The Calvary Road

Boys and girls, we've lost some of our young people today and I've just been trying to find them. They're a long, long way away. They've gone to Pakistan.

And you know, Suti's gone to Pakistan too. Because all that they've left me is, you know, I mean, look at this thing. Freddy.

That's no exchange, is it, for Suti? And it looks as though Suti's got a... Reminds me of somebody I know. Yes, I'm hoping that Suti's going to come back, but they've asked for a £100 ransom to get him out of Pakistan and we've only got £10 thus far. So the talk that I was going to give you on Suti is, well, I can't give it to you.

And so I not only rang Pakistan to see how our youngsters are and they're doing very well, I also thought that Anne Christian should rescue me because I ain't got Suti and I'm sure that she's got something that she can tell the boys and girls. Anne, who's been with us now for some while, is one of our missionaries. She spends a lot of time, or has spent a lot of time in Bolivia, and she's also a teacher.

OK? Thank you. Is this microphone OK? Right. I was told I speak too loudly when I've got the microphone on.

Can you adjust it for me? OK. Good morning, boys and girls. Morning, boys and girls.

Are you here? Oh, good. I'm glad you are here. OK.

The fact that someone told me I speak too loudly started me thinking about noise. Now, put your hands up, any of the boys and girls who've ever been told by their mummy or their daddy or their teacher, stop making that noise. Put your hands up.

Oh, a lot of them. Right, well, ask the mummies and daddies, how many of you have ever said to your boys and girls, stop making that noise? Put your hands up. I think most of the mummies and daddies hear.

So noise is something that sometimes can really, just sort of gets in the way, and you can't really think properly when it's noisy. So I want to tell you a story about a man in the Bible who heard lots of very loud noises, and I need some volunteers to help me, because we're going to have some sound effects. I want about six of you to come and help me.

One, two, three, four. I need two more. Five, six.

OK. You can come as well, Annie, if you want. I can have seven.

It's not a problem. OK. You need to line up here across the front, please.

Line up across the front here. OK. Right.

That's fine. Good. I'm going to give you some things to make some noise.

OK. OK. Now the first two here, have you got loud voices like me? OK.

Because you're going to be the wind, and you've got to blow through these and make lots of noise, right? OK. When I tell you to. Right.

The next two, you're going to be an earthquake, and I've got some pebbles from the beach here, so you've got to shake those loudly to be an earthquake. Can you do that? Show me. Right.

Oh, that's not loud enough. And the last ones here, you've got to be some fire. So here's some flames, and you've got to go crackle, crackle, crackle very, very loudly.

Can you do that? Here you are. You can have two flames. Right.

So you're going to be the fire, and you've got to go crackle, crackle, crackle very, very, very loudly. OK. Now this story is about a man called Elijah, and God was trying to speak to Elijah, but Elijah wasn't listening very well.

So God said to him, you have to go out and stand on the mountain. So Elijah went and stood on the mountain, and a great wind, wind, wind, it tore the mountains to bits, and it threw the rocks around, because it was a really strong wind, wind. Right.

OK. And after the wind had gone, there was an earthquake. But God, right, thank you.

But God wasn't in the earthquake, the earthquake. OK. And after the earthquake, there was a fire.

It's a very quiet fire. Come on, crackle, crackle, crackle, crackle as loud as you can. Shout.

Crackle, crackle, crackle. That's better. Good, good, good.

OK. But God wasn't in the fire. Crackle, crackle, crackle.

Oh, this is a very quiet fire here, dearie me. So here's all these loud noises, the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. Crackle, crackle, crackle.

Oh, right. And God wasn't in any of those. Now if God wanted to speak in all these loud noises, he could have done, because he made them.

How do you think God did speak? Did he speak like a fire? No. Did he speak like the wind? No. Did he speak like the earthquake? No.

How did he speak? How did God speak? He spoke in a quiet little whisper that you could hardly hear like that. Very, very, very quiet. And that's because sometimes when we're making a lot of noise, like the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, Crackle, crackle, crackle.

and when our mummies and daddies have to say, please be quiet, don't make all that noise, sometimes God wants to speak to us too, and if we're making lots of noise, he can't hear us. We can't hear him, and he just... So we have to be quiet, and that's why at times we come to church, and we pray. When we pray, people say, shh, be quiet.

