On The Cross
Sermon by Pastor Dave Collins
The Gospel of John was written down some 60 years after the resurrection in response to a heresy, a false belief, a deception that was spreading in the Church that taught that Jesus wasn’t really a human being. It was dangerous because of the implication, which was that Jesus wasn’t really human because the material world didn’t really matter, which meant that your choices didn’t really matter…other people didn’t really matter.
This heresy is alive and well today. Not well. Sick. This heresy is alive and sick and spreading today. You can see it in the world, though most don’t take it very seriously. You can see it in billionaires who wonder aloud in their tweets if this world is just a simulation. You can read it in books that teach you can manifest your best life through your thoughts. You can read it in every business plan that threatens environmental, or humanitarian disaster to achieve a 2% return for the stockholder.
But we in the church are guilty of entertaining this heresy every Holy Week in our theology and in our practice in the way that we preach the Cross, and in the ideas that we allow to tickle our ears about it.
I’m talking about the preaching of cheap grace. Churches like ours (and we’re not as guilty as some, but we still bear our share) have taught a version of cheap grace that goes like this: You are such a sinner that you don’t know up from down, or good from bad, that God sent his only Son to pay the penalty for that sin, so that you can be with him forever. All you have to do is say you’re sorry and believe that Jesus died for you, and…here’s where the heresy really clicks in… that’s it. Wash, rinse, repeat.
You can be as mean as you want, so long as you’re mean to the right people, which means of course, the wrong people. You can spend your money however you like, so long as you give us some so we can tell more people that nothing they do matters, so long as they cried in church once, and say they believe.
That heresy comes to a head at the cross. And if you don’t see it, it’s because I’m not explaining it right, not because it’s not there.
So let’s look at John’s account of the cross. Let’s look at what he emphasizes and what he doesn’t.
We pick up with John in 19:16. Jesus has been condemned to death by crucifixion. He has been beaten and mocked. Now he is going to die.
John 19:16-22 NRSV
So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.
The first thing we need to see here is what John doesn’t emphasize. He doesn’t emphasize Jesus’ pain. He doesn’t underline his suffering.
Dale Bruner points out that “A crucifixion cannot be described less dramatically. No gory details, no screams, nor any emotive prose at all…The absence of histrionics impresses.”
Then he puts in parentheses that (Mel Gibson should take notes).
There is nothing wrong with having an emotional appeal at the cross. There’s nothing wrong with tears on this day. But too often in the church today…that’s where it ends. That’s the point. For too many, a connection with God in worship means that you cried. Or it means that you felt guilty. But the problem there is that emotional manipulation is a skill that one can have.
You know that! You’ve met people. Heck you’re related to some of them.
But John doesn’t do that. Let’s go on to find out why.
19 Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
Pilate was the imperial governor of Jerusalem. Israel was a conquered people at the time, and so when the ministerial association of Jerusalem decided to have Jesus killed, they had to go through Pilate.
That’s what they did. They paid off one of Jesus’ disciples to lead them to him, had a trial in the middle of the night, and then woke Pilate up, who did put in a solid effort to get Jesus released, but ultimately washed his hands of the whole matter.
Pilate had a conversation with the incarnate Word, maybe one of the only conversations he had in recent memory where someone wasn’t trying to get something from him, or tell him what he wanted to hear. You can tell it in the text that gets to him a little. The politician comes close to having an actual feeling. John says that he tried to release him, but like so many before and after him, he was just a cog in the machine called the banality of evil.
It’s just my job.
I’m just following orders.
What can one man really do?
So he shows his contempt (probably) for the whole proceeding, or maybe his budding, defiant faith (possibly) by having this sign made. But the crazy part is that it’s a really good condensation of the gospel. So good, that it might just be the first written gospel account! How funny is that? The gospel according to Pilate, in just seven words (Eight in English).
20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.
Bruner, again, “The Cross speaks in tongues the moment it is planted. The Gospel according to Pilate is no sooner preached than it becomes immediately missionary, reaching out to the religious world that spoke Hebrew (in the Aramaic dialect), to the secular-political world that spoke Latin, and to the intellectual-commercial world that spoke Greek.”
21 Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’”
22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”
It sounds a lot like the scriptural preface, “It is written” doesn’t it? I think it’s supposed to. And it helps us see more about the heresy John’s community was struggling against, and that we are too.
You see, when the spiritual is all that matters. When we believe that we are meant to know the truth through our feeling of certainty, that feeling that “I just know”, we are on the path to heresy of Gnosticism. And down that road, and a lot of you are already there, you believe whatever your tribe says. The wrapper becomes much more important than the content. The brand, the delivery, the markers, the emotions, what have you. For Gnostics, they become what determines the truth.
But look at this verse! Possibly the first scripture written down, in three languages no less, that answers the question, “Who is Jesus?” It was written not by a holy man, but by a pagan colonizer. You see, truth isn’t true because of who says it. It’s true because it’s true.
Scripture doesn’t fall out of heaven. Writings become scripture through the life of the church. And look at what this very first, at least chronologically, scripture tells us about Jesus.
Jesus is King
But what kind of king?
Modern day heretics will tell you that since Jesus is King, that means that Jesus is sovereign, that nothing happens without Jesus’ approval, and so everything that does happen, must be the will of God. Why do the rich have yachts with smaller yachts inside of them, while the poor die while rationing their medicine? It must be the will of God.
