The Way
of the Cross
I. In the Garden (Mark 14:26-42)
L: We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
C: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to
the Mount of Olives. And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is
written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But
after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Peter said to him,
“Even though they all fall away, I will not.” And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I
tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me
three times.” But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not
deny you.” And they all said the same.
And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And
he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter
and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he
said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and
watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if
it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all
things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but
what you will.” And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter,
“Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you
may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is
weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he
came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not
know what to answer him. And he came the third time
and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough;
the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise,
let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
Meditation:
Peter is bold and courageous. He loves his Lord.
His life had been changed. Three years isn’t a long time, really, but three
years following Jesus . . . hearing His teaching, seeing His compassion,
witnessing the miracles . . . how could that not change you? Peter is sincere.
He wasn’t a fisherman anymore - he was a disciple. A
follower of Jesus. He would not fall away. He would not deny. He would
die for Jesus.
His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak.
For even before the Shepherd was struck, even
before he had a chance to deny, he falls asleep. Three times.
He couldn’t even watch and pray for one hour with his distressed and sorrowful
friend. Peter meant well, but good intentions aren’t enough.
You know what it’s like. We have good intentions,
too. But how often have we failed? How often have we
fallen asleep? How often do we not keep our word - to others and
to God? Too often. Our spirit is willing, but our
flesh is weak.
But Jesus remains steadfast. Greatly distressed
and troubled, He turns to His Father in prayer. In great sorrow He prays, Not what I will, but what you will. Jesus
knows the cup He must drink, the cup of wrath and condemnation for the sin of
the world. It will not be easy. But His Father’s will is His will. He will
drink it. Peter will not die for Him; He will die for Peter. And
for you. He will be the strong one for the weak, the faithful one for
the faithless. He will go as it is written of Him.
The hour has come. Now He gives His life for the
life of the world.
II. Betrayed and Alone (Mark 14:43-52)
L: We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
C: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
And immediately, while he was still speaking,
Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from
the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the betrayer had given
them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him and lead him
away under guard.” And when he came, he went up to him at once and said,
“Rabbi!” And he kissed him. And they laid hands on him and seized him. But one
of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest
and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out as against a
robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I was with you in
the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be
fulfilled.” And they all left him and fled.
And a young man followed him, with nothing but a
linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth
and ran away naked.
Meditation:
Until this time, the people didn’t run away from
Jesus, they ran to Him! They came from all over - the sick, the
lame, the blind. Wherever He went, they went. That He might touch them. Because His touch brought life. It healed the sick, restored
sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, and even raised the dead. They were
in danger and turned to Him.
But now Jesus is alone. His disciples have all
left Him and ran away from Him in fear. They were in danger and fled from Him.
Even a young man who followed in nothing but a linen cloth ran away naked. The
only disciple left was the betrayer, the one who had run away to arrange all
this, and whose kiss was the kiss of death. And now the hands were on Him
- not to help Him but to arrest Him. They come with swords and clubs, weapons
of the world. They didn’t need them. He would give Himself to them and place
Himself into their hands. They didn’t need them, for the battle now commencing
was not a worldly one, but a spiritual one.
Jesus had been fighting this battle for three
years, day after day, in the Temple, teaching. For His weapon, His sword, was His Word. And many battles had been won - demons
were expelled, and sinners brought to repentance and faith. But now the last
and greatest battle will unfold, a battle of life and
death. The battle of the cross. Satan and men will
slay the Son of God, but will not be victorious. The Scriptures will be
fulfilled. After the Sabbath is past, they will come looking for Him in His
tomb. But all they will find is His linen cloth, left behind, when He
left the tomb empty and defeated. They seized Him, but not for long.
Hymn #420 (vs. 1-3) “Christ,
the Life of All the Living”
III. Condemnation (Mark 14:53-65)
L: We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
C: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
And they led Jesus to the high priest. And all
the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together. And Peter had
followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he
was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. Now the chief
priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him
to death, but they found none. For many bore false witness against him, but
their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against
him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with
hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” Yet even
about this their testimony did not agree. And the high priest stood up in the
midst and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men
testify against you?” But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high
priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said,
“I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and
coming with the clouds of heaven.” And the high priest tore his garments and
said, “What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is
your decision?” And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began
to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him,
“Prophesy!” And the guards received him with blows.
Meditation:
The
outcome was predetermined. They weren’t letting Him go, now that they had Him
right where they wanted Him. He was not going to leave alive. But still they
wanted the appearance of justice. But witness after witness would not agree.
