"Mighty. Awesome, Wonderful is the Holy Cross. Where the Lamb lay down his life to lift us from the fall. Mighty is the power of the Cross." Those words of Chris Tomlin echo the thoughts of Isaac Watts when he said, "When I survey the wondrous cross, On which the Prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride." The Apostle Paul would say, "For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (I Cor. 1:18). There is always something deeply and powerfully compelling about the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Our message today is the second in our series "The View from the Cross." In this series we are using the figures and faces of those who witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus and one who did not see the event but experienced its effects. We are looking at the people Jesus viewed as he was crucified. One group of people that Jesus saw from the cross was the women of Jerusalem who wept for him and the women of Galilee who watched and grieved as he died. What I want us to see is that the women show us that pity for Jesus’ pain can never substitute for surrender to his purpose.

As Luke unveils his drama of Jesus’ crucifixion, we have already witnessed the encounter Jesus had with Simon from Cyrene, who was forced to carry Jesus’ cross. Immediately after Jesus is relieved of his cross he sees a group of women whom he calls the "daughters of Jerusalem", who are grief-stricken or, better, "wailing" and weeping for him as he leaves the city of Jerusalem. Luke mentions another group of women that are different from this group who watched Jesus’ entire ordeal of crucifixion. He refers to them as "the women who had followed him from Galilee." They as well are overcome by what they saw and in deep sorrow.

No other gospel is more sensitive to the role of women in the gospel story that Luke. He provides us with intimate details of Mary, Jesus’ mother, and numerous other women, all of whom are seen or portrayed as having an affinity for Jesus and his ministry. Each of the gospel writers mention women who were close to Jesus and many who were around the cross itself. The reason Luke doesn’t tell us who these women from Galilee are is because he has already done that in Luke 8:2. There he mentions a group of women who had each been delivered by an evil spirit or been healed of a disease by Jesus. They were Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna. Mark includes another woman named Mary and Salome (Mark 15:40-41). Each of these have their own story but as a group they followed Jesus in his ministry, served his needs and gave him money as he needed it along with the disciples. Never has a group of people served under such strain and hopelessness and been as faithful as those women. This group followed him in life, watched him die and prepared his body for burial. They were devoted to him in life and refused to allow death to separate them from that devotion.

Up until this moment after Jesus’ trial before Pilate he has been silent. He has suffered in silence yet something that he saw in the grief of the women from Jerusalem compelled him to give what some scholars call his last sermon. The scene is chaotic with the crowds shouting, soldiers pushing him toward Golgotha, Simon following behind with the cross and then the piercing wailing of a group of women surrounding him as he trudges along the road. They are close enough to hear him utter words that are labored but clear in a surprising rebuke to the women for their actions.

I have no doubt that these women knew Jesus. Perhaps they had heard him teach in his last week in the Temple or witnessed his miracles. They are more than overcome by what they see happening to Jesus, they are out of control. Luke describes them as bewailing and lamenting the sight of Jesus. The first word describes the repeated action of beating their chests while the second word pictures loud, continual weeping. I don’t believe this was for show but genuine sympathy for the original text says they wept "for him." Jesus as well recognized their sincerity when he tells them to not weep "for me." These women are showing outwardly their sense of despair over the injustice and despicable treatment of Jesus. He was innocent and they wanted him to know how grieved they were that this should happen to him.

Have you ever heard anyone wail in grief? I have on different occasions and it is a sound you never forget. Your natural response is to console or comfort a person in such agony. Yet that is not at all what Jesus does. He, instead, tells them in the strongest terms possible, "Don’t weep for me! Stop now all of this emotion on my behalf and instead weep for yourselves!" He does exactly the opposite of what we would do. They were only trying to show him they cared and instead of accepting it, he rejects it. Why? Why was he so insensitive?

The answer is, first, that Jesus is not condemning emotion. He is not telling them to "be strong" because emotion is a sign of weakness. Jesus himself was a man who expressed his emotions as he did at the tomb of Lazarus, where it says that he wept. So he’s not disregarding the fact of their tears but the focus of their tears. He tells them, "Don’t weep for me." He knew that their tears are out of sympathy for his suffering. He doesn’t need their sympathy because his real concern is for them. That’s why he says, "Weep for yourselves and your children."

What they are missing is the true significance of the cross. Their sympathy was misplaced because they could not grasp the mystery of what their eyes were seeing. What they did not understand was that when they saw him suffering that his suffering was his purpose in coming. This is what he came to do. Jesus would say earlier when he was disturbed about all that was taking place, " Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, 'Father, save me from what lies ahead'? But that is the very reason why I came!" (John 12:27) This was his moment determined before the earth was ever formed. There was no reason for them to cry because this was what he came to do. Another thing they didn’t understand was that his suffering was for them. By his going to the cross he is doing for them what they could not do for themselves. He was completing the reality of his words, "…the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends."(John 15:13) His suffering was the symbol and sign of his love and did not need their emotion. So he tells these women, "Don’t weep for me!"

