The Cross

Written for a Holy Week devotional book for my church:

Scripture: Matthew 27:32-54

It is not uncommon to read an article about a person accused of a crime who has spent time in prison only to be released later because the truth has unfolded that he was innocent of the crime. Our sense of justice cries out when we hear these stories that someone was wrongly accused and was paying a penalty for what they did not do. We are angered that this would happen to an innocent person.

In Matthew 27 we read the account of Jesus' death the cross. It is the ultimate story of being accused of crimes uncommitted and of paying an absolutely undeserved penalty. Our sense of justice should be incensed that judges gave into the mobs cries to crucify Jesus. Yet Matthew Henry says, “it is gospel, it is good news, that Jesus Christ was thus delivered for our offences; and there is nothing we have more reason to glory in than the cross of Christ.”

Just last fall I had the privilege of being in Jerusalem and walking the streets of the Old City and down the Mt. of Olives into the city much the same that Jesus walked the night of his trial. What a transforming realization that every step from the Garden to the cross was made with and out of love.  At a museum with a scale model of the old city we saw where Golgotha was located just outside the city wall. Golgotha was the place of crucifixion. Crosses were probably set close to ground level so that people could jeer at and spit on those being crucified. Today’s passage gives examples of the people taunting and heckling Jesus on the cross (vs. 37-43). Crucifixion was a horrific and shameful death.

We naturally are repulsed and saddened by the idea of the people giving Jesus wine mixed with gall, casting lots for his clothing, mocking him as king of the Jews, assuming that He could not save Himself, and scoffing that God could not save Him.  We are shocked that He would be crucified in the middle of two thieves as if he was the worst of the three. And while we are grieved at the thought of God the Father turning away from Him, we can glory in the cross when we identify with the centurion who said “Truly this was the Son of God!”

Truly this is the gospel. Truly this is the good news.