Why Did Jesus Christ Have to Suffer?

Thank you very much, Tony. I'd like to echo the welcomes to our guests and visitors. It's very nice to have you with us here today, and thank you so much for bringing this warm weather. Very nice, obviously. Appreciate that. Good to have you with us here today.

I appreciated Mr. McNaster's sermonette because it leads very much into the subject, which we'll be talking about today, which I'll get to the title in just a few minutes here. But just to give a very good introduction, it's amazing how a lot of the messages really tie in together. On the Sabbath. Olive trees are, if you are familiar with them, you understand they're not the prettiest kind of tree. Olive trees can grow to a tremendous age, and as they grow older, they generally grow quite thick in the trunk, quite gnarled. Their bark tends to grow rougher, more ugly. The limbs tend to get twisted and gnarled. As the trees age, the older they get. On the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives, facing Jerusalem, are some truly ancient olive trees that many people believe are close to 2,000 years old. 2,000 year old trees. They may date back to as far as 70 AD when the Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem, laid siege to the city because of the Jewish rebellion that had broken out against the Romans. The Jewish historian Josephus records that the Romans tore down or cut down virtually every tree within 10 miles of the city to build weapons of war, walls, siege engines, military equipment, and that sort of thing, for the siege of Jerusalem, and also to crucify the thousands of Jewish prisoners that they captured there when they took the city. When an olive tree is cut down, like a lot of trees, it sends out new shoots out from the roots that are still alive. Thus, it is possible that the ancient trees that you see there on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives may date back to trees that were cut down in the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Nearby, this large number of very ancient olive trees there, is an ancient cave in the Mount of Olives that archaeologists have explored in recent years. And in the floor of that cave, they found the remains of an ancient olive oil press of the kind used 2,000 years ago. And at that time, workmen would have harvested the olives from those nearby trees, took them to this press, and then crushed out the olive oil that would have then been used for food, for fuel, and even for medicine. In the Gospels, we find mention of a particular place there on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from the Temple, a place called Gethsemane. Gethsemane is a Hebrew word that means an olive oil press. I gave a sermon on this last year, about this time. You may want to go back and listen to. But apparently, this cave, with its remains of an olive oil press, and the olive trees nearby is the garden of Gethsemane, mentioned in the Bible.

Those ancient, gnarled trees there, with their rough bark, with their twisted limbs, that you can do and visit to this day, are in a way representative of events that took place in this location nearly 2,000 years ago. Events that were themselves very gnarled, very ugly, very unpleasant, and would have been very painful to witness, much less experience.

Three weeks from tomorrow night, we will assemble here in this room to commemorate the events that took place and connection there with Gethsemane. But before we do that, however, we are commanded to examine ourselves, before we come to participate in the Passover, to consider the meaning of those events, and to reflect on their significance, and to each and every one of us in particular there. So what I would like to do today is to review those events for all of us to go through them, to think about them, to consider their meaning and their implications, and to hopefully gain some additional insights into what Jesus Christ went through in becoming a sacrifice for us. If you'd like a title for this sermon, it is, Why Did Jesus Christ Have to Suffer?

Why Did Jesus Christ Have to Suffer? Every year during the Passover service, we read through the accounts in the Gospels about Christ's last Passover with his disciples. We read about and do the foot washing as he commanded his followers to do. We read about Peter protesting against washing Jesus' feet. We read about Jesus instituting the symbols of the bread and the wine to symbolize his body and his blood given for us.

And then we read through several chapters of the book of John where Jesus gives his last instruction there to his disciples. And finally, we close the service every year with the verse Matthew 26 and verse 30.

And we close the service as Jesus closed that evening with his disciples almost 2,000 years ago. And it says there that they sang a hymn and then departed and went to the Garden of Gethsemane. So let's turn to Matthew 26 and verse 30. And what I'd like to do is to pick up the story where we leave off every year at the Passover and to continue reading about the events that would follow to see about how the symbolism of the bread and the wine was fulfilled and to take a closer look at Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us.

So picking up the story here in Matthew 26 and verse 30, and when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. And what takes place after that, as recorded in the Gospel of John, apparently takes place as they are walking from the upper city of the city of Jerusalem down past and possibly stopping at the temple. It was a tradition among many Jews of that day to go to the temple to worship after the Passover meal. And then apparently they are talking as they go along, walking over unto the moonlit night to the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane, where they would spend the night in that area.

So next verse, then Jesus said to them, to the disciples, 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, or resurrected, I will go before you to Galilee.

