The Cross of Christ

As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

(Matthew 27:32-56 ESV)

There was an old police show on television called Dragnet. One of the main characters was famous for always saying when questioning a witness or a suspect, “just the facts, please, just the facts.” Many people have the same approach to religion – they just want the facts. We want to know that the things we believe are true. Fairy tales are fun to read, but we don’t build our lives on something made up. And we would not base our hope for eternal life on an outright fabrication.

The Christian faith claims to be based on certain facts. Christianity is unique in that it is not just a philosophy or mysticism. The crucifixion is one of the central facts of the Faith.

But some facts still require explanation. Even when we know the facts we have to know what these things mean. What is the significance? The Cross is like that. Jesus’ death on the Cross is dark and mysterious without some explanation of its significance. Unfortunately, the Gospel writers give us only the facts and very little explanation.

When something especially horrible happens we are interested in finding the meaning behind the facts. We want to know why bad things happen because evil is an aberration – a departure from what is normal and expected. And so we have always struggled to explain evil so that it might make some sense – that which is otherwise unwelcome nonsense. The most troublesome question is why bad things seem to always happen to innocent people.

Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to die. Perhaps this is why the Cross doesn’t make sense to many people. Why did God let Jesus die in such a horrible manner? God could have sent a legion of angels to rescue Him! Here is another instance in which something really bad is happening and God seems to be passive and uninterested. But maybe Christians are so familiar with the Crucifixion that we are no longer shocked by it and we have stopped asking the hard questions. We even wear crosses for fashion statements! Why did the darkest moment in human history have to happen? Why did Jesus have to die like this?

There are many people who admire the teaching of Jesus but can’t explain the meaning of the Cross except that it was just another tragic injustice. We have never listened to the great moral teachers and have always persecuted the prophets. What is harder to explain is Jesus’ willingness to embrace the Cross and walk open-eyed into the Darkness alone.

We should not ignore the obviously evil and ugly nature of the crucifixion of Jesus. To make like life easier we often ignore the unpleasant things and live in denial. But the ugly reality of the Cross is the most important reality we must all face.

At the Cross we see the most evil side of human nature on display. The first thing we notice is that it is not enough for the enemies of Jesus to put Him on the Cross, they also had to mock Him as He suffered. It is the nature of human cruelty to abuse the weak and the vulnerable, to add insult to injury, and to kick the person who has fallen down. At His weakest and most vulnerable point, the enemies of Jesus surround Him like blood-thirsty animals and continue to bite and tear at Him. But Jesus remains silent before His tormentors.

There were evil men who wanted Jesus dead and these men were fully responsible for their evil plan. Of course, God knew about their plan and God used them to accomplish His own plan. But the fact that the Cross was a Divine plan in no way removes all human responsibility. There is no conflict between Divine sovereignty and human responsibility. But the evil of man cannot overcome the purpose of God.

The Cross shows us that evil aspect of human nature that would even get rid of God Himself. We do not want to submit to God. We want our way, even if we have to crucify the Son of God! The greatest evil in the world comes from a desire for power and control.

If the human race is basically good, then how do you explain the Cross?

Evil always looks uglier out there in the world, but evil is planted in the heart of every person. We find it easier to point out the evil in the world than to look at the evil in our own hearts. Then we would have to admit that we are part of the problem! The Apostle Paul said that the Cross is foolish and offensive to the world (See 1 Cor. 1.18ff). One reason for this offense must be that the Cross causes us to look at something about ourselves that we would rather avoid seeing. The Cross illustrates our inability to change the basic structure of the world, not to mention our hearts. The Cross is God’s answer to all the evil in the world. The Cross should be enough to prove that only God can overcome evil and apart from the Cross of Christ we have no hope of a better world or a better Self.

There is an old song that asks the penetrating question: “were you there when they crucified my Lord?” There is a sense in which we were all there at the Cross of Christ. Those who actually did the deed and had Jesus crucified or who pounded in the nails were not the only guilty ones. We continue to crucify the Son of God when we choose to do our own will instead of the will of God! The Cross was man’s foolish attempt to get rid of God and that wicked spirit is still alive and well in the world today. But the wicked intentions of man cannot overcome the purpose of God. While men were doing their best to get rid of Jesus, God was actually working out His own plan.