And it's very hard to be quiet sometimes, isn't it? I find it hard to be quiet, I like to make a lot of noise. So sometimes we have to stop, and we have to listen to what God has to say to us. And when we're making lots of noise, like the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, Crackle, crackle, crackle.

we can't hear God speaking to us, so we have to be quiet, and we can hear his little whisper. So when you go to Sunday school today, and your teachers say, right, listen and be quiet, shh, you have to be quiet, and not be like the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. Crackle, crackle, crackle.

You have to be quiet, so you can hear God speaking to you. So remember that in Sunday school. Right, thank you.

If you want to take those with you, you can do. Would you like to take those with you? Do you want to take the rocks with you? Yeah. Your mums love me.

He's so good to me He took my sin He took my sin God took my sin He's so good to me He's so good to me Let's stand now. God is so good God is so good Now I am free He's so good to me He's so good to me I have a friend who wrote a book. And the book was entitled The Calvary Road.

Roy Hessian's great classic. It was distributed in tens of thousands around the world. And what I want to do this morning is to opt for the title that his book has, rather than the one in our notes and news, which also in some measure does encompass our reflection from the Word of God.

I want to speak to you on The Calvary Road. There was a song in Evangelicalism years ago that spoke of that road and it said on The Calvary Road there's room for just two. No more and no less.

Just Jesus and you. There's another older hymn that goes back to Sankhya's time and that says, Lest I forget Gethsemane Lest I forget thine agony Lest I forget thy love for me Lead me to Calvary Wonderful place called Calvary Love redeeming now I see At the place called Calvary A friend of mine has a denomination in the United States. He founded a church called Calvary Chapel in California.

And now the emphasis of that church has spread and there are many, many Calvary chapels scattered around the United States. It seems to me that there can be perhaps no more wonderful way of describing the church at this particular time on its calendar as a Calvary Chapel church. A church that stays its focus upon what happened at Calvary.

Since Charles Spurgeon preaching last century Calvary preaching, Calvary theology, Calvary books, Calvary sermons these are the things I want and in proportion as we have Calvary exalted and Christ magnified the gospel is preached. There is a sense, my dear friends, whether wittingly or unwittingly you all take the Calvary road. You pass by and the way that you respond to the events at Calvary determine not only your attitude to the remainder of life but also determine what will happen to you at the point of death.

The Calvary road, well, it's people by many, many millions but there is a sense in which that earlier hymn that I quoted from is correct. As far as you're concerned, the Calvary road there's room for just two just you, Jesus, and you. So I ask you to join the company of those of whom we read here in the scriptures who attending to, who were part of that procession that left Jerusalem and went to Calvary and they took their place and they sat down and they watched.

And I want to know something of your reaction. And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? What is your reaction to Calvary? So I break open this text and speak to you first of all about the person and the place.

Him, the person. There, the place. Then I address you on the spectators and the spectacle.

The spectators, they. The spectacle watched over Him. And then I want to speak to you about God and Golgotha.

Where was God when Jesus died? Why is it that God is often so silent at the focal point of tragedy and need? The person and the place. And sitting down, they watched Him, the Lord Jesus, who threw down a challenge on one occasion and said, If any of you see any reason to expose me, if you know my private life, if you have evidence against my character, then speak out what you know. But our Lord Jesus, who we see going to the cross, is someone who is utterly unsullied.

That means to say He is pure. As pure as the child whose noise we hear at the moment. Even more pure because every child that is born into the world partakes of his parents' and his ancestors' sins.

But not the Lord Jesus. He dies on the cross of Calvary as a man who is innocent of all charges leveled at Him on earth. And no one would have dared to have leveled charges on Him from heaven.

That is the man who is he on yonder tree, dies in grief and agony, tis the Lord. O wondrous story, tis the Lord. The theme of glory.

