So they took Jesus, 17
and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18
There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 19
Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 20
Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 21
So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” 22
Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”
Each of the gospels tells us the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. What stands out is how they can tell such an awful story but do it in a remarkably chaste way, a lack
of embellishment and almost no commentary, just what happened. They display what some scholars have called “a noble reticence.” Here is the greatest thing that ever happened, the most remarkable event in the history of the world, and it is told very simply
with no adornment and in very few verses.
As John Calvin comments, “…these matters call for secret meditation, rather than for the ornament of words.”
There are probably few passages of the Bible that Christians know better than those which tell us of Christ’s death. We are familiar with Golgotha, with the other
two men crucified with Jesus and with the sign that hung over Jesus’ head. It was quite customary for the crime for which the man was being executed to be written and fastened to the cross. Everyone could see what crime the condemned was being punished for
and learn not to commit that crime himself!
Quite ironic that Jesus’ “crime” that is posted, is that He is King. Some have argued that this is Pilate’s last taunt, his revenge on the Jews for having put him
in this uncomfortable position of executing a man he knew full well to be innocent. Of course, John expects that his Christian readers will understand the irony. Jesus, of course, was the King of the Jews and the Roman governor was unwittingly publishing that
fact to the world.
We close our eyes and we can almost see the whole thing can’t we? We can picture in our minds the soldiers casting lots for Christ’s robe. We stand with mouths dropped
open as we can only try to consider the pain and then to hear Jesus making sure that John will take care of Mary, Jesus’ mother. Dying, suffering, and still honoring his mother and caring for sinners.
I am sure you have heard sermons or bible studies or even books you have read that slowly walk you through the process of crucifixion trying to get us to appreciate
what Jesus was made to endure, nothing comes close to this attempt as did Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. However, brothers and sisters, I am not going to do that this morning. We are aware to varying degrees what crucifixion entailed, the horror the
torture that Jesus willingly endured for us.
I want to bring to our attention something else from the text that is easily looked past, and for understandable reasons, being that it falls in the midst of this
awful, almost inconceivable murdering of God the Son. But first, a question: What does all this mean to you? What is your response to what we read? We have heard for so long in so many ways that Jesus died for us…so when you hear it again, has it lost its
wonder?
Or perhaps you don’t think about it all that much, if truth be told because, well, it makes you feel bad? It makes you feel bad that your sins required Jesus to suffer?
So often we refer to Jesus’ death as that which causes us to be forgiven of our sins, which it undoubtedly does, but then we stop. And it is there we condemn ourselves to misunderstanding and shallowness.
Christ died to forgive us AND to transform us…both and you don’t get the one without the other.
There is no way to embrace Jesus without embracing the life He has called us to live, the life He has called us to imitate. There is no way to be a Christian without
embracing the cross, and by that the Bible means what the cross says about who we are and how we live. Our identity, who we are, cannot be known apart from the cross.
This is what I want us to examine more closely this morning. I want to focus on verse 17, “So they took Jesus and he went out…bearing his own cross…” And then
from Hebrews, “So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach that He endured.”
They took Jesus outside the city, outside of the place where God made himself known, outside if you would, the place of God’s blessing, outside the presence of God
and all that he might be sacrificed…we should not read by this too quickly. So, what is the significance of Jesus being taken outside the camp?
On the Day of Atonement when the priests would sacrifice the sin offering, the priests were not permitted to eat this offering as they were the others, it was to be
taken outside the city gates and there it was to be burned. The sacrifice was taken outside the gate because it was an abomination in the eyes of God, utterly repugnant to Him, for it symbolized the sin of His people, therefore, it had to be done away with
outside the holy city, outside the presence of God, for sin has no standing within the presence of God nor the holy people of God.
When Moses came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments in his hands he saw that which was the most distressing thing. He had met with God and now the people of
God were worshiping around a golden image. After this Moses set up a tent outside the camp according to Exodus 33, “a good distance from the camp and he called it the tent of meeting. And it came about that everyone who sought the Lord would go out to
the tent of meeting outside the camp.” Whenever Moses would enter the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent and the Lord would speak to Moses.