Yet he also tells them to "weep for yourselves and for your children." Why? Well, that’s what he explains to them in the verses that follow. What he tells them are some very shocking words of warning of what was going to come. He describes in Luke 23:29 that a period of time is coming when things that are normal will be reversed. Instead of having a child being a joy, it will be a point of regret. He tells them in verse 30 that this time is going to be so horrible that people would start calling to the mountains to fall on them, ending their pain and misery. He then concludes by quoting a common proverb that means if they are treating him who is innocent in such a fashion, what is going to happen to those who are guilty!

What Jesus is describing is the judgment of God that was going to come on the city of Jerusalem because of the Jewish people’s rejection of him. He has cried out earlier for the people to accept him and how he longed to gather them and love them but they rejected him. (Luke 19:41-44) As a result, God was going to bring a terrible judgment against them. This judgment actually happened 37 years later when the Romans destroyed the city in 70 AD. The slaughter of that city was so horrific that one Jewish historian said that the blood ran as high as the curbstones. The Temple itself was torn down and not one store was left standing. Tens of thousands of people were executed without regard to age or sex. It was a time of unspeakable desolation. They didn’t know that this judgment was coming but Jesus did and that was why he could say to them, "Don’t weep for me but weep for yourselves and your children." He wasn’t concerned for his future but for theirs.

We don’t know how far this group of women stayed with Jesus as he came to the place of crucifixion. However, we do know that another group of women did go with him all the way. It is the group Luke mentions in verses 48-49. This group of women, including some of his friends, was as well traumatized by the events; yet, rather than leave in grief, they stayed out of their devotion. They stayed because this was all they knew to do. They had been with him for three years, continually serving him and the disciples. They had shared their resources with him and the disciples so they could eat. They had now stayed with him through the shock of the cross and no doubt wept at the site of such brutality. Yet they stay. They stayed until his last breath had escaped. They stayed while his limp body hung waiting to be taken down. They stayed as Joseph of Arimathea claimed his body, wrapped it in a cloth and carried it to the tomb of his burial. They stayed with him to make certain they knew where he was buried so they could finish preparing his body for burial after the Sabbath. While they may have been emotional, they knew that Jesus didn’t require it. What he did require--and that was what they gave--was their unquestioned devotion.

Preparing this message was very difficult. It was difficult because the cross of Jesus casts, quite naturally, a shadow over your soul when you spend time looking and listening to the events. It was hard because of what this passage says to us and to our culture that is not easy to speak or to hear. For what you cannot escape is an undercurrent of warning while at the same time there is the theme of hope. What do I mean? Well, let me explain by using three clear applications that we can take a way from this moment of encounter with the cross.

One thing is a statement of warning that Jesus doesn’t want sympathy for his sufferings but sorrow for ourselves (v. 29). Many of you recall how you felt when you saw the movie The Passion of the Christ. The first time I saw it the tears were difficult to contain because of the reality of what I saw as the sufferings of Christ were portrayed. Many of you were moved emotionally by that representation. Newspaper accounts recalled story after story of deep expressions of emotion at showings of The Passion of the Christ. Now, two years later, has that emotion created significant lasting change in our lives and our churches? For some, it may have but for most people it was sympathy for the sight of Jesus’ suffering that really isn’t needed. It is good to be sobered by the vision of Christ’s crucifixion but the real anguish that should be expressed is by people who understand their own sense of lostness and separation from God! That is where the tears should come. Paul said, " For God can use sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek salvation. We will never regret that kind of sorrow. But sorrow without repentance is the kind that results in death." (II Cor. 7:10) Tears of sympathy for Christ’s cross are worthless unless they lead a person to see their own need of Christ’s salvation.

The movie Dead Man Walking is based on Sister Helen Prejean’s mission to care for the soul of death row inmate Matthew Poncelet. Poncelet awaits execution for brutally killing a young man and woman. Throughout the movie Poncelet vehemently denies any wrongdoing, even though the evidence contradicts him. At one point, Sister Helen gives him a Bible and tells him to read the Gospel of John. She persistently tries to help him face the truth, but he resists, blaming anyone else he can think of.

One emotional scene---the climax of the movie—shows Poncelet finally admitting his guilt. Grieved by guilt, Poncelet begins to confess, but lapses as tears flood his eyes. As Sister Helen probes him further, Poncelet admits to the murders and confesses.