The crucial thing to see about the Cross is not what men were doing but what God was doing. It is hard to see what God is doing, especially when something evil is happening. When men are doing something evil we don’t see how God can be at work at the same time. We usually think that man’s evil stops or at least frustrates the work of God. But it doesn’t and the Cross proves it!

At the Cross God was using evil to defeat evil. Only God could figure out how to make this happen! The Cross is a demonstration of the wisdom of God. Evil was turned back on itself at the Cross, causing its own destruction. I am not saying evil will eventually turn into something good on its own, given enough time, or that good somehow needs evil to exist – that is the philosophy of Dualism. Evil was defeated at the Cross of Christ because God was there working out His eternal purpose – something God had planned before the foundations of the world were even laid. The Cross could have never happened apart from the will of God because no one could have killed the Son of God against His will. Jesus laid down His life willingly because He was doing the will of the Father. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed “not my will but yours be done.” Jesus had previously asked His Father to find another way to accomplish His will, something that did not include the Cross, but there was no other way to accomplish God’s perfect will and eternal purpose. Evil is rebellion against God’s will. So Jesus defeated evil by submitting Himself completely to God’s will.

In his story “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” C.S. Lewis illustrates how Jesus willingly offered Himself. The great lion, Aslan, the Creator of the land of Narnia, offers his own life in exchange for the life of the boy Edmund, who had become a traitor and served the White Witch. Aslan surrenders himself to the Witch and her dark forces, allowing himself to be tied down to the Stone Table, mocked by the Dark Powers, and his majestic mane shaved off in humiliation before being killed by the Witch’s cruel, stone knife. In the same way, no one could have arrested, bound, and killed the Lion of the Tribe of Judah if He had not offered Himself as a willing sacrifice. It is no wonder that in the book of Revelation Jesus is depicted as the Lion who became the Lamb!

From the highest perspective, Jesus went to the Cross for His Father, not just for us. Jesus was doing the will of God and that is why Jesus is the Lamb of God. God was offering His Son as a sacrificial lamb that would take away the sin of the world. The Cross was God’s work. You and I had nothing to do with the offering of Christ.

But why did God have to offer His Son as a sacrifice?

The Cross was a transaction between Jesus and His Father which is hard for us to grasp. It is hard to understand what happened behind the scenes in the spiritual realm when Jesus died. But the Gospel writers give us some clues that help us understand what really happened when Jesus died. First, there was three hours of darkness. Then there was Jesus’ piercing cry from the Cross: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” The darkness and the cry from the cross are both signs pointing to a single, terrible reality: when Jesus was dying on the cross He was bearing the guilt of our sin. The darkness was symbolic of the wrath and judgment of God. The piercing cry of Jesus was not just symbolic but was something that actually happened. Jesus was actually forsaken by God when He was on the cross bearing our sin. This is because Jesus was being judged by God for our sin.

Many people today are offended at the idea of God being angry at sin. We have chosen a God of love instead. But the Biblical God is both righteous AND loving and He is both of those things all the time. To say that God is ONLY loving is to have an unbalanced and unbiblical view of God, perhaps to even have invented a false god. The real question is how God can be righteous in dealing with sin and yet still be merciful to sinners and forgive their sin? The Cross is the answer to this dilemma!

The Cross is God graciously providing Atonement, or a covering, for sin. This was the only way for God to be both righteous and merciful (See Rom. 3.23ff). Jesus became a lightning rod for God’s wrath, taking the blow of God’s justice for us. So God can be merciful to us and forgive our sins through Christ because He had already paid the penalty and satisfied the righteousness of God. And so Jesus became the PROPITIATION for our sins, or that which turned aside the wrath of God. In one sense Jesus went through Hell – being separated from God – so that we would never have to experience this ourselves. God is now free to forgive or justify those who believe in Christ’s sacrifice.

