blood. Because He was afraid. Does it sound odd to you that Jesus could be afraid? After all, who is He?

He is the God who created the universe with the Father. But was He afraid? Well, think about it. He had to be afraid. We saw how He was in mental torment and agony and pleads with God three times, Let this cup pass from me. Somebody who is not afraid does not do that. And we agreed elsewhere we won't turn there. He is in such mental torment that God sends an angel to encourage Him and to help Him as He is going through this horrendous mental torment and agony that He has.

He had to be afraid. He had to experience dread. There is no other way. Because how could He understand what we go through otherwise? How could He be our faithful High Priest? How could He intercede for us when we are afraid if He doesn't know what fear feels like? If He hasn't experienced fear that can cut right to the bone in our lives? How could He understand the fear and the torment that we sometimes face in life? We have probably all known people who have gone through this, who have sat in a doctor's office across a desk and hear those words. I hate to break it to you, but you only have a few months or a few weeks.

Two church members I know of who are going through this right now. And it doesn't look good.

But Jesus Christ is our High Priest, and He's been there. So on that night, He must have experienced fear. He must have experienced a kind of gut-wrenching stomach-turning fear that you would feel if you were in His shoes, if you knew that you were going to walk out of here after services today, and there's a bloodthirsty mob waiting to grab you, to bind you, to beat you, to spit in your face, to rip the flesh off your body, to strip you naked, to cold-bloodedly murder you and torture you, and there's not a thing you can do about it.

And what's worse, perhaps everyone who is here is going to run away and abandon you to face that fate all by yourself. And that's the kind of dread and the kind of agony and the kind of distress that Jesus would have been feeling that evening. And that's why He prayed repeatedly to His Father three times, Father, if there's any way, let this cup pass from me.

But nevertheless, He said, not my will, but Your will be done.

So He faces this dread of what lies ahead.

And again, an angel appears to strengthen Him, and that again should tell us what incredible mental torment He is going through. So He rises from His third prayer to face what? To face betrayal from one of His closest followers, Judas. Continuing Matthew 26, 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 this garden of Gethsemane, if you've been there, you can picture this in your mind's eye. You can see right across this narrow valley over to the walls of Jerusalem. In His day, you could look up, see the magnificent temple standing 15 stories high there. You can see the roads and the paths leading in and out of the city. It's no more than a few hundred yards away. Frankly, I think that as Jesus is praying the final time, based on what He says here, that probably even as He is praying, He can hear and glance up and see the torches of this detachment of people making their way down from the city across the valley. And He can probably hear the clanking of the armor of the swords and clubs beating against the metal there. And He can see the torches snaking across the hillside in the valley coming for Him.

And He also knows that, at being nighttime, He could have very easily run away at that moment, because the Kidron Valley runs down about less than a mile away, turns and goes off south into the Judean wilderness and down to the Dead Sea into the city of Jericho. And with about a ten minute dash, He could have made it down that valley and over, run across the top of the Mount of Olives, and again joined a road going down to Jericho and disappeared into the night. Ten minutes and He could have been safe.

But He doesn't do that.

Because He wouldn't do that. And because He couldn't do that.

Verse 47, 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 the elders of the people. This detachment, I should point out here, it's not talking about Roman soldiers. We tend to read that into it, but these are actually the temple guard. These are kind of the police force for the temple, responsible for maintaining order there. They are under the jurisdiction of the chief priests and the Sanhedrin there. So these are the people who are capturing Jesus. Verse 48, Now His betrayer, Judas, had given them a sign, saying, Whomever I kiss, He is the one who sees Him. Immediately Judas went up to Jesus and said, Greetings, Rabbi, and kissed Him. And this word, rabbis, we've talked about before, means master, it means teacher, it means Lord. And we've talked about the discipleship system before, where a rabbi was viewed by a disciple as somebody more valuable, more close to them, more beloved than their own family, than their own father. You could abandon your own father, but you would never abandon your rabbi, because after all, the rabbi is who was your role model. He was the person you wanted to become just like, and it was just simply unthinkable for anyone to abandon their rabbi. And yet that is what happens this evening.

