Jesus Crucified

Matthew Series | Matthew 26:31-27:61 | Pastor Duane Smets

This week is an exegetical sermon on Matthew 26:31-27:61 where Jesus is arrested, betrayed, denied and crucified. Jesus’ words about what he was doing and the theological significance of the cross are particularly emphasized. This sermon was originally preached on November 14th, 2010 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
November 14th, 2010

Jesus Crucified
Matthew 26:31-27:61

Introduction

Good morning everyone. We’ve been slowly but surely working through the book titled “The Gospel of Matthew in the Bible.” Today, we read and study the book’s great climax. Everything that has happened and has been said culminates in the event we’re covering today.

It is hands down the most famous event in all of history. And at the same time there is no other event which has been pointed out more as single handedly changing people’s heart, lives and identity. Today we are talking about and looking at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

I’ll just be real honest with you guys this morning…you know there is a lot that goes into my job in being a pastor…meetings with people of all kinds, leadership development, teaching classes, leading community groups, business administration…all kinds of stuff, but a big part of my job is studying and preparing for Sunday’s sermon. And this week has been one of the most difficult weeks regarding that aspect of my job.

I come before all of you today with a real heavy heart. Spending hours studying all the details of this story and all that Jesus went through has brought what feels like almost a literal weight upon my chest. It is just heavy and overwhelming. It’s not just sadness and sorrow though, it’s mixed with this simultaneous overflow of thanks and adoration to Jesus for all that he did and went through…for me and for you…for us.

So my prayer today is that somehow, by God’s Spirit, he would enable me to preach far beyond my ability and would really enable me to take us today into this story, so that we could feel ourselves there and catch a glimpse of the significance of all that happened and that it would produce great growth and love in our hearts towards our savior and God.

“So Jesus, help us by your Spirit in that today. Amen”

There is something to this story where if did what we usually do and read it all first and then break it down into parts, and dissected each word and thing that is happening, there is something to this story where if we did that I’m afraid we might miss the power and weight of what happened. So I’m going to do things differently this morning. No outline and we’re just going to read little by little and talk through it, little by little okay?

So we pick up in verse 31. What has just happened is Jesus had a last dinner with his disciples. Towards the end of the dinner, he tells them Judas Iscariot is going to betray him (who has already sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silves) and then Jesus says the result of that is he is going to die and rise and the result of it will be forgiveness of sins for those receive this promise or covenant. Then they go out to a place called the Mount of Olives and sing a hymn there together.

After they sing Jesus begins to tell the 11 disciples who are left more details about what is going to happen. Let’s read it (read verses 31-35).

Jesus here looks at these guys, whom he spent the last three years of his life with day in and day out and says, “You will all fall away because of me this night.” The word there for fall away is “skandalidzomai” where we get the word scandal. Jesus is literally saying “you will all scandal me tonight.” Peter thinks he is somehow better than the rest of the group and makes the bold declaration…”I never will!”

Throughout several of the events leading up to Jesus’ death on the cross we see Jesus use his divine knowledge of the future even in specific details. Here Jesus tells Peter he’s going to hear a rooster crow in the morning and before it does Peter will have denied him three times.

Yet even after hearing such precise prediction, Peter doesn’t believe and pretty much rebukes Jesus, telling him he’s wrong…”Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And all the other disciples chime in saying the same thing.

It’s interesting how when it comes to one’s spiritual convictions how adamant we can be…thinking we are better than others or don’t have the same potential to commit the same sins or crimes as others because we are “Christians.”

Jesus’ words to the disciples here about their future failure is a blaring reminder that any of us, given the right circumstances are capable of just about anything. You see I think it is so easy for us to so quickly look in on Peter or the disciples here and think…ah! They’re such idiots. Peter, you’re such a fool. But these guys had more one on one time with Jesus than anyone and they still fell. Every single one of us, if we were there would have done the exact same thing.

