The Symbol of the Cross
Luke 23:32-41; 44-46
September 2, 2001
Introduction
It’s amazing how people, countries and companies are defined by symbols. For instance, the United States as is most countries is symbolized by our flag; red, white and blue; stars and stripes. The Nike Company is linked to the “swoosh” symbol. As soon as you see it, you know that it’s Nike. They’re inseparable. A few years back, the rock musician Prince legally changed his name from Prince to a symbol he drew up. He wanted that symbol to become his identity.
It’s also amazing to me, that of all the symbols Christians could choose from to identify themselves with, we have chosen the cross. Think of the other symbols that Christians could have chosen over the ages. We could have chosen the Bible, a dove, a crown, a manger, or an empty tomb. But Christians have chosen the cross.
This choice is even more amazing when we consider the horror and torture with which crucifixion was regarded in the ancient world. Crucifixion was invented by barbarians, but taken over by the Greeks and perfected by the Romans. It has been regarded as the cruelest method of execution ever practiced because it delayed death until the maximum torture had been inflicted on its victim. It was possible for the victim to hang on the cross for days before dying very slowly of asphyxiation. The Roman Empire considered crucifixion such a heinous form of execution that they did not allow any Roman citizens to be executed in this manner except in extreme cases of treason. Cicero once said this about crucifixion: “To bind a Roman citizen is a crime, to flog him is an abomination, to kill him is almost an act of murder: to crucify him is – What? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed.” (Stott, p.24-25 The Cross of Christ) Crucifixion was so painful and such a horrible way to be tortured and killed that a new word had to be created to describe it. The word “excruciating” was invented to describe the pain and agony of the cross. The word “excruciating” literally means “out of the cross”. (Strobel p.197-198 The Case For Christ)
Yet, with the horror of the cross and crucifixion, knowing that Jesus died such a death, Christians chose the cross as a symbol to identify themselves with. John Stott writes that, “It seems certain that, at least from the second century onwards, Christians not only drew, painted and engraved the cross as a pictorial symbol of their faith, but also made the sign of the cross on themselves and others.”
It’s been this way since the beginning of the church, Christians have identified themselves with the cross. For Christians, the cross doesn’t represent pain, torture, and death. The cross symbolizes God’s love for us and the new life we can have through Him. Leave it to God to turn something as ugly as the cross into a beautiful symbol of love and life.
Our Scripture text this morning is Luke 23:32-41, 44-46 and picks up at the point where Jesus has been led to place of execution along with two other criminals.
”Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals- one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. The people stood watching, and the rulers sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’ The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’ There was a written notice above 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 save 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.’…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.”
As we look at the cross this morning, we will see three things that the cross symbolizes. Three things that show the love of God and the new life we can have in Him.
I. GOD’S GREAT SACRIFICE
One definition I like of sacrifice is to give up something of great value for the betterment of someone else. We don’t hear a lot about sacrifice anymore. In our society, everyone feels that they’re entitled to everything without having to sacrifice, without having to give up anything. The one place that we commonly hear about sacrifice though is on the baseball field. Players are asked to sacrifice themselves as an out to move a runner from one base to another or get a runner from third to home for the betterment of the team. More and more that’s becoming an “old school” philosophy because individuals want the glory and attention with hitting the big home run or getting the big hit. If you watch a baseball game and you see someone sacrifice themselves for a teammate, that person will get just as many congratulations as the guy who hits the home run.
The cross is where God’s great sacrifice took place. It’s the place where God the Father sent His Son, Jesus to die so that you and I could live. That’s the ultimate sacrifice.