But look. Look at what is impressed upon His head. There is a crown.

Not a crown of diadems, but a crown of thorns. What is the significance behind those thorns? Well, you'd have to go back to the book of Genesis where the record is made of, recorded of, of the consequence of Adam's sin on planet earth. Cursed is the ground because of you.

Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. And you recall how our Lord Jesus, just before Calvary, was manhandled by the Praetorian guard, by the Roman soldiers, and with rough hands they plaited a crown of thorns.

Then they pressed back into God incarnate the very curse that followed sin. The thorns that illustrated man's fall are used to create a headpiece for our Lord. And they are thrust into His brow.

And that is how He dies. They watched Him there, the person, our Lord, innocent, but impressed on Him your sin and my sin. There, Calvary.

The Aramaic is Golgotha. Calvary in the Greek gives us the word kara, from which we also get cranium. It speaks of a skull.

And Calvary is known as the place of the skull. According to very flimsy Jewish tradition, the historicity of which I question, it was the mound where Adam died and was buried. Whether that is right or not, or the equally flimsy tradition that it's near to the place where Isaac was offered as a sacrifice or would have been offered as a sacrifice by Abraham, I don't know.

But the fact of the matter is that Calvary speaks for a hideous spot. And the thought of Him, the Lord Jesus, being there at Calvary is a thought of incongruity. The two do not really match.

You can't be comfortable with the idea of Him there. Just beyond Calvary is Hinnom, the refuge tip of the Jerusalem citizens, where the fires were never allowed to go out. It stank.

It was off the tourist track. The pilgrims wouldn't go to that place. But it is on the perimeter of Hinnom that you find the Lord Jesus.

And sitting down, they watched Him, the person, there. And you're beginning to grasp something of the reason as to why He is placed in that obnoxious spot. Because I've already intimated why it was the thorns were placed upon His brow.

But not just the person and the place, but let's consider together the spectators and the spectacle. They kept watch. That's what it says, isn't it? They kept watch over Him, there.

The last time in the Scripture that you read about people keeping watch refers to the shepherds. They kept watch over their flocks by night. They were concerned about welfare.

Whereas those who were amongst the group looking at the Lord Jesus were concerned about warfare. They kept watch with love in their hearts towards their animals, certainly with affection. Many of these kept watch with hostility in their hearts towards Jesus, the spectators.

There were those who were apathetic. The Roman soldiers are obviously very much involved in the crucifixion of Jesus, but what is another dirty Jew from amongst the many Jews that have been crucified in that sort of fashion? There would be a sort of insularity amongst these men. That same sort of insularity, perhaps, as was witnessed by the German Reich when millions of Jews were done to death.

A sort of apathy. This is our job? He is just another man who needs to be taught a lesson or two? Or the apathy that some of these people had towards the man on the center cross? And I'll tell you something. One of the most heart-rending reactions today from the vantage of our Savior as He looks down upon the world and considers the anniversary of Good Friday is the apathy.

Not hostility. Not obviously embracing why He came. That's the other end of the spectrum.

But a plain indifference. It's the religion of the United Kingdom. When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.

They never heard a hair of Him. They simply let Him die. And do you remember how that great poem goes on? The crowds went home.

The streets were left without a soul to see. But Jesus knelt against the wall and cried for Calvary. They were there.

They watched with indifference. But you see, on the register of heaven, indifference is computed as rejection. You're either with me or you're against me.

Pilate was indifferent. Judge, get me a bowl of water. I wash my hands.

I scatter the droplets on the Jews. It's their responsibility. No.

You all go down the Calvary Road and those who are indifferent as they pause and look up, their indifference is registered by God as a denial of the implications and the benefits that flow through the death of Jesus. The spectators? The apathetic? Oh yes, and there were two. The sympathetic.

There were those daughters of Jerusalem, you remember, who when they saw our Lord Jesus were moved to compassion as He hauled His cross up that skull-shaped hill. There were those women who had always been following Jesus since the early days of His ministry in Galilee. Mary, His mother, and other women folk.

