The Cross

The government of Polish Prime Minister Jaruzelski had ordered crucifixes removed from classroom walls, just as they had been banned in factories, hospitals, and other public institutions. Catholic bishops attacked the ban that had stirred waves of anger and resentment all across Poland. Ultimately the government relented, insisting that the law remain on the books, but agreeing not to press for removal of the crucifixes, particularly in the schoolrooms.

But one zealous Communist school administrator in Garwolin decided that the law was the law. So one evening he had seven large crucifixes removed from lecture halls where they had hung since the school's founding in the twenties. Days later, a group of parents entered the school and hung more crosses. The administrator promptly had these taken down as well.

The next day two-thirds of the school's six hundred students staged a sit-in. When heavily armed riot police arrived, the students were forced into the streets. Then they marched, crucifixes held high, to a nearby church where they were joined by twenty-five hundred other students from nearby schools for a morning of prayer in support of the protest. Soldiers surrounded the church. But the pictures from inside of students holding crosses high above their heads flashed around the world. So did the words of the priest who delivered the message to the weeping congregation that morning. "There is no Poland without a cross."

Chuck Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict, pp. 202-3.

What is it about the cross?

What is it about the cross that moves people to take such dramatic actions?

What is so important or significant about the cross that it stands in Christianity as the seeming center of our faith?

What is it about a cross that entices us to make an instrument of torture and death the symbol of our faith?

An instrument of suffering and death is our hope for in it, the wrath of God was satisfied and the way to God was opened.

Even in ancient nations, the cross was a recognized and valued symbol.

Egyptians viewed it has a symbol of divinity and eternal life. They were found in the temple of Serapis

The Spaniards found it be well known by the Mexicans and Peruvians. For them, it represented the four elements, the four seasons, and/or the four points on a compass.

Of course, it is central in scripture, in the new covenant.

It was understood to be a symbol of pain, distress, and burden-bearning.

Jesus used the symbol of these things himself in Matthew 10:38 and Matthew 16:24.

In Paul’s writings, the cross is central to the preaching of atonement. 1 Cor 1:18; Gal 6:14; Phil 3:18; Col 1:20

It is the common bond uniting both Jew and Gentile. Eph 2:16

It represents the truth of sanctification as well in Gal 5:24

We understand that the cross is the symbol of our faith and the centerpiece of what we hold dear.

Point is, the cross is so critical and central to everything we do, that we must take time to

I want to take a few moments and talk about the cross. For us to understand and appreciate Christ’s sacrifice this Easter season, for us to fully grasp the magnitude and the richness of the of His sacrifice on our behalf, we need to understand the nature of His death and suffering for us.

I want to first show you what this death would have looked like and meant to the Jew, to the nation of Israel who were looking for their Messiah.

The same people who a week before had giving Him a kingly entrance into Jerusalem.

His death on the cross was offensive to them.

The offensiveness of the Cross

Galatians 3:13

This heralds back to the OT, to Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 21:22-23

God decreed that to punish a man with death and hang his body on a tree was a curse! It would defile the land if the body was allowed to remain there. It was to be taken down before nightfall and buried the same day.

In the book of Joshua, we see the people of Israel abiding by this instruction.

Joshua 8:29; 10:26-27

According to OT law, it was a curse to be put to death by hanging on a tree and there were strict regulations for their handling of deaths that involved hanging upon a tree.

For this reason the cross, the crucifixion, Christ crucified was a stumbling block, an offense to the Jews.

1 Corinthians 1:22-24

The Jews would never accept and understand how their Messiah, their God would be cursed by dying on a tree! This would be offense to them and to their thinking of who the Messiah would be as king and ruler.

Never! Those who die and hang upon a tree are cursed! Not their Messiah! Not their King! Not their God! NEVER!

This is why many Jews reject Christ as Messiah.

The Origins of the Cross

The Romans were bloodthirsty and cruel.

They found the bloodiest and cruelest ways to torture and kill people.

All for sport.

The colosseum hosted many events that dealt in blood and death.

Gladiator combats…to the death of course

Animal fights - Animal to animal fights to the death

Naval war reenactments - Condemned prisoners and slaves were do real fighting and endure real death in the reenactments of these wars.

Public executions by wild animal, but fighting gladiators, or even by fighting each other. Other forms involved burning alive or crucifixions. They would even dress up the condemned as a character from Roman mythology for entertainment sakes.

The crucifixion was in the invention of the Romans.

And it was Hideous.

What was involved with death on a cross?

Taken from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Cross

The name is not found in the Old Testament. It is derived from the Latin word crux.

In the Greek language it is stauros, but sometimes we find the word skolops used as its Greek equivalent. The historical writers, who transferred the events of Roman history into the Greek language, make use of these two words.

No word in human language has become more universally known than this word, and that because all of the history of the world since the death of Christ has been measured by the distance which separates events from it. The symbol and principal content of the Christian religion and of Christian civilization is found in this one word.