And of course, this is fulfilled later on. 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, I surely 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. Interesting there, because Peter wasn't the only one who pledged his devotion and loyalty to Jesus. They all did. They all said they would defend him to the death if it came to that, and that they would never deny him. And of course, we know how that turned out. Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and said to the disciples, sit here while I go and pray over there.

And Gethsemane was a place where they seemed to have stayed often when they visited Jerusalem. The cave there was fairly large and it was also dry. Springtime can be fairly wet there around the area of Jerusalem. And because olives are pressed after the olive harvest in the fall of the year, the cave with its olive oil pressed would not have been used in springtime of the year.

So it would have been relatively private as well. And a nice warm dry available place for Jesus and his disciples to stay when they came to Jerusalem for the Passover. There's also the Kidron Brook that ran not far away from that, from the mouth of the cave there, and the Kidron Valley. And it's only about a 10 to 15 minute walk from there across the Kidron Valley up to the temple and the walls of Jerusalem. So Jesus would have found this an ideal place to spend time there privately with the disciples or privately by himself, if that's what he chose to do, as he does on this evening.

And so Jesus and his disciples go to this particular place, this quiet olive grove outside the city of Jerusalem, and a string of ugly and twisted events begins. Because on that night, in that place, Jesus begins what would later come to be rightly known as his agony. A very appropriate word for what would take place. Verse 37, And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, these are the disciples James and John, and he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. So notice his state of mind here, that he is sorrowful and deeply distressed.

In other words, what he is going through is mental agony. At this point, he knows what's coming, and the pressure is getting heavier and heavier and heavier, bearing down on him. Then he said to them, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. What this is telling us is that Jesus is so mentally tormented that he wished he could just die right then rather than go through. What he knows is coming. Wishes he could be dead and not have to endure that. Continuing, Stay here and watch with me.

He went a little farther and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. What this is telling us is that he's not just preying on his knees. It says he fell on his face. That means he's prostrated himself, laying with his belly to the ground and his face to the ground, groveling in the dirt of that olive grove before his father. And he says, Let this cup pass from me. What cup?

The cup that he talked about with his disciples just an hour or two earlier. The cup of pouring out his blood, of dying for mankind. The cup of his blood being poured out is a sacrifice.

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, O 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 are heavy.

So he left them and went away again and prayed the third time, saying the same words. What is going through his mind when three times he leaves Peter and James and John's there and goes away and pours out his heart to his heavenly Father? Luke, we won't turn there, but Luke says he is so distressed that he is sweating great drops of blood and he urgently pleads to his Father that he not have to go through this. What's going through his mind? Think about that. What would you be thinking about? Knowing from prophecy what is to come.

What would be going through your mind at a time like this? I think a lot of his distress and a lot of what he is feeling is pure, raw dread. Pure, raw dread of what he is going to face in the coming hours. I think that is reflected in what we see. That he prays at this pass from him, if there is any other way, and being in middle agony and distress, that we talked about. Because his agony included not just the fear of death, death that he knew would follow the next afternoon, when the Passover lambs would be slain, but of all the things that must take place between now and then. Intellectually, we know that Jesus Christ's sacrifice was his death, his giving his life for us to pay the penalty, as Mr. McMaster mentioned there. It wasn't annulled, it wasn't canceled. That penalty was paid in full. It's just that we did not have to pay it. But his death was only the final act in a series of events that had to play out that day. Intellectually, we know the meaning of the words that he shed his blood for us, and that we deserve to die, but he took that penalty for us in our place. But how much do we understand, really, what that means? We can understand it intellectually, but do we understand from the heart, from the soul, what that really means? His sacrifice on our behalf. What we'll come to see through this sermon today is that his sacrifice included much more than we probably have not given a lot of thought to. We understand intellectually that he died for our sins, but to get to the title of this sermon, why did he have to suffer? Why did he have to suffer? If it was just a matter of dying for our sins, why was he tormented? Why was he tortured? Why was he beaten? Why couldn't he have just simply drug him out of the city and stoned him to death in a few minutes, and he'd be over with? Why did he have to suffer? What lessons are there in that for us? If his death was all that was needed, why couldn't he have died much more simply than that? Why was his sacrifice, in other words, just that he was crucified, that he was hung up there in the sun for a few hours to die, that a soldier thrust the spear into his side and shed his blood from that, and he cried out with a loud voice and died, and gave up his spirit? Is that what we think the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was? Or was there more to it than that? Was there more to it that we might not have thought about?

Again, the question, why did he have to suffer so much in addition to dying?