The disciples’ falling away almost ensues immediately. Right after that Jesus turns and starts walking back toward the city but he stops at the lower part of the Mount of Olives, known as the garden of Gethsemane to pray and he asks them to pray to. But they can’t…they keep falling asleep. And while they are sleeping we see Jesus peering into his divine knowledge of all that was about to happen and wrestling with his human nature like we’ve never seen him in the last three years. Let’s read it. (read verses 36-46)

Jesus words are so gripping…”My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” And he physically collapses. In one of the other gospel accounts, we get an extra detail that he was sweating so strenuously he began to sweat drops of blood (Lk 24:44)…a medical condition known as hematridosis.

Here’s a medical description. “Severe mental anxiety activates the sympathetic nervous system to invoke the stress-fight or flight reaction to such a degree causing hemorrhage of the vessels supplying the sweat glands…under the pressure of great stress the vessels constrict. Then as the anxiety passes the blood vessels dilate to the point of rupture (and) the blood goes into the sweat glands.”

Twice Jesus prays expressing this level of human anxiety as he drew from his divine knowledge and contemplated all that he was about to endure in taking on the wrath of God for sin. Jesus not only had never sinned or known the experience of sinning, he always acted according to the will of God…but in addition he had never experienced judgment or punishment for wrong doing, universally known in the Old Testament as a cup of wrath.

Jesus had never experienced that in the slightest and now he was about to experience it to the supreme level. He would not only undergo one of the worst ways for a human to die, in a flogging and crucifixion, but he would also spiritually receive the full wrath of God in his holy hatred toward all the sins humans had ever committed throughout history. No wonder he sweat blood.

Now a lot of people have looked at this passage and tried to come up with other theories about Jesus’ death and the meaning of it. Some have said it was just a example of unselfishness that ought to encourage us to be good. Some have said God could have just forgiven sin without ever punishing it. And a lot of people have wondered what would have happened if Jesus didn’t go through with it.

In all of that what most often gets neglected is God’s silence here. I mean I realize we are dealing with a level of complexity in the emotions and thoughts of a person who both fully God and fully man at the same time. How much Jesus is speaking from his human side and how much his divine…I don’t think we can fully tear that apart. But what we do know is there is no answer from God. God doesn’t say anything and Jesus goes through with it.

Why? Because there was no other way. Just having good examples to encourage us to be good doesn’t make us good. God just forgiving sin without ever punishing it fails to show that sin is really that bad or that big of a deal, God actually ends up being corrupt then for just letting it go. Only Jesus, the God-man drinking the cup could make a way for sinners to be brought into good standing with God. God is silent here because there is no other way. Jesus must die.

And so it ensues. Judas comes and gives him a kiss of death. Verse 47… (read to verse 56)

This piece is just soaked with irony. It’s night, Judas comes with a posse ready to fight. We’ve talked about it a ton throughout the book of Matthew, but this directly shows that many are still thinking Jesus has come to be a political military messiah and think finally here at this point he will take up arms and begin the revolution.

That’s really what this whole scene becomes about. One of the other gospel accounts tells us that it was Peter who was the one who drew his sword to cut off ear of the high priest’s servant, whose name was Malchus (Jn 18:10). Peter was still at this point trying to live up to his words…he was ready to fight and die with Jesus.

It’s insightful because it showed that if things were going to go down in a physical fight then yes, all the disciples were ready for that…they would stand by Jesus to the death. But if was just going to be a spiritual battle fighting the greater forces of sin and Satan, they were in no way ready for that war.

A few things happen after Peter cuts off Malchus’ ear. One, the other gospel accounts tell us Jesus did one last miracle before his resurrection and he heals it (Lk 22:51). Then he gives the disciples one last rebuke. We read it here in Matthew when Jesus says, “Don’t you know I could call more than twelve legions of angels to fight for me?”

Twelve legions is 72,000. In the Old Testament, just one angel killed 185,000 soldiers one time. You put twelve legions of angels to work…they kill around 13 and half billion people. Only about 6.5 people live on earth today and there was probably less back then. So basically Jesus is saying…”Look, I’m God…don’t you know that if I want, with one word I can obliterate this entire race and planet?”

C.S. Lewis once said Jesus, “either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, was Himself deluded and self-deceived, or He was Divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma.” I mean really, Jesus here is either a totally crazy lunatic, just made it up and lied and somehow convinced people of it, or he is in fact the LORD God.

