Monthly Meditation on the Cross
Download MP3My god, my god, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Oh my god, I cry by day but you do not answer. And by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
Speaker 1:In you, our fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you, they cried and were rescued. In you, they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
Speaker 1:All who seek all who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him.
Speaker 1:Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breast. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb, you have been my god. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.
Speaker 1:Many bulls encompass me. Strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and warring lion. I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax and is melted within my breast.
Speaker 1:My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me. A company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet.
Speaker 1:I count all my bones. They stare and glow over me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, oh Lord, do not be far off. Oh you, my help, come quickly to my aid.
Speaker 1:Deliver my soul from the sword, My precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you.
Speaker 1:You who fear the lord, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel. For he has not despised or harbored the affliction of the afflicted. And he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard when he cried to him. From you comes my praise in a great congregation.
Speaker 1:My vows, I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him shall praise the lord. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.
Speaker 1:For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship. Before him shall bow, and all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him, and it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn that he has done it.
Joel Brooks:This is
Speaker 1:the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Lord, we thank you for these words. They are they are serious words. They are solemn words. They're awful also hopeful words.
Joel Brooks:I pray that the meaning of them will become clear to us as a congregation. Ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but lord, let your words remain, and may they change us through the power of your spirit. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. This is our 4th meditation that we are doing on the cross.
Joel Brooks:As a church, we have decided that on the last Sunday of each month, we're gonna take a break from whatever series we're going through, and and we're gonna take a fresh look at the cross. We're doing this for a number of reasons, but, let me just give you one that struck me just this past week. I was going through the gospels. I was going through through Matthew and Mark, and both of them describe the crucifixion in a very similar way. They tell a lot about the same sufferings that Jesus went through.
Joel Brooks:They they detail the crucifixion the same way. And both of them mention how Jesus cried out from the cross, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? And and the response to these words is the same in both of those gospels. People thought that Jesus was calling for Elijah, because in Aramaic, Eli and my god sound very similar. So they thought that he was calling for Elijah, and then Jesus dies.
Joel Brooks:And it was a Roman soldier, a pagan Roman soldier, who heard those words and saw the way Jesus died and said, Truly, this was the Son of God. And I want you to notice that there was religious people at the crucifixion. People who knew the Old Testament. People who knew about Elijah. These religious people, they saw what was happening before their very eyes, and they missed it.
Joel Brooks:They missed it. They didn't get the meaning behind it. It was only this Roman soldier who knew nothing about the Israelite faith. He was the one who got it, but the religious missed it. The religious don't understand often.
Joel Brooks:And you can see this even in the Muslim faith, the the Muslim understanding of the cross, in which Muslims have a severe difficulty with the cross. They they they they understand crucifixion, and and they, they see that in our Bible, and they believe much of our Bible. But they have serious problems with Jesus shouting out from a cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And they simply don't believe it happened, and and they believe that Jesus went to heaven before he died on the cross, if he was in the cross at all. And and many have such a problem with it that, they actually believe that it was Judas himself somehow was transferred to the cross.
Joel Brooks:And it was him who died there because you can't have Jesus dying on a cross, saying those words. And so often it's the religious people, those who've grown up in a religious setting that miss what the crucifixion of of Jesus is about, we're in danger of the same thing. And so one of the things we decided to do is once a month, to take time to relook at the cross to make sure we understand the meaning. What is going on here? We don't wanna miss it.
Joel Brooks:When Jesus was on the cross, he cried out the first words of the psalm we just read. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And actually the language that the New Testament writers use here when it says, he cried out, that's the only time in scripture you'll ever have that word cried out. It's a very unusual word and it is used for a a horrific cry. Almost the kind of cry that a wounded animal would have.
Joel Brooks:It's a a horrific cry that is used here of Jesus, a cry of extreme distress. And if you go through commentaries of both liberal and conservative scholars, they all come to an agreement of this. They say that this cry here, this cry actually happened. This is true. Whether whether people believe all the scripture is true or not, whether you're liberal, conservative in your scholarship, you point to to this and you say, it happened because nobody would have, as the leader of their faith, as their leader dying a death like this, on a cross, screaming, God, you have left me.
Joel Brooks:No one would make that up. This happened. And this statement was certainly problematic for a lot of the would be followers of Jesus in the 1st century. They had a hard time believing that the leader of any faith could die a death like that. I mean, many people have died better deaths than this.