The bottom line is that sin brings a great deal more to our lives than just dying. Sin brings a great deal more to our lives than just dying. Think about that for a minute, because for each one of us, life includes a great deal of pain, a great deal of pain from many different sources. It brings a lot of frustration, it brings a lot of hurt, it brings a lot of misery, a lot of miserable things that come to pass as the result of our own personal sins that we have committed, but also as the result of other people's sins. Sin doesn't just hurt the one who is committing the sin, it hurts everyone. It hurts the sinner's family, hurts the sinner's loved ones, hurts everyone. Consequently, the penalty for sin is not merely dying. You might say dying is the easy part.

It's the suffering that sin brings that is the hard part, the hard part for all of us. A lot of the penalty is the hurt and the pain and the agony that comes as a result of sin. Jesus never sinned, so he never should have died, never should have had to die, for that matter. He never sinned, so he never should have had to suffer the consequences of sin.

And yet he did. He took on not just the death penalty, but he also took on the suffering that results from sin. And that is part of the lesson of the suffering that Jesus had to go through before he died. For example, I'll give you an illustration of this. It's hard to get through a lifetime without being betrayed. Without being betrayed, because it's hard because we are designed, we are wired as human beings to, as part of our mental and emotional makeup, to need to be in trusting relationships with other people. We need to have family that we can trust. We need to have friends and acquaintances that we can trust. We're wired that way. God made us to need other people to be around other people. We need to know people and be with people that we can trust. And yet it is inevitable, because we are human beings, that we will be let down by those same other people.

And by the same token, it's inevitable that we will let other people down. Because we are human, because we are flawed, we are not perfect.

And consequently, we will be betrayed.

At different points in our lives, that betrayal can come from friends, from acquaintances, from co-workers, from husbands, from wives, even from other church members. And that betrayal can come in many forms and from many different places. And so, at the beginning of what Christ suffered came betrayal. It came betrayal because betrayal is a result of sin. And as a result of our sins, which were placed on Him, it was necessary that Jesus be betrayed. That He suffer betrayal, as the book of Hebrews tells us. He was tempted, He was tried, He was tested in every way as we are, and yet without ever sinning. What that means is He had to go through all of the experiences, all of the trials, all of the difficulties that we go through in this life. And yet, He never sinned.

But part of those difficulties that He had to go through, that we have to go through, is the pain and the suffering that comes from the sins of other people, including betrayal. And so Jesus never sinned, and yet it was essential that He experience the pain and the misery that come as a result of sin. And that is part of why Jesus spent those hours there in the Garden of Gethsemane weeping and praying and even sweating blood because He was afraid.

Because He was afraid. Does that surprise you? Does it surprise you that Jesus could be afraid? But He had to. He had to be afraid because He knew the penalty of the sin that He was taking on Himself. He had to be afraid. He had to experience dread because there was no other way. Because what does Jesus do right now? What is His role for us right now? He is our High Priest. He is our Intercessor in heaven with God the Father.

How could He be our faithful High Priest if He did not experience all the things that we go through in this life? How could He intercede with the Father if He did not go through all the things that we go through? The suffering from our sins and the suffering from other people's sins.

How does He know what fear feels like if He hasn't felt it Himself?

How does He know what fear feels like? The kind of fear that cuts right to the bone?

The kind of fear that we might feel if maybe we have a doctor who tells us that we have a few weeks, at most a few months, to live because of a terminal illness that we've contracted.

How does He know the fear that we might feel if we lose a spouse and we wonder what the future is going to hold for us? Because a huge chunk of our life has been ripped away. How could Jesus know what that is like if He did not feel fear that evening there?

And so on that night He must have experienced fear, the kind of gut-wrenching stomach-turning dread that any of us would feel if we knew we were going to walk out of here today, and there's a bloodthirsty mob waiting out there. And that mob is going to take us, going to bind us, going to haul us before a kangaroo court, condemn us to death, is going to beat us, is going to torture us, is going to mock us, humiliate us, rip the flesh from our bones, rip the clothes from our bodies, and cold-bloodedly murder us. What kind of fear was Jesus feeling, knowing that is going to happen?

What kind of fear would you feel under those circumstances, knowing that's going to happen and there's not a thing you can do about it? So He had to feel fear on that night.

That's the kind of dread, the kind of mental agony, the kind of distress that Jesus would have been feeling that night there at Gethsemane. That's why He prayed repeatedly, Father, if it be Your will, Father, if it be possible, let this cup of shedding my blood and giving my body pass from me. Is there any way?

