Text: Isa 52:13-53:12
(2 Cor 5:14-21, John 18:1-19:42)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
The cross is shocking. For anyone to be put to death on a cross – as thousands were in the Roman Empire – is unthinkable. For an innocent man to be crucified – even when the judge knew that he was innocent – is beyond shocking. But for God in the flesh to be crucified is almost impossible to believe.
And this is why the cross is essential to Christianity. A Christianity without a cross is just sloppy moralism that saves nobody. A Christianity that skips Good Friday to go to Easter Sunday is just feel-good emotionalism. The cross is so central to why we are here that St. Paul sums it up: “We preach Christ crucified.” That is what preachers preach and hearers hear. Like the intersection of the vertical and horizontal bars, the cross is where heaven and earth meet, where God and man intersect, and where all life finds its meaning.
But once again, God dying on a cross is almost impossible to believe. As St. Paul continues about us preaching Christ crucified, it is a “stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” Indeed, to those who have the Old Testament, but don’t really understand it, the cross is a scandal and a pill too large to swallow. To those who worship the pagan gods who aggrandize themselves, a God who dies for His people is just comedic foolishness. But for us, as St. Paul says, the cross is the power and wisdom of God.
Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah knew about the cross. He knew that the Messiah would be the suffering servant. And this is a Messiah that nobody wants. The people would rather have a larger than life strongman on a golden throne than a seemingly helpless man mocked and nailed to a wooden cross.
Isaiah speaks of the Christ as being “marred beyond human semblance,” with “no form or majesty…. Despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief… He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” This is certainly a stumbling block of a Messiah. But Isaiah explains the purpose of the Messiah’s suffering: “Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…. Wounded for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.” For we are like wandering sheep, but the shepherd sacrifices Himself to save us, “and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah goes on to describe, again, seven hundred years ahead of time, the Messiah’s illegal and crooked trial, His execution, and His burial in a rich man’s tomb.
And here is the key, according to Isaiah: “His soul makes an offering for sin” and “He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” And from God’s perspective, this promised Messiah, who dies for His people, “shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.”
St. Paul recognized the crucified Jesus as the Messiah who fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy when he himself wrote: “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.”
Last night, we sang the same Psalm that Jesus sang from the cross, also a confession of the Messiah who suffers and dies for the sin of the world: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?.... I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint…. They have pierced My hands and My feet…. They stare and gloat over Me… they divide my garments… they cast lots.”
The final line in this Psalm, written by David a thousand years before Christ, and fulfilled by Jesus on the cross, is this: “Posterity shall serve Him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn, that He has done it.”
“He has done it,” dear friends. This is our Lord’s victory cry from the cross: “It is finished.” A better translation of this single Greek word might be: “Everything has now been accomplished!”
Isaiah’s prophecy has been fulfilled. David’s Psalm has been brought to reality. Victory over the devil is complete. Our sins have been atoned for. Death has been swallowed up by death. God’s kingdom has invaded and taken over the earth from the forces of evil. The covenant with Israel now extends to people of every “tribe and language and people and nation.”
It is finished. He has done it.
And in spite of these prophecies, Christ crucified remains a stumbling block to the people called under the first covenant. As far as the Gentiles, they see the cross differently. They are not scandalized by it. They aren’t tripped up by it. They simply mock. For their gods are very different: selfish, vain, immoral, and in love with themselves. Their gods destroy one another and men, motivated by petty jealousy and rage. There is no honor and no compassion in their gods. Indeed, the world sees such things as weakness. And so the Gentiles join the Jews in looking at Christ crucified and mocking, wagging their heads, and refusing to believe. Modern-day pagans don’t believe in Zeus and Athena, but rather in science (so-called), in the state, in the popular culture, in technology, in their believed ability to identify as whatever they want, in their material goods, and in their own willful ignorance. They too call Christians “haters” and “deniers” just like the pagan Romans did. They too mock the cross and mock the Crucified One just as did the dominant culture of first century Rome.
But no matter who mocks us, we look at the cross, dear friends, the God who willingly is crucified and who dies for us, this event in history that is almost impossible to believe, and we do just that: “we believe.” And we say it in our creeds. We confess it with our mouths. We stake our very souls on Jesus as our Savior, as the one who restored us to the Father when He declared victory, saying “It is finished.” He has done it.
And not only do we believe, dear friends. We confess it. We say publicly what we believe, and we will not be silenced. We read the Scriptures and do not accept it when pagans try to change the story, or present a different, politically correct Jesus. For we know what happened on that Good Friday. We know what Isaiah and David and Moses and the rest of the prophets said would happen, and we know that Jesus “has done it.” He brought our atonement to its completion. He accomplished the mission. “It is finished.” And He is exalted.
And contrary to appearances, the cross is a symbol of victory, of life, of love, and of God’s wrath being taken from us and placed on a substitute, a sacrificial Lamb “that takest away the sin of the world,” who has mercy on us and grants us peace.
Indeed, to the world, the cross is a symbol of one man’s submission to a more powerful man, but to us, the cross is a symbol of the “love of Christ” that “controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.”
And so, at this point in Holy Week, dear friends, we have pondered our Lord’s passion, crucifixion, His cry of “It is finished,” His death, and His burial in the tomb. But there is still more to come. We know what it is. And yet, we hold off in remembering and pondering what comes next until the Lord’s Day – the third day from today.
But today, let us ponder the cross. Let us rejoice in what God the Son has done for us by His death and burial. Let us ponder this victory. Let us take the message of the cross, the “ministry of reconciliation” to the world. Let us look to the cross and see what God wants us to see: His love, His forgiveness, His atonement, and His victory. He has done it! It is finished!
Amen
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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