The Cross – Our Way of Life (4)

 

“Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill Scripture, said, “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine vinegar was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine vinegar upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth” (John 19:28 – 29).

 

In Matthew (27:48) and Mark (15:36) the sour wine vinegar is associated with Jesus’ cry of “My God! My God! Why have You forsaken Me?”

 

It was only the night before that Jesus was sharing the cup of the wine of the New Covenant with His disciples. He has gone from the intimacy of the Upper Room to the open shame of the Cross. The hands with which He broke the bread at the Table are now nailed to the Cross. Instead of lifting a cup of wine to His mouth at the Table, a sponge with vinegar is forced upward onto His lips.

 

Jesus inaugurates His ministry with the sign of turning water into fine wine. Jesus concludes His ministry with wine vinegar. Jesus gives fine wine to others; He receives sharp wine vinegar for Himself.

 

Jesus gives the woman at the well living water so that she will never thirst again. Jesus suffers thirst on the Cross.

 

Jesus clothes us with God’s righteousness, while His own body is stripped bear. Jesus is wounded so that our wounds might be healed. Jesus wears the crown of thorns that Adam and his race have woven, so that we might be crowned with God’s glory.

 

Jesus drinks the bitter, that we might drink the sweet.

 

This, dear friends, is the Way of the Cross, the Way of Jesus.

 

When Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6), He is speaking of us entering into Him and living by His Life. He is our source of life, our breath, our heartbeat; the way He lives is the Way we live. We learn to drink the bitter so that others may drink the sweet.

 

We learn to turn water into wine, we learn to give others the water that becomes a fountain of life within them so that they will never draw water from wells again, we learn to share the Body and  Blood of Jesus in holy Communion at the Lord’s Table, we learn to prepare that Table for others in the presence of their enemies, and we learn to have outstretched hands to the world in the Name of Jesus, and the drink the bitter and sharp wine vinegar that the world offers to us in order that others may live.

 

We learn to live in Jesus the Vine, as Christ toward others, as Jesus Christ lives within us; knowing that we “have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves” (2 Cor. 4:7). Let us make no mistake, we are speaking of a “treasure”! While we acknowledge the frailty of the earthen vessels, let us exalt and magnify the treasure, our Lord Jesus Christ. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

 

With Paul we are called to confess, “Death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:12).

 

The Way of the Cross is the Way of drinking the bitter so that others may drink the sweet. It is bearing the sorrows and burdens and sufferings of the world, as we live in Christ and as Christ lives in us, so that others may live.

 

The Way of the Cross is living with our arms and hands outstretched.

 

When we appear before Jesus will He ask, “Show Me your hands”?  

 

 

The Cross - Our Way of Life (3)

 

 

“Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing”” (Luke 23:34).

 

Betrayed by one who has been near Him for three years. Abandoned by those with whom He has shared the intimacies of love, friendship, truth, kindness; whom He has invited into the depths of the love of the Father and the Son. Mocked, slandered, delivered for crucifixion by the religious leaders – the leaders who are supposed to be the guardians and transmitters of the covenant which He and His Father gave to Moses. Tortured and crucified by Rome, embodying the governments and powers of this world.

 

“The rulers were sneering at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.” The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!”” (Luke 23:35 – 37).

 

Can we hear the voices?

 

“If You are the Christ of God!”

 

“If You are His Chosen One!”

 

“If You are the King of the Jews!”

 

Can we hear the criminals in their suffering saying, “Save Yourself and us!” (Luke 23:39).

 

Now my friends, let me ask you, what proof would you have that Jesus is the Son of God as He hangs on the Cross, suffering, bearing our sins, bearing the iniquity of mankind in realms that we cannot comprehend? As God of very God hangs there in the suffering of His soul, what proof would you have?

 

Would you like Him to come down from the Cross?

 

Would you have Him call his angels (Matthew 26:53)?

 

What proof would you have that Jesus is the Son of God as He suffers and dies for you? What would satisfy you that you might give your life to Him and take up your cross and follow Him?

 

Behold the cruelty He is enduring! Behold the isolation! Behold the hatred! Listen to the vitriol! Sense the venom spewing from the mouths of the religious leaders! See how pleased they are to finally be rid of Jesus! (Does He not threaten their detente with Rome, with the Imperial Cult? Does not Jesus threaten their religious – political alliances? Does He not pose the same threat to us today?)

