The death of Jesus John 19:23-30
Jerry had been a bus driver in Toronto for 12 years and he really loved his job. He had the same route and met the same people almost everyday of the week. And then one day someone new got on and he was a huge man in his early thirties. He just looked at Jerry and said, “Big John doesn’t pay.” And he walked back and sat down.
Jerry didn’t want to make a scene so he decided to ignore it. The problem was, the same guy got on at the same stop the next day and he said, “Big John doesn’t pay” and he went to the back and sat down. This happened everyday for a week and Jerry got more and more frustrated and he decided he was going to do something about it. So, he joined a gym and started working out. Within about two and a half months he was ready. And then one morning he saw the big guy getting on the bus and he said the usual, “Big John doesn’t pay.” And Jerry stood up and said, “And why not?” And the big guy said, “Because big John has a bus pass.” You see, if you don’t know what’s behind a conversation it’s hard to understand what’s being said. And so, I want to give you a bit of background so you know what I’m talking about.
One of the most striking things about the four accounts of Jesus’ death in the Gospels is the absence of sensationalism. In other word’s there were no death defying acts of heroism, there were no great speeches to challenge or teach us, there were no moderators that stand off to the side and describe in vivid detail every little thing that happened and there wasn’t even a demonstration from heaven that showed us the horror of God or even the anger of the angels. All that’s here is the simple story of three men being crucified and the one in the middle is the Son of God.
And I think the physical suffering of Jesus was the worse kind of torture that any man has ever devised as a means of execution and as we look at this I don’t want to minimize His agony any more than I want to amplify what the writers are silent about, but at the same time, the four gospel accounts make me wonder why there isn’t more emphasis on the physical torture and the horrendous abuse that Jesus suffered?
And, we can assume that the physical torture that He went through was in the extreme because before this crowd even left for the place of crucifixion Jesus was beaten and tortured by the soldiers and we assume that He collapsed on the way to Calvary because a man named Simon of Cyrene was drafted into carrying His cross and yet, we’re not even told why he had to do this. So, the first question that comes to my mind is, why didn’t John or any of the other gospel writers tell us the specifics of what happened while Jesus was on the road to Calvary?
And I would suggest several answers as to why they didn’t tell us more. First, the physical suffering of Jesus was just a very small part of what He endured. After all, His physical pain was what men were able to impose on Him but I think the greatest suffering He had to go through was the spiritual agony He endured at the hand of God because that was when He who knew no sin became sin for us. I mean, He took on Himself sin and we have to consider that He was pure and sinless and the experience of His taking on sin must have been the most repulsive thing He ever could have ever gone through.
And yet, the scripture tells us that Jesus took our place in order to save us from everything we’ve consciously and unconsciously done to offend God and when He suffered and died He experienced the eternal wrath of God. And compared to this kind of suffering, His physical suffering would have been miniscule in comparison. And there are many who assume that the three hours of darkness that covered the world during the crucifixion as recorded in Matthew 27 and Mark 15 was God’s way of turning out the lights so we wouldn’t see what Jesus was going through. And I think it’s part of the goodness of God to keep us from knowing any more than we had to of Jesus’ suffering than He wanted us to know.
The second reason we weren’t told more was because there’s really no way that you or I could possibly comprehend even a little of God’s wrath. Many of us have tried to imagine what heaven will be like and yet, no matter how hard we try or how far we let our imaginations run wild, our minds always fall far short of grasping anything of the glory of heaven, because as 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
I like how one theologian said, “I can’t describe all the furniture of heaven anymore than I can tell you the temperature of hell but I’m not going to let what I don’t understand affect my choice.”
They have quotes on the side of Starbucks coffee cups and one was by a guy by the name of Joel Stein and he said, “Heaven is totally overrated. It seems boring, clouds, listening to people play the harp. It should be somewhere you can’t wait to go like a luxury hotel. Maybe blues skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line in the 17th century but heaven has to step it up a bit. They’re basically getting by because they only have to be better than hell.” And this is nothing more than a very teeny mind assuming he knows something God hasn’t told anyone.