So Judas is calling Jesus his master and his teacher and his Lord, even as he is betraying Him.

And how does he betray Him?

With a sign of affection and love. With a kiss.

But Jesus said to him, friend, why have you come?

Can you imagine the depth of sadness in Jesus's voice at that moment? Friend, why have you come? Jesus knows full well why Judas had come. And Judas knew that Jesus knew why Judas had come.

But Jesus does not condemn Judas. He simply calls his betrayer friend.

And so Jesus experiences here, at the beginning of his suffering, betrayal.

Continuing, then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took Him. And suddenly one of those who were with Jesus, this is referring to 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. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my father, and he will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? Approximately 80,000 angels would have been twelve legions. How, then, could the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen this way?

So again, Jesus knows exactly what is going to happen, and that it must happen this way.

Luke, again, we won't turn there, but he records that Jesus, in this time, a being taken captive reaches out to the priest's servant and heals him, and restores his ear, miraculously.

Continuing, verse 55, In that hour Jesus said to the multitudes, 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 did not seize me. But all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him and fled. So essentially, what John tells us is that Jesus told the mob, Since I'm the one you're looking for, let the rest of these disciples go. And they did, and they run away into the night like a bunch of scared rabbits. And they leave Jesus to face his fate all by himself. The betrayal of Judas was part of Christ's sacrifice because enduring betrayal is one of the things we suffer as human beings as a result of sin. Because again, sin doesn't have consequences just for the one committing the sin. Sin affects everyone. It affects those around us. It affects loved ones. It affects friends, family. You know, one of the greatest acts that a person can commit, and one of the greatest sins, rather, or acts of betrayal that a person can commit in this life is to fiddle around with somebody else in a marriage. To commit adultery. And the man or the woman who commits adultery betrays the husband or the wife, betrays the family, betrays the children.

And in doing so can set the stage of a lifetime of harm and suffering for people who are totally innocent.

Children have done nothing to deserve this.

And yet it happens day after day after day after day, so it was necessary that Jesus, who had done no harm, suffered betrayal.

To know what it's like when such things happen to us. And again, the fact that sin has consequences for those who are innocent is also reflected. And the abandonment of Jesus by all of his closest friends, just like a child who is abandoned by his or her parent, will suffer when they've done nothing wrong. And a spouse, when the husband or the wife fools around with somebody else, or abandons them and leaves them. And so Jesus also had to suffer abandonment by those he trusted, by those he was closest to, closer than family, to know what it feels like.

And so this evening he is arrested, he is betrayed, and he is abandoned by those who are closest to him.

What happens next? Next he has made the victim of lies.

Any of you ever been lied about?

Yeah, been there, done that, didn't get the t-shirt. How does it make you feel when you find out somebody's lied about you?

Makes you feel dirty.

Makes you feel violated. Makes you feel disgusted and sick to the stomach like you've been violated.

And Jesus no doubt feels the same way when it happens to him. A man who is perfectly innocent and sinless. But what happens? Continuing 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 counsels sought false testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. What this means is they found many people who, for a little money, will lie about Jesus, but according to the legal restrictions or system at that time, you had to have two people whose testimony agreed. So they're bringing in people who will lie about Jesus, but they have to question the witnesses separately, and they can't get any of them whose testimony agrees. So therefore, their testimony isn't valid. So they couldn't find two-story match. But at last, two false witnesses came forward and said, this fellow said, I'm able to destroy the temple of God and build it in three days. Now, you might convict a person of being crazy for making a claim like that, but it's not a crime that you execute somebody for. There's nothing worth capital punishment in that. And that wasn't what Jesus had said anyway. He was talking about His body destroyed this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up again through the resurrection. But they weren't going to let a little thing like truth stand in the way.

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. And 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, now you have heard His blasphemy. What do you think? They answered and said, He is deserving of death.

