Dear Friends in Christ,
What does the cross mean? To the Roman, it was an instrument of torture, simple, but horribly painful. To the Sanhedrin, it was a token of victory though short lived. To one thief, it was his door to hell. To the other thief, it was the gate to heaven.
What does the cross mean to us? It is the blessed symbol of what our Savior came to do for us. It is the altar where the God-man sacrificed himself in payment for the sins of the world. The cross is the instrument of our salvation where Jesus Christ loved us and washed us from our sins with his own blood. There is no greater message than the cross because it is the message of Christ crucified (1 Co 2:2).
Tonight’s name of Wondrous Love is Christ Crucified. It is more of a term than a name, yet we so often link those two words. Christ Crucified because of our sins. Christ Crucified for our salvation.
“They crucified him.” Three simple words. There was nothing simple or brief about it. We shudder as we picture Jesus laid on that cross, his shredded back pushed against the rough wood. They stretched out his hands on the cross bar. We shrink back as we hear the strokes of the hammer pounding spikes through the flesh and bone of his hands and feet. They push the pole in the ground and lift him up. Crucifixion is done quickly, the dying goes very slowly! Normally, it would take hours even days for the victim to die. It was torture. No Roman citizen or respected person could be subjected to this shameful, slow death reserved for the worst of criminals AND for God’s Son.
Far worse than the physical pain were the tortures of hell that God’s Son endured that day on the cross. All the bitter dregs in the cup of the world’s sins, all the terrible curses, all the pains of hell that are the wages of the world’s sins, fell with crushing force on God’s Son as he hung on that accursed cross. We can’t even begin to sense the depths of hell’s suffering Christ crucified endured on that cross. Only the devils and the damned in hell can understand God’s Son’s anguished cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34).
“They crucified him,” it says so simply. We can only guess at the suffering involved in that word crucified. We do not have to guess, however, at the “they” who crucified him. Certainly the soldiers were involved, the ones who handled the hammer and lifted Jesus up. Now they sat beneath his cross casting lots for his clothing, throwing bits of sarcasm at him. Back in his palace, stood a cowardly and selfish Pontius Pilate who had vainly tried to wash innocent blood off his hands with water. The chief priests and Jewish people in their blind hatred had chosen Barabbas and said of their only Savior, “Crucify him.”
There are even more involved in the “they” who crucified him. In the distance lies Judas, now a corpse. Weeping in the darkness is Peter, guilty of denial and cowardice but repentant and forgiven. And there farther back, back where we look only reluctantly stand men and women of all classes and conditions, but having one thing in common. We all bear the stamp and stain of sin. Among them, as we look closely enough, we recognize ourselves, our spouses, our children, our neighbors, our friends, sinners one and all.
Tonight as we do daily, each of us looking into his own heart and at his own life needs to confess in the words of the hymn writer, “Ah! I also and my sin wrought your deep affliction; this indeed the cause has been of your crucifixion” (CW 98:3). Yes, it needs to become, “I am the reason for that name of wondrous love, Christ crucified.
I don’t think we want to stop with just the thought of our guilt. What comfort can “Jesus crucified by me” bring for sinners? We surely want to look again at his cross. This time it is not to see who put him there but to see why he stayed there. It was not the nails, not the soldiers, not the crowd, but his wondrous love which held him there. Jesus’ cross brings the saving truth that we need so desperately, it is also “Christ crucified for me.
The Bible spells out this glorious truth in passage after passage, clearly and plainly. Yes, “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;” but the prophet also reminds us, “By his wounds we are healed” (Isa 53:5). “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,” Paul sums up for us (2 Co 5:21). “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin,” John assures us (1 Jn 1:7).
In summary of this saving truth, we look at the cross. It has quite a story to tell. It declares full payment for the world’s sins. It speaks full payment for my sins. The cross is the throne of wondrous love for my Savior, Christ crucified.
Down through the ages since Calvary, that cross has stood in invitation to sinners. Countless thousands have heard the crucified Christ invite through Word and sacrament, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (Jn 6:37). You and I have received this glorious invitation so many times in our lives that it perhaps doesn’t seem so grand anymore. We might be tempted to respond, “So what else is new?”
We hear the voices in our ears. You have to make a living. You have to raise a family. You have to relax, too, and enjoy life. Life is busy and complex with every moment competing for our attention . That is the way life is even for the child of God. How good again to hear the sound of Jesus’ voice offering his simple, sweet invitation to us sinners.
It is back-to-the-cross time. It is time to kneel beneath that cross, confessing our sins and then rejoicing in his forgiveness. It is time to marvel again at the wondrous love behind those words, “Christ crucified for me.” Amen. <SDG>