Calvary No.2 Three Men and The Cross

We're going to be reading from a very precious part of the Bible, probably the heart of the whole Gospel, from Luke 23, verse 38, down to verse 49. There was a written notice about him which read, This is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him.

Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other criminal rebuked him. Don't you fear God, he said, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.

But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus answered him, I tell you the truth.

Today you will be with me in paradise. It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

When he had said this, he breathed his last. The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, Surely this was a righteous man. When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away.

But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. Now let's just come to the Lord in prayer again. Father, we offer these next moments to you, and we pray that you will speak to all our hearts and enable us to make a right response to your word for the Savior's sake.

Amen. The last time I preached on a Sunday evening, I brought you close to the scene of our Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And from there, as you know, he was taken across the valley of the Brook Kedron and back into the walled city of Jerusalem itself.

And we could this evening stay our mind upon the way that he was handled by the high priests, the mockery of the trials that he experienced in front of Annas and Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod. I could perhaps take you into the fortress of Antonia and give you something of the terrible suffering our Lord Jesus had to endure as his face was pummeled by the fists of the Roman soldiers. But you have a fair idea of how bestial one man can be to another, almost by the daily contribution of the media in showing us in fact and fiction and that new inelegant word, faction, as to the way that people behave and the cruelties that are perpetrated.

So what I want to do this evening is to take you from Gethsemane to Calvary. And I want to close in upon three particular characters who perhaps don't feature too much in our minds when we think of the death of our blessed Redeemer, but as we look into their experience, I think that they will teach us something of what our Lord has achieved on our behalf. The Lord Jesus carried that heavy weight of a cross as far as he could, out from the flagged streets of Jerusalem and up the skull-shaped hill.

And when he had been pinned to that gibbet over the period of time that he was suspended there, the skyline darkened and blackness fell. Now just suppose for a moment words can be a shaft of light. And in my hands, therefore, I have some sort of torch, some beam, that I can train, despite the darkness of the scene, on three particular characters.

And if you will allow me that, and if you will visualize something of the situation in which our Lord finds himself in, then I'll be content to show you the significance of what three other men were experiencing at the same time. Let me, as it were, just for a moment from the top of Calvary, to turn that beam of light and focus it down into the Kidron Valley, for it is just possible that you might find the silhouette of a figure emerging from perhaps the Damascus Gate or the Golden Gate. He's a prisoner that's just been released, and I want in a moment or two to close up on him, the revolutionary who was reprieved.

And then I want to turn that beam of light and direct it not towards the Lord Jesus, but rather towards someone who also was crucified alongside of him. And this character is a hopeless creature. Within a matter of hours, the ever-burning flames of Gehenna, the name given to the nearby rubbish tip of Jerusalem, will consume his body and he will be cremated.

I want to direct your attention to him and show you the criminal who was retrieved from his hopelessness. And then, finally, the last figure that I would cast the beam of light upon is near the cross, but not on any of the three. I refer to the Roman centurion who's on duty during the whole of that ghastly business when three men are done to death.

And as the hours of execution pass by, it seems to me that this man grows increasingly troubled and tormented. He can't figure Jesus out. He can't understand why he behaves as he does, how he manages to maintain the dignity that he has.

Until at one dramatic point, this Roman centurion stands up and he says, and a burden seems to be lifted from his shoulders as he does, surely this was the Son of God, the executioner who was relieved. Three men, the revolutionary who was reprieved, the criminal who was retrieved, the executioner who was relieved. Three men and the cross.

Come then to the first, and let's stay the beam of light on him for a moment. I guess Barabbas could hardly have believed his ears. There he was languishing in one of the dungeons of the Roman fortress, and his heart was pounding almost as hard as those footsteps that came towards the cell door.

He knew that his moment had arrived, for Barabbas is a revolutionary, a political sort of chevara. He has been concerned to lead a movement against the Romans. He wants them out of Palestine.

He's a nationalist, and his nationalism has been too enthusiastically exploited, and he's in jail on a charge of sedition, on a charge of plotting against the emperor, and on a charge of murder. He's heard a little that Pilate has an idea to release a prisoner just to pacify, just to please the Jews, because it's one of their religious festivals, but Barabbas is no fool. He knows the enormity of his crime.

He knows the serious nature of his charge. If anyone gets released, it certainly won't be him. You're a lucky fellow, Barabbas.

I think I hear the Roman soldier say, as he flings wide the door of the jail, of the cell, you're free. Barabbas wonders, is this some sick joke, another piece of nastiness that the Romans have conjured up just to make his end that much more difficult to bear? But the Roman officer is not joking. Barabbas is free.