So He is convicted not on the testimony of the false witnesses, but on the Sanhedrin's interpretation of His own statements. Then they spat in His face and beat Him. And others struck Him with the palm of their hands. What this is saying is they slap Him back and forth and pound Him and beat Him around. Beat Him about, saying, prophesy to us, Messiah. Who is it, the one who struck you? And they say this because, as Mark adds, they had blindfolded Him. So they are mocking Him and humiliating Him. So here, in what is the highest court of the land, the judges, the officers, the guards are gathered around like a pack of wolves to spit on Him and to mock Him and to humiliate this innocent man, to slap Him around and to pummel Him and to get their punches in on a man who has become a human. And again, this is the kind of suffering that sin brings in our lives. And Jesus had to feel that humiliation, that hurt, that pain of being beaten by a bloodthirsty mob. Why did He go through this? Because this is what sin brings. It brings humiliation. It brings bruising. It brings pain. It brings hurt. It doesn't require God to specifically do anything. We tend to think if we sin, well, God's going to punish us if we do. Not exactly because sin has its own built-in consequences. And a lot of the result of sin isn't God's punishment so much as it is consequences. God built His laws in a way that they bring their own consequences to us. And Jesus never sinned, but He has to go through the consequences. Not just death, but the suffering as well. Because sin, by its very nature, hurts people. It hurts you. It hurts me. It hurts people who know you and love you. It hurts your family. It hurts your friends. So Jesus had to suffer the humiliation and the suffering and the beating that was due to us because of our sins.

Let's skip down now to Matthew 27, verse 1.

Jesus, after seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. As we would say today, what is He thinking? What did He think was going to happen? What was going through His mind? And He finally comes to realize, and apparently it's only after He sees that Jesus has condemned that He realizes what He has done and what does He do? He goes back to the chief priests and the elders and He says, this is a terrible mistake. He was innocent. And what was their reaction? They say, oh, well, okay, yeah, I guess we better let Him go. No, of course not. They said, that's your problem. It's not our problem. That's your problem. And they said, as it says here, what is that to us? You see to it. That's your problem. Verse 5, then Judas threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went away and hanged himself.

It's a terribly tragic story, but this also teaches us something about sin, and that is that the consequences of sin cannot be undone. The consequences of sin cannot be undone by anything that I can do, or anything that you can do, or anything that we can do. Because again, what happens with sin is not necessarily punishment, but consequences. And there's a difference. God can and at times will punish us to teach us a lesson out of love for us as a loving Father chastises His children.

But again, sin has 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 a few verses to verse 11. Now Jesus stood before the governor, Pontius Pilate, and the governor asked him, saying, Are you the king of the Jews? So Jesus said to him, It is as you say. And while he was being accused by the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. So again he is being falsely accused and lied about. And again he chooses not to respond. Then Pilate said to him, Do you not hear how many things they testify against you? But he 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 we read elsewhere was a robber. He was complicit in murder. And what is being said here is Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent. He knows this is a sham that he is being falsely accused. So Pilate picks the worst rotten scoundrel he can out of the prison and says, Surely these people will be rational and they will ask Jesus to be freed, and not Barabbas. Reading on, Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, Who 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 again, Pilate knows this is a sham. It's a set up. And he asked the people to choose between Jesus to be set free and Barabbas executed. But that's not the way it plays out.

And we are like Barabbas. We were the one who deserved to be executed. But instead, an innocent man dies in our place.

Verse 19, While Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to 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 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 was arising, 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 he released Barabbas to them, and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And scourging is a terrible punishment just in itself. It was done with a short leather handle with several strips of leather, in which are embedded pieces of metal and bone and glass things that would act like hooks to rip into the flesh and literally strip it away from the body. And it was so painful, so agonizing that many a person died from the scourging before they could even be crucified.

And John's Gospel, again we won't turn there, but after the scourging, John records that Pilate again brought Jesus and stood him up before the crowd so they could see this bloody mass standing there, hoping they would think that Jesus had been punished enough and they would let him go, but instead they cry out again for him to be crucified. Verse 27, Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole garrison 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 on the head. So here is yet another round of humiliation and shame and spitting and cursing and mocking and being beaten again.

And yet again it is necessary, because there are two elements to the Passover symbols that we take.

There is the cup of wine, representing his blood, poured out for us, but there is also the bread broken for us, representing his battered and bruised and bleeding body. We won't turn there, but as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, For I receive from the Lord that which I also delivered 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.

