Why Did the Cross Have to Happen?

Transcription

1 March 9, 2014 CRUX Why Did the Cross Have to Happen? Scripture Lesson: 2 Corinthians 5:21 Dr. Victor D. Pentz Senior Pastor In Dali s painting, the cross is a triangle pointed as a gift toward Earth. Salvation is a gift from God. It s not a little of me and a lot of God. It s all God. It s our job to receive it. This morning we launch a new series we re calling Crux. Crux is a word with a double meaning. Crux is the Latin word for cross. At the same time, we often say in conversations, Well, the crux of the matter is... In other words, The main point when all is said and done is. The real issue, the bottom line, the sixty four dollar question, the name of the game is such and such. Both of those meanings are embraced in our title. The cross of Christ is what life is all about. What Jesus did on that Friday afternoon is the most important act anyone ever did. Now I m not making this very clear, so I ll show you what does: this painting. Here s Jesus on the cross as the center of everything in heaven and on earth.

2 2 Why Did the Cross Have to Happen? CRUX We begin our Lenten series on the art of Jesus during Holy Week with the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali. Now Salvador Dali was a very unique person. Many believe his greatest work of art was his moustache. Dali didn t smoke. Instead he carried around a diamond-studded cigarette case filled with moustaches. He d say to his friends, Moustache? Moustache? Moustache? Sometimes God uses very strange people to do amazing things; just look around Peachtree and at this painting, which has been called the most enduring image of the crucifixion to emerge from the 20th century. It s based on a sketch of the crucifixion by a medieval mystic, St John of the Cross, and, interestingly, hangs in a museum in Glasgow, Scotland. In a recent poll the people of Scotland named this their most beloved painting. Not long ago, Spain offered Scotland 130 million dollars to buy it back and Scotland said, No thanks. So this morning let s let Salvador Dali take us on a journey through time and eternity that will lead us right back here to this table and this bread and this cup. I want to tell you why I love this painting. A Cosmic Act of God First it sets the crucifixion on a grand scale. This wasn t just a lonely Jewish peasant who struggled to heave a heavy cross up a hill. This was God s son. What Jesus did was a cosmic event. Here we see Ephesians 4:10: Who is he who descended but he who ascended that he might fill the universe. Our Lord hanging in space reminds me of the movie Gravity. If you saw it, by the way, you know it has no gravity it s all in zero gravity. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are astronauts stranded in space after a catastrophe in which debris from a satellite obliterates their space shuttle. It s eerie how realistic the movie is. Having been the chaplain for three real live Space Shuttle crews and having prayed with them and their families on the ground that nothing like that would happen in space, I was unsettled to watch all that graphic carnage and terror. The other way this movie is very real is it shows how people become very spiritual in space. Sandra Bullock s character is a doctor and a very tightly wound, secular person on earth, but up there, wafting alone in the vast emptiness of the universe awakens her need for God. She sees a little Russian orthodox prayer icon in the capsule, left by a now-dead astronaut, and she explodes, My parents never taught me how to pray. Then there s this sudden realization that what she just said was a prayer, a cry to God. I m not going to spoil it, but later she even bows her head and says, Thank you. Surrounding her every moment in space is this Christ who Ephesians says, fills the universe. There s something about space. The astronauts of Apollo 8 when they did their slingshot around the moon on Christmas 1968 read to the world the first 10 verses of Genesis. During his moonwalk, Buzz Aldrin, who was the second man to walk on the moon and a Presbyterian elder, secretly gave himself communion. I want you to know here at Peachtree this morning, our elders sitting in these front rows are out of this world. The astronauts I prayed with would go up in space and read Psalm 39: If I rise to the heavens you are there. Here is Christ filling the universe, the Lord of all. And that leads to the sheer impact and genius of this work why it takes our breath away. This is the only painting of the crucifixion from the point of view of the Father. All others have us on the ground looking up into the face of Jesus. But here is a bird s eye view of Golgotha where we have the eyes of the Father looking down on his precious son as he dies on the cross. Let this image sink in and see if you don t agree that the only suitable caption is, For God so loved the world he gave his son.