The Cross was God’s way to demonstrate, or show forth, His character. The Cross was a demonstration of the righteousness of God. God cannot ignore sin. However, the Cross is also a demonstration of the love and mercy of God, because God is providing a way for sinners to be justified and forgiven. The Cross allows God to be everything God is without compromising any aspect of His character in our salvation!

We must now receive this Atonement. Even if you can’t quite understand how Atonement works, you can still believe that it does work. Jesus has taken sin away! When we do to the doctor we do not have to understand all of the complex science behind the medicine to be cured. The whole point of the Cross is not to have an abstract theory of the Atonement but for the blood of Christ to be applied to our lives. The Blood of Christ will only benefit those who apply it to their live through personal faith and receiving the Gift of God.

The Gospel writers tell us that when Jesus died the veil in the Temple was ripped in two. This also gives us a picture of what the Cross has accomplished for us. That veil in the Temple was a picture of our separation from God. The veil blocked access from the Holy of Holies, which was the Presence of God. But when Jesus died sin was removed and so the veil was also removed. This means there is nothing between us and God. There is nothing in the way, not even your sin, to keep you from coming to God through the blood of Christ. Jesus has made a way, in fact, He is the Way and there is no other. If there is something that is keeping you from coming to God, like a guilty conscience, the blood of Christ can give you confidence in the presence of God (See Heb. 10.19ff.). When we know the holiness and righteousness of God, we fear His wrath, becoming aware of our sin and unworthiness. Those who do not fear God either don’t know God or are not aware of their sinfulness. But when the blood of Christ is applied to our live through faith, or trusting in the efficacy of His atoning death, we are made clean and acceptable to God. We no longer have to fear God’s wrath. We have no confidence in our own righteousness. We trust completely in the blood of Christ to justify us before God.

From Fear to Faith (Matthew 28.1-10)

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (Matthew 28:1-10 ESV)

Introduction

One of the problems with fictional stories is that certain elements of these stories may be predictable and even cliché. There is the fairy tale where the handsome prince saves and marries the princess and they live happily ever after. There is the old western where the good guy wears a white hat and the bad guy a black one. The good guy always wins the final confrontation and saves the day. We have become so familiar with these plot-lines that we roll our eyes when we recognize them and a drama turns into a comedy. Of course we know that these stories are not only predictable but also unreal. Many of our familiar stories are idealized projections of human desires. We really want the prince and the princess to fall in love. We want the good guy to win. But in reality that is not what happens. In real life the prince divorces the princess to marry a younger princess and the bad guy gets out of prison on a legal loophole.

You have probably heard that truth is stranger than fiction. Truth is messier and less predictable than fiction. But fiction is quicker and cheaper, which is why fiction is often preferred to real life. If you really want the truth you must be prepared to accept whatever it is, even if it is something unexpected or unwanted. Truth is just the way things are and reality is unwilling to compromise with our personal opinions or desires. And so many people fear the truth.

These Gospel accounts of the Resurrection do not read like fiction. We see all of the strangeness of truth and the messiness of humanity. If the Resurrection was a made-up story then we would expect the disciples to be the good guys who do everything right, but they don’t. The disciples don’t have a clue about what is really going on and it seems that the last thing they expected was a resurrection, even though Jesus had told them ahead of time that He would rise from the dead. They just didn’t get it.

And so their first response to the empty tomb was fear, not joy, as we might expect. And their first response to the women’s report of the Resurrection was doubt, not faith. The Gospel writers are telling the truth, not weaving a fairy tale. The truth is that the disciples were not the heroes of the story, Jesus is the hero.

Don’t misunderstand me, the disciples really loved and followed Jesus. But they were also normal men and women who responded as people tend to respond to a shocking truth: they were afraid and they doubted it, at least at first. The Gospels record their movement from fear and doubt to faith and then to joy at the fact that Jesus was really alive.

So we should not be too hard on their initial fear and doubt because there is nothing easy about faith. God has given us some hard things to believe! But these are wonderful things.

By nature we tend towards fear and doubt, not faith. And like the first disciples who witnessed the resurrection of Christ, we must also move from our initial fear and doubt to faith in the risen Lord. And when we have moved from fear to faith we can then live with the joy of the resurrection.

