CROWDS ABOUT THE CROSS
#096 CROWDS ABOUT THE CROSS
Scripture Luke 23:26-43 NIV Orig. 5-6-62
Rewr. (8-76) 3-5-89
Passage: 26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then
“‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’[a] 31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” 32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[b] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”
36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” 38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews. 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[c]” 43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Purpose: Approaching Easter, to speak to my people of variant attitudes about Jesus’ death, and the determination that He died in our place.
Keywords: Christ as Saviour Faith Special Day, Easter Crucifixion Man/Sin
Timeline/Series: Prior to Easter
Introduction
It is not necessary for us to travel very far to encounter crowds. They are everywhere we go, and their reasons for being where they are, are as numerous as the people themselves.
We find these crowds at our malls, our cotillions of commerce. They are there to shop, some even to spend money. But many others are there for the purpose of seeing and being seen.
Again, we may find the crowds at ball games, at religious conventions, at historic sites, at school convocations, at pageants and festivals, or speeding down the already unsafe highways.
They gather in the mountains, at the beach, at parades commemorating such themes as Mardi Gras, freedom, homecoming, etc. You see them riding horses, wearing clown costumes, playing band instruments. Some would not be anywhere else in all the world. Others would rather be anywhere than where they are.
The paper told of a gathering crowd. A distraught woman was threatening to take her own life. The curious came out of the woodwork. With hoots and jeers some of them urged her on. Some there surely cared, but they were intimidated by those who did not. The police arrived, but even they had difficulty from the vented anger of the crowd becoming a mob that wanted to see some blood-letting. In their attempt to break through to the poor woman she had become so disturbed by these savage tactics that she drove the knife several times into her own body. Crowds, how easy to deplore what they become once we are free of their dastardly influence. How would you have acted at the cross?
I. On the Faces of That Crowd I See Contempt. V35 “And the rulers also with them derided Him saying, He saved others; Let Him save Himself, if He be the Christ, the chosen of God.” The Greek word for ‘passion’ is ‘pathos.’ We have a number of words that are derivatives: Sympathy—to feel for; Empathy—to feel with; Apathy—a lack of feeling; Antipathy—spite, feeling against.
This last is what we find among Jesus’ enemies here at the cross. What, exactly, were they feeling? They were not bored with Jesus. They weren’t looking for a more dynamic Messiah. They hated, with passion, all that Jesus stood for.
Matthew and Mark incriminate chief priests and scribes with “rulers” here mentioned. Theirs is a contempt for the unproven. His teaching was in conflict with theirs. The scribe was patting himself on the back: “The people need the law, I can give it to them.” The rulers were concluding that the people were not smart enough to interpret their religion. They could.
Does it surprise us to learn that there are still those disposed to contempt for Jesus? Some modernist religious leaders say that Jesus really didn’t have to die. They discount Paul’s “Unto us which are saved, it is the power of God,” I Corinthians 1:18. They ignore John’s terse “Whosoever denieth the son, the same hath not the Father,” I John 2:23.
There are others who simply hate that for which Jesus stands. I shared recently the testimony of a rock musician who played Jesus in Jesus Christ, Superstar. Jeff Fenholt said the “Cast were atheists who were trying to mock Jesus.” The recent uproar over The Last Temptation of Christ is also evidence.
I challenge you to send for the AFA Journal. Read some of the dialogue being perpetrated on a naïve public. I read Don Wildmon’s editorial (4-88) proudly accepting contempt and scorn of the ACLU and Playboy for having led the fight against smut.
II. On Faces in That Crowd I Also See Consent. V35 “And the people stood beholding.” V36 “And the soldiers also mocked Him.”
Those looking on so candidly were agreeing to this carnage. Those “beholding” are observing with interest, and their interest is not faith in Christ. The word “mocked” spoken of the soldiers means ‘sport,’ ‘jest,’ ‘childlike.’ It seems as if there were ambulance chasers then also. (“Let’s go see how long it takes the crucified to die.”)
The passion expressed here is apathy. The contemptuous deserve none of our pity. These even less. The soldiers go so far as to gamble over the garment of Jesus as a trivia item to talk about later.
I have seen the cards come out at one-sided ballgames. The 1989 Nevada crusade team had to be challenged not to play slots; we may look back to Las Vegas in June.
Yes, we can turn up a reason for consent. Valid questions were being raised by people all over Judea. Some of those questions were raised by people after hearing Jesus. Others just didn’t like those kinds of questions. So, this way they can get Jesus out of the way, and can even say, “Tsk! Tsk! What a shame.”
Our church roles have many “consenters” on them. If you didn’t listen carefully, you may have thought I said “sinners.”
III. Yet Other Faces Stand Out in That Crowd, and On Them I See Confusion. V 40 “Dost not thou fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation?” There may have been, and credit must be given to, those “beholding” who were concerned about what all this meant. Some had heard prophecies of Messiah. A few might have understood that He was to suffer, die.
They had heard Jesus’ reference to himself as “Son of Man.” Outside of Revelation, the title occurs more than 80 times, all but one in the gospels, and all but one of these used by Jesus Himself. The exception (John 12:34) is interesting; it is the crowd in confusion asking, “We have heard from the law that Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is the Son of Man?” The passage, Acts 7:56, is the other exception: Stephen, nearing the end of his life, cried out “Look, I see . . . the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
IV. But There Were Believers in the Crowd for on Some Faces I See Compassion Concern, Concession. V26 “Upon . . . Simon, a Cyrenian, . . . they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.” V27 “And there followed Him a great company of people, . . . which also bewailed and lamented Him.”
They’re the ones who perceived in Jesus the answer to long-standing questions. “Where is God?” “Why was I born?” “What happens when I die?”
Believers were there who saw the world potentially as a better place, not yet ready for His departure, not believing that the tide had turned. Peter (Matthew 16:22) “began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: This shall not be unto thee.”
Perhaps there were those who had measured the required commitment needed by those who remain. Down the ages the crucifixion must be repeated over and over again. What face do you reveal to the Christ who dies there? The face of contempt? That of Consent? One of Confusion? Or the face He wishes to see, of compassion, concern, concession?
Conclusion
We are part of the crowd. We can’t change that. But we do control the kind of face He sees. In the angry crowd every trusting face He sees causes the nails to be less painful, the crown of thorns less burdensome, the hour of death less agonizing. Look up! Look up to Jesus!