Joel Brooks:When John Huss, he was, he had a big influence on Martin Luther. When he was burned at the stake, his last words were, We praise Thee, we bless thee, we worship thee. Great last words. Thomas Beckett's last words before his execution were, I am ready to die for the Lord. That in my blood, the church may obtain liberty and peace.
Joel Brooks:Great last words. Latimer and Ridley were burned at Oxford in 8 or in 1555. And in the midst of the flames, Ridley cried out, be of good comfort, Master Ridley. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out. I mean, when when I read accounts like that, I'm inspired.
Joel Brooks:That's that's how you wanna die right there. But Jesus, I mean, he seems to kind of break down in the end, kind of lose it. Screams when all along he was under such control and calm and peace, and he screams out, god, you've left me. Now I would say that Jesus was not cowardly here. Jesus had not lost it.
Joel Brooks:Actually, I would say these are some of the most courageous, are the most courageous words ever. When Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This points to the very heart of the gospel and what he went through. When Jesus cried these out, you need to understand that in the bible there's not, in the Hebrew bible there's not chapters and there's not book titles. You go by the first words.
Joel Brooks:And so when you want to talk about a psalm, you would just say the first word. And when Jesus cries out from the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What he's saying is Psalm 22. Psalm 22. You wanna understand what's happening here, look at Psalm 22.
Joel Brooks:That's what's happening here. Every gospel writer refers to this psalm in their account of the death of Jesus. Every one of them. It is the most referred to Old Testament text in the New Testament. 24 times it is quoted.
Joel Brooks:Over and over, people put the New Testament writers say, you want to understand Jesus? Look at Psalm 22. Look at Psalm 22. Now, which is kind of confusing because this is a Psalm of King David and it says so at the very beginning. When it says to the choirmaster according to the dough of the dawn, that's the name of the tune, a Psalm of David.
Joel Brooks:It's a Psalm of David. Yet, if you know anything about David's life, he certainly suffered but he never suffered like this. I mean, verse 14 says that his heart is melting like wax. Verse 15 describes his tongue as being swollen from thirst and sticking to the roof of his mouth. Verse 16 says that his hands and his feet have been pierced and literally in Hebrew, it says, lions, my hands and feet.
Joel Brooks:Lions and and so translators, they struggle to translate that, but what they could think is my hands and my feet are being mauled like lions would maul them. Biting and piercing. In verse 18 says that they divided up his garments and they cast lots for him. Now, this is something that the the casting of lots is something that executioners did. This wasn't just a common killing.
Joel Brooks:This is what execute what executioners did in which after they were they would kill somebody to get payment. They would cast lots to see who got his clothes. And so what you're seeing here is not just a normal death. You're seeing actually an execution. So here's a man whose hands and feet have been mauled, dying of thirst, stripped of his clothing, people are mocking him, and he cries out that God has abandoned him as he faces execution.
Joel Brooks:Now you can study all the life of David and you'll never come across something like this. Never. He never faced a public execution, and he certainly didn't see his suffering as somehow saving all of the nations like the rest of this song talks about. You know David, he's talking about a greater king. He's he's talking about a greater suffering.
Joel Brooks:He's talking about, as the new testament writers correctly point, he's talking about Jesus. He points to this and says, you wanna understand what's going on here? Read that song. Read that song. In which Jesus, we've looked at, he did not cry out, my hands, my hands.
Joel Brooks:He did not cry out, my feet, my feet. He did not cry out, people are hurling insults at me. He didn't cry out, my head, my head, or my back, my back. Jesus cried out when it came to the heart of His suffering. He said, my God, my God.
Joel Brooks:Why have you left me? When he wants to talk about his suffering and let you know how he is suffering, he talks about his abandonment from his father. Real complete abandonment here in this this Christ speaks of something that is unimaginable. It's interesting if you were if you read through the the accounts of the crucifixion, what the New Testament writers decide not to write. You could tell they're definitely not modern writers because if we were describing the crucifixion, it'd be gory.
Joel Brooks:I mean, you would you would have blood squirting. You would you would it would be description of the the whip and the cat of 9 tails and flesh ripping. That is what we would have. That's what we would describe it. It's not there.
Joel Brooks:It's not what they focus on. It is not like, you know, the movie, The Passion of the Christ and and all that it focused on. That's not it. When in college, I can remember I went to a worship service one time, and they were talking about the crucifixion the pastor was. And man, he he really just laid it on us about all of the physical sufferings of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:On and on and on. I mean went in detail. And finally at the end, he handed out nails, and he put them in each one of our hands. So I want you to hold this and think of the suffering of Jesus. And I remember at the time, I I was emotionally moved.
