Sermon Tone Analysis
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The True Focus of the Cross
Please open your Bibles to .
We come to one of the most dramatic parts of the Bible, the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Let’s read .
Read .
When we think of the crucifixion, many things come to mind.
Many times we think of the intense suffering that Jesus endured.
We think of movies and images that portray the suffering Messiah.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ come to mind.
Every blow that Jesus experienced is put in full display.
And you, the watcher, cringe with each new wound that’s opened on the Christ.
I’m sure you’ve heard sermons that detail every part of the process.
Describing in gory detail how Jesus’ body would have reacted to the torture.
What’s interesting, is when you read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, when you read the Gospels and how they describe the Cross, it’s not quite the same.
The Cross is there.
The agony is there.
But not all the detail that we are familiar with.
In Luke, we don’t read of:
The nails going into Jesus’s hands.
They actually would have gone into His wrists.
But we don’t hear about it.
There’s no mention of anyone holding Jesus down.
No description of a Roman soldier with a mallet, piercing his divine flesh.
We don’t read of any nail in His feet.
It would have been a single nail, going through his feet.
His knees would be bent, and his legs at a slight angle to the side.
We don’t read of Jesus slowly suffocating on the cross.
There’s no mention of Him hanging on the wooden Cross, and pushing up on those poor legs, that are braced to the wood with a single nail.
Then pushing up on those poor legs, that are braced to the wood with a single nail.
No mention of him pushing himself up, so that He can get a single breath, and then collapse back down.
With that nail in his feet catching the weight of his body, slamming upon it, tearing skin, ligaments and bone.
No mention of that.
We don’t read of Jesus crying in pain.
And did it hurt?
You bet it did.
Probably the best word to describe the worst pain, would be the word excruciating.
You ever had excruciating pain.
On a scale of 1 to 10, excruciating is an 11.
Things in my life that I would describe as excruciating pain:
Would be after my appendix was removed, and the hole in my side was infected.
Excruciating.
When I’d fall and twist my ankle, one time even breaking it.
Watching my foot grow two times it size.
My ankle extend past the sides of my shoes.
And my feet turn shades of black and blue that it shouldn’t.
Excruciating.
As painful as those events were, probably not up to the true meaning of the word excruciating.
The word has a Latin origin meaning out of the Cross.
Our best words to describe great pain, have the Cross in mind.
And yet, the Gospel writers don’t mention these things.
People are mentioned.
Criminals are mentioned.
Romans are mentioned.
But none of the details that we have grown so familiar with.
None of that is mentioned.
Maybe it’s because the original audience was so familiar with crucifixion.
The Romans made crucifixion a public event.
People were crucified on hillsides and along roads.
I read one source, not sure how accurate it was, but it said that they could have executed as many as 30,000 people a year.
So maybe the reason why the Gospel writers didn’t include the details of the crucifixion is because it was so well known.
Have you ever wondered how something so terrible could then become a part of our culture?
The Cross was an execution device.
What’s an execution device to us?
The electric chair.
A hangman’s noose.
A firing squad.
Lethal injection.
And yet we don’t wear necklaces with 14 karat gold electric chairs on them.
And we don’t hang lethal injection needles on our walls at home or churches as decorations.
How did the Cross become so special?
How did it become something we sing about?
How did something that was so terrible become known as:
The Wonderful Cross.
Something that we remember fondly, like The Old Rugged Cross.
Because the writers of the Gospels, knew the cross was a place of victory.
The victory of the Cross begins with a declaration.
Our main text is going to be verses 32-49.
And the victory declaration is found in verse 34, which I also believe is one of the most offensive sentences in the Bible.
Jesus is on the cross and he prays.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
On first reading, that just seems wrong.
It seems as if contradicts the rest of the Bible.
It’s not the forgiveness part that hits me wrong.
It’s that He would forgive people who don’t recognize Him, who don’t know who He is.
The Gospel call is that people are to repent and have faith.
The great Christian message is that we have a great king, who conquered death.
And He is who we proclaim.
He is who we believe in.
He is who we trust in.
says you must believe in your heart, and confess with your mouth and you will be saved.
That’s the message.
And yet here, Jesus is forgiving people who don’t know Him as Lord.
Who have no sorrow or remorse for their sin.
They are not repenting, they’re in the middle of their sin.
And Jesus says forgive them.
Doesn’t that seem to go against the Christian message?
In some ways it even sounds like universalism.
People can go to heaven not knowing Jesus.
And by the way, Jesus isn’t making a request.
He’s not saying, “Father, please forgive them.”
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