I. Human life is dominated by fear and doubt because of the reality of death. 

1. Fear is a normal part of our lives.

Experiencing some kind of fear is such a common feeling we tend to remember those times when we were NOT afraid as a little vacation from the normal stress of life.This fear includes what we call anxiety or worry. When we are not occupied with being worried about something we are preoccupied with worrying about something that MIGHT happen but hasn’t actually happened yet. Or, we have angst about those things that are inevitable, like the death of a loved one or our own death.

All of us experience fear to some degree, though not always to the same degree, depending on your personality and living conditions. Some people just seem to be predisposed to worry. Others may live in difficult circumstances where there is fear that the basic necessities of life will not be available. Some of our brothers and sisters in other countries have anxieties we have not considered. We are concerned about eating too much and being overweight. They are concerned about going through the day with nothing to eat. We are concerned about getting a Sunday afternoon nap. Some of our brethren are concerned about a terrorist’s bomb on a daily basis.

But fear does not consist only of moments of extreme terror, which are relatively rare. The kind of fear that is most often experienced is the daily grind of ordinary life and all its concerns that creates a constant undercurrent of anxiety. In our society this undercurrent of anxiety shows itself in nervous breakdowns, depression, ulcers, drug use, and even suicide.

But all of our fear can be reduced to two basic categories or causes: 1. something we cannot control. 2. Something we do not understand. Fear sets in when human ability or wisdom ends.

And we soon find out that our ability to cope with life is more fragile than we like to admit. And so the self-help section of the bookstore keeps growing. The lines in front of the psychologist’s office get longer. It seems to me that people today are more willing to admit that they do need help than were folks of an older generation. Admitting you are afraid and that you need help is a step in the right direction. But where to go to actually find that help continues to be another problem for our culture.

2. Doubt dominates our minds because of all our fearful experiences.

Closely related to our fear is our natural tendency toward doubt, skepticism, and even cynicism. Again the degree of doubt does depend on personality and circumstances. Some people are optimists while others are dark and morose.

We tend to be afraid when we believe that the worst possible scenario is going to be what befalls us. Bad stuff has happened before and we just assume it will happen again. We think this way because we learn things through experience. Many of these experiences are unpleasant. We live in a world where tragedy, pain, sickness, violence, evil, and death are daily realities and it becomes almost impossible to rise above what we see in the news each day and expect something good to happen. Why don’t the news reporters focus only on the good things? Because that’s not how we think about life.

Human reasoning begins with experience, which is usually bad, and so we can’t bring ourselves to expect the world to suddenly change and give us only good things. So when something good does happen we celebrate that as an unusual and out-of-character event. But life also teaches us not to expect these good times to last. All good things must come to an end, even if we want them to last forever. The party ends and reality sets in. We must go out and face the real world again.

And so people may become so cynical that they refuse to believe any good thing that they may see. We would rather disbelieve than be disappointed all over again. Or, being skeptics, people will instantly demand some kind of proof that such an unusually good thing really could happen in a world like this.

I am aware of the fact that in spite of everything I have just said about human nature and the world around us there are still those starry-eyed dreamers and eternal optimists who talk about changing the world and making it a better place. While their intentions may be good, this is mostly just talk. The world doesn’t change.

3. Death is the underlying reality haunting all human life and experience.

And there is one life event that can always bring a fast end to all the boastful, humanistic talk in the world: a funeral. Death has a way of bursting our bubble and instantly bringing us back down to earth. No one is noisy at a funeral. Everyone is quiet, serious, and thoughtful. Death is that great silencer, leveler, and limiter of humanity. It is the reality of death that made Solomon say about human life that it is all vain and a chasing after the wind.

Death should cause us to stop and think about life instead of just tearing through it like a fox in a chicken coop. The trouble with our culture is that we avoid thinking of death, which means that we also fail to examine our living! The poet Henry David Thoreau famously said that “most men live lives of quiet desperation.” But Thoreau did not live to see the modern world. It was the American satirist James Thurber who corrected Thoreau’s observation and said that “nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.”