3 3 Why Did the Cross Have to Happen? CRUX The cross was a cosmic act of God. An Act of Violence Second, we see in this painting that the cross was an act of violence. Here is God s son pinned like an insect to a tree. It s hard to blame people for thinking Christians are strange. What would you think if you heard there was a group of people who got together regularly to sing, In the Electric Chair I Glory or Lift High the Guillotine or On a hill far away stood an old rugged firing squad...and I love that old firing squad? Somebody call Homeland Security or a therapist. A few years ago at the release of the movie Passion of the Christ, I remember one outraged reviewer was so appalled by the graphic violence that he called it a snuff film, The Chainsaw Jesus Massacre. Crucifixion was one of the most hideous means of taking a life ever devised. I m not going to go into details. Think about this: the historian Thomas Cahill points out that no one who actually saw a crucifixion could bring himself to draw a picture of one. The church did not begin portraying Jesus on the cross in art until the fifth century A.D. If you go down into the catacombs of Rome where Christians were hiding in the first century, on the walls you see lots of art. You see sketches of Jesus and Mary, Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus healing people. But the first known discovery of a small drawing of Jesus on the cross does not appear until the fifth century in the Roman basilica of Santa Sabina. That s a hundred years after Rome stopped using crucifixion. No one who actually saw a crucifixion ever drew Jesus on a cross. It was that horrific. And yet, imagine this: the cross was the thing Jesus most looked forward to in his life, albeit with fear and trepidation. Again and again in the gospels he would speak of his hour: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Now is my heart troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No. It was for this very reason that I came to this hour. At the Oscars last Sunday night the actors and actresses walked the red carpet, and afterwards a few of them had their hour when they were glorified in the spotlight, drenched in adulation and admiration of the world. For the rest of their lives they are going to be saying, That was my hour. Today Jesus looks at the cross and says, That was my hour. His hour for what? What did it accomplish? Here s the big word: atonement. The Cross was a cosmic act of violence that resulted in atonement literally, at-one-ment between us and God. Jesus was our atoning sacrifice. Atonement is a payment that brings two people who were estranged back together. We do this all the time. Believe it brace yourselves but every once in a while I hurt my wife s feelings. I think the last time was oh, Seriously, suppose I make an insensitive, hurtful comment to my spouse. What happens? Just like this instant estrangement: Pentz you blew it. What were you thinking? How can we get back together? It s lonely on the couch. What it s going to take is an atonement. I have to pay something. What do I pay? It was something I said a verbal hurt so I have to set it right with a verbal payment. I come crawling on my knees, in effect, and eat my words: I m sorry, I was wrong. I lose face, which I hate to do, but if I do not we will remain in that unresolved state of painful conflict. We ll have no at-one-ment unless I make atonement. I say what needs saying. We fix it. But then suppose I do something more serious, even more obnoxious and hurtful to my spouse, and I rush to say, Honey, I m really sorry. You know what s coming next, I bet, and rightfully so. She says, I appreciate your apology, but I m not sure I can get over this just by having you say something. I m going to have to see a real change in behavior before I can

4 4 Why Did the Cross Have to Happen? CRUX ever trust you again. The chasm between us now is not just verbal; it s behavioral. It s going to take more than words to patch things up between us more than a dozen long-stem roses. A behavioral payment must be made. I must change my life. (Thanks to Timothy Keller.) Jesus as Atonement But now what if my life is a broken mess? What if the rift in question is not between me and my spouse, but between me and God? This is a cosmic rupture. And what if it s not a verbal rift or a behavioral rift but my all-out rebellion against God s authority in my life? Where does that atonement come from? It s not going to come from me. I can t bridge that gap. That is going to have to come from the other side. Here s Jesus on the cross, beautifully portrayed as the bridge between earth and heaven, God s atoning sacrifice. Ephesians 2:13 says, But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (ESV) In the cross we have at-one-ment with God. Now some people are outraged that Jesus had to die for us to think that we re all that bad. Then add to that the yuck factor of a cross, and they say, Here s this bloodthirsty God. Tim Keller has so many insights into this. He gives an example from one of his seminary professors who said, Just imagine, my house is burning down, but I have gotten out and I m safe. I m not really dying in the house. My family is all safe. What if my neighbor comes by and says, Dr. Nicole, let me show you how much I love you, and runs into the house and throws himself into the fire and dies? Would you say, Ah! Now there s a man who really loved me? No, you d say, There s a man who is crazy! I wasn t in any danger. Why would he die for me? On the other hand, Dr. Nicole said, Suppose one of my children is still in the building and is in danger of being killed as the building is burning down, and the neighbor comes and says, Dr. Nicole, let me show you how much I love you, and he runs into the building. On the way out, he saves my little girl, saves my little boy, and in so doing he dies himself. Then what do I say? Here s somebody who loved me, because, you see, we were in danger, and he died for us. If you don t believe you are lost unless Jesus died for you, the cross is totally meaningless to you. It s like giving a bicycle to a fish. It s only if you re like Sandra Bullock, lost in space and desperately seeking a way out, that the cross has any meaning at all for you. There are amazing lines from song writer Leonard Cohen: Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water, And he spent a long time watching from a lonely wooden tower; And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him, He said, All men are sailors until the sea shall free them.