At first they're distant from the cross, so it seems if you check the records, and then they come right to the very front of the cross. Timid doves. That's what Charles Spurgeon sensitively calls them.

Timid doves who were there at the hour of Jesus' greatest need when He looked for a man to have pity on Him and found no man. They were sympathetic. And whoever it was who took a sponge and filled it with wine vinegar.

There's an element of humanity, an element of sympathy, but sympathy alone towards the Lord Jesus is not what He wants. As you go down the Calvary Road, He neither wants your sympathy nor your apathy. If it's a sympathy that leads to commitment, then maybe that will be acceptable.

But sympathy in terms of moving into admiration for a martyr who dies is not sufficient reaction to the death of this man. He's more than just a good man who dies. It's more than just a human tragedy.

It's all that, but far, far more. There were the apathetic. There were the sympathetic.

And what's more, there were the antagonistic. If you are the Son of God, then come down from the cross. These were the shafts of abuse that they threw up at the Lord Jesus.

And the astonishing thing is that the people who were so sarcastic were led by the religious elite from Jerusalem. Sadducees, Pharisees, the whole religious bunch. Men who were ordained not only to serve God but to live their lives in the interest of others.

That they should be there and with their flushed faces should be so sarcastic to this man even if he was less than he claimed to be is an offense to the very concept of ministry and to meeting the needs of human beings. So those were the spectators. You can group them in those divisions to some extent.

The antagonistic, the apathetic, the sympathetic. But what were they seeing? What was the spectacle? Well, of course, it was the spectacle of a man who is about to die. Roman crucifixion was a horrible thing.

You were not allowed to be crucified if you were a Roman citizen. Crucifixion was reserved for aliens. It was reserved for those who were slaves.

The probability is that the cross was divided into two. And in preparation for the crucifixion the upright would already have been placed in a conveniently dug hole. And the horizontal, well, that would be where the arms would be extended eventually.

And the person who is to be crucified having passed through the process of judgment would be compelled to take the horizontal and to drag it on his back through the streets. Which is exactly what happened to Jesus. Prior to the crucifixion, the very act or following the court's decision that the man was guilty and had to die the convicted one would be scourged.

A horrible application of whips tipped with metal or stone to do the greatest amount of damage. It was rarely the case that someone would have nails put through their hands but it happened from time to time. Even rarer, the placing of nails through their ankles.

But that was known. So this is what the spectators were going to see. This is a spectacle as the man, Jesus, known as the carpenter from Nazareth who is making such remarkable claims that seem to indicate he is more than a carpenter.

Indeed, he is God incarnate. As they see him drag the horizontal beam stumble because of its weight and his emaciated, weakened body unable to take the strain. This is the spectacle that they see.

This bedraggled figure nailed to that horizontal piece of wood and then the horizontal by a process of lifting and the forces of a rope pulled up on the perpendicular so it meets the point that's been preset where the horizontal and the perpendicular can meet and the body of Jesus finally pinned with the knocking in of the nails into his ankles. The spectators and the spectacle. That's what they saw.

The sympathetic, the antagonistic those people who also were apathetic. That is what they beheld. So we've looked at the person and the place.

The spectators and the spectacle. But what about God? God and Golgotha. You see, I have a problem as a pastor.

I have a problem as someone who tries to live a Christian life. My problem is this. The non-interference of God at moments when I think he should dramatically make himself known.

You don't find any reference to God not in terms of the activity of the First Person of the Trinity in this passage which Barbara read so beautifully for us. I mean, this man, the person the one who's involved in this spectacle he had such a close relationship with God. I mean, here he is at the beginning of his ministry and he's baptized by John in the rivers of the Jordan and the scene is disturbed as a voice from heaven says this, my son, in whom I am well pleased.

And then you remember the months, 18 months or so perhaps more elapsed and here is that same Jesus who had been baptized but now he's on a hill. They call it the Mount of Transfiguration and the very goodness of Jesus seems to overflow. It seems to become visible as his garments are made as white as white can be and as those who are privileged to see this remarkable event witness something of the glory the innate glory of Jesus coming to the surface.