But remember that it was God Himself who blocked the way back to the Tree of Life. It was God Himself who subjected His good world to the bondage of corruption and death. God imposed a sentence of death on the world.

This sentence of death was imposed AFTER the parents of the human race had eaten from the forbidden tree. That knowledge of good and evil came at a high price. Now the man and the woman knew what it was like to be on their own and to do their own thing, making their own decisions. If man wants to live on his own and do his own thing apart from God, then man must also accept the limitation and the imposition of death.

We were not made to die, we were made to live. But we were made to live with God, not apart from Him. With God there is life. Without God there is nothing but death. That was the great lesson of Eden and the Fall of Man.

But God did not impose death on the creation because He just wanted to punish and hurt us. There are those who think that God is nothing but a cosmic killjoy who just wants to ruin all of our fun and enjoyment in life. It is one of the Devil’s oldest lies about God.

II. The resurrection proves the goodness of God and His plan. 

There would be a way back to the Tree of Life. But God Himself would have to make a way. We were not meant to live forever without God. That would be a kind of living death, which is exactly what Hell will be.

But God was going to overcome sin and death and He made a promise to the first man and woman. The seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head (Gen. 3.15). This was the first prophecy about the resurrection of Christ! God meant to undo what sin and death had done. He would do it through a member of the human race. Later God made another promise to a man named Abraham that the world would be blessed through his seed. Another veiled prophecy fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. Abraham believed God’s good promise.

Fear and doubt ends and faith begins when we come to know the living God and hear His word. God always keeps His word and the empty tomb is the supreme illustration of this fact. All of the promises of God are fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus. God did not abandon Jesus in the darkness of the tomb and so we are not abandoned to the slavery of fear and death. When Jesus was raised so was the whole human race!

The challenge now is for us to believe that fact, we who are so used to the finality and hopelessness of the Grave. But our belief in the empty tomb does not come first and it does not come by itself. Our faith must first be in the living God, the God of Abraham, who raised Jesus from the dead. When we come to know this God we come to understand that nothing is impossible, not even a resurrection.

This is the God who called the world into existence from nothing. Is anything too hard for Him? This is the God of Abraham, who brought life to a dead, barren womb so that Sarah conceived the Child of Promise and learned to laugh again. This is the God of Abraham, “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17 ESV). Is anything impossible with God? Our faith in the resurrection of Christ is based on our faith in this God.

The kind of faith that justifies us before God is believing that God raised Jesus from the dead. Christians believe in a bodily resurrection, which is why the tomb of Jesus was empty, and not just in a spiritual afterlife or the immortality of the soul. Christian faith is in the One whom God raised.

The women went to the tomb that first Easter morning to honor a dead Jesus. But that is not what we are doing on Easter Sunday! We don’t worship a dead martyr but a living Lord who was shown with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection (Rom. 1.4). The resurrection proves that Jesus is the Son of God.

We worship and honor the Son as we worship and honor the Father. Our hope of eternal life is in the One whom God raised from the dead. There is salvation is no one else because no one else has been raised from the dead!

III. The meaning of the resurrection is that Jesus is Lord.

It would be almost impossible for us to fully understand the meanings of the death and resurrection of Jesus without some kind of further explanation beyond what we find in the Gospels. The Gospels give us the facts, but not much else.

After His resurrection Jesus appeared to His disciples and begin to explain what had happened, because they still did not understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead to fulfill Scripture. The problem was that they did not understand the Scriptures concerning Jesus.

This shows that understanding these things concerning Jesus and the Kingdom of God are not as easy as we sometimes think it is and no one arrives at these conclusions unaided. But we don’t have the living Christ here to explain things. He has ascended into heaven. To fully understand the meaning of the Resurrection we must understand the meaning of the Ascension.

Historically speaking, the resurrection and the ascension are two different events. But theologically speaking these are one thing. The appearances of Jesus after the Resurrection are really just Jesus giving His disciples a fleeting glimpse of Himself as He moves upward from earth to heaven. Few Christians today seem to understand the significance of the ascension of Christ and its connection to the Resurrection. The Ascension finishes Christ’s earthly work and then takes it to a whole new dimension.