Two summers ago, I took a group of high school students to Los Angeles for a CIY Conference and then onto Ensenada, Mexico for a mission trip. We had our own church service that Sunday in Mexico. Instead of preaching a sermon, the people at CIY decided to show us a short video that illustrated God’s great sacrifice of Jesus on the cross:
It’s the story of a man and his family, specifically his son, who was just a small boy. The man had the job of raising and lowering the bridge that was part of the railroad system so boats could go through. The little boy was wide-eyed with excitement, and he clapped his hands with glee when the huge bridge went up at the beck and call of his mighty father. He watched with wonderment as the huge boats steamed down the river. Twelve o’clock came, and his father put up the bridge. There were no trains due for a good while, and they went out a couple of hundred feet on a catwalk out over the river to an observation deck. They sat down, opened their brown bag, and began to eat their lunch. The time whirled by, and suddenly they were drawn instantly back to reality by the shrieking of a distant train whistle. The man looked at his watch and realized that it was time for the next train to come through which would be carrying many passengers. He knew he had just enough time, so without panic but with alacrity he told his son to stay where he was. He leaped to his feet, jumped to the catwalk, ran back, climbed the ladder to the control room, went in, put his hand on the huge lever that controlled the bridge, looked up the river and down to see if any boats were coming, as was his custom, and then looked down to see if there were any beneath the bridge. And suddenly he saw a sight that froze his blood and caused his heart to leap into his throat. His boy! His boy had tried to follow him to the control room and had fallen into the great, huge gear box that had the monstrous gears that operated this massive bridge. His left leg was caught between the two main gears, and the father knew that if he pushed that lever his son would be ground in the midst of eight tons of whining, grinding steel. His eyes filled with tears of panic. His mind whirled. What could he do? He saw a rope there in the control room. He could rush down the ladder and out the catwalk, tie off the rope, lower himself down, extricate his son, climb back up the rope, run back into the control room, and lower the bridge. No sooner had his mind done that exercise than he knew--he knew there wasn’t time. He’d never make it, and there were many people on that train. Suddenly he heard the whistle again, this time startlingly closer. And he could hear the clicking of the locomotive wheels on the track, and he could hear the rapid puffing of the train. What could he do? What could he do! There were many people, but this was ... this was his son, this was his only son. He was a father! He knew what he had to do, so he buried his head in his arm and he pushed the gear forward. The great bridge slowly lowered into place just as the express train roared across. He lifted up his tear-smeared face and looked straight into the flashing windows of that train as they flashed by one after another. He saw men reading the afternoon paper, a conductor in uniform looking at a large vest-pocket watch, ladies sipping tea out of teacups, and little children pushing long spoons into plates of ice cream. Nobody looked in the control room. Nobody looked at his tears. Nobody, nobody looked down to the great gear box. He had sacrificed his son for the people on the train.
That video had a big impact on me. It put the reality of the cross and the sacrifice that God made for me so much clearer. It made me so much more thankful. But God the Father wasn’t the only who sacrificed. Jesus, made a huge sacrifice, willingly giving his own life. In Luke 23:38 as the written notice is fastened above Jesus’ head that reads “This is the King of the Jews”, it was the absolute truth. Jesus is the King of the Jews and the King of the Gentiles and the King over all Creation. Yet, he gave up his authority and power as the King to die on the cross for us.
Philippians 2:6-8, “Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross.”
Ephesians 5:1-2, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
The question we need to ask ourselves today in light of God’s sacrifice for us, is what do we need to sacrifice for God? Are we willing to sacrifice the thing we hold most dearly? Are we willing to even sacrifice our very lives? Are we willing to sacrifice for the advancement of the Kingdom of God? Are we willing to sacrifice so that others may come to know Christ?
Jesus told the disciples in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” The cross is filled with sacrifice. Are you ready to follow Jesus?
II. GOD’S HOLY SUBSTITUTE
What is central to the cross is that Jesus was taking our place, taking our punishment for our sins, when he died on the cross. Instead of it being you on the cross, Jesus was substituted in your place.
In the Old Testament, various offerings were given to God. There were daily, weekly, monthly, annual and occasional offerings. The book of Leviticus details five main types of offerings: burnt, cereal, peace, sin and guilt offerings. Excluding the cereal offering, the other four were blood offerings. In these blood offerings, the worshipper would bring the offering, laid his hands on it and killed it. The priest then applied the blood, burnt some of the flesh and arranged for the rest to be prepared for a meal. The animal being sacrificed was symbolic of being the substitute taking the penalty for the worshipper’s sin which was death by the shedding and sprinkling of his blood. The problem with animal offerings and sacrifices was that for a substitute to be effective, it must be an appropriate equivalent. Animal sacrifices could not atone for human beings because humans are more valuable than animals.
God didn’t need another person to be a substitute. He needed one person who could be the substitute for all mankind. He needed a substitute that was pure, innocent, sinless and blameless. The only being with those qualities is God himself. The only option for God then was to have His Son Jesus come and live as a man and die as a substitute for all men. It’s the only way that God’s judgment for sin and his mercy to man could be fulfilled. It is clear that Jesus met this criteria for even the criminals hanging next to him on the cross realized in vs. 41 that “this man has done nothing wrong.”
Hebrews 10:11-12, “Day after day every priest stands and performs religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.”
Using Old Testament terms, Jesus is our sin offering. Romans 8:3, “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.” Jesus was substituted to take our place and our punishment for our sin.
