Soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him and then twisted together a crown of thorns and said it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. Hail King of the Jews, they said. They spit on him and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put on his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. As they were going out, they met a man from Sirena named Simon and they forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull. There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gold, but after tasting it he refused to drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots and sitting down, they kept watch over him there. Above his head, they placed the written charge against him. This is Jesus the King of the Jews. Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself. Come down from the cross, if you are the son of God, in the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. He saved others, they said, but he can't save himself. He's the king of Israel. Let him come down from the cross and we will believe him. He trusts in God, let God rescue him now, if he wants him. For he said, I am the son of God. In the same way, the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him. From the sixth hour until the ninth hour, darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice. Irohi, lama, sabakhtani, which means my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? When some of those standing there heard this, they said he's calling Elijah. Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine, vinegar, put it on a stick and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him. And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. The word of the Lord. I recently watched a documentary that was entitled The Execution of Wanda Jean. It's a tragic story of a murderer who was executed in the state of Oklahoma last year. And Wanda Jean was mentally retarded. And you know from the beginning of the documentary, it was one of those things I was channel surfing and then got stuck with. And this was the harrowing thing about it. It stayed with me for days. You knew from the outset that this woman was dead, that she had been executed. And yet all through the documentary, they had close footage of this poor retarded woman, barely able to understand many of the concepts of what we're going on, meeting with her attorneys. And her attorney's saying, everything's going to be okay. In fact, they would pray together. And they would say, it's all right, everything's going to work out. God, we know that things don't have to go, you know, this woman doesn't need to die. We believe she's going to live. And it was just regardless of your use of the death penalty. It was dreadful to watch, because you knew how it ended. That's what Palm Sunday is like. It's a very strange sort of praising and celebrating that we do. Because unlike those very first disciples, those followers who become so excited about Jesus and wave the palms and sing and rejoice, those of us who know the story are already prepared that this isn't going to be anything like any of these people think, even the very disciples themselves. And what we see is actually the faithlessness of disciples. That's the point, of course, of Palm Sunday. It's to be able to sing and praise with a realistic view of your own heart and a realistic view of who Jesus is. Well, I want to still look at this one briefly. I mean it. Briefly are some of the ironies of the crucifixion of Jesus. When I say ironies, this is what I mean. You see, most of us, we were to tell the crucifixion story, we would want to tell it in harrowing, gruesome detail. In fact, that's one of the great signs of a young preacher. As they go out and they find a book that tells you all sorts of details about Roman crucifixion that will just painstakingly lay out for you how gruesome and awful it is. And often try to almost manipulate people into conversion simply through the dreadfulness of it all. What I want you to notice is that not a single one of the gospels does that. Not a single one of the gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus does that. In fact, Matthew, the text we just looked at, in verse 35, it's amazing. The New Testament scholar, Artie France, in his commentary on Matthew says, the entire act of crucifixion, all of the things that took place, the strapping down, the nailing, all those details are simply put in a single participle. They crucified him. Why? Were they not moved by the suffering of the Lord? I believe they were. Their lives were changed by it. But the gospel writers are trying to tell us what the crucifixion means. Because you can be caught up in all the medical details. You can be caught up in the gore of it. You can be caught up in the paythouse of it and still not understand what it means. And that's what they do. They tell you what it means. Now, I want to look at a couple of the portraits that Matthew paints of the crucifixion of Jesus. That great event, that great Friday that Palm Sunday led to. Some of the portraits and how they actually show us Jesus and they show us our own hearts. First of all, there's a portrait