But if not, Your will and not mine be done. So He faced the dread of what lay ahead.

Was it dread? Was it fear? How severe was it? Luke records, we won't turn there, that an angel came and appeared to strengthen Him.

God sent an angel to encourage Him, to strengthen Him, to help Him, because of the mental torment that He's going through there.

And that alone should tell us something of the amount of mental anguish that He is in. That His Father, in His love and mercy, sends an angel to comfort and encourage Him in that time.

And being strengthened, Jesus rises from His prayer to face betrayal.

Betrayal by one of His chosen disciples, one of His Talmadim, that He spent years with day in and day out. Continuing in 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 Gethsemane, from this cave there where the olive press was, where these ancient olive trees go, that you can look across this narrow valley, the Kidron Valley, to the walls in the temple of Jerusalem. And that day you could have seen the temple towering above the city walls there. You can see the roads. There's a major gate into the city that was right across the valley there from Gethsemane. It's no more than a few hundred yards away. And as Jesus is praying this final time where he arises and says, My Betrayer is at hand, I think that even as he is praying there for his father to let this cup pass from him, that he can probably glance up and see the torches and the moonlight coming down from the city gate and winding their way across the narrow bridge there across the Kidron Valley and making their way up the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives. He can probably hear the clanking of their swords, their knives, their clubs against their armor of the soldiers. And he knows that they are coming for him. And he knows what that means. He also knows that he could have run away.

Rather than staying there, that it was a simple matter, there was a road around either side of the Mount of Olives that would have joined into the road that ran downhill to Jericho about 15 miles away. There's a full moon. He could have easily escaped, could have gone and hit out there somewhere in the wadi along the road to Jericho or made it all the way down to the city perhaps by the next day and could have escaped down into the Judean wilderness or any number of ways he could have escaped. What he knew was coming. But he didn't. And he couldn't. Because of what he knew he had to do for us. 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 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.

As we've talked about before, the word rabbi means master.

It means teacher. It means great one, respected one. My Lord and my master, you might say.

So Judas is calling Jesus his master or his teacher, even as he betrays him.

And how does he betray him? With a kiss, with a sign of affection and love.

But Jesus said to him, Friend, why have you come? Can you imagine the depth of sadness in those words? Because Judas, like the rest of the twelve, had followed Jesus for several years, traveling all over Galilee, all over Judea, spent so many hours together, lived, slept, ate together the whole time. And in the context of the culture of that day, for a disciple to betray his rabbi was totally unthinkable. Because again, the whole goal of a disciple is to become like your rabbi. He was more important than your own family, than your own father.

He was the person you looked up to and admired because you wanted to be just like him.

And for a Talmud to betray his rabbi was just unthinkable, unheard of.

And yet he betrays his master with a kiss. And how does Jesus respond?

He simply calls his betrayer, Friend. Jesus knew why Judas had come, and Judas knew that Jesus knew why Judas had come. Yet he calls him Friend. And so on this evening, Jesus experiences the worst kind of betrayal imaginable.

Continuing, then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took him. And suddenly one of those who were with Jesus, this is talking about Peter, stretched out his hand and drew his sword, struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. He wasn't trying to cut off his ear, he was trying to cut off his head. And he just missed. 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 not think that I cannot now pray to my father, and he will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? About 80,000 angels is what is being referred to here. How, then, could the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen this way? And Luke records, although Matthew doesn't, that Jesus reached out his hand and restored the servant's ear. Made him whole again. Verse 55, in that hour Jesus said to the multitudes, Have come out to capture 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 did not 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. Essentially, what is being said here is that Jesus told the mob, Since I am the one you're looking for, since I am the one you've come for, let all of these others go. And like a bunch of frightened rabbits, they scatter into the night and leave Jesus alone. Because he had to face what was coming, alone, betrayed, and abandoned.

The betrayal of Judas was part of Jesus Christ's sacrifice because enduring betrayal is one of the things we suffer because of sin. Because sin, again, does not have consequences just for the person committing the sins. Sin affects everyone around the center. It affects the lives of others. One of the greatest acts of betrayal a person can commit is to betray his wife or his children by going out fooling around with another woman or a woman fooling around with another man, betraying their spouse, their children, who suffer greatly for that because it sets the stage for a lifetime of suffering for people who did nothing wrong. And yet sin and suffering hurts them as well. So it was necessary this evening for Jesus, who had done no harm, to suffer betrayal, to experience what it feels like. The fact that sin has consequences for those who are innocent is also reflected in the abandonment of Jesus by his closest friends and followers, just as children abandoned by their father or by their mother will suffer when they have done no wrong, no wrong whatsoever. So Jesus then had to suffer abandonment by those that he loved, by those who were closest to him, to feel, to know, to experience what it feels like to go through that.