So really now we have the third time Jesus could have avoided this whole thing. Once at the dinner where he encourages Judas to go betray him rather than stopping him. Once in Gethsemane when he knows what is about to happen but doesn’t do anything about it. And once here when they come to arrest him and he contemplates his power to avoid it. Instead of avoiding it what’s his response?

Verse 56, “But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then they arrest him and it says “all the disciples left him and fled” just as Jesus said they would.

Then comes the trials. One with Caiaphas and one with Pilate. First the one with Caiaphas. Let’s pick it up and read from verse 57 (read through verse 68).

Here, they are literally trying to come up with reasons to convict him and kill him but having trouble. They can’t get anyone coming up with anything worthy of death or two people who have the same story because you had to have two to convict someone. Finally, after some time they get two people who remember Jesus saying he would destroy the temple and Caiaphas jumps all over it because destroying God’s house is worthy of death. But that’s not what has Caiaphas really torqued at Jesus.

First, here’s where Jesus said the deal about the temple. They ask Jesus to give them a sign that he’s God. John 2:19-21 ”Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body.”

You see what has Caiaphas really ticked is Jesus’ claim to be God. What Jesus does here is amazing. Caiaphas asks Jesus point blank, “Tell me if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

Earlier when they pressed Jesus on this question, he gave a somewhat cryptic answer referring to his death and resurrection. A lot of times when people believed and realized he was the Christ, he would tell them to keep it on the down low because it wasn’t time to tell everyone yet.

But this time, now, when he’s on trial, instead of clearing the whole thing up and saying he was talking about his body and being cryptic…he straight out acknowledges it and says yes, I am the “Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power.” Jesus straight out, claims to be both the Christ (son of Man was a title for Christ) AND he claims to be God. He is the God king who has all power.

Get this. The high priest then tears his robes and cries blasphemy! Blasphemy is claiming to be God when you’re not. Blasphemy! Just as when Jesus said he had authority to forgive sins and he enraged the religious leaders because it was well known only God alone has that authority (Mt 9:2-7). Blasphemy!!! Unless Jesus really is.

Then the Caiaphas, whose basically the lead pastor, him and his other pastor friends start to spit on Jesus and repeatedly strike him in the face commanding him to prophesy.

It’s a mockery. Jesus said he’s God who knows all things and has power over all things…”fine, so exercise your power Jesus.” The reason why they tell him to say who hit him is they beat him to a pulp and he probably couldn’t even see anything anymore.

Then they turn Jesus over to the Romans to carry out their death sentence, since the Romans didn’t let the Jews exercise government power of capital punishment. Before Matthew continues the story, he tells us of a couple other events happening simultaneously. Peter’s denial and Judas’ hanging. I’ll read them together. Continuing at verse 69 (read verse 69 through 27:10).

Two far different reactions from two far different disciples of Jesus. Peter’s falling away from Jesus and his denial reaches a pinnacle to where he’s claiming not to even know Jesus and then to try and prove it he calls down a curse from God upon himself if he’s lying.

It’s amazing how fast and hard we can fall. Sin always begets more sin. First Peter simply tells a small lie to a young girl, who’s not even really a threat. But Peter is embarrassed and probably scared for his own life. Then a few more people come along and catch him in his lie…so what’s he do, lie more and more ferociously.

Then at the pinnacle of his deception, he hears the rooster crow. And the rooster’s voice pierces his heart, he remembers the words of Jesus, his love for Jesus and he breaks down weeping which results in repentance as we find out later when Jesus restores him and Peter becomes a pillar of the church.

Judas’ falling away is far different. Instead of having sorrow that leads to repentance, he is afraid of being found out and caught for “betraying innocent blood.” So he changes his mind and tries to give his blood money back. When that doesn’t work out, he dives deeper into sin and murders himself.

You see there is a big difference between truly feeling sorry before God for sin and having him change your heart and life versus simply realizing you did something wrong and and trying to fix it yourself. That’s the difference between Peter and Judas. Peter turns to the mercy of God. Judas turns to himself and his own efforts.

Well, Caiaphas has now handed Jesus over to Pilate, the Roman governor. It’s the next day and his trial before the ruling authority is fraught with irony between who is the true ruler and who is really in control of the situation, Pilate or Jesus? Let’s check it out. Picking up at verse 11 of chaper 27. (read through verse 26).