History records that during the Civil War, many acts of violence were committed by both the armies of the north and the south. Once such act occurred in October of 1862 in the town of Palmyra, Missouri. According to W. E. Sutterfield, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Palmyra, the town was under military law at the time....occupied by one of the armies involved in this conflict.
The commander of the army ordered ten men shot in reprisal for the work of an informer in the town who leaked information to the enemy. Several men were being detained in Palmyra jail as prisoners of war at that time, and ten were selected from among them. One of the number was William T. Humphrey, the father of several children. His wife pleaded for his release because of the children and her poor physical condition. Because of this, the commanding officer struck Humphrey’s name from the list and chose the name of Hiram Smith, a young man without a family. Hiram agreed to take the place of Humphrey, stating that perhaps it was better for a single man to die than a man with a family.
The ten men were shot on October 17, 1862 in what has come to be known as the “Palmyra massacre.” At the Mount Pleasant Church cemetery, there is a stone erected at the grave of Hiram Smith by G. W. Humphrey, the son of the reprieved man. It reads: “This monument is dedicated to the memory of HIRAM SMITH, the hero who sleeps beneath the sod here, who was shot at Palmyra, October 17, 1862 as a substitute for William T. Humphrey, my father.”
The whole reason we need to have Jesus as our substitute is summed up by a Christian author when he writes:
“The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.” (Stott, p. 160 The Cross of Christ)
III. GOD’S PATHWAY FOR SALVATION
The mother of a nine-year-old boy named Mark received a phone call in the middle of the afternoon. It was the teacher from her son’s school.
"Mrs. Smith, something unusual happened today in your son’s third grade class. Your son did something that surprised me so much that I thought you should know about it immediately." That was not a particularly comforting thing to say to her.
The teacher continued, "Nothing like this has happened in all my years of teaching. This morning I was teaching a lesson on creative writing. And as I always do, I tell the story of the ant and the grasshopper:
"The ant works hard all summer and stores up plenty of food. But the grasshopper plays all summer and does no work.
"Then winter comes. The grasshopper begins to starve because he has no food. So he begs, ’Please Mr. Ant, you have so much food. Please let me eat, too.’" Then I say, "Boys and girls, your job is to write the end of the story."
"Your son, Mark, raised his hand. ’Teacher, may I draw a picture?’
"’Well, yes, Mark, if you like, you may draw a picture. But first you must write the ending to the story.’
"As in all the years past, most of the students said the ant shared his food through the winter, and both the ant and the grasshopper lived. A few children wrote, ’No, Mr. Grasshopper. You should have worked in the summer. Now, I have just enough food for myself.’ So the ant lived and the grasshopper died.
"But your son ended the story in a way different from any other child, ever. He wrote, ’So the ant gave all of his food to the grasshopper; the grasshopper lived through the winter. But the ant died.’
"And the picture? At the bottom of the page, Mark had drawn three crosses."
Salvation lies at the foot of the cross. The cross is not just a symbol of God’s sacrifice, or God’s substitute, but it is a symbol of God’s salvation. It was on the cross that our pathway to salvation was cleared. It was on the cross that our sins were cleansed. It was on the cross that our victory was won. Colossians 2:13-14, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.”
Like a bulldozer clearing dirt and rubble to make a road, the cross cleared a pathway between us and God. Luke 23:45 characterizes this when the curtain of the temple is torn in two. No longer is there any separation between man and God, the path has been made clear.
Conclusion
Sometimes even though we have a clear path, we fail to take it. When I left to go to college in August of 1993, my best friend and roommate left Virginia Beach, Virginia and headed to Lincoln, Illinois. We had a mapped out path to take. We had maps. But we veered off the path. We stopped wherever the mood took us. We looked at caverns in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. We went two hours out of our way to find a dirt road that was located on the map in the mountains. We went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; a state that we shouldn’t even have come close to, to attend a Pirates/Cardinals baseball game. We drove around the state of Ohio looking for a monster truck show and ended up at a county fair. We visited the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. We got lost who knows how many times and decided to have a diet only of Dairy Queen the entire trip. Our path was clear, but we failed to take it.
The cross has made our path clear to God and yet we fail to take it. We try many different routes to get to God. But the Bible speaks of only one route to God and only one route to salvation. That route goes through Jesus and through the cross.
The cross is the symbol that Christians have identified themselves with for centuries. It is a symbol of love and life. Today, we have seen that it is a symbol of God’s Great Sacrifice, God’s Holy Substitute, and God’s Pathway for Salvation. An illustration that is used often is that of the cross being a bridge that connects man to God. If you need to take Jesus as your Lord and Savior this morning, I ask you to walk down front this morning, walk across the bridge of the cross and give your life to God.