Unfortunately, a sin that is very common in today's society.

So Jesus was arrested, betrayed, and abandoned by those closest to him.

Next, he is the victim of lies.

Have you ever been lied about?

Ever happened to you? Probably all of us at one time or another. How did it make you feel? It probably made you feel dirty, violated, disgusted, to be lied about when you knew you were innocent but people were maliciously lying about you. That had to happen to Jesus as well. And that's what happens next. Verse 57, 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 of the counsels sought false testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. What this means is that, according to the legal process of the day, you had to bring in witnesses one at a time, as in a court today, so they couldn't coordinate their testimony. So they brought in many false witnesses, it says, but the problem is their false testimony doesn't agree. They can't get their lies straight with each other, so they don't have anything to convict Jesus of. That's what we're being told here. But at last, two false witnesses came forward. It was required there be two, at least, and said, this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days. Now you might convict somebody of insanity with an allegation, but you're not going to convict them of a sin worthy of death by saying somebody can destroy a temple and I'll rebuild it in three days. Again, it may indicate the person's crazy, but it's not something that deserves capital punishment. But that wasn't what Jesus had said anyway. He was talking about his body, destroy this body, and in three days I will raise it up again. But they weren't going to let a little little thing like facts stand in the way of their predetermined outcome. Verse 62, And the high priest arose and said to Jesus, Do you answer nothing? What is it that 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 them, 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 heard His blasphemy. What do you think? And they answered and said, He deserves to die. So Jesus was convicted, not on the testimony of these false witnesses, but on the judge's interpretation of his own statements. Then they spat in his face and beat him, and others struck him with the palms of their hands. In other words, they are slapping him across the face like that again and again, saying, prophesy to us, Christ, who is the one who struck you?

Mark adds the detail that they had blindfolded in. Maybe put a bag over his head. We don't know for sure, but here, supposedly, what is a court of law, the highest court of the land? And the judges, and the officers, and the guards are standing around like a pack of wolves to spit in the face and beat this innocent man to brutalize him there, to slap him around, to punch him, use him like a punching bag to get in their punches on a man who chooses not to defend himself.

And again, this is the kind of suffering that sin brings. That's the lesson here. This is the kind of suffering that sin brings. And Jesus had to feel that, had to experience that, had to experience the humiliation, and the hurt and the pain of being beaten to a pulp by this mob.

Why did he have to do this? Why did he have to go through this? Because sin brings humiliation.

It leads to bruising. It leads to pain. It leads to misery. It leads to suffering. It leads to hurt.

And Jesus had to experience that. It doesn't really, if you think about it, sin doesn't require God to do anything. Because a lot of what we see with sin is that sin, by its very nature, hurts people.

It hurts us. It hurts those who love us. It hurts those around us. It hurts everyone. And so, Jesus had to suffer hurt and humiliation and misery and the beating that we deserve for our sins.

But he took it on himself. We'll skip now to the next chapter, Matthew 27 and verse 1.

When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor. The Judas, his betrayer, 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 you might say today, what was he thinking? What did he expect to happen?

Apparently, it wasn't until Judas saw Jesus condemned that he realized what he had done and the enormity of his crime. And he goes back and he tries to return the thirty pieces of silver. The thirty pieces of silver, incidentally, was the price of a slave in those days.

He went back and said, there's been a terrible mistake. This man is innocent.

But did they then say, oh, okay, well, we'd better let him go then? No, of course not.

They said, that's your problem, not ours. And they said, what is that to us? It's not our business anymore. You go 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 there's a lesson here about sin, too.

The lesson that the consequences of sin cannot be undone.

Yes, sin can be forgiven, and we are forgiven when we go to God in repentance.

But they can't be undone by anything that you or I can do.

And that's a lesson here. Being sorry for our sins is not enough, because a penalty has to be paid. Blood has to be shed.

And pain must be felt. Because what happens with sin is not necessarily punishment, but consequences.