The revolutionary has been reprieved. Now, I don't know, of course, what Barabbas did then, but quite frankly, had I been him, my curiosity would have placed me somewhere near the hill where the man who was going to die in my stead would be crucified. And therefore, I wonder if I cannot pick Barabbas out in that beam of light that I direct down towards the Kidron Valley.

The fisherman Peter was an eyewitness of the events at Calvary. And when later on he writes an account of what he saw, he has this to say when he speaks of the death of our blessed Redeemer. To this you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. And then Peter goes on to say, speaking still of the death of Jesus, for Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, the just for the unjust.

In a very real way, Jesus was dying in the place of Barabbas. It was Barabbas's own cross that Jesus was pinned to. And the reprieve that Barabbas receives is as a result of the fact that Jesus shall die in his stead.

Barabbas means son of the Father. And I wonder if he looked up from his vantage point in the Kidron Valley and saw amidst the gloom those three crosses and appreciated that there was a son of a father, of the Father who was dying in his stead. When a criminal was executed by crucifixion, they used to write out his crimes on a piece of parchment and they'd tie it round his neck as though it was some necklace that dangled.

That would have been Barabbas's experience. Now the Apostle Paul has this thought in mind when he speaks not of Barabbas but of Barabbas's substitute. And he says of the Lord Jesus Christ that he took upon himself not only the sins of this revolutionary but the sins of the whole world.

And that catalogue of sins was nailed to his cross for that's what the Romans would do. They'd take the parchment from off the neck of the criminal. They'd pin the man to the gibbet and then they would mail to the other side of the cross the crimes which he had committed.

And when Jesus died in one sense whether he ever appreciated it or not I don't know. He died in the stead of Barabbas the revolutionary who was reprieved. I can tell you in a very literal sense I believe Jesus died for me.

I believe that I have been reprieved. I have been ransomed from the sins that I have committed. He took all the nastiness of my life all the muck all the filth into his own body and the crimes of Tony Sargent were listed so to speak on the cross.

There they were. The document. It's hoisted high as is our Saviour.

It's nailed to his cross. The handwriting of ordinances which was against me is pinned to his cross. My sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to his cross and I bear it no more.

Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord. Oh my soul.

The revolutionary who was reprieved. But let me take that beam of light and redirect it no longer on the fleeting figure of the criminal who has just been released but let me direct it now towards those three crosses and to one who hangs at the side of our Lord Jesus. He's a wretched he's a hopeless man.

There is another also at the side of the Lord Jesus and he hurls shafts of abuse at the Saviour. If you're the Messiah save yourself and then the criminal who's under the light of my particular beam starts to speak and he addresses his colleague and in addressing him he silences him and he says of Jesus this man has done nothing amiss but we are condemned because of a sentence that we justly received and then incredibly this fellow directs his remarks towards Jesus and he says Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom. I think that that is one of the most fantastic requests in the whole of Scripture.

Here is a criminal who's got no hope and yet in the hours of his anguish he suddenly appreciates that the blood-stained man who hangs by his side on a cross is more than just an ordinary mortal. Though he's a man who's being executed he's a man who has a future. He's a man who has a kingdom.

He's a man who shall have a memory. Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom. And that request calls forth one of the grandest responses in the whole of the Bible.

Today you will be with me in paradise. Marvellous. Marvellous for the man to know that he'd die today.

For death by execution was a prolonged business and he could have been two or three days on the torture rack. Marvellous to know he'd be with Jesus. Marvellous to know he had a future described in terms of a lovely old Persian word for a park word for a park or a garden.

But most marvellous of all is the thought that the guilt and the sin of this once hardened criminal has been relieved by the Lord Jesus Christ. There's not one thing that this man can do to merit his salvation. There he is fixed on his Roman cross.

There's no merit that he can bring. There's nothing that he can contribute apart from his own sin. And here you have the best example in the whole of history to illustrate that hymn which says Nothing in my hand I bring Simply to thy cross I cling.

Here is a man who was hopeless. A man, I repeat, whose body would soon be fuel for the fires of Gehenna. But as a result of the cross of Jesus you can describe him in terms of the criminal who was retrieved.

The revolutionary who was reprieved. The criminal who was retrieved. And now I turn my beam of light just once more and I direct it towards the Roman centurion who's been on duty during the hours of this crucifixion.

Relatively recently they have found in the precincts of Calvary the remains of someone whose body dates back to the time of the Roman occupation of Palestine. And it's obvious from the bones that have been studied that this particular man was crucified. And the discovery confirmed the fact that the nails of the Roman soldiers went through the center of the hands of the criminals who were so done to death.