painted in this story of idealists. There are idealists in this story. By idealists, I'm referring to these revolutionaries who want to make the world a better place. The most famous, if you read about earlier in the account, we didn't read the entire account, is Barabbas. Now, you see, Barabbas actually had... Barabbas had the name of Jesus. Jesus, Yeshua or Joshua, deliverer was a common name at that time, much like on baseball teams. Jesus, there was a Jesus Barabbas, which means Jesus son of Abbas. And there was a Jesus son of man. And Pilate stands before the crowd. The shrewd politician that he is, and he says, which one do you want? Which Jesus shall I give you? You want Jesus the son of Abbas? Jesus the son of man and the people, of course, shout. And they say, give us Barabbas. There's a reason for that. Barabbas is popular because if you look carefully at the text, what it says, the gospel of Luke tells us, is that Barabbas was a revolutionary. He was a zealous. The people looked at him like others would look at Robinhood. Or others would look at a freedom fighter that you put on a plaque somewhere. This is a man committed to violence, but to three people, from oppressors. In fact, Palm Sunday is all about this relentless idealism that pulsed through the people in Jesus time. When they shouted, for example, Hosanna, this is a word that means save deliver. And I mean, to really get a sense of it now, if you think of Latin American revolutions, how many of them have used the expression, Viva. That's really what they were saying. You promised a kingdom. Great. Let it start now. Viva. Viva, a revolution. Bring it on. That's what they're saying. And, of course, they have no idea what they mean when they say save. There's the irony of the people, you see. The people say we want your salvation. Of course, they have no idea they've been asking for it. They're going to get it, but not in a way they ever dreamed. They ask for Barabbas. The revolutionary. And we see them get Barabbas. And then we see that there are two what are usually called thieves who are crucified on either side of Jesus. The word for thief actually there is the word for rebel. And in all likelihood, because of what we know about Roman practices, these thieves were buddies of Barabbas. These were guys not who went around stealing, but they were rebels who were idealists who wanted the revolution too. The Roman cross had been designed primarily to squash the hopes of idealists who wanted to throw off the yolk. You see, throwing off the yolk is what drove these people. They had a history. It just is that we have people now who like to remember, oh, the Civil War, or World War I, or World War II, and run off and dress up and reenact it and let it fill their dreams of a better tomorrow somehow. That is exactly what it was like, because 150 years before the Romans, they had had a little window when a man named Simon Macabeeus had actually managed to get up a revolt and drive out the Syrians. And they held it for a few years. They actually were free. And when they did it, they threw palm branches before Simon the victor, before Judas Macabeeus. There was this great joyful celebration, and the palm became assembled just like tea and Boston. It became a symbol of throwing off the yolk, and the ideal of what we can become, what freedom can mean. And yet, on that Roman cross, designed to kill revolutionaries. You see the only one who all of his ministry had renounced violent revolution, crucified as a revolutionary. And on either side, you see two idealists who have gone all the way down to their idealism, these on either side. And in fact, the idealists, both of them, begin by denouncing Jesus because he didn't lead the revolution. But the irony is this, the Romans who had suppressed the revolution, crucified Christ and lost it. It's through the crucifixion that the greatest revolution imaginable is ever lost. The greatest idealism, the revolution that says, not just the outward structures temporarily changed, not just justice for 10 or 20 years, but an entire change of the human heart as possible because of the death of the Son of God and his resurrection to come. And you see the power of that message begin to erupt as one of the revolutionaries who, moments before it said, you're the son of God, do something. Go into his death, seeing the cross, saying, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus saying, this day will you be with me in paradise. You see, the true idealist can look at the cross and be changed and see that on the cross, God in fact strips away all human strategies for self-improvement. On the cross, God in stripping Jesus strips away any agenda of self-salvation the human heart can cook up. Any agenda for fixing the world that humans can do and like the thief, a Christian who was an idealist, moves from idealism to hope. Because in the cross, you begin to say, I can't implement it, I can't launch it. But I believe the one that dies here and the one who will rise again, he can. The idealist moves from human idealism to hope. There's also a portrait, if you want to go to the other extreme, of the cynic. Yeah, the picture of the idealist and then a