The problem seems to be in our lack of understanding of Heaven. Heaven is God’s space and it is separated from the earth, which was given to mankind. Heaven is God’s Throne because God rules the earth from heaven. So heaven is always up because God is over all. Heaven is not a part of this creation and could never be reached in a spaceship. But there are places where heaven and earth touch one another, as Jacob saw in his dream at Bethel of a ladder from earth to heaven, or in the Tabernacle over the Mercy Seat. But Heaven is always the superior place and is kind of like the control-room for earth, just like the cockpit of a jumbo jet or the bridge of a battleship.

Christ entering the heavenly control-room means that He went to rule on our behalf. Jesus is Lord, and that is the post-resurrection message of the Church. The Gospel does not declare that Jesus will reign sometime in the future but that He has entered heaven and has begun to reign. The book of Revelation reveals that He is sharing the Throne of God and there is no higher place.

Jesus’ coming again does not mean that He will have to become some kind of astronaut and travel down to earth, but that He will appear. We can’t see Him reigning now because He is in heaven. But He will be seen because at the end of time the veil of separation between earth and heaven will be taken down, just as the veil in the Temple was ripped apart when Jesus died. Then every eye will see Him and know that He is King of Kings and every knee will bow.

Conclusion

It is obvious to us now that every knee has not bowed. There are still enemies running loose in the world. They are under the control of the risen Christ, but they are still here in the world. The Devil is still here, though His head has been bruised. Death is still here, being the last enemy to be defeated. Meanwhile, the earth in which we live is like a city under siege, encircled by powerful enemies. But news has reached us that the war has been won by our King on a field of battle and it is just a matter of time before the enemies surrounding us must withdraw.

The Resurrection is a preview of things to come. Jesus’ Resurrection is the first-fruits of the New Creation. The first-fruits are the initial gleanings of the harvest that are a foretaste of more to come. The tomb of Jesus was really a womb from which a New Creation is being born.

We are groaning as in the pains of childbirth, along with the Creation, as we wait and long for this New Creation to come. When Jacob’s beloved wife, Rachael, was giving birth to her second son she had great pain because she was dying. With what was perhaps her last breath she named her newborn son “Ben-oni,” which is “Son of Sorrow.” But Jacob quickly changed his name to “Benjamin,” or “Son of my Right Hand.” When Jesus was on the Cross, He became the Son of Sorrow, dying for our sin so that we could be born again. But on that first Easter Sunday Jesus became the Son of God’s right hand!

When a woman gives birth she is in great pain, but it is usually not the sign of death but a sign that a new life and great joy is coming. The pain is real and it is excruciating, but it is a hopeful pain. Something good is on the way. That is the believer’s situation in the world. There is pain, but do not be afraid, not even of death. Something good is coming.

The Resurrection set us free from fear so that we can serve the Lord while we are in this world, until He comes. The Resurrection promises peace and joy, but only to those who believe. There is no peace for the wicked.

The Last Supper (Matthew 26.17-29)

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’” And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. And as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have said so.” Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.” (Matthew 26:17-29)

Change can be difficult to accept, especially for religious people. For religious people their traditions give them a sense of meaning and define their identity. But when something new comes and the old is suddenly obsolete, it can create a crisis. What was once familiar is not strange and the world does not make sense anymore. And so we naturally resist change and hang on to what is familiar and therefore coherent and brings comfort. What is new may not make sense and we are disturbed so we seek for something to bring back our sense of balance and security. We often revert back to the old ways because they are familiar and comforting, even if the new is something better. Change for the sake of change, or just trying to be hip and keep up with the latest trend, is not necessarily a better way it just may be different. If we are going to change then the new thing should be superior to the old or the change will be pointless and frustrating.

Jesus makes things new and this means that Jesus brings change.

What Christians call the Last Supper, which included the institution of the Lord’s Supper, is all about change. Over two-thousand years removed from this event it seems old to us and not new at all. But what Jesus did at the Last Supper was something new and even revolutionary. But because of all the history separating us from this event it does not seem revolutionary to us because it has become old and familiar, even a tradition. Christianity as a whole has become traditional instead of revolutionary. But if we fail to see the newness of what Jesus brought to the world and we settle for the dry husk of traditionalism, the fault is ours for failing to see and understand the true nature of the Kingdom of God.