I think the worst disservice I’ve ever heard a non-Christian say about heaven is that it’s like one long boring church service. And he said, “Can you imagine the song leader in an eternal church service? ‘We’ll, that was great singing. Now, let’s take the blue hymnbook and do all four verses of every hymn in that one.’ And then this would be followed by four hours of the greatest announcements of all time.” But, listen, the verse says, “You’ve never seen anything like you’re going to see in heaven. You’re going to hear things you’ve never heard on earth and you’re mind can’t even get around the wonderful things God has in store for you.” Why didn’t He tell us more? I think, it’s because our minds would be so pre-occupied with heaven that we’d never get anything done on earth.
Hell, on the other hand will be boring with the same old thing all the time. Hell will be repetitious with nothing ever changing. Hell will be agony with no relief and hell will be lonely with no one to ever talk to. And just as we can’t imagine the glory of heaven we can’t get our minds around the horrors of hell either.
You can always tell when you’re talking to a member of one of the false cults by what they have to say about hell because if they don’t use the fear of going to hell to get people to join their particular group they’ll try to discount hell altogether. One of Satan’s favorite lies is to try to convince people that the suffering of hell is something they experience while they live in this world and that God somehow owes them something for all they’ve gone through in this life. And then he also tries to get them to believe the lie that death only brings a state of sleep or rest. It’s like my older brother said to me, “Death is like lying in beautiful fields of flowers with classical music playing in the background.” And when I tried to explain that he wouldn’t be able to see the flowers with all the smoke or hear the music with all the screaming going on he didn’t want to hear any more. (You try to be sensitive but it’s a waste of time.)
Epicurus, the great Greek philosopher, said that he could die happy if he was absolutely sure that death was the end. Well, I think the whole human race could die happy if they were sure that death is just peaceful oblivion but because nobody is really sure that death is the end, so nobody can really die happy.
A lot of Catholic theology teaches that hell is only temporary and that after being in the fires of hell for a while then people will somehow become cleansed and they’ll be purified to the degree that they’ll be accepted into heaven. And the bottom line there is that you’ll be cleansed by what you suffer or what you do rather than by the blood of Jesus.
The cults also teach that hell is a place where souls are simply annihilated and cease to exist while others teach reincarnation and that means that everyone will have another chance to be born and live their lives for as many times as it takes to become purified, and then they’ll progress to a higher form until they finally reach heaven. I actually had one guy explain to me that all this was taught in the Bible and when I asked him where, He said, “In John 3 it says, “You must be born again.” And his idea was that you were born again and again and that was the process. And then there are others who say that hell is only a place away from God, but it’s not a place of torture. And all of these are lies of Satan to cause people to minimize the reality of hell.
The Bible says a lot about hell and Jesus described it as a place as such a place of horror that it would be better to cut off one of your limbs than to end up in that awful place.
Hell is a real place according to God’s word and anyone who says it isn’t, is promoting false doctrine. And the only way to escape hell is by becoming a child of God so you can go to heaven. And do you know what the strange thing is? There are only two choices. There’s not heaven, hell and Shediac but only heaven and hell. When I was a kid and I didn’t like what we were having for supper, my mother would say, “There are only two choices, you can take it or you can leave it.” And here God says, “You can have the most wonderful experience for all of eternity that’s simply beyond description or you can have the worst torture imaginable. God says, here they are, and now you have to make your choice. So, which do you want?
Can you imagine if Barb made fudge and she stood by the door next week offering it to anyone who came in and if you wanted some you’d just reach out and help yourself and probably say, “Thank you.” But if you didn’t want it or if you couldn’t eat it, you might just say, “No thank you and walk by.” But, what if you wanted it but for some reason didn’t take it, then let me ask you, whose fault would that be? Would it be hers? And the answer is, of course not, it would be yours, and God’s offer of salvation is the same.
And there’s one other thing I wanted to point out; Jesus didn’t take the punishment for our sins in hell but He took our punishment on the cross where He served as a type of a sacrificial lamb. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 the Bible says, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." When it says "He was made to be sin," it means He was made to be the "sin offering" and He basically fulfilled the purpose for which every sin offering was ever offered.
Now listen, if our minds can’t even begin to get a hold of the good things God has in store for His children, then why would we ever think that we could understand the horror of His wrath, which will come upon those who have continued to live in rebellion against Him.
And then third, maybe just knowing how much Jesus suffered would cause us needless suffering. I’m a husband and a father and I can say that I don’t like to suffer but it’s even more painful for me to watch either my wife or one of my children going through something rather than going through it myself.