Forms of the Cross

The cross occurs in at least four different forms:

(1) The form usually seen in pictures, the crux immissa, in which the upright beam projected above the shorter crosspiece; this is most likely the type of cross on which the Saviour died, as may be inferred from the inscription which was nailed above His head;

(2) The crux commissa, or Anthony's cross, which has the shape of the letter T;

(3) The Greek cross of later date, in which the pieces are equally long;

(4) The crux decussata, or Andrew's cross, which has the shape of the letter X.

Crucifixion

We already mentioned that it was offense to the Jews.

Truth is though, the Romans viewed is not differently. It was just as much an abomination to them. So much so, Romans citizens were exempt from it. Cicero noted...

“Let the very name of the cross be far away not only from the body of a Roman citizen, but even from his thoughts, his eyes, his ears” (Cicero Pro Rabirio 5).

This form of death was considered, by the Roman, as a death for slaves. (Cicero In Verrem i. 5, 66; Quint. viii.4).

The earliest mode of crucifixion seems to have been by impalation, the transfixion of the body lengthwise and crosswise by sharpened stakes, a mode of death-punishment still well known among the Mongol race.

The usual mode of crucifixion was familiar to the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, Persians and Babylonians (Thuc. 1, 110; Herod. iii.125, 159). Alexander the Great executed two thousand Tyrian captives in this way, after the fall of the city. The Jews received this form of punishment from the Syrians and Romans (Ant., XII, v, 4; XX, vi, 2; BJ, I, iv, 6).

The punishment was meted out for such crimes as treason, desertion in the face of the enemy, robbery, piracy, assassination, sedition, etc.

It continued in vogue in the Roman empire till the day of Constantine, when it was abolished as an insult to Christianity.

Among the Romans crucifixion was preceded by scourging, undoubtedly to hasten impending death.

The victim then bore his own cross, or at least the upright beam, to the place of execution.

When he was tied to the cross nothing further was done and he was left to die from starvation. If he was nailed to the cross, at least in Judea, a stupefying drink was given him to deaden the agony. The number of nails used seems to have been indeterminate. A tablet, on which the feet rested or on which the body was partly supported, seems to have been a part of the cross to keep the wounds from tearing through the transfixed members (Iren., Adv. haer., ii.42).

The suffering of death by crucifixion was intense, especially in hot climates. Severe local inflammation, coupled with an insignificant bleeding of the jagged wounds, produced traumatic fever, which was aggravated the exposure to the heat of the sun, the strained of the body and insufferable thirst.

The swelled about the rough nails and the torn lacerated tendons and nerves caused excruciating agony.

The arteries of the head and stomach were surcharged with blood and a terrific throbbing headache ensued.

The mind was confused and filled with anxiety and dread foreboding.

The victim of crucifixion literally died a thousand deaths.

Tetanus not rarely supervened and the rigors of the attending convulsions would tear at the wounds and add to the burden of pain, till at last the bodily forces were exhausted and the victim sank to unconsciousness and death.

The sufferings were so frightful that “even among the raging passions of war pity was sometimes excited” (BJ, V, xi, 1).

The length of this agony was wholly determined by the constitution of the victim, but death rarely ensued before thirty-six hours had elapsed. Instances are on record of victims of the cross who survived their terrible injuries when taken down from the cross after many hours of suspension (Josephus, Vita, 75).

Death was sometimes hastened by breaking the legs of the victims and by a hard blow delivered under the armpit before crucifixion. Crura fracta was a well-known Roman term (Cicero Phil. xiii.12). The sudden death of Christ evidently was a matter of astonishment (Mar_15:44). The peculiar symptoms mentioned by John (Joh_19:34) would seem to point to a rupture of the heart, of which the Saviour died, independent of the cross itself, or perhaps hastened by its agony. See BLOOD AND WATER.

AND THIS WAS JUST THE PHYSICAL PAIN

Then, there was the weight and suffering of enduring the GUILT and disgrace for sins he did not commit…

1 Peter 2:21-25

and not just of one person, but of all.

1 John 2:2

He endured separation from his father

Mark 15:33-34

I believe the darkening of the sky was symbolic of this rejection, this forsaking.

God had to reject His Son, His only Son for the sins he bore on our behalf. This was the consequence of sin.

As the hymn goes....God turns his face away.

Jesus endured a breaking in an eternal relationship that had never known any so much as slight difference of opinion.

But for this one moment in eternity, THE PERFECT relationship was severed.

He endured the wrath of God

Isaiah 53:10-11

It was God’s will...

He was satisfied...

Jesus bore the full brunt of His father’s wrath against our sin, so that we did not have to.

He felt the full weight of God’s holy justice against, not just one persons sins, but the entire world.

You have here a death far worse than you and I can imagine.

This is why the cross elicits such attention, demands such submission, and sits at the center of our worship forevermore.

For without the cross, there is no salvation.

Big Idea: An instrument of suffering and death is our hope for in it, the wrath of God was satisfied and the way to God was opened.