Return to Sermons Page | Home Page

“Christ’s Costly Compassion”

photo of Greg preachingSermon by Dr. Greg Knox Jones
on Matthew 27:11-44
given March 16, 2008

Jesus did what he had to do.  He went to Jerusalem.  He headed into the Holy City anticipating a fierce confrontation with the ruling religious authorities.  At the outset, he made it clear that he was there to agitate.  He was primed to push things to the breaking point.
Jesus entered Jerusalem as tens of thousands of religious pilgrims were swelling its size for the Passover Feast.  Most of these people had likely never heard of Jesus, but it was not long before they became aware of his presence.
As Jesus entered the city, a crowd gathered and cheered his humble parade.  Straddling the back of a donkey as it sauntered into the city, Jesus was welcomed with shouts of, “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Onlookers began to ask, “Who is this?”  The adoring crowd replied, “This is the prophet Jesus from Galilee.”
As the parade wound down, Jesus marched directly to the Temple, and that’s where the fireworks began.  He chased out those who were buying and selling; he overturned the tables of the money changers.  His was an act of defiance aimed at the Temple leaders who were collaborating with Rome in oppressing the Jewish people.  His dramatic action was a symbolic gesture of divine judgment declaring the religious leaders corrupt and the Temple profane.
Jesus made himself the focal point of an extremely dangerous situation.  He knew that if he remained obedient to God, it might lead to a lethal conflict with the religious authorities.  It must have been tempting to opt for a safer path.  He must have entertained thoughts of staying out in the countryside where his popularity was spreading and away from the hotbed of hostility festering in the Temple.
As he rode into Jerusalem, his spirits must have soared when the crowds screamed their approval.  However, Jesus knew that popular opinion can turn south in an instant, especially when manipulated by clever leaders. 
In a few short days after entering Jerusalem to what seemed to be a rally of mass support,
his world began to unravel.  One by one, people either turned against him or pulled the plug on their support.  The ripples of betrayal spread so widely that one writer suggests that we title the final days of Jesus: “The Triumph of Jesus’ Foes.”1  One of his followers betrays him, while another denies him.  Three of his disciples fall asleep at the hour he most needs their prayers and support.  The crowd that shouted “Hosanna!” on Monday, cries “Crucify him!” on Friday.  The well-known criminal is released, while the innocent one is found guilty and sentenced to death.
Why did Jesus have to die?  Was this some great cosmic plan that God was directing from offstage?  I don’t think so.
The Bible provides not one, but several different answers, and this lack of one unified response seems to point to the fact that the early Christians struggled to explain Christ’s death.  They expected the Messiah to overthrow the hated Romans and to establish God’s kingdom on site.  But after the crucifixion, they were put in the awkward position of explaining why the Messiah had been murdered.  Thus, in his first letter to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul wrote, “we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Corinthians 1:23)  In other words, it makes no sense to anyone.
Knowing that the first Christians were raised in Judaism, it was natural for them to interpret Christ’s death in terms of a blood sacrifice.  For centuries, the people of Israel had practiced animal sacrifice as a way of atoning for sins.  The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, employed the Jewish sacrificial metaphor to explain that Christ’s death put an end to the ritual that offered the blood of animals to God, because Christ’s death “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.”  (Hebrew 10:12)
As I was growing up, I was taught that it was essential for Jesus to die so that we could be forgiven.  That is, the one who was without sin had to be sacrificed so that we could be reconciled to God.  I was told that we deserve to be punished for our waywardness, but Jesus became the willing substitute whose death atoned for our sin.
No doubt this belief has helped many people embrace the assurance of God’s forgiveness,
enabling them to live without guilt.  However, the notion that God must be appeased by a human sacrifice is not only appalling, it fails to square with what Jesus reveals about God being a loving parent.
Why did Jesus have to die?  In the Gospel of Mark, we find a different rationale.  The writer borrows the legal language of the Romans for freeing slaves and says that Christ “gave his life as a ransom for many.”  (Mark 10:45)   But, that fails to answer why the ransom had to be paid with his life.
Why did Jesus have to die?  The First Letter of Peter focuses on Christ’s suffering and says that “Christ suffered for us and left us an example so that we should follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21)
Years ago, I remember reading about a man in the Philippines who considered it a great honor when he was chosen to be crucified on Good Friday.  He was not being put to death, but his hands were actually nailed to a cross and he was hung in the hot sun for a couple of hours, before people brought him down and tended his wounds.  I shook my head, baffled by such pointless suffering.  It reminded me of those poor souls who believe that physical suffering in God’s name helps them identify with Christ, and so they engage in self-flagellation to punish themselves for their sinful nature.