Now what is going on? Simply that due to their sin, due to their unbelief, those who wanted to approach God had to go outside the camp, because Israel had rejected
God in unbelief, therefore, they couldn’t meet with God unless they went outside the camp. When those among God’s people had committed a major offence, and were to be put to death according to God’s law, guess where the law said they had to be taken? Outside
the city and there stoned to death. The malefactors, the covenant breakers, would bear their just punishment, but not within the confines of the city, but outside its walls.
The “outside the camp” theology was of great significance for God’s people, they knew about these matters, they knew why things were done outside the camp. And now,
like everything else in the Bible, it culminates in and with our Savior. Just as the carcasses of the sin offerings were burned outside the camp, just as God came down to the tent of meeting outside of the camp, just as the transgressors of the covenant were
to be executed outside the camp, so was our Savior, the sin bearer taken outside the city.
He is the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement, the fulfillment of the Tent of Meeting. He is numbered as a covenant breaker, a transgressor as they led him outside
the city, he became a curse, and he became a curse for you and for me, for cursed is anyone who hangs on a cross.
Brothers and sisters, at the moment of His death when He cries out My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me, He is at that moment, the most vile, the most repugnant,
the most hideous sight that heaven has ever seen and the Father turns His face away. For there, outside the city, out of the presence of God, Jesus becomes sin and the wrath of God falls fully upon Him for us.
So, when you take all of this in, when you calm your mind and think intently about what Jesus was doing and why…what does any of this mean for you when you wake up
tomorrow morning? What are we to do, how are we to think? Do we just say, “Wow, thanks, thanks a lot Jesus, I can’t tell you how much that means to me, really, thanks.” And just go on with our lives like everyone else in the world, even those for whom
He did not die?
I think we would all agree that to do so is just wrong, deeply wrong, but also we would agree that the Lord has much more for us. Hebrews says, “therefore”, (that
is, because Jesus suffered outside the camp) “…therefore let us go forth unto him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured…”
We are being told that we must go to Jesus. Now, perhaps that doesn’t really bother folks, that we must go to Jesus, but of course there is something deeper being
said. We must embrace Him without shame.
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the childhood of Winston Churchill. It is quite a sad story. It is the story of a little boy craving the affection and
interest of his parents but rarely getting it. They were too busy with their careers, their illicit sexual escapades, the endless round of parties, their jockeying for social and political status and influence to have time for the little boy to whom they had
given birth. He would write them pathetic letters asking them to see him in a school play or to watch him perform in some contest, but usually to no avail.
Young Winston got his affection, his sense of worth, the attention he needed and craved as a child not from his parents but from his Nanny, a Mrs. Everest, who, from
his earliest days, he called “Woom.” And then, like other boys of his class, as a young teen he was sent away to school. Public school boys in those days were ashamed of their nannies. A nanny was a kind of reminder of their childhood and they now wanted to
be regarded as men, not as boys. They would no sooner have invited their nannies to their school than an American teenage boy would bring his teddy bear to high school. Young Winston, however, not only invited Woom to come and see him at Harrow, he paraded
his old nurse, immensely fat and all smiles, down High Street, and then unashamedly kissed her in full view of all his classmates. Lest anyone mistake the bravery or the significance of that kiss, one of those who witnessed it was Winston’s fellow student
named Seely, who later became a cabinet colleague of Churchill’s and who was a World War I hero. Seely called that kiss, “One of the bravest acts I have ever seen.” [The Last Lion, 156-157]
Churchill owed his old nurse too much, she had given him too much, to flinch as others did. He loved her too much not to do the difficult thing to demonstrate his
love. And that is what we are being called to when we go outside the camp to where Jesus is. It is kissing the Lord in the High Street. It is publicly declaring that Jesus is your life, and that you love Him and embrace Him, no matter what.
Remember what it meant to go outside the camp, and now we are being told that WE have to go outside the camp where Jesus is. Everything that He is, we have to identify
as ours, we have to intimately own in all parts, even in this, the person and work of the one called Jesus. We must go to him…kiss him in full view of everyone…and identify with Him, regardless of the cost.
Prayer: Father, forgive me for the many times I have acted in the fear of men and not spoken for my Savior when the opportunity was right in front of me to do so.
Why am I so afraid? Why do I play the role of the coward when Jesus has embraced me at such cost? Lord, give me gospel courage to be and to do with joy and love all that would say to myself and the world, that I am His and He is mine! Through Jesus Christ
my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Am I a Soldier of the Cross