Again, God doesn't necessarily have to punish us for our sins. What follows, what we experience, the pain and the suffering and the misery that comes from sin, is not punishment as such, but its consequences. It's what follows from breaking God's law. And there is a difference, because God can punish us if He sees it's in our best interest and will help us to learn the lessons we need to do to be a part of His eternal family. And the reason God does punish us for sin is to turn us around and to correct us so that we can change. Change our life and not do that again, learn our lesson. But a lesson of sin is that its consequences, and those consequences, cannot be undone. Being sorry is not enough, and the only way we can be delivered by those consequences is by the suffering and the shame and the blood that Jesus Christ took on Himself. Skipping down to verse 11, Now Jesus stood before the governor 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 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. He is amazed that somebody who is innocent does not say a word in his defense, to avoid possibly the death penalty. 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 Mar-Abbas, who we read elsewhere was a murderer and a robber, disgusting lowlife. And Pilate is obviously doing this because he recognizes Jesus is innocent, and this is a plot, a conspiracy, so he picks the worst bad guy out of his jail that he can and gives the crowd a choice. Who do you want, Jesus or Barabbas to be released? 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 or Messiah? For he knew that they had handed Jesus over because of envy. He knew this is a set up, knows it's a sham. And he apparently thought that the people would come to their senses and realize they were about to demand the death of an innocent people. And he just assumes that they'll ask for Jesus to be set free and Barabbas is murderer to be executed. But that's not the way it played out. And we are like Barabbas, freed from the death penalty because an innocent man dies in our place.

While he was sitting on the judgment seat, Pilate, it's referring to, 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 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, Let him be crucified. Then the governor said, Why? What evil has 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 riot was rising, 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. And when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

Scourging, I won't go into a lot of detail, but it was a terrible punishment in itself. Scourging was done with a short whip in which generally had three leather strips attached to it. Embedded in the leather were pieces of bone or metal that would act like hooks that would literally rip the person's flesh to shreds. Many a man was so torn up, literally ripped to shreds, that many a person died of the scourging before they could be crucified. It was excruciatingly painful and bloody. John's Gospel adds the detail that Matthew leaves out that after the scourging, Pilate brought Jesus to the crowd again, hoping that they would think that Jesus had been punished enough by the scourging that they would then let him go free. But again, they didn't. They demanded all the more 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's yet another round of humiliation and shame of being spat upon and mocked and slapped around.

And yet it was all necessary, because there are two aspects to the sacrifice or to the elements of Passover that we take. One is the blood, representing Christ shed blood, but there is also the bread. And what does the bread symbolize? We won't turn there, but 1 Corinthians 11, verses 23 and 24 says, As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, 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.

So there are two very important symbols. One, the blood that he shed for our sins, and the other, his broken body, broken for us, through the suffering that he took on himself for our sins. So his body was broken. His body was a part of that sacrifice that he had to make.

As was the shame, the humiliation, the spitting, the mocking. 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 this is symbolic of the consequences of sin, because it shows that we don't bear our sin alone. We don't bear our sin alone. When any of us sins, the people who are around us, as I've mentioned, people who have nothing to do with the situation suffer because of our sin. Total strangers, in some cases, as happened here with Simon of Cyrene. He's just walking along, come to for the Passover feast, and is compelled to bear. The instrument of Christ's crucifixion. So sin hurts everyone, everyone around, not just the sinner only. 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 here is give him a mild painkiller, you might say, to numb the pain that was racking his body. But there's no painkiller for sin.

There's no painkiller for sin. So he rejected it.

Then they crucified him and divided his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet. They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. And what this means is to be blunt that they stripped him naked, nailed him up there, suspended between heaven and earth to die. The only things he had left to his name, his outer cloak, a nicely made cloak, and his inner robe there, they stole from him, divided it up and gambled as to who would get the most valuable piece of his clothing, clothing of a condemned criminal. Sitting down, they kept 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 destroy the temple and build 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 in and then. 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. So even now, the humiliation doesn't end. It's close to death, and even then, the mocking, the humiliation doesn't stop. Crucifixion was intended to be a public spectacle. It wasn't something that was done in private. Today, we execute somebody within the grounds of a prison, shut off from everything. It was the opposite in the days of Rome, because crucifixion was intended to carry a message, to show the consequences of what happened when you crossed Rome.

Crucifixions were carried out along the major roads. You may remember the story of Spartacus, the Roman slave, who led a slave rebellion against Rome. And what did they do with Spartacus and the others when they captured him? For about, I think if I remember correctly, about ten miles along the main road leading into Rome, they crucified the prisoners on every tree, thousands of them, to show what happens when you cross Rome. So the way they crucified people in that day was, in the case of Jerusalem, probably right outside one of the city gates, along one of the roads that ran in and out of the city. And of course, this is taking place at the Passover feast, when there are literally tens of thousands of people coming and going therein to and from the city, trying to take care of their final preparations there for that feast. And these thousands of people walk by him as he's hanging there in his shame, in his suffering, in his pain, and his disgrace. 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. And we'll pick it up in verse 25.