However, recently I read an article that surprised me.  It was written by a professor from Austin Theological Seminary who had lived in the Philippines a few years ago.  One year on Good Friday, he asked the man who was crucified, a very poor man, why he did it.  The man replied that he “allowed himself to be crucified not in order to identify with Jesus, but as a way of showing others that Jesus had identified with him. This poor Philippino’s life was a perpetual experience of crucifixion: by greedy landlords, by employers, by the military and by anti-government forces.  His mounting a cross for a couple of hours was to hold up to the world the one great comfort he had in life: that Christ had also experienced crucifixion with him.”2
Why did Jesus have to die?  If it was not to satisfy a blood thirsty God or to pay a debt we had run up with the Almighty, then why?  It seems to me that the bottom line is this:  Jesus was crucified because of his compassion for those who suffer.  Throughout his ministry Jesus brought healing to those who were hurting.  The religious authorities of his day were collaborating with Rome in oppressing the people and it was impossible for Jesus to ignore it.  His love for those who were poor, persecuted and oppressed fueled his confrontation with the religious authorities.  For Jesus, their injustice was intolerable; and so, his crucifixion became unavoidable. 
Despite the fact that God wanted people to follow Jesus, not kill him, his suffering and death on the cross revealed the depth of God’s love for us.  The cross reminds us that pain and suffering are a part of life.  Innocent civilians die in war; children get abused; young people’s lives are destroyed by drugs.  Greed, lust, cynicism and neglect spread like a dark plague throughout our world.  The cross represents the dark powers and Christ’s death on the cross is a powerful declaration that God’s love for us is so immense that God refuses to avoid the inevitable suffering that results from life.  God is with us in our pain and is determined to stay with us so that the darkness does not defeat us.  One theologian simply asks the question: “In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?”3
Some wish to skip the whole scene of the cross and focus solely on the resurrection as if the resurrection renders the cross powerless.  But it is on the cross – in all of its ugliness – that Christ’s costly compassion reveals the depth of God’s love.  If you only want to hear the “Hosannas” of Palm Sunday and hop straight to the “Hallelujahs” of Easter, you miss the crucial message that God is with us in the darkest valleys of our lives, and therefore, the cross becomes the place where the seeds of resurrection are sown.   God grieves with the woman who has breast cancer.  Christ weeps with the widower who recently lost his wife.  God is present with the couple whose child is not right.
A few weeks ago, Lyle and Terry Dykstra, Presbyterian missionaries in Kenya, sent a letter about the violence and chaos that erupted following its recent presidential elections.  They told of the mobs that roamed at will hacking to death with machetes anyone who was from another tribe.  They told of businesses and homes being looted and burned to the ground.  Over one thousand people were killed and six hundred thousand refugees were crowed into camps with paltry amounts of food, water and shelter.
Recently, the peace negotiations prompted a lull in the fighting and students began to trickle back to the university. The opening chapel service at the university began with a hymn in which they sang: “Jesus is a rock in a weary land, a shelter in the time of storm.”  And they wept as they pondered the countless times that human beings have resorted to killing and terrorizing one another.
The Dykstras tell of a young mother that cried in agony for her eight year-old daughter who saw her playmate’s father murdered and his body dismembered.  And of their good friend and coworker who had his home stormed by a mob while he was away.  His grandchildren and daughters escaped, but his wife died in the flames that engulfed their home.  After the fire, the man desperately searched the rubble until he found a few bones of her charred remains, which he lovingly gathered up and took to the church for burial.
Our missionaries feel nearly helpless in the midst of such overwhelming darkness.  What can they possibly do to help people in such suffering?  They can be intentionally vulnerable to other people’s pain, and thereby share part of the burden.
So, they meet in churches where they comfort and speak tenderly to one another.  And they give the only things they can give: a sympathetic ear, an opportunity to cry and heartfelt prayer.  They give themselves.4  
And as they stand in solidarity with the people whose lives have been ripped apart, they become Christ’s body in the world.  God’s love flows through them, touching the lives of those who suffer, giving them strength in their weakness, healing in their suffering and hope in their despair. 
Christ’s death on the cross reminds us that God’s love for us is deep, is costly and is everlasting.  God is with us in our suffering, and nothing, not even death itself, can separate us from God’s love.

NOTES

    1. Arun W. Jones, “Theological Themes,” in Lectionary Homiletics, February – March 2008, p.54.
    2. Ibid.
    3. John Stott, The Cross of Christ.4. Lyle and Terry Dykstra’s missionary letter to the Presbyterian Church (USA) in February 2008
    4. Lyle and Terry Dykstra’s missionary letter to the Presbyterian Church (USA) in February 2008.

Return to Sermons Page | Home Page