Once again when Jesus is brought before a human authority on these trumped up false charges we see him for the most part being quiet. This is the first thing that surprises Pilate…normally when someone is falsely accused they are quick to defend themselves, but not Jesus and Pilate is amazed at his silence. Jesus once again, ensuring his own death.

The only thing Jesus does say is that he is the king. Pilate asks him directly, “Are you the King of the Jews?” The Gospel of John gives us a couple more details. John 19:10-11, Pilate gets frustrated at Jesus’ silence and says, “‘You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.’”

Pilate realizes Jesus is claiming a throne far greater than the Jewish or Roman one…that Jesus is claiming to be God, the king who rules over all…the very one who right then and there was giving Pilate power. It’s at this point when John tells us Pilate became afraid and sought to release Jesus (Jn 19:8,12).

Pilate figures it’s the religious leaders who don’t like Jesus, so he devises a plan to pit the crowds against them by offering to release Jesus instead of Barabbas a convicted thief awaiting execution. In the middle of it all, Pilate’s own wife has a dream about Jesus and she comes to her husband begging him not to do anything to him.

But Pilate’s plan fails. The crowd, this same crowd, who one week earlier was hailing Jesus as the messiah saying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” is now embittered against Jesus. They thought Jesus would come to Jerusalem and lead them in revolt against Rome…but he has failed in their eyes and they are angry. So they begin to chant, “Crucify him, crucify him!!!”

Pilate, tries to appeal to reason and logic saying, “What evil has he done?” But in a frenzied mob mentality, they simply cry out louder in a plea to kill the Lord of life.

In an act of show Pilate washes his hands in front of everyone to try and say he’s not guilty then of Jesus’ death, it’s on the people. Which really doesn’t make Pilate innocent…he still allows what he believes is wrong to happen. But he’s a crowd pleaser. So he let’s his soldiers scourge Jesus.

If any of you have ever seen the Passion of the Christ movie then you’ve got a good idea of what a Roman scourging was like. Often times prisoners would die just from a scourging. They would take a leather whip, which had pieces of bone and metal in it, and they would slash it across the back. When they did the pieces of bone and metal would dig in and open up the flesh to bloody muscle and bright white bone. It’s brutal. So they scourge Jesus and rip open his back.

After the scourging they begin to make fun of Jesus and the mockery continues all through his crucifixion. Let’s read…verses 27-44.

It is so hard for me to read this and talk about it. Jesus the king. They strip him naked, it’s utterly humiliating. They make a king’s crown…out of thorns…give him a fake septer…and dance around him with false cries of worship.

Here Jesus is. The king of the universe. The one who created everything. The one who right then in that moment was holding the laws of nature together and giving the soldiers breath in their lungs. Jesus the true king of all whom everyone should kneel before in true worship, adoration, thanks and love…instead he is being spit on, hit, told he’s not really a king at all, and that this feigned worship was all he would ever get.

Normally when they would crucify people they would tie the horizontal beam to the prisoner’s arms and lead them out to where the vertical poles where. Jesus has lost so much blood at this point, he is so weak he doesn’t have the strength to lift it and walk.

Tortuously, they pretend to offer him water…but instead it’s a bitter intoxicant. Then they crucify him. They laid Jesus down on the ground, with his arms stretched out on the horizontal beam and his legs pinned together on the vertical beam. Then they took iron nails, about 5-7 inches long and drove them into his arms just above each of the wrists and into his ankles near the base of the cross. Once he was nailed to the cross, they lifted it up into a pre-dug hole in the ground and stood him up.

Once he was up the mockery continued. He’s naked and they fight over his clothes. They put a sign up above his head, referencing his claim to be king. The crowds and soldiers jeer at him, challenging him…if you’re really God then prove it, use your power and come down off the cross. If you do then we’ll believe in you.

The irony is so thick. He really is the king. He really could use his power to come down if he wanted to. He really does actually end up coming down off the cross and back to life three days later. But the crowds are wrong…even that doesn’t win their belief.

Jesus is utterly alone. All his best friends and followers from the last three years have abandoned him. Even the two thieves being crucified next to him are mocking him. He’s alone. And then he dies and creation itself let’s out a cry. Verse 45-61.