And if the purpose of Jesus’ suffering was to suffer in our place then why would He allow us to understand the depths of what He suffered knowing it would just cause us to live with such a sense of shame for what we caused Him go through? What I am trying to say here is that Jesus was gracious in not telling us any more than He had to, because He knew it would cause us to suffer and He didn’t want us to suffer for the sins for which He suffered and died.
I believe that God has graciously kept us from understanding all that Jesus went through because He knew it wouldn’t do us any good. I mean, we’d be so taken with the beneficial goodness of Jesus that we’d be too overwhelmed to serve Him.
And so let’s look at the passage I read and see if we can get to the end of this section. We’ll begin in verses 23 and 24 where it says, “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, ‘they parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots.’ These things therefore the soldiers did.”
So, the four men John is focusing on here were the Roman soldiers whose job it was to carry out the crucifixion of Jesus and the two thieves but here John just mentions these four. And that doesn’t mean that there’s only four because there’s also a centurion here and Matthew 27 mentions him, and maybe more, but here John just focuses on these four probably because they were the ones who had performed the crucifixion and they were the ones who were gambling for His clothes.
And these soldiers seem to be oblivious to the suffering of the three men who are hanging on the crosses. According to Luke 23:36, it says, the soldiers joined in with the others who mocked Jesus, and they were daring Him to come down from the cross to save Himself. And it almost sounds as if these guys were standing around bored, so they joined in on what they considered was fun.
I think they had done this so many times they were just going through the motions because killing somebody to them was nothing new or unexpected because that’s what they did and they must have felt they knew almost exactly what would happen and when. And they’d probably be oblivious to every moan and cry that came from the prisoners and for the most part they’d probably only look at the people they crucified when they had to.
And I think John was telling us about them to capture the cold-heartedness of these men by showing us this moment in time as they were all huddled together on the ground, gambling for Jesus’ clothes. And it’s interesting to see that they only gambled for His, maybe, they couldn’t see anything of any value that belonged to the other two but as far as they were concerned all they really wanted from Jesus was what He was wearing.
In Psalm 22:18, there is a prophetic statement that says, "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." And this tells us that when Jesus died, whoever was responsible for His death, would gamble for His clothes. The psalmist said, they would part His garments, and then they would gamble for His vesture.
And as we see these men gambling for used clothing beneath the cross you can’t help but notice the indifference involved. I mean, here are men sitting beneath the greatest redemptive act in all of history as Jesus pays for the sin of the world and opens the gates of heaven so all who want to, can go in, and all they can think about is getting some free used clothing and do you know something? People are the same today.
So, we don’t want to too quick to judge these guys because they’re not much different than many of the people we run into today. There are many who will claim the name of Jesus but they only see Him as the means of meeting their material needs. The only prayer they know is, “Give us this day our daily bread.” They aren’t concerned about their sin or the spiritual needs of those around them and their prayers sound more like shopping lists for their wants than requests than for their spiritual needs.
I had a friend whose wife was looking for a new table for her dining room and she said she had gone to all kinds of stores but she just couldn’t seem to find the one she was looking for. And one night we were over at their house and she was explaining her problem and I said, “Have you prayed about it?” And she said, “I couldn’t pray about that, it’s not like I need it.” You see, that was her concept of prayer. And she wasn’t a bad person, she just saw God as only being concerned with the spiritual things of life and missed the fact that to Him all of life and all of our decisions are spiritual.
It’s kind of an odd thing to say but these soldiers had done most of their work when they walked the prisoners through the town, then nailed them to the cross and now all they had to now was hang around and wait for them to die. They tell us that on a normal day when there were no religious festivals going on, they would leave the prisoners on the cross until they died and some of them lived as long as three days. So, needless to say, this was the most boring part of the job because there was nothing to do but stand around and wait.
I had a friend of mine in Toronto who worked as a private duty nurse and she basically spent twelve hours a night sitting beside someone in a coma, waiting for them to die. I asked her what she did and she said she just sat there and read a book and when the machine beeped and signaled that the person was dead she put a toe tag on them, called the office to report the death and went home and waited for the next one. It was just a job, just like these guys.
I’ve had to go to the hospital for various tests and I’m sure most of you know what that’s like. As you go in and tell them you’re there they tell you to take off most if not all of your clothes and then they give you a flimsy robe to put on and then you’re told to sit in the waiting room with a bunch of strangers. And while you’re waiting for your turn for the tests you notice that some of the others have robes like you do and a few still have their everyday clothes and as you sit there waiting you do your best to try to hold the robe together and try to look normal.