Not even false witnesses, lying witnesses, could get the job done. So
frustrated, the high priest stands up and tries to get Jesus to speak - but He
will not. He will not defend Himself.
But He will confess. He will
confess and not keep silent when it comes to the truth, no matter what the
result. So when asked: Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? He
does speak. He has come that all the world might know
the love of God. That all might know Him.
That all - even the high priest, chief priests, elders, and scribes - might be
saved. So He speaks: I AM, He says. I AM. The divine name.
The name God gave when Moses asked Him at the burning bush what His name was (Exodus 3:14). That same God was now
standing before men, answering the same question. And for this, they accuse Him
of blasphemy, condemn Him to death, spit on Him, and mock Him.
They are pleased with themselves. They have
accomplished their mission. Jesus will die. But even as they try to get Jesus
to prophesy, they have fulfilled prophecy already - the prophecies that
said all this would happen. And the Word of the Lord will be fulfilled. For you. He is accused and condemned for you. He is mocked
and hit for you. He is spit on for you. His love for you will let Him do
nothing less. The chief priests and Jewish leaders want to save themselves and
their nation. The Son of the Blessed wants to save only you.
IV. Denying and Confessing
(Mark 14:66 - 15:5)
L: We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
C: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of
the servant girls of the high priest came, and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the
Nazarene, Jesus.” But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what
you mean.” And he went out into the gateway and the rooster crowed. And the
servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one
of them.” But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders again
said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” But he
began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of
whom you speak.” And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter
remembered how Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will
deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.
And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests
held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they
bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked
him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.”
And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him,
“Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.” But
Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.
Meditation:
Are you one of them? the
servant girl asked Peter.
Are you the King of the Jews? Pilate asked Jesus.
I am not. I do not know Him, says Peter vehemently.
You have said so, Jesus affirms.
What was going on outside and what was going on
inside could not have been more different. Timidity versus
steadfastness. Denial versus confession. Fear
versus quiet strength. When the rooster crowed, Peter remembered his own
crowing, the boast he had so confidently made that he would never deny his
Lord, his friend. But he did. Jesus must have heard the rooster too. But
hearing just made Him more steadfast - for it was for folks like
Peter and you and me that He will not deny, but go to His cross.
What a comfort for us, when we shrink back in
fear like Peter. When we don’t say what we know we should. When
fear gets the better of us. When the trouble of the
moment seems greater than our Lord. It is not so. Our Lord is greater
than whatever troubles us, haunts us, frightens us, or condemns us. He is
greater than whatever threatens us, overwhelms us, or crushes us. He is greater
that our sin, our death, and the devil. For all this comes upon Him, and He
allows it to crush Him for a time, that He might crush it for eternity. And in
His resurrection He does.
So Peter broke down and wept. But as Jesus said
in the psalm: Weeping may remain for the night, but joy comes in the morning
(Psalm 30:5). And joy would come for
Peter, and for you. The joy of His Saviour risen. The joy of sin forgiven. The joy that though we may deny Him, He will never deny us.
Hymn #425 “When I
Survey the Wondrous Cross”
V. Traded and Mocked (Mark 15:6-20)
L: We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
C: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
Now at the feast he used to release for them one
prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed
murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came
up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them,
saying, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had
delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him
release for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, “Then what
shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” And they cried out
again, “Crucify him.” And Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?”
But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him.” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the
crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him
to be crucified.
And the soldiers led him away inside the palace
(that is, the governor's headquarters), and they called together the whole
battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a
crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King
of the Jews!” And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him
and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped
him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to
crucify him.
Meditation:
A
rebel.
A murderer. An insurrectionist.
A prisoner. A trouble maker. Barabbas?
No, I was talking about you. Oh, Barabbas too. But this is where you are in the
story. And me. We who rebel and rise
up against our heavenly King. We who fail to help and support our
neighbor in every physical need. We who are prisoners to sin
and death. We deserve to die.
But what happens? Barabbas is set free! Imagine
the thoughts that must have been going through his mind. Just moments before,
he had heard the shouts from his prison cell: Crucify him! Crucify him! His
blood ran cold, for he thought they were shouting this for him. And then the
soldiers come down to his cell and turn the key, but instead of binding him to
the horizontal beam of a cross and leading him out to die, they say: You are
free to go. What? What happened? And then they tell you: The Passover
pardon was given to him. The decided to keep another prisoner, named Jesus.
They’ll be crucifying him instead of you. And just like that, He is free.