 

What proof must we have that Jesus is God?

 

Jesus is displaying what is perhaps the greatest evidence of His Divinity as mockery and hatred is hurled as Him, as His suffering body undergoes the torture of crucifixion, as His very soul bears our sins, our wickedness, our evil – personal and collective, as He moves toward a curtain of darkness, as the judgment of God falls upon Him as both Priest and Sacrifice…as all of this swirls around Him and within Him…

 

He is saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

 

Now, dear friend, what more would you have?

 

What more would you ask from Jesus?

 

The Cross - Our Way of Life (2)

 

 

“Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Matthew 27:45 – 46).

 

“The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized” (Mark 10:10:39).

 

To be called into the fellowship of His sufferings is to be called into depths of Divine mystery. Whether with the psalmist of Psalm 22, with Jesus on Calvary, or with Paul and his friends in their affliction in Asia (2 Cor. 1:2 – 11), we are called to places we will not always understand, places not always visible to the natural eye.

 

Paul writes, “We were burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:8 – 9).

 

Paul knew that the sufferings he and his companions experienced were for the blessing of others. “We are comforted by God so that we may comfort you” (2 Cor. 1:4). “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation” (2 Cor. 1:6).

 

“So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:12).

 

Do we not see our Lord Jesus in Paul?

 

“We are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

 

There is, my friends, a shame associated with the Cross of Christ. We are told that we are to “go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:13).

 

Jesus was not ashamed of His shame; He despised it in the light of the joy set before Him. Likewise, we ought not to be ashamed of the shame that the world, the flesh, and even the religious world associates with following the Christ of the Cross, of being associated with the Cross of Christ, of hanging on the Cross with Jesus for the world to see.

 

Paul writes, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16).

 

The Gospel is foolishness in many ways to the world, it appears weak to the world (and to many professing Christians, which I suppose is why we employ the ways of the world), but we are to “know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2; see also 1:17 – 31).

 

This foolishness of the Gospel extends from Jesus dying on the Cross to reconcile us to God, into the Way we live our lives for Him and others. Jesus says that if we are to follow Him that we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him. He asks the quite reasonable question, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul?” (Mark 8:34 – 38). Jesus tells us that we must lose our lives for His sake and the Gospel.

 

Paul writes, “He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:15).

 

Whether we are seeing Jesus in the Gospels, in Psalm 22, Psalm 116, Psalm 118, Isaiah 53, or elsewhere throughout the Bible, we can be assured that the darkness will lift and the light of the glory of God will shine on His servant, on His Son, in glorification and joy and pleasure. This is true of the Body of Christ, and it is true of you and of me, it is true of us.

 

We are indeed called to be broken bread and poured out wine in the hands of Jesus for others. We are the fish and bread with which He feeds the multitudes. We are the lambs the Good Shepherd chooses to give their lives on behalf of others. O what glory to be chosen by our Shepherd, to know that we are in His arms and hands as He offers us up, just as the Father so loved the world that He gave His Son Jesus Christ. Can there be any more glorious fellowship?

 

Some Christians think that Jesus died so that they would not have to suffer, this is a lie. One of the reasons Jesus died on the Cross was that He might bear the wrath of the judgment of God for sin and sins; that our sins might be atoned for and that our sinful selves might be put to death on the Cross, buried with Him, and that we might be raised to newness of life in Christ Jesus – a New Man (Romans chapters 1 – 8).

 

Because we are now raised to newness of life in Jesus Christ, we are called to the life of the Cross, called indeed to suffer; not to suffer for our sins, not to suffer the wrath of God, but to suffer for the glory of God and the blessing of others. We are called to suffer as our Father transforms us into the image of the Firstborn Son.

 

One way to put this is that because of Jesus’ death on the Cross we do not suffer the wrath of God but are now called to suffer for the sake of Christ and others. Jesus did not die so that we might live life on earth in some kind of Christian Disneyland, but so that He could send us into a world of pain and suffering and chaos and hunger and death – so that we might bring the light and love and grace and mercy of Jesus Christ to others…so that the Cross of Christ and the Christ of the Cross might be seen in us and through us.

 

During this season of Lent, will we enter into the sufferings of Jesus Christ? Will we seek to know the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10)?

 

Will we and our congregations become broken bread and poured out wine for others?