Heresy. Wrong. Full stop. No matter who says it, or how much you like them.
Jesus isn’t just any kind of king, but the king on the cross. The cross is his coronation. He is that kind of king.
Jesus is a king who can be disobeyed without punishment, but who still teaches you to pluck out your eye if it causes you to stumble.
Jesus is a king who can be ignored without consequence, but still calls his disciples to leave their nets and follow him.
Jesus is the king who judges justly, while leaving it up to the crowd holding rocks to make the right decision.
Jesus is king, and his kingdom is not like any kingdom the world has ever seen. It’s a kingdom of the willing, a kingdom of the obedient…of those who have decided to love like he loves, not just when it’s easy, or they’re motivated by inspiration, but always.
Jesus is king of the church, but in an even more intimate way. When the Bible talks about Jesus’ relation to us, his church, it uses another name: Head. Jesus is the head of the church, the brain, the eyes, ears, noses and mouth. The most important part for sure, but the head can’t do much on its own. In our case, the head chooses to not be able to do much without the rest of the body.
That’s the kind of king Jesus is. This is his coronation. And present at the foot of the cross is his royal court, the founding members of his church.
John 19: 25-27
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.”
27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
I mentioned two weeks ago that John’s community, didn’t need a written down gospel for 60 years because they had John, the beloved disciple, and one other important person they could ask anything of. Well, here she is.
Mary, the mother of God.
“The final gesture of Jesus is to bring Mary and John into oneness as he and the Father are one, to create a covenant of love between them. Jesus does not say to the beloved disciple, “Behold my mother." He says: "Behold your mother." By giving his mother as the mother of the beloved disciple Jesus is calling her to give life to the beloved disciple, to bring Jesus to birth, as it were, within him, so that the disciple may dwell in Jesus and Jesus in him.”
(Jean Vanier, Drawn in the the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John, p. 324)
I can’t help but see Mary’s hand in the gospel of John. Who would have known Jesus’ mind and heart better than his mother? And what a vocation for Mary, to become Mother not only to John, but to the church that began that night at the foot of the cross?
28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.”
But it’s just one word in Greek. The “I am” is contained inside of it. In Greek, it is simply, “Dipso”.
Bruner, “The brevity, we are told, was because it was extremely difficult to speak at all in the almost suffocating crucified position.” Jesus would have had to lift himself up on the nails of his feet to take a breath deep enough to speak. How great must his thirst have been to go to that effort!
It is the last of the “I am” statements from Jesus in John. I am the bread of life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And now, I am thirsty. It’s not what we hope last words to be. And Jesus’ actual last words (at least for today) are more powerful than these. But for second to last words, they underscore the truth about Jesus that John set out to defend. “The Word became flesh - crucified, dying and thirsting flesh. So deep is God’s love for, and the Son’s loyalty to, the human race.” (Bruner. P. 1113)
Looking back, John saw Psalm 22:15 fulfilled. But in that moment, the feeling, the desire, is powerful enough for us.
29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.
Here John saw the fulfillment of Psalm 69:21. “For my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” But the word he wrote in Greek is actually finished, not fulfilled. Three times in three verses, we see the word finished.
28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.”
The first finish was the creation of the church. When Jesus bound his mother to John and his disciple to Mary, “The Little Church of the Faithful Five at the foot of the Cross” began. He trusted them. That was finished. And then John tells us in his editors voice, that Jesus said he was thirsty, in order to finish the scriptures. All of scripture, the Law and the Prophets, the whole story of Israel, leads to Jesus, and finishes here.
Then we have the ultimate finish.
30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.”
But again, it was just one word. Tetelestai. John doesn’t say that “Jesus shouted,” or “he cried out,” but simply, “Jesus said” I imagine him saying it softly, so that you would have to be right at the foot of the cross to hear it.
This word means that a matter “has been brought to its end, its completion, its conclusion, even its perfection.”
What has been made whole, completed, consummated?
John 1:18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
The revelation of God
John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
What has been completed? The mission of the Messiah
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
What has been completed? The reconciliation of the world
30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.”
Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
So who is Jesus?
Jesus is king. But not just any kind of king…the king on the cross. This is not his moment of weakness. It is the point of his power.
He uses that power, that beyond ancient power, not to overthrow the other “powers that be” in the world, but to create a tiny church that loves each other.
This Word that watched and waited for billions of years for this exact moment, this coronation, used it to give all the power to his people. Jesus entrusts it all to four women and one man at the foot of his cross, knowing that more are coming. That Peter and Paul were coming. That you and me were too.
Don’t tell me that our choices don’t matter.
We are our choices.
On the cross, which Jesus chose, we see that. He didn’t get there on his own. It took Judas’ free choice, and the ministerial association’s too. It took Pilate’s choice, and the soldiers’. Those were bad choices, and though God used them, and transformed them, look at what they did.
Those men are those choices for all time.
Look at the foot of the cross. Just five people chose to be there. His mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, and John. He nodded his head and gave up his spirit, and they received it. But they weren’t radically changed, because they chose to be there.
They are their choices for all time.
A man who will always be remembered for his choices, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote this,
"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man’ will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him."
"Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which one must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a person their life, and it is grace because it gives them the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “you were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "The Cost of Discipleship") Amen.