face, the thief, the face that gets transformed. Then there are the cynics and the cynics are everywhere in this story and we get a lot of their lines. And what I want you to notice is that everything they say, God's relentless purpose to change this world through the death and resurrection of Jesus is so profound that no matter how bitter a person becomes, no matter how angry or how incredulous these people are, they're very words become affirmations of what God is doing. Did you notice that as you heard the things they said? What do they say? You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, say yourself. Well Jesus had said the temple will be destroyed and I will raise it up in three days. But of course he was referring to the temple of his body. What are they saying? Save yourself. It's precisely because he doesn't save himself that the temple is destroyed, the temple of his body and that it will be raised up and will become the greatest religious revolution, the greatest social revolution in the entire consciousness of God. For now with that first time you have Jesus saying, I am the temple because I've died and I've raised. Come to me, call on me and you will know God is your father. They affirm it themselves. You say you're going to destroy the temple and that's exactly what's happening. They shouted him. He saved others. He cannot save himself. And of course the irony there is that it is because he does not save himself that he can save others. They say come down from the cross. If you are the son of God it is precisely because he is the son of God that he doesn't come down from the cross. It's because he's the son of God loving you, loving me that he stays there. They say let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him. And yet it is precisely because he does not come down from the cross. Not only do we say that he's the son of God but that is why billions believe in him. That's why the most significant social religious movement in the history of the earth has been what happened on that Friday. Billions believe every economic group, every educational group, it goes to the gamut people who because he was the son of God and because he stayed there believe. And again the portrait moves in to an individual and if you keep reading Matthew's narrative what you see is the most embittered centric you can imagine. The Roman centurion and I'm actually kind of glad the movie has affixed the image of John Wayne as the centurion in my mind because that is a pretty good sort of cynical kind of guy. And there's that centurion saying surely he was the son of God. What's happening there? What's happening there? The cynic of cynics, the man who put him on the cross sees it, he sees the power of the cross, he sees what God is doing. So you see the idealist, the cynic, if you run the gamut the person who has the strategy to save the world and save themselves or the person who simply protects themselves with bitterness are both transformed by what happens there. And there's one last portrait I want to talk to you about. You see I think there's a, there's a, just like Dickens, you know how Dickens does these great minor characters and the Dickens novels, you know, you're Raya Heath or you think of any of the other characters. Matthew has said that's the same thing. He explains what it all means by painting the portraits of all these others. But finally there is a portrait of the guilty one. They're the idealist, they're the cynics, and then at the center of the hall there's the portrait of the guilty one. And I say the guilty one because it isn't the point that Jesus is innocent. Jesus isn't guilty of anything, he's righteous, he's holy, he's pure, and yet here he's guilty. If you read the Gospel of John chapter 19, they take a placard, they take a placard it was called a teacherless by the Romans. It was sort of a scarlet letter or a rap sheet that you would always give to a criminal. And when they carried their cross the rebel had to carry their rebel rap sheet with them. And then when you put them on the cross you nail the rap sheet up there as a kind of nation. And frankly, he has a good deterrent to cry to say, ah, thinking about revolution, look at him. So pilot writes on the rap sheet king of the Jews. And of course the people don't like that, there's another irony because the people say, no, no, no, no, don't put the king of the Jews say that he claimed to be the king of the Jews. And pilot says famously in John chapter 19, what I have written, I have written. So that actually the teacherless, that's the sign that he carries speaks the truth. He is the king, promised that all the scriptures hope for through the millennia. Here he is, the king, it speaks the truth. And yet do you know that for the early Christians that sign became one of the most important ways they proclaim their faith, that portrait, that image of Jesus with that sign hanging over his head. That said the king of the Jews, it became very important. You know, that's the one detail of the crucifixion that all four gospels mention. I think the Apostle Paul explains why it was so important to them actually in several places, but most particularly in the letter