Talk about being in the right place at the right
time! Barabbas? No, I was talking about Jesus. This is why He came. To trade places with Barabbas. To trade
places with you. To trade places with every sinner,
every condemned person. To take our sin and condemnation upon Himself, in our place, that we receive the Passover pardon. His Passover pardon. That we hear those wonderful
words spoken to us: They’ll be crucifying Him instead of you. Go, you are
forgiven; you are free.
Jesus, the Son of God, becomes the criminal, that
the name of Barabbas, the criminal, might come true. For Barabbas, bar-abbas, means literally, son of the father. And Jesus
takes your place, that that be true for you, too. That you be a bar-abbas, a son of the
father, a son of God.
VI. On the
Cross (Mark
15:21-37)
L: We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
C: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene,
who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry
his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place
of a Skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take
it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots
for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they
crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of
the Jews.” And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on
his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their
heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it
in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” So also the chief
priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others;
he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from
the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also
reviled him.
And when the sixth hour had come, there was
darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus
cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is
calling Elijah.” And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on
a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let
us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” And Jesus uttered a loud cry
and breathed his last.
Meditation:
Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now
from the cross that we may see and believe.
If Jesus had come down from the cross at that
very moment, they would see and perhaps believe, but they would not be saved. For they would have no Saviour.
There would be no atonement for their sin. They would be lost. Yet if Jesus
stays, they would not see and therefore not believe, yet they would have a Saviour. Their sin would be atoned for. There would be hope
for them.
So Jesus stays. For it is not
miraculous signs that produce faith anyway. If Jesus had come down from
the cross at that moment, would they have believed, or would they have accused
the soldiers of doing a shoddy job in not attaching Him more securely? You know
the answer to that. No, it is not signs and wonders that produce faith, but the
Word and Spirit of God.
And the word of God that we heard was this: My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But He was not calling Elijah. He
was teaching us. That we learn the meaning of the cross.
That He was forsaken because of our sin, to pay for our sin, to suffer for our
sin. That He was forsaken, that we never be. And yet even in that moment of
mysterious forsakenness between the Father and the Son, there is a word of
faith: MY God, Jesus says. Forsaken, yet mine. Jesus
trusts, even in the darkness of death and the pangs of hell.
And because He did, because He did what we
cannot, your sin is atoned for, there is hope for you. You will never be
forsaken. Jesus’ Father is your Father, His God your God, and His death the
death of your sin and death. Blessed are those who have not seen, and
yet have believed (John
20:29).
Hymn #451 (vs. 1-3) “Stricken,
Smitten, and Afflicted”
VII. Death and Burial (Mark 15:38-47)
L: We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
C: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two,
from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in
this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
There were also women looking on from a distance,
among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of
James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. When he
was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also
many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.
And when evening had come, since it was the day
of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a
respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom
of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate
was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the
centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from
the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph
bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped
him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the
rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene
and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.
Meditation:
The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from
top to bottom.
The curtain of the temple, which separated the Holy of Holies, the dwelling
place of God, from the rest of the world, was torn open. God had left the
building.
Bad
news?
No, good news! Now, there was no more separation between God and men. The wall
of sin that divided Creator and creature was gone. No more sacrifices need be
offered in the temple. God and man were reconciled by the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world (John 1:29). God had indeed left the building. No longer would people
have to come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice for sin. He now goes out into all the world to give the gift of forgiveness of sin. That
in every place where His Word is proclaimed and His gifts given, there is He.
They didn’t realize that yet, of course. All they
knew right at this moment was that their friend, the one who they thought was
their Messiah, was dead and needed to be buried. They
would do this one, last, final act of love for Him. They take Him down, lay Him
in the cold, stony tomb, and close it up.
You’ve been there. You know how that feels, when
standing by the grave of a loved one, and the dirt covers their remains. It
hurts. Death hurts. God knows. It took His only-begotten Son. But coming is the
joy. The joy of life. The joy of
resurrection. The joy of reunion. The centurion
was right . . . almost. Truly this man was the Son of God? No. Truly He is.
For He lives, and so will all who put their trust in Him. For
just as the grave will not be able to hold Him, so it will not be able to hold
us. And so we have hope, in the midst of this world of sorrow and death.
We have hope, and so name this day GOOD Friday. For this is the day when we are made good again. When creation is restored to its goodness. By Jesus.
So we are not sad today. Serious,
yes. Sad, no. For we know this is not the end
of the story. The best is yet to come. So to our Saviour
Jesus Christ, we give all thanks and praise. To our Great Redeemer, be all glory, honor, and worship, now and forever, and unto
the ages of ages. AMEN.