Not just this is a symbol of my body, but this is a symbol of my body broken, bruised, beaten, bloodied for you. It's 1 Corinthians 11, 23, and 24. So his body was also broken.

His body was part of the sacrifice that he had to make. So was the shame, and the humiliation, and the spitting, and the mocking, and the beating. Verse 31, And when they had mocked him, they took the robe off him, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to be crucified. Now as they came out, they found a man of siren, Simon, by name. Him they compelled to bear his cross. And even in a way, this too is symbolic because it shows that when we sin, we do not bear the consequences of that sin by ourselves. Because when you sin, people around you who had nothing to do with your sin can suffer along as well. Total stranger sin hurts everyone, not just the sinner. 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's going on here is that they are trying to give him a mild painkiller, to put it bluntly, to help numb the pain that he is experiencing at this time. But there is no consequence, there is no painkiller to heal the consequences of sin. So Jesus rejects it. Verse 35, Then they crucified him, and 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 to be blunt, that they divided his garments, it was typical at that time to wear two garments. One was an undergarment, you might think of a long t-shirt, and then you would wear an outer cloak over that. What this is saying, frankly, is they stripped him naked, and they nailed him up there, suspended between heaven and earth to die.

The only things he had left to his name is undergarment and a nicely made outer cloak. They stole from him, and gambled as to who would get to keep the most valuable possession from him as a condemned criminal.

Sitting down, the execution squad 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, one final mock, mocking and insult.

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 cannot save. If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. Yeah, right. He trusted in God. Let him deliver him now, if he will have him. For he said, I am the Son of God. Even the robbers who were crucified with him reviled him with the same thing. And even now we see the mocking and the humiliation doesn't end. And crucifixion was intended to be a public spectacle. It wasn't done as we execute criminals today in the darkest inner rooms of a prison and private. Crucifixion was designed to be a deterrent to anyone who would challenge the might of Rome. And they were carried out alongside the major routes, where it would be a lesson, where it would be a public spectacle, to make sure that everybody got the message that you don't mess with Rome. And if you do, this is what will happen to you. Some of you may remember the movie Spartacus. That was based on what really happened. Spartacus was a slave who read a revolt and was eventually captured with thousands of other slaves who had revolted with him. And the historical sources tell us that for ten miles along the road leading into Rome, there were slave rebels crucified on every tree for ten miles on either side of the road.

Again, it was to show what happens if you messed with Rome. So Jesus' crucifixion likely took place. Jerusalem at that time had five, six, seven city gates in the wall. So this probably took place right outside one of the walls of the city where at the Passover feast, thousands of people, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are going to be coming, walking back and forth, arriving for the feast there that day. And they're going to see him hanging there as a condemned criminal in his pain, in his suffering, in his disgrace. Let's switch now to the Gospel of John, John 19, verse 25, because John adds some other important details for us to think about.

John 19, 25, Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary, and Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, the disciple whom he loved is John. John is his cousin, because John's mother and Jesus' mother are sisters. And John is a young man, probably younger than all of the other disciples, possibly a teenager even. And Jesus said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, John, behold your mother. And of course John is the one who is writing this down. He remembers this, no doubt, very vividly. And from that hour, that disciple John took her, Mary, to his own home.

Now many of you are mothers. Put yourself in this scene. What would it mean to a mother to stand by and watch her son crucified?

Hanging there, dying, and the afternoon sun, and to see him, with the end of his life drawing near, taking this extra moment to see that his mother is going to be taken care of for the rest of her life.

Because Jesus is the firstborn son, and it is the responsibility of the firstborn to take care of his aging elderly parents.

So he takes this extra moment to see to his mother's care, to see that she has a place to go.

Someone to take care of her.

It's sad, too, that of his immediate family, who's there? We know that he has at least four brothers, at least two sisters, so there's at least six siblings there, but where are they?

Where are they? At this time when just a little bit of support from your family would have meant so much, where are his brothers and sisters? That he's grown up with, that he has taken care of at some point after the death of Joseph, their father? They're nowhere to be found. At a time when such a little bit of support would have meant so much, they're all gone. So he's abandoned not just by his disciples, but by his own family. Everyone else has left him alone to suffer his fate. 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 to his mouth.