Joel Brooks:But now looking back at that, I think, you know what? He missed the point. He really missed the point about what Jesus was going through. That's not what the New Testament writers focus on. Because you don't look at the physical pain to understand what's happening to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:What the writers do describe is this, he was abandoned and he was mocked. He was abandoned and he was mocked. You know, Jesus's words of abandonment, they reveal just how much he suffered. When we were a real little church a few months ago, and we were in our house, I talked some about this. And I would have said to the 20 or so people that were there, you know what, if you were to get up, walk out the door right now, say, Joel, you know the Redeemer thing, no way, sorry, gone.
Joel Brooks:Thanks for inviting me, but no thanks. And you were to all leave, I would be hurt. I really would. I would be hurt, but I would not be devastated. Now if my wife, who did just get up and walk out, if my wife got up and she walked out, she said, the marriage is over.
Joel Brooks:I've had it. Enough of this. I'm leaving. If she did it, I would be devastated. Because the reality is, I I do know a lot of you guys, I know some of you fairly well, but not like I know my wife.
Joel Brooks:And I love you guys a lot, but not like I love my wife. And separation from her would devastate me far more than separation from you. And that helps us to understand what Christ is going through. He says, my God, my God, why have you left me? And how that is the source of his agony, because he has never known separation from his father.
Joel Brooks:They have always shared perfect communion, perfect love and affection for all of eternity, and now that's broken. We cannot understand the pain that is there when he screams out, my god, my god, why have you forsaken me? And at this point he says, My God, my God, and it is the only time in scripture that he ever calls his father, God. All throughout scripture, he says, my father, my father. But here, he no longer feels that relationship.
Joel Brooks:All he feels is total absence. No joy, no loving presence. And it's the source of his agony. Another reason that this really tells of the agony of Jesus is, well, you know, if if you were to look at a bird nest and you were to see, you know, a mother bird feeding its babies and a little bird were to fall down, and you would think, man, that's sad. You know, the bird died right there and he's like, that's really sad.
Joel Brooks:That that mother bird's got to feel pretty bad. And if you were to compare that to a real parent, one of us here, and their child running across the street and getting hit. Now there's no way you could compare the pain of a mother bird with the pain of a mother human. You can't even compare the 2, Because a human has so much deeper emotion, is a much higher being, and so the loss of one of its own is so much deeper. Now apply that to Christ.
Joel Brooks:Apply that to the father. So much deeper than us. Such a higher being than us, and the loss that he felt, we cannot even imagine. We cannot even imagine. What Christ is experiencing here is hell.
Joel Brooks:It's hell. Real hell, which is separation from the life giving father. Well the Psalmist says that when people hear hear this cry, and they see this suffering, they mock him. Look at verses 6. And it says, for you oh sorry, but I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
Joel Brooks:All who seek me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let Him deliver Him.
Joel Brooks:Let Him rescue Him for He delights in Him. And every gospel writer includes this mocking. Prophesy to us, Messiah, who hit you? As they would spit in his face. Matthew 28 says that they would mock him by saying, hail, king of the Jews and they would put a crown of thorn on his heads, on his head.
Joel Brooks:They would give him a reed, and they would mockingly bow down to him. They'd say, hey, you who would destroy the temple in 3 days, build it up. Not looking too good right now, Jesus. Save others. You can't save yourself.
Joel Brooks:Hey, if you are the son of God, come down from that cross. What's the matter? Can't come down? Mocking. Mock.
Joel Brooks:But this mocking shows us who Jesus is. I mean, why did they mock Jesus? Do you think they mocked him because he said, love your neighbor as yourself? Do you think they they spat on him because he healed people? How dare you heal people?
Joel Brooks:Do you think they they gave him blows because of the way that he helped the poor? Was was he stripped of his clothes because he was a great teacher? It was none of those things. It's because of what he claimed to be. What he claimed to be.
Joel Brooks:It's interesting if you were to talk to all the religious leaders around the world, different religions, and you were to ask them their thoughts on Jesus, you would get pretty much the same answers. You know, he's a really good man. He was a good teacher. I think he was a man of love. He was a humble guy.