John 19 and verse 25. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, this is referring to John, the author of John, who's writing this, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour that disciple John took her to his own home.

Many of you are mothers sitting out here. What would it mean to a mother to stand and watch her son, her innocent son, crucified? And to see him with the end of his life drawing near, to take that extra moment to see that his mother is going to be taken care of, because that was a responsibility of the firstborn son in the culture of that day, to take care of his mother. So in his final moments, it's what Jesus does here. It's said too that of Jesus' family, who is there?

Just his mother. We know he has at least seven brothers and sisters, seven siblings, step half-brothers and half-sisters, and where are they? They're nowhere to be seen.

Here at the time when just a little bit of support from family would have meant so much to him.

He's been abandoned by the twelve, betrayed by one of them. His own brothers and sisters are nowhere to be seen. Only his mother, only his aunt, and only John, his cousin, but also one of his disciples. Everyone else has abandoned him. After this, 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.

Interesting to mention of hyssop here. Ring a bell. Ring a bell with anything.

What plant did they use to smear the Passover lamb blood in Egypt on the doorpost?

Hyssop.

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 and the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, beginning the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which we'll be celebrating here in a few weeks. 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 was crucified with him. And the idea behind breaking the men's legs was to speed up their death, because sundown is coming near and in the customs of the day they weren't to let crucified prisoners hang out there over the Sabbath or the Holy Day.

Death by crucifixion meant the victim usually suffocated to death, because the way it worked is you would be nailed by actually the hands. It says the wrists. It was actually the wrists there because the weight of the hand wouldn't support the nails. And through the foot, nailed up to the tree or the stake there. And the way it worked is as you lost your strength, you would compress and you could not exhale because of the pressure on your torso. And the person would literally suffocate. That's typically the way death came by crucifixion. And the only way to prevent that happening is the prisoner would have to try to raise himself up with the nails driven through his wrist and with the nails driven through his feet to lift himself up, to be able to inhale and to keep the lungs breathing. But then, of course, that is excruciatingly painful because all the weight then is on those nails and the gaping wounds and the crucified victim. So by taking a club and breaking the men's legs, they can no longer lift themselves up and they would suffocate within a few minutes. So that's what is going on here. 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 or had pierced is a better way to translate this. One of the soldiers had pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out. And he who is seen 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 shall be broken. And again another Scripture says they shall look on him whom they pierced. So John is telling us here that he was an eyewitness to this. He saw it happen. He saw how Jesus died. But why does he point that out?

Because one of the most common misconceptions is how exactly did Jesus die. From the wording here, it appears that Jesus simply died there from the effects of crucifixion. But there's a problem with that. There's a problem with that because dead bodies don't bleed.

Because the blood system, the circulatory system, is pressurized by the pumping of the heart.

That's why when you cut yourself it either oozes out, drips out, or gushes out depending on the depth of the wound, or the location of the wound, and so on. So Jesus has to be alive when this Roman soldier stabs him with a spear, and blood and water gushes out. As is the intent there of the Greek. So simply put, Jesus did not die of a broken heart, or some of these misconceptions about that, but he bled to death. And it's important that he bled to death because every sacrificial animal for 1,400 years that symbolized the death of our Savior died by the shedding of blood. He had to die by the shedding of blood because it doesn't fit the typology of the sacrifices, it doesn't fit prophecy, it doesn't fit the symbol of the wine that represents Jesus Christ shed blood if he died of a broken heart, or something like that. So John assures us that he was there, and he saw how Jesus died. He saw him die by the slash of a spear thrust into his side, and by the pouring out of his blood that poured out into the dust of the ground.

A problem arises because it indicates earlier that Jesus had cried out, it is finished, and he gave up the Spirit, and later a soldier comes and stabs him in the side with a spear. But the statement about the soldier is a parenthetical statement, stating that he was already dead because the soldier had pierced his side and blood and water came out. But the real cause, again, of Christ's death was the pouring out of his blood, in the same way as every sacrifice that had been offered at the temple and the sacrifice for the previous 14 centuries, almost 15 centuries by this time. And so, after the pain, after the betrayal, after the beating, the abandonment, the mocking, the spitting, 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 back in Isaiah 53. Let's turn there. Isaiah 53 will begin in verse 1.