Human nature always seems to be lagging behind the Divine purpose. But we must catch up to the new thing God is doing in the world through Christ or we will miss out on it entirely. The Kingdom of God will move on with or without us but we could be left on the outside of the door. God’s purpose will continue to advance in spite of human failure and unbelief, even in spite of efforts to reject or frustrate God’s plan. This principle is vividly illustrated in the events surrounding Jesus’ death. Not only does human obtuseness fail to stop the purpose of God, but God is even able to use human failure and rebellion to accomplish His will. And so one of the great lessons of the Gospel is that nothing God plans to do can be stopped! If we resist Him we will be the ones left behind in the dust of Divine history.

A vivid illustration of this truth is seen in the story of the Exodus, which lies directly beneath the account of the Last Supper.

The people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt for over four centuries. It seemed that the purpose of God, that had been revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had ground to a halt. God’s promise was the Abraham’s descendants would inherit the Promised Land of Canaan. But they are slaves in Egypt. So how can they inhabit Canaan? Egypt was a world power, being one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. Pharaoh had no intention of losing his free labor force. Was this situation going to frustrate the purpose of God? Could God overcome the will of Egypt and bring His people out of bondage and into the Promised Land?

We know the rest of that story.

The Exodus seems like ancient history to us. It is another old Bible story that gave birth to an old tradition called the Passover. So there is Jesus, preparing to eat the Passover with His disciples as every Jew did each year. The Passover was one of those traditions that stand like granite monuments along the highway of human history which cannot and should not be changed.

The Passover was that terrifying night when the Death Angel passed over Egypt to kill the firstborn. It was the final act in a drama of judgment. But that judgment on Egypt was Israel’s salvation. And they ate that first Passover meal in haste, making ready to leave Egypt for good. The Passover lamb was killed and the blood applied to the door-frames of Jewish homes, setting them apart from the Egyptians, and giving a sign to the Death Angel who would pass over each home marked with the blood of the lamb sparing that home from judgment and death. God told the Israelites to remember this event each year by preparing a meal just like the one they prepared that night so long ago in Egypt. So each year a Passover lamb was slain.

The people had to be ready to leave Egypt immediately, so there was no time for the bread they made for this special meal to rise. The bread had to be unleavened. So during the Passover no yeast could be found anywhere in their homes and all the bread they ate had to be unleavened. You have to learn to do without certain things when you are getting ready to leave!

The blood of a lamb and bread made without yeast are object lessons designed to teach us something. And we should be thankful God uses such concrete objects, like a lamb and some unleavened bread, instead of expecting us to learn spiritual things in the abstract. The blood of an innocent lamb and bread minus the yeast teach us about the need for sin to be covered and removed from our lives. Like the nation of Egypt, we are all under the black cloud of God’s judgment and death. Sin works its way through our lives like yeast growing in bread dough. Sin must be covered and removed or we will be judged and die in Egypt, never to enter God’s Promised Land.

I know that the word “sin” is old-fashioned and out of vogue today. But God has gone to great lengths to teach us about sin and its effects on our lives. Though many do not accept this assessment of the human race, the real problem is sin. And God wants us to be aware of the problem because He aims to provide the solution. We cannot cover our own sin. We must accept the covering, or the atonement, that God will provide for us.

The Passover was the prelude to Exodus, which is Salvation. The Exodus was in turn the prelude to Mount Sinai and the giving of the Law, which is Covenant.

God was bringing His people out of bondage so that they could be with Him. God’s people were not to be set free to be their own Master, but to serve the God who redeemed them from slavery. And so a covenant was made. Moses brought the people out of Egypt to the mountain of God where He would make a covenant with them. They would be His people and He would be their God. God had already made a covenant with Abraham, from whom came the nation of Israel while down in Egypt. And so God had already made certain promises or commitment, which were reaffirmed to Isaac and then to Jacob. God intended to