Sermon Tone Analysis

I read this week* that there are sixty-five new massive rollercoasters opening around the world this year.

There are already hundreds of breath-taking roller coasters around the globe, and they’ve all been rated by various rollercoaster enthusiasts.

The top-rated rollercoaster in the world is reportedly the Kingda Ka at Six Flags in New Jersey.

It goes from zero to 138 miles an hour in less than four seconds and has a straight, vertical 90 degree drop.

I only know of one rollercoaster more dramatic, and that’s Matthew, chapters 27 and 28—and the rollercoaster of emotions connected with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I describe it as a rollercoaster of emotions because I want you to try to visualize and internalize the ups and downs of that world-changing weekend—the depths of horror and depression and despair; the tinges of excitement as hints and rumors of the resurrection began to appear; and then the massive explosion of joy which is still reverberating through history and is ringing out in millions of hearts today.

I’d like to ask you three questions this morning along these lines:

*Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?*

*Experience the Grief*

*(Matthew 27:32-39).*

First, were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Or to put it differently, can you imagine the grief experienced by His family and friends as they gazed at His beaten and battered body hanging exposed on the cross?

Here’s the way Matthew expressed it in chapter 27 of his Gospel:

/As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.

They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Scull).

There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it.

When they had crucified Him, they divided up His clothes by casting lots.

And sitting down, they kept watch over Him there.

Above His head they placed the written charge against Him: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.

Two robbers were crucified with Him, one on His right and one on His left.

Those who passed by hurled insults at Him, shaking their heads…./

/ /

/From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”

– which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”/

/ /

/…And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit…/

/ /

A man recently corresponded with me about this.

He had read one of my books and was commenting about the hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross.”

In his letter, he made an interesting observation.

The crosses that hang around our necks or that adorn our churches are polished and smooth.

If someone makes a wooden cross for a church sanctuary, for example, they typically sand it down and put a coat of varnish or polyurethane over it.

You can run your hand over it without getting any cuts or splinters.

It’s as smooth as a piece of furniture.

But the Romans who cut the trees and split the wood and formed the cross of Christ had no such designs.

The wood was rough and jagged and filled with hundreds of sharp splinters of varying sizes.

The wood was perhaps riddled with insects.

When the raw and scourged back of Jesus Christ was forced onto that wood and raised perpendicular to the ground, the full weight of his body bore down on all those splinters and exposed Him to all the tortures of that wood.

Mel Gibson tried to portray the torture of crucifixion in his movie about the passion of Christ, and people around the world were shocked at how graphic and bloody it was.

But the reason is because the cross portrays our sins, and our sins are very ugly and very deadly.

It’s a gruesome but a perfect symbol.

The Bible teaches that on the cross, Jesus was bearing the ugliness and deadliness of our own sins, and the power of His shed blood is sufficient to obtain our eternal pardon.

Seven hundred years before the crucifixion of Christ, the prophet Isaiah predicted and described it for us and explained to us its meaning.

He wrote: /He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes are we healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all./

/ /

Every one of our sins was laid on our Lord that day.

Think of it!

Your sins and mine.

The worst and darkest of all our secrets, and those sins that are so small that we may not even be aware of them.

There’s not anything you can do that’s beyond the scope of the blood of Jesus Christ and His ability to fully pardon and forgive.

So my first question today is, have you been to Calvary?

Have you gazed upon the very dying form of one who suffered there for you and me?

Can you imagine the grief of that day?

*Were You There When They Laid Him in the Tomb?*

*Experience the Despair*

*(Matthew 27:57-61)*

The second question is: Were you there then they laid Him in the tomb?

In other words, can you imagine the despair of that Friday night and that black and hopeless Saturday?

Let’s continue reading Matthew’s description of it:

/As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph who had himself become a disciple of Jesus.

Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.

Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock.

He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.

/

/ /

They were utterly helpless and felt utterly hopeless.

Think of how Mary the mother of Jesus felt.

Think of how Peter felt.

Suppose that someone comes up to you, doubles up his fist, and slams it into your face.

That would be bad enough, but what if he aims next for your stomach, then for your kidney.

Multiple blows are catastrophic to our bodies and to our nervous systems.

And here the followers of Jesus had multiple blows.

First, their dearest one had died.

Second, He had died young.

Third, He had been tortured to death before their very eyes.

Fourth, they had deserted Him at His moment of greatest need, and they were overwhelmed, not only with grief but with guilt.

Fifth, they had not only lost their friend, they had literally lost their religion.

They had based their eternal destiny and their spiritual hope on Jesus as the Messiah, and they apparently been wrong.

For us, when we suffer a crippling loss, at least we can find comfort and solace in our faith and in the promises of God; but these people no longer had that.

Their so-called Messiah—or what was left of His mangled body—was in the tomb.

Sixth, they no longer even had jobs or normal occupations or a routine to which they could return.

They had left all to follow Him.

Virtually everything in their lives had collapsed, and the blackness of despair had fallen over their lives like the edge of night.

Often as I read the Bible, I say to myself, “I wish I had been there just for the day.

I wish I could have seen this or that take place.”

But I’ve never wanted to have been there on that black Saturday when the followers of Christ were trapped in a nightmare and His body was laying lifeless in that tomb.

Yet all of us need to go there and understand and appreciate it.

Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?

Can you imagine the despair of that day?

*Were You There When He Rose Up from the Grave?*

*Experience the Joy*

*(Matthew 28:1-10)*

But you can anticipate my third question: Were you there when He rose up from the grave?

Can you imagine the intoxicating joy, the happiness, the exuberance of that dawning Easter Sunday?

Matthew describes it like this:

/After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.

His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.

The guards were so afraid of Him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.

He is not here; He has risen, just as He said.