Our experience helps us appreciate something we probably had never thought of before and that’s the fact that Jesus wasn’t just crucified but He was also humiliated because He was naked as He hung on the cross. After all, these soldiers were Roman and the Romans had the baths where everyone went naked and as far as they were concerned they wouldn’t listen to a Jew or anyone else who wanted His clothes, besides they wanted them.
No wonder David wrote in Psalm 22:16-17: “For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me.” And so, we could say that Jesus also bore the curse of nakedness for us, that we might be clothed in His righteousness.
Then there’s one other little detail about Jesus’ clothes that explains the gospel message because it tells us that He who was infinitely rich became absolutely poor to save sinners like you and me. Paul writes to the Corinthians in II Corinthians 8:9 and he says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich.”
And we’re also given a description of Jesus’ clothes as they were divided up. Several commentators they tell us that the outer garments would have been divided into four parts among the four soldiers who were involved. And these would have been the head-gear, the outer cloak-like garment, the girdle or belt, and the sandals and each of these four parts would have been worth about the same amount of money and so they cast lots to see who would get what.
And then we also see that more attention was given to the tunic or the inner garment. The tunic we are told was worn next to the skin and basically it was the "underwear." Generally, it was a type of garment that was woven into a single piece of cloth and often it was made of linen and it had a hole for the head and the arms. In other words, it was like a giant T-shirt. I know, we hear this and think, who would care? Well, you have to consider that you couldn’t just go to Wal-Mart and get yourself a package of three anytime you wanted but all clothing was handmade.
And there are many scholars who are divided about the significance of this tunic. The word that was used in Psalm 22:18 that described the tunic was the same word that was used to describe the long blue robe of the high priest. “The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that the high priest’s robe was seamless: ‘this tunic is not composed of two pieces, to be stitched at the shoulders and at the sides but it is one long woven cloth, with a slit for the neck, parted not crosswise but lengthwise from the breast to a point in the middle of the back’ (it was this slit that the high priest ripped when he tore his robes in Mark 14. And so, it’s possible that John was hinting at Jesus’ priestly activity when he mentioned this seamless robe at the time of his death.
And then we turn to the people who were gathered around the cross. In verses 25-27 it says, “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”
When John says, "there stood by the cross," he means "right against the cross." Now, at the most, Jesus’ feet would be about three feet off the ground. So, these people would be gathered right at the feet of Jesus, within touch of Him and in easily within the sound of His voice.
And it tells us who’s there in verse 25 because it says it was His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene." And when we read that we wonder, where are the disciples who were so courageous, bold, and fearless when they were in the upper room because all that were here were these three women and John who is referred to as the disciple Jesus loved. Let’s look at these women for a minute.
First, there was Mary who was Jesus’ mother. She was told by Simeon some thirty years before that day that someday her own heart would be pierced through and now as she stood at the foot of the cross there’s no question that when Jesus’ body was pierced, so was Mary’s heart. And I believe that as she stood at the foot of the cross she felt much of the pain that Jesus felt not because she had some special spiritual aptitude but because she was his mother.
Mary doesn’t appear very often during Jesus’ ministry, we looked at her back in John 2:1-11 when Jesus first began preaching because we we’re told that He went to the wedding in Cana and while He was there, they ran out of wine. His mother came to Him and explained the problem and He said, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." In our culture to refer to your mother as woman would seem very harsh or cruel but here it was a dignified term. It’s like calling her ‘lady’ and what He was doing was explaining very softly that she didn’t have any control over Him in terms of His role as Messiah and then He met the need that she brought to His attention.
And then in Mark 3:32-34 it says, “And the multitude sat about Him, and they said unto Him, behold thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And He answered them, saying, who is My mother, or My brethren. And He looked round about on them which sat about Him, and said, behold My mother and My brethren.” It’s like He’s saying, if you want to meet the holy family, then look around you and see those who are doing the will of God. And by saying this He wasn’t putting her down but He was letting the crowd know that she didn’t exert any authority or power over him in terms of His ministry. You see, Mary wasn’t some kind of sacred saint but she needed to be saved by Jesus just like you and I.