Can you imagine the exquisite pain through which a man had to go be he the son of God or ordinary man as he was fixed to the cross? Can you imagine how his body is just wracked with pain? How his nervous system becomes alive and raw? What do men do when they're in such terrible anguish as that? They swear. They curse. They blaspheme the gods that they thought existed.

From their mouths fall horrible oaths. They lose their dignity. They lose their self-respect.

This Roman centurion had seen it all before. He'd witnessed it. It was a revolting business.

Even a tough Roman soldier didn't want that sort of duty. There were no perks apart from playing bingo for the tattered garments of the prisoners for they were done to death in a naked condition. Tough Roman soldier though he be he's got a brain.

He's got a mind. And you're not on duty in the presence of the Son of God even though he's dying without starting to ask yourself questions. Why is it that this fellow retains his dignity? Why doesn't he let fly the oaths and the blasphemies? Why doesn't he curse those priests? Why doesn't he bring down the wrath of God even if they're empty words upon the Roman establishment? Why does he retain his poise and his peace in degree? And I believe that that Roman soldier began to have something of a tormented mind as he looked up and saw the Christ retaining his dignity.

And at the back of his mind becoming a weight in his conscious nature was the question Who is he? Who am I doing to death? Because he's the executioner. At one level he's responsible. And the moment comes when the executioner is relieved of the torment in his mind as suddenly like a shaft of light similar to the beam that I'm suggesting you see this evening but affecting him inside comes that revelation that this is not just an ordinary man this is an innocent man one who did nothing amiss.

This is a righteous man and not just a good man. The words fall from the lips of the Roman centurion surely this is the Son of God. Now what he understood by that I'm not too sure.

True enough Augustus had just taken that title himself for he proclaimed to the empire that he was divine. But it seems to me the very fact that three times the gospel writers refer to the words of this centurion indicates their importance. And when Peter was conveying the incident to Mark years later when Luke was writing it up when Matthew was writing it up it's very very interesting it seems to me that they do not hesitate in allowing us to read that the Roman centurion said of Jesus surely this is the Son of God.

The confession of faith the simplest confession of faith of the early church was simply this Jesus Christ God's Son and Saviour. If you put those five words together and you take the letters at the beginning of each word they happen to make up the Greek word fish and that became the symbol of the early Christian community the secret sign and it's virtually that creed that flows from the lips of the Roman centurion on the night when Jesus is crucified. Surely this was the Son of God and when he said it was there not a measure of relief? Three men and the cross the revolutionary who was reprieved the criminal who was retrieved the executioner who was relieved come back to the first for Barabbas the word substitution is going to take on a different meaning for that's what Jesus was for him.

As far as the criminal is concerned the word submission is going to mean something fresh for he commits himself into the care of Jesus remember me and for the Roman centurion subscription becomes a very key term for him for he subscribes to the fact that the man on the center cross is none other than the Son of God I'm virtually through but you see what I mean I trust you do when I say that just by examining those three figures you can learn a lot about the effects of Jesus' death in one sense Barabbas fades and when you refocus you must see yourself for if you're going to benefit from the death of Christ you must realize that he's made it possible for you to be reprieved at one point the criminal must move out of your gaze and when you refocus see yourself because you too apart from Jesus Christ are hopeless there is no way in which your soul can be saved but when you confess who Jesus is you can be retrieved from a Christless eternity face the executioner again the Roman centurion and once more allow his face to blur and refocus and see yourself with all your agitation with all your confusion breaking into guilt as you remember that in part it's your responsibility that Jesus went to the cross for he died for your sins and then know that sense of relief as you confess as the Roman soldier confessed who Christ is three words make sense when you consider the cross substitution Jesus died for me submission I commit myself to him and recognize his lordship subscription I tell others that only Jesus Christ is my savior and I subscribe to being a member of Hip's family circle we look at the cross and we see not just these men we see ourselves and I ask you how do you respond to the fact that Jesus died let's bow our heads in prayer father in one sense you bring us all before the cross all the barabbases all the criminals all the soldiers all the school teachers all the students all the housewives all the business men you bring us before the cross and you tell us to make a response to what we see father, others sat down and watched Jesus during the hours of his passion and it affected their lives not one whit they simply watched him die lord, if it be the case that this night through the preaching of your word we've had a fresh glimpse at Calvary a further understanding has been granted to us as to why the savior died help us to make a response he died the just for the unjust he died nailing our sins to the tree he died to reprieve he died to receive he died to relieve help us to enter into the benefits of that death as we confess your son as lord for his sake amen