Hissop. Is that word ring a bell? What did the Israelites use to splash the blood on the doorposts at the first Passover back in Egypt? They used hyssop plants. It's a rim-es.

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 first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, 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 were crucified with him. They break the legs of the men on either side of Jesus. And the idea of this was to speed up their death. Because death by crucifixion meant that the victim typically suffocated to death. Because in crucifixion they nailed the hands or wrists and the feet to the stake. And because you're in this posture, you cannot exhale. You can inhale, but you cannot exhale. So to exhale, you have to lift yourself up. And imagine this, doing this with nails driven through your feet. And you have to lift yourself up to gasp in a lungful of air. Or to exhale, rather, the air. And then you relax again. And you do this as long as you can. And eventually, hours, sometimes days, it took for the victims to suffocate. And die. Again, it was excruciatingly painful.

And that's actually where we get the word excruciating. It's Latin. It's from the cross. The pain and the agony was so intense, they had to invent a word to describe it. So the Romans came up with excruciating from the cross. So by taking a club and smashing the prisoners' leg bones, they could no longer lift themselves up. And they suffocate to death in a few minutes. And that's what happens here.

Verse 33, But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. And of course, this is fulfillment of the symbolism of the Passover Lamb, which could not have a leg bone broken. And then John inserts an explanatory note here. But one of the soldiers pierced, or actually had pierced, as it would be in the original Greek, had pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. John is here explaining why Jesus had died, and they did not break his legs. They did that because he had been pierced by a sword. And then John goes on to say, verse 35, And he who has seen has testified. He's talking about himself, that he was an eyewitness, that he saw these things. 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 shall be broken, referring again to the Passover Lamb. And again, another Scripture says, They shall look on him whom they pierced. So John tells us that he was an eyewitness. He was there. He saw it happen. But why does John point this out? Well, he points it out because one of the questions that is raised is, How exactly did Jesus die? It appears from the wording that perhaps he did suffocate. There are died of a broken heart, as many people have taught over the years. But there's a problem with that because dead bodies don't bleed.

And as we just read there, verse 34, blood and water came out. In Greek it actually means it gushed out, it poured out. But dead bodies, your heart is pumping within a pressurized system that is our body. And you know, when you cut yourself, depending on the depth and the location of the cut, it may just ooze a little bit, or it may gush out blood if it's close to a vein or an artery.

But dead bodies, because the heart is stopped, don't bleed. Yeah, a little bit of blood may ooze out, but it doesn't gush out. It is described here. So Jesus was alive when the soldier stabs him. And the blood, because the heart is pumping, gushes out and pours out until Jesus died.

He died by bleeding to death. And it's important to understand that he bled to death because every sacrificial animal, millions that had been sacrificed over the previous 1,400 years, at the tabernacle in the temple had died by bloodshed. This is the way all the sacrifices died. So the idea that Jesus died in some other way doesn't fit the symbolism, doesn't fit the typology, doesn't fit the symbol of the wine that Jesus gave to them. Earlier, this is my blood, which is shed poured out for you. So John gives us assurances that he was there and he saw Jesus die by the slash of a blade in the shedding of his blood for us.

So that was why Jesus Christ died. He died in the same way that all of the sacrifices that represented his sacrifice for 1,400 years had died at the tabernacle in the temple. So after all the pain, after all the beating, the humiliation, the betrayal, the abandonment, the spitting, the mocking, the scourging, our Savior died.

And his sacrifice for us was now complete.

Another section of Scripture that we read during the Passover service every year is a prophecy found back in Isaiah 53. And let's turn back there.

We have read from some of Matthew's perspective. We have read from some of John's perspective as men who were there, who witnessed these things firsthand, who wrote down for us what they saw. And now let's read another perspective and what this means for us, because there are two perspectives here in Isaiah 53. One is the theological perspective, or aspect, in that the sacrifices that were carried out under the Old Covenant were types. They were models. They were symbolic of what was to come, of what was to happen to the Messiah. But a more important aspect of this is not so much the theological, but the personal. The personal aspect of what that sacrifice means to us. And by us, I mean each of us individually. Not as part of this congregation, not as part of the larger body of Christ, but to you and me personally and individually. And hopefully after what we've covered so far, we can think about this in personal terms.