And as she stood here by the cross, I’m sure she suffered in silence because she would remember Him as a child and all the things He did as He grew up. He had a place in her heart like nobody else because He was her son and you can imagine the pain she felt as the crowd was mocking Him, the thief was making fun of Him, the soldiers were gambling for His clothes and her Son was suffering as she watched and there was nothing she could do about it.
Then there was Mary’s sister and her name was also Mary which we find strange because they had two people in the same family called by the same name. It reminds me of the boxer George
Forman who has five boys and he called every one of them George. Someone asked him why he did that and he said, “He wants them to know who their father is.” And other than the fact that this Mary was there we don’t know anything else about her.
And then there was the third Mary which was Mary Magdalene which was another way of saying Mary from Magdala. And we know that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her.
It’s interesting that they all had the name Mary because Mary comes from the word which means "bitterness." I think it took a lot of courage for any of them to be at the crucifixion because they could have been accused of guilt by association or even be assaulted by the angry mob that stood around yelling insults but the scripture says, "perfect love casteth out fear" in 1 John 4:18 and I think they had no fear because their love for Jesus was so full.
And then there was one man here and all the rest were long gone. In verse 26 it says, “When Jesus, therefore, saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved." John 13:23 says, "Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved." And we assume it’s John and yet John never names his name in the book but always calls himself one "whom Jesus loved." You notice that He didn’t say, "I’m the one that loves Jesus" but he gets more excited about the fact that Jesus loved him.
And then in verses 26-27 we see a changed relationship between Jesus and His mother where it says, “He (Jesus) saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home." And it’s like He gave Mary a new son because from the moment of His death, He would no longer be the earthly son of Mary, so He replaced Himself in Mary’s life with John.
I don’t think Jesus could have committed His mother to the care of His half brothers at this point in time because as John 7:5 says, "For neither did His brethren believe in Him” and yet there was a change in Acts 1:14 where it says, "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren." And this verse seems to be telling us that Jesus’ whole family had become His disciples after the resurrection.
And then in verses 28-30 it says, “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”
Everything He came to do was finished and in absolute awareness of what was going on He fulfilled the scripture found in Psalm 69:21 that says of Jesus at His death, "and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink." At the beginning of His crucifixion they had tried to give Him gall according to Matthew 27:34 and gall is a sedative but He wouldn’t take it because He wanted to suffer all the pain without any kind of numbness but now He knew the scripture needed to be fulfilled and so He said, "I thirst." And the soldiers were moved by God to fulfill the prophecy by giving Him a drink.
We’re told the soldiers put the vinegar on hyssop which was a long reed with a bushy end. It probably was like a bulrush or something like that. And it’s interesting because hyssop was very significant to the Jews because it says in Exodus 12:22 when the angel of death was going to pass over Israel, God said to the people of Israel, "Take hyssop, dip it in blood, and strike the blood on the doorposts and the lintel." And any time hyssop appeared it would remind the Jews of the Passover lamb. And here it was being used as a tool at this sacrifice of the last and greatest Passover Lamb.
So, the soldiers gave Him the vinegar to drink, and with that Jesus fulfilled every single prophecy and then verse 30 says, "When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, He said, it is finished; and He bowed His head, and gave up the spirit" and that was the end.
There was no groan and no curse of a victim but the only sound was the proclamation of a victor. It was a shout of triumph as He said, "It is finished." And Jesus knew everything was done because He knew everything.
When Jesus said, "It is finished," He meant that there could be nothing added to what He had done. It means that the work of redemption was completed because everything that God required was done and there was nothing left to do. The cross was endured, the price for sin was paid, and divine justice was completely satisfied. There was nothing else left, so He died with the intention of rising again. And I like how verse 30 says, "...and He bowed His head...." The Greek word means "to pillow your head" like the gentle placing of your head on a pillow. It was like He decided, "It’s done and now I’ll die," and He did.
Conclusion
The cross is the measure of the magnitude of our sin. When we read of what took place at the cross, we’re blown away at the way men mocked God and it’s hard to believe but had we been alive back then, we might have joined them, if we were unsaved. The cross reveals to us how much God hates sin but it’s also the measure of God’s love and grace that’s poured out upon those who He saves. Someone said, “The crucifixion is man at his worst meeting God at His best.”
And all this was done for you and I. And do you know the best part: someone said, “If you or I were the only sinner in the world, Jesus would have come and died the same way, because He loves every one of us that much.