he wrote to the Colossians, chapter 2, verse 14. If you look at that text what you see is Paul basically saying this. Yes, pilot wrote a charge, and we know that it actually was the truth. He wrote that in observable reality, but in terms of spiritual reality, God wrote a charge on that sign. And the charge that God wrote was your sin and my sin. And that's what Paul means in Colossians chapter 2 when he says, God forgave all our sins, cancelling the charge sheet. He took it away and nailed it to the cross. You see the charges in spiritual reality that are there on the cross really and truly and eternally are any charge your conscience could ever make or any enemy could ever make. Anything you've ever perceived that was sinful and wrong and the things that you couldn't perceive that were sinful and wrong, the sins of your past, the sins right now that you, that are part of your life, the sins that you will commit, they're all written there. And Paul says there, God cancelled them and he nailed them to the cross so that Jesus the innocent one, the great irony, becomes the guilty one. And because he becomes guilty, he will write in second Corinthians, Paul will say, God made him who knew no sin, to be made sin. They were written there and you're handwriting and my handwriting, he made him to be sin so that we may be made the righteousness of God in Christ. Martin Luther called it the wondrous exchange. It's relentless, the irony is of how it's made so clear to us what the gospel is all about. You know what the crowd says before Jesus goes to the cross when they demand his crucifixion? What do they say? They say, let his blood be upon us. That's precisely the point, isn't it? He's going to the cross so that his blood might be upon us. He goes there and we're told that it became dark, a deep penetrating darkness fell on the earth. In fact, the Roman historian Thalas records that it happened and there's no, and the interesting thing about it is they do the timetables and it's not an eclipse. Something supernatural happens. There was a great darkness that came upon the world and when the darkness came, I wonder if afterwards people began to remember. We know from the New Testament they did that there had been a number, another time of darkness. That was the night of the plague of the firstborn, the first Passover, a great darkness came on the land and the angel of death, the angel of judgment came and only those who had the blood of the sacrifice lamb over their door were spared the judgment. And on that night on the cross the darkness day became night, a beautiful scandalous night and because the blood of the sun was shed and poured, mercy flowed out into the world. Do you see your name written on that placard? Do you believe that your sins could actually go to another so that you could be forgiven and treated as innocent and righteous? That's really what Christianity is all about. I think we become idealists and I think we become cynics because like those first people in Jerusalem we're afraid of where he might take us. It's a scary thing to put yourself completely in the hands of another. I know there are so many of you who run away from marriage because of it, right? It's a terrifying thing, isn't it? To put yourself completely in the hands of another? And that's why they bolted so quickly. It's only when you see the cross, like the idealist rebel, like the cynic soldier, that you begin to say, if this great God would enter my pain and my guilt, this profoundly I can trust him. And I can let him strip away all my agendas to fix my life that aren't working. I can trust him even to take me to those scary places that I resent that he allows to happen and continue. I can still go there, not understanding, but trusting because I see the cross. And that changes everything. Let's pray together. Lord, my prayer for us as biblical writers paint for us pictures of ourselves and pictures of the Lord. I pray that we might see who we are really and that we might see who you are and insane be melted and drawn to rejoice and trust, wheat and dance. Lord, there are many of us who are poor. There are people here, Lord, you know you see who are pouring themselves and they're trying to fix themselves in all sorts of ways. They're trying to find things that will make them a better person. Would you melt them with the good news that the revolution has been done for them? The guilt has been taken away. The righteousness has offered us a free gift for all who believe. Lord, there are folks here who are bitter and they're hurting because life is hard. We see the pain in the world. We see the pain around the globe. We seek your mercy around the world where there is injustice. We ask you for justice where there is hatred. We ask you to so peace. And yet, Lord, we see on this cross the peace you want to bring most deeply in our relationship with you, the only thing that can transform our relationship with our neighbor. Would you change us all? Lord, my prayers that this week would be a journey for every person here to remember and walk with Jesus and be drawn and transformed by the beauty and the beauty, the pathos and the glory of it all. We pray in His name. Amen.