And from the glory beyond comes the majestic voice of the Father. This is my beloved Son. Hear Him.

This intimacy between the Son and the Father it's there throughout the whole years of the ministry of Jesus. I have come to do my Father's business. You find Him at the break of day in some conveniently placed hill in Judea or in Galilee and there He's having intercourse with the Father.

This unsullied Son of God has an unbroken relationship with the Father and it's sustained down the years of His life down the years of His ministry. So I ask you where was God at Calvary? Why was there no interference from God on the part of Him who said my Father and I are one? When Jesus was hanging upon the cross and the interpreters of religion the priests misinterpreted God to the people. Why was there such a silence? Do you know how I would describe Psalm 22? The God-forsakenness of God.

You see in Psalm 22 obviously anticipating the Great Shepherd Psalm that follows you've got some insight into the barrenness of the psalmist's experience and that psalm the familiar words of that psalm are used by the man on the central cross who cries out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The God-forsakenness of God. When the soul becomes conscious of the lack of God that is the uttermost sorrow. I go further when a man lights consciousness of God at the tremendous hour of death it is a horror that is unspeakable and I know what I'm talking about.

In the mystery of pain and bloodletting the one who came for the advantage of human beings like you and me on whose forehead has been impressed that crown of thorns he needs a word from God but the non-interference of God is almost too loud that God does not minister in on this scene paradoxically seems to shout about the indifference of God. You know my friends there are times when in the local church we do not want your words we want your actions. You see there are occasions in life when actions speak louder than words.

It's not what you intended to do, it's what you do. It's not what you say it's your performance. Where was God the Father when Jesus was crucified? Over there some short distance from the cross is the temple and within the temple there is the holy place.

Curtaining off the holy place from ordinary people like the Jews and certainly the Gentiles is a curtain. It's a thick curtain. It's a veil that stands between humanity and divinity.

When Jesus died God spoke through an action which is unique. He spoke to the world by dividing, by tearing that curtain so that what stood for his presence the Ark of the Covenant the central piece of Judaism which was only seen by the high priest once a year now becomes plain and obvious to any sensitive pilgrim who is prepared to go into the temple. Don't you see that Matthew when he records about these people sitting down and keeping watch over the scene as Jesus is crucified is also careful enough to tell us about what happened in Jerusalem at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

And the earth shook and the rocks split and the tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. What happened when the veil was rent? All the world was brought in to the holiest place of all. That is, all the world constituted of believing men and women and they become priests unto God through the merit of the day when Jesus died.

Where was God? God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Eloi, Eloi Lama, Sabaxani it needs a response From the bowels of hell itself Jesus who has been made sin speaks of God and he prefaces it by the personal pronoun my God my God and the forsakenness of God which seems apparent at that point is changed into the concept of the acceptance of God who does not speak though he could have done on that scene because it is a drama that requires not words but action He takes the veil and rips it in twain and he fulfills the promise of Jesus who says I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the Father but by me and sitting down they kept watch over him there the people and the person the spectators and the spectacle and as they're there God responds to what happened at Golgotha and the road that bypasses the cross the Calvary Road becomes a road open for you and for me everyone I repeat wittingly or unwittingly goes down that road some will continue with their antagonism some will just be sympathetic some will be completely apathetic but there will be those who confronted by the cross and the death of Jesus will say my Lord and my God but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ the Calvary Road there's room for just two just Jesus and you lest I forget Gethsemane lest I forget thine agony lest I forget thy love to me lead me to Calvary wonderful place called Calvary love redeeming now I see at the place called Calvary come my friends watch on the Calvary Road see him again your Savior and realize that from his death has come forth your salvation and from the cross he'll be taken down and three days later he will be raised in the power of an endless life and now in the glory you have a man who bears the consequences of your sin the wounds in his body but because of what he has done your future is guaranteed and from the Calvary Road you'll eventually move to the road that leads you in eternity into the very presence of God no curtain no obstacle no devil no defilement simply the Father waiting for you those who've come on the Calvary Road through life on into eternity he will sacrifice his life for you