5 5 Why Did the Cross Have to Happen? CRUX Why not connect being here this morning with those gnawing fears that keep you awake at night, with that habit that wraps you in chains, with those moments when you may even question whether this so-called life of yours is worth living. This cross is your one and only hope. He died for you. If you don t believe me, ask Salvador Dali. Look here. Jesus arms and feet on the cross form an inverted triangle, perhaps symbolic of the Trinity. But even more, Jesus head is a circle at the center of the triangle, saying all he did for us on the cross is the center and meaning of everything in the universe. This triangle points at earth and says, Here. This is for you. Receive this. In Our Proper Place The beauty of this painting and of this table is they put Christ where he belongs and us where we belong. The communion puts Jesus in his proper place on the cross and at this table offering us his sacrificed life, and it puts us in our place with our hands open to receive that without which we would not have forgiveness of sins. Tom Allen, a former Army Ranger, tells this story: I finally saw Saving Private Ryan about two weeks ago. I was extremely proud until the last minute of the movie. As the movie began, I was proud watching the Rangers take Omaha Beach. Then the story begins when they receive a mission to go deep into enemy territory to save Private Ryan. They hit skirmish after skirmish, and some of them are killed along the way. They finally get to where Private Ryan is holed up, and they say, Come with us. We ve come to save you. He says, I m not going. I have to stay here because there s a big battle coming up, and if I leave my men they re all going to die. What do the Rangers say? We ll stay here and fight with you. They all stay and fight, and it s gory and hard, and almost everyone dies except Private Ryan. At the end, one of the main characters Tom Hanks is sitting on the ground. He s been shot and he s dying. The battle has been won. Private Ryan leans over to him, and Tom Hanks whispers something to him. Everyone in the theater is crying because Tom Hanks was shot; I was crying because of what Tom Hanks said it was so terrible. Private Ryan bent down and Tom Hanks said, Earn this. The reason that made me angry is no Ranger would ever say, Earn this. Why? Because the Ranger motto for the past 200 years has not been Earn this. The Ranger motto for the past 200 years has been Sua sponte, I chose this. I volunteered for this. So, when Private Ryan bent down, if Tom Hanks was really a Ranger he would have said, Sua sponte; this is free. I chose this. You don t owe anything for this. I give up my life for you. It s why I came. (Preaching Today) And so when you look up at the cross and see Jesus hanging there, don t hear, Earn this. Never ever does Jesus ever say, Earn this. Look what I did for you; now you gut it out for me. What Jesus says to you this morning is Sua sponte. I chose this. This is free. You don t have to pay anything for this. All you have to do is receive it. And it s all you have to do, but it s something you must do today. Let me leave you with one thought. Think of a drug like penicillin. It was first discovered in England in the last century and has saved hundreds of millions if not billions of lives. If I were living at that time and I had an infection that was killing me, my healing would take three steps. First I accept that this miracle drug exists. I have faith that there s a little bottle that can

6 6 Why Did the Cross Have to Happen? CRUX save my life. Second, I may trust that it really works. It cures deadly infections like the one I have. But nothing is going to change for my benefit until I receive the drug that contains penicillin. I must allow it to come into me and destroy the bacteria that are slowly killing me. Even though I believe it s there and it does good things, it does me no good until I receive it. (Alistair MacIntire) That s why we come to this table: to receive the sacrificial death of Jesus which brings at-one-ment with God. All you have to do is receive. And that s all you have to do nothing more. It doesn t matter who you are or what car you drive, or where you ve been or even where you spent last night. That triangle points down at you and says, Here, receive this. This is my body. This is my blood. Sua sponte. It s for you. Prayer: God, how incredible it is to see the cross through your eyes, to get a glimpse of the cost of this table and the depth of our love for us. Lord, we re all lost in space spinning around in search of what only you can give us. And so this morning with grateful hearts we receive you into our lives. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

7 NOTES: 7 Why Did the Cross Have to Happen? CRUX

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