Because this is very personal. Isaiah 53, verse 1, Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord, the Eternal, been revealed? And now we get into a prophecy of the Messiah, for He shall grow up before Him, before God the Father, 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. In other words, He is not a handsome, good-looking guy. He is an average-looking person. Verse 3, He is despised and rejected by men, and as we have seen, He was certainly despised and rejected by men, by those who arrested Him, by the priests, by the officers and guards, by the mob that shouted for His blood, and by those who mocked Him as He hung there, dying, as He is crucified. He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. So again, He knew not only the sorrows and the grief that we've talked about, 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. And of course, as we've seen, His closest friends and followers, the disciples, His own brothers and sisters, His own family, had abandoned Him and fled. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. And what have we read about today and talked about today? How He experienced the griefs and the sorrows that are part of the penalty and price of sin. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And it starts getting very personal here. He was wounded for our sins. He was bruised for our sins. The chastisement for our peace, our reconciliation to God, was upon Him. And by His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to His own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity, or the sins, of us all.

Now, do we see ourselves, again, to talk about the personal aspect of this, do we see ourselves as this passage portrays us? Again, most people, we understand intellectually that Christ died for our sins. We understand His sacrifice in theological terms, in theological, in an abstract, you might say. We understand what it meant as a historical event that happened back there almost 2,000 years ago. And we intellectually know that Christ died for sinners, and that we are a sinner, so He died for us. But do we see ourselves as this passage portrays it?

How did Isaiah understand this? Isaiah is the one who wrote this prophecy. What did it mean for him?

What did it mean for Isaiah? Let's put ourselves in Isaiah's sandals for a minute. What did this mean for him?

Isaiah had no doubt done this.

What happened with the trespass offering, and this is what he's describing here, a trespass offering for sin? If you sinned, you took a little baby lamb, a sheep, or a goat, a goat kid. You walked to the temple, and we tend to view the priests as offering all of the sacrifices, which they did in most cases, but the trespass offering for sin was different. Because you took that animal that you may have seen born, you may have raised it in your own house, and you walked to Jerusalem, to the temple, and you found the priest who was on duty, or one of the priests on duty. You said you're here for the trespass offering, and you accompanied the priest to the area where the sacrifice would be carried out.

And you would reach that place, and the priest would take the little lamb, or kid, and you would look into its eyes, as the priest pulled back the head of the animal, and you took the knife, and you slit that animal's throat.

And the blood gushed out onto your hands. And it was very obvious that it was your sins that brought the death of that sacrifice.

Not your family's sins, not the sins of the nation, not the sins of your tribe, but your sins led to the death of that sacrifice. And that very effectively made the point that that little lamb, that innocent animal, that kid, or that goat died for your personal sins. And it was by its blood being shed that you were ceremonially cleansed of your sins. And you had to be there. You had to be there as that animal died for you.

And it made it obvious that it was your sins that led to that death, not somebody else's. Yours and yours alone.

And when I talk about, do we take that sacrifice personally, this is what I mean. Is this how we recognize Christ's sacrifice? Not something theologically, not something historical. It took place 2,000 years ago.

But do we think of his sacrifice as the innocent lamb, which he's called repeatedly. But we took the knife, and we shed his blood. Because of what we have done, not anyone else.

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 its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation or his offspring? Because he died childless. For he was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgressions of my people he was stricken.

And again the stroke of the priest's blade, or the Roman soldier's spear blade, should have come on us. But it didn't. It came on him. And that 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, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, 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, and made intercession for the transgressors. And as we know, what did Jesus pray as he is dying? He prayed for the transgressors, interceded for them. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing. And as our high priest, that's what he does now, constantly making intercession for us. Because he experienced everything that we experience. Because he went through everything that we go through. And he learned from what he suffered so that he could become our faithful high priest. He knows what we go through in every aspect of our lives. And do we know and understand and properly appreciate what he did for us?