We've read some of Matthew's perspective. We've read some of John's perspective here. As men who were there that evening and that afternoon, the last day of Jesus Christ, and they saw and they experienced these things, and they wrote about what they saw and experienced. But now I'd like to read another perspective of what this means for us. Because they're writing about what happened historically. And yes, it's for us, but Isaiah gives a different aspect here. There are two aspects to think about here in Isaiah 53. One is the theological aspect, which is that the sacrifices of the Old Covenant were types. They were models. They were symbols of what was to come and what was to happen to the Messiah. But the more important aspect is what that sacrifice means for each one of us. Not to us as part of the church, not to us as part of all humanity that is sin and is in need of a Savior, but what it means to each one of us, personally and individually.

What does that sacrifice mean? Because that is the point of this passage here and what Christ's sacrifice means to us. And hopefully after we read through this, we can better understand and appreciate what is being said here. Isaiah 53 and verse 1, Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the eternal God 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. In other words, Jesus looked like the average person of the day. And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men. And as we have seen, Jesus was truly despised by men, by those who arrested him, by the priests, by the officers, by the guards, by the mob shouting for his blood, by those who mocked him even as he hung there, dying in his last moments.

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Acquainted with suffering, in other words, as we've talked about today.

Who knew not only sorrows and grief, but excruciating physical pain. And fear and humiliation and all the results that come from our sins.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him.

His closest friends and followers, even his own half-brothers and sisters, abandoned him and fled and left him alone to his fate. 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, his scourging, his beating, we are healed.

All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the eternal is laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Do we see ourselves as this passage portrays things here?

As this passage portrays us, because that's what it's talking about. We have all been a part of this. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And by all, we, like sheep, have gone astray.

He's talking prophetically about every one of us. That's what I want to focus in on here, because most people view Jesus Christ sacrificing the abstract. By abstract, I mean they view it as a historical event that happened almost 2,000 years ago on the other side of the world. So they intellectually know that Jesus died for sinners, and that we are sinners, and the whole world is full of sinners. But do we see ourselves as Isaiah would have understood this when he wrote these words prophetically of the death of the Messiah?

What did these words mean to Isaiah? Isaiah. Under the sacrificial system that pointed to Jesus Christ as the ultimate sacrifice, how did it work? Isaiah did this, as did all the other Israelites.

They would take a small lamb or goat that they had raised from birth, they'd probably witnessed the birth, brought up. They would go to Jerusalem.

They would go to the temple. They would go to the priest with this little lamb or goat. Again, they grazed from birth. Innocent, perfect, not a blemish. And the individual making the offering would go with the priest because that's the way it was done. It wasn't the priest doing the sacrifices in this case. It was the individual.

He would take the little lamb or goat, go into the priest, and the priest would take the animal and tilt its head back, and the individual took the knife and slit the animal's throat. The blood gushed out over the person's hands and died before the person.

In that process, the trespass offering, as it was called, very effectively made the point that that animal died for your sins. Not for the sins of Israel, not for the sins of the family. It died for your sins. That's how Isaiah understood that prophecy. It was by its pouring out of its blood and giving up its life that your sins were covered. And you had to be there as that animal died.

For you. For you. Not for anyone else. Not for you as a member of a group of people. Not for you as a part of the church. Not for you as part of a sinful nation or a sinful world, but for you personally and individually. It died for your sins and yours alone. Is that the way you recognize the sacrifice of Jesus Christ?

A pure and innocent lamb to be sacrificed because of what we had done.

Continuing in 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 shears his silence, 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 not having married, not having born children.

For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions, for the sins of my people, he was stricken. The stroke of a priest's blade, or in Christ's case the spear blade, was given to Jesus for us. It should have come to us, but it didn't, it came to him.

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 Eternal to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When I make, when you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Eternal 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. And this word justify means make right before God. Make right as though we had never sinned. Because that is the point of Jesus Christ's sacrifice.

Again, as Mr. McMaster pointed out, that sacrifice was not annulled, it wasn't cancelled. It was paid in full. Paid in full.

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, or his life, unto death. And he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. As Jesus was dying, he asked his father, Father forgive them, because they don't know what they are doing.

And as our High Priest, what does he do now? He makes intercession for us, because he experienced all that we can experience. He went through everything that we can go through.

Betrayal, being lied about, humiliation, all the things that come as a result of our sins, the sins of others around us, the sins of the whole world. He went through everything that we go through, so he could be our faithful High Priest. And he learned from what he suffered, so that he could be our faithful High Priest. He knows what we go through, what we are going through. And hopefully now, we better understand and properly appreciate what he went through for us.