At the sixth hour, that’s noon, an unusual darkness covers the land. And Jesus hangs there for three hours. And at 3 o’clock, the ninth hour he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It’s a phrase which hits on several levels. One, it’s phrase filled with anguish that perhaps no better describes the level of pain and suffering Jesus humanly felt. Two, it’s a direct quote from Psalm 22, which specifically talks about the messiah, the Christ, the God King who dies and rises for his people.

“My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” is the first words of the Psalm. Here’s the part of the rest of the Psalm written about 1,000 years before…”Dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet – I can count all my bones — they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots (Ps 22:16-18).”

In quoting this Psalm Jesus tells the world exactly what he is doing. He is saving souls by dying for them. Lastly, it’s speculation, but many theologians think that when Jesus said this it was the actual point in time when God laid the sins of the world on Jesus, pulled back his loving presence and fellowship and unleashed the wrath of hell on Jesus’ eternal soul.

Jesus is God, the son of God, who was eternally in perfect fellowship with the God the Father…and in an experience far beyond our ability to grasp, went through a spiritual separation from God. There was a brief tear in the Trinity and God forsook his own Son. We sing it sometimes here at The Resolved…”The Father turned his face away.”

You see, this is what makes the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. The Romans beat and crucified hundreds and thousands of people throughout the time of their rule. The only thing which makes Jesus’ crucifixion different is if he is God and if when he died an exchange was happening in heaven between the Father and the Son on our behalf for sin.

Once it happened…Jesus makes a final cry and yields up his Spirit and dies. For most it would often take several days for them to die…but Jesus was so weak and lost so much blood, he died in only a few hours.

You see the way you die when you’re crucified is by asphyxiation, where you can’t get air into your lungs. You have to press up on the nails to lift your chest and head up to get air…once you run out of strength, you suffocate and die. You can try it…if you put your arms above your head and put your head in your chest…it’s hard to breathe.

Jesus dies and all creation starts to fall apart. There’s a supernatural darkness. An earthquake. A bunch of other weird stuff happening…people seeing ghosts or something. The temple curtain is torn in two…

Last week we talked briefly about the Holy of Holies, the innermost secret part of the temple. What separated it from the rest of the temple was a curtain of woven fabric that was about two feet thick, hanging sixty feet long and thirty feet wide. And it tears in half.

The book of Hebrews in the Bible says this was directly in conjunction with Jesus death, through which we now have direct access to God. Hebrews 10:19-20 “We (now) have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain.”

When these supernatural events happen at Jesus’ death it leads one of the head centurion soldiers to exclaim, “Truly this was the Son of God!” If Jesus really were God who created the world, then you would expect some sort of reaction from the world itself. This is what the centurion soldier realized when considered everything that was happening all around him when Jesus’ died.

After he dies, one of the Jewish religious leaders, Joseph of Arimathea is so moved by Jesus’ death that he offers his own expensive tomb. You see only the rich were put in tombs, most just had shallow graves or bone boxes…unless you had money. Thus Jesus, who was stripped of even the clothes on his back is given a king’s burial. His body is wrapped up in linens and buried in the tomb.

Conclusion

And that’s the conclusion of our story today. Next week we’ll look at Jesus’ resurrection and the hope and peace and joy it brings but for this week here’s what I want us to consider and respond to…

As we have seen throughout the story…Jesus had multiple opportunities to escape this death. In reality it was him all along ensuring it would take place. Jesus said this himself, John 10:17-18 “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”

So why does he do it? Why did Jesus go through all the pain, humiliation, and downright brutality we have read through today?

Here’s his answer: John 10:10 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus died out of love for his sheep…because as Isaiah 53:8 states, we all like sheep have gone astray and the LORD laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Jesus died to pay the penalty of sin that you and I have incurred. It was not nails that put Jesus on the cross, it was sin. And it was not nails which kept him there but love for us…to make a way for us to be forgiven and saved.

Honestly today, I don’t know how else to respond except to say, “Thank you Jesus…Thank you Jesus for dying for my sin. Thank you.”

So let’s thank him today. Let’s pray.