Joel Brooks:But you don't mock a good man, a humble guy. If you were to ask secular historians about Jesus, they're too gonna describe this man full of compassion, things like that, but you don't mock somebody who's full of compassion. Yet Jesus is mocked, and he is mocked because of his claims. He claimed to be king, and people hated him for it. He claimed to be the son of God, and people hated him for that.
Joel Brooks:Some of you might be familiar with the story or the the author Anne Rice. She wrote Interview with a Vampire. And years ago she became a believer. And she became a believer when she was actually doing research for one of her new books, out of Egypt. And and so she's she's doing research for this and as any good writer would do, you look up all the sources about things.
Joel Brooks:And she was studying Jesus. Jesus was going to be weaved in this story, and so she's really looking up all the scholarship about it, and she is as pagan as they come. And through her studies of this historical Jesus, she actually became a Christian. And she noticed some things, and and let me read you this, and and some excerpts of this are in Tim Keller's book, his new book that came out, and also in Anne Rice's book in the back. But she says this, The skeptical arguments that insisted that the gospel writers were suspect or were written too late to be of eyewitnesses, All of those arguments lacked coherence and were full of conjecture.
Joel Brooks:Some of the books I read were nothing more than assumptions piled upon assumptions. Absurd conclusions were reached on little or no data at all. The whole case for the non divine Jesus who somehow stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified and had nothing to do with Christianity's founding which came years later. That whole picture which floated in the liberal circles that I had frequented for 30 years, that case was never made. But not only was that case not made, I found something even more surprising.
Joel Brooks:I discovered that these scholars, so many of them who devoted their whole life to New Testament scholarship, they disliked Jesus. Some pitied him as a helpless failure. Others sneered at him. Some showed outright contempt. Now I had never come across this in any other field of research I studied.
Joel Brooks:For example, the people who go into Elizabethan studies are not out to prove that Elizabeth was an idiot. People in Elizabethan studies do not make snickering remarks about her or spend her careers trying to pick apart her his historical reputation. Occasionally, scholars will study a villain in history, but even then, they tend to argue for the importance of his or her place in history. But in general, scholars don't spend their lives in the company of historic figures who they openly despised. But these New Testament scholars detest and despise Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:It's an interesting observation, which led her down the path to realizing she had to take serious Jesus's claims. It's the claims of Jesus that make us mock him. If he is who he says he is, there is nothing for us to do except to throw ourselves down in worship and adoration. To pledge to him absolute allegiance. And if he is not who he says to be, there's nothing left for us to do except to mock him and to get rid of him.
Joel Brooks:And any person who has read the Bible and given this serious thought will realize that there's no other options for us. C s Lewis said, he wrote, I'm trying to prevent anyone saying this really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
Joel Brooks:He would either be a lunatic on the level of a man who says he's a poached egg, or else a madman or something worse. You can either shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us, and he did not intend to. And this is why people hated Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It's why he is still mocked. It's because Jesus has given us only 2 options. Fall down at his feet and call him lord, or call him a fool and mock him. Anytime that you treat the teachings of Jesus as just being good teachings, but not authoritative, You mock him. Anytime you you think that Jesus cannot be working through suffering, whether it's the suffering or the hardships in your life, something like that, you mock his hardship and his sufferings with which brought about a great work.
Joel Brooks:Anytime you think that god has abandoned you, no longer hears your cries, you mock him. And the fact that he was abandoned for you so that you would never have to be. If Christ is who he claims to be, then it's either all or nothing in your allegiance to him. There is no picking or choosing what you will obey. That's mockery.
Joel Brooks:There's no pretending to to find your happiness and wealth or power instead of Christ. That's mockery. There can be no half hearted worship, half hearted prayers when we get together. That is mockery. If Jesus is who he claimed to be, the Son of God who took on hell for you, it demands everything.
Joel Brooks:Absolute devotion. You know, I'll end with this, The contrast that I saw in a couple years ago, and maybe you guys remember the story. There's a Danish cartoon that depicted Mohammed. Do you remember that? And the whole Muslim world was was rioting.
Joel Brooks:Embassies were swarmed. They demanded apologies. Reason being, their leader of their faith cannot be mocked. I kept saying that over and over. He cannot be mocked.
Joel Brooks:Yet Christianity embraces the one who was mocked, who was utterly humiliated. And when we are hated and when we are despised, we are simply following the same road and we are working out salvation in the world the same way. It's the reason that we are gonna come and celebrate this table here and remembering why Jesus was mocked, remembering his cry of abandonment, remembering why Christ was stripped of His clothing so that we can be clothed in righteousness.