"Do you take responsibility for both of their deaths?" probes Sister Helen. Poncelet responds, "Yes ma’am…When the lights dim at night, I kneel down by my bunk and pray for those kids…I’ve never done that before." Sister Helen comforts Poncelet, saying, "There is a place of sorrow only God can touch." Sobbing deeply, Poncelet says, "I just hope my death can give those parents some relief. I really do." "Well," continues Sister Helen, "maybe the best thing you can give to the Percy’s and the Delacroix’s is a wish for their peace." Poncelet says, "I never had no real love myself. I never loved a woman or anybody else. It about figures I would have to die to find love."

"There is a place of sorrow only God can touch." It is in that place where a person realizes the full weight of their sin and guilt that the sorrow and the tears should come. It is in that place that God most clearly wants to touch us. Our grief may be so deep that it feels like we are going to die but it is there that we find his love the greatest. The tears that need to flow are for ourselves.

Another truth that these verses say to us is that Jesus isn’t concerned for his future but for ours (v. 29-31). One thing that overrides all the events of the cross was that Jesus knew what waited for him beyond his death. In fact he refers to it in John’s gospel as his "glory" (John 12:23, 28). The writer of Hebrews would say he endured the cross so faithfully because he knew the "joy" that was waiting for him. (Heb. 12:2). As far as Jesus himself was concerned, he knew his future but what he was troubled by was the future of others.

Over and over again in the gospels Jesus warned us that without him we face a future, an eternal future, of separation from God in Hell. He preached it, taught it and illustrated it. Even in the most magnificent verse expressing God’s love, John 3:16, it says that those who believe in him "will not perish," meaning that if they don’t believe then they will perish. The words of Jesus are clear in that they tell us that people will live forever in heaven or in hell. That is a sobering warning over which there should be real concern and grief.

The recent trial of Zacarius Mussaoui, the only conspirator of the 9/11 attacks in U.S. custody, has shown the tragedy of failing to heed the warnings of impending disaster. FBI agent Harry Samit stated repeatedly that he warned the FBI of the danger of Mussaoui’s activities but those warnings went unheeded. When one attorney was reading the memo of the warnings sent August 19, 2001, FBI supervisor Michael Rolince asked where the lawyer got that memo. The attorney replied, "From your office!" (Jonesboro Sun, March 23, 2006, p. A11) Warnings were given but never heeded. The cross in all of its silent majesty speaks to us. It warns us that if this was the cost of God’s judgment on sin now offered to us, what will be the price of our rejection? When you see the cross the concern should be for our destiny and the destiny of the world, not his!

There’s one final thing that this passage says to us and rather than it being a warning it is a promise of hope. While Jesus may be grateful that the sight of his cross would move us emotionally, it isn’t needed. Jesus doesn’t require our emotion but desires instead a life of devotion (v. 48-49). It is that devotion that we see in the women who followed him from Galilee. They stood, stayed and served him even through his death with no real understanding that what was happening was the most wonderful moment in all human history. They saw his death as the end but it was only the beginning. They saw this as a claim that Hell had triumphed but it was its defeat. They saw this as the end of hope for eternity but it was the assurance of its reality. They saw this as God being mocked but it was the moment of God’s greatest glory!

All of those things they could not know and did not know until they came to see an empty tomb on Sunday! Yet all of those things that they didn’t know we do know! That is why for a saved person the sight of the cross calls forth our greatest devotion! Death and Hell are defeated! Salvation for eternity is ours. God has been proven true before all the world. That is why Isaac Watts would say, "Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." (When I Survey the Wondrous Cross) While our tears my run down our face, let them be tears of joy for what is ours. Let our lives then be given without restriction in devotion to One who has done everything for us. He doesn’t require any emotion. Instead, it is our life released to him that is owed.

U. S. Navy Commander Richard Jadick recently was awarded the Bronze Star with a Combat V for valor for his actions as a doctor with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah, Iraq, in November of 2004. Jadick was instrumental is saving the lives of 30 men who were wounded in the worst urban fighting involving Americans since Vietnam. For days as the intensity of that battle raged Jadick served willingly to save lives. His commanding officer, Lt. Col. Mark Winn, estimated that without Jadick at the front they would have lost an additional 30 men combined with the 71 who were killed. He said, "I have never seen a doctor display the kind of courage and bravery that Rich did during Fallujah." When Jadick was asked if he would do it again, he said, "Sure, I would do it again, yeah." (Newsweek, March 20, 2006, p. 43)

The story of one man’s bravery to save thirty lives is moving and deserves the highest respect; however, the reality of one man’s death on a cross 2000 years ago for the salvation of the world demands our deepest devotion. Sorrow for sin, not sympathy, is what he wants. Heeding the warnings for our future is his concern. Devotion must replace emotion as followers of Christ. "Mighty. Awesome. Wonderful is the Holy Cross. Where the Lamb lay down his life to lift us from the fall. Mighty is the power of the Cross." There is always something deeply and powerfully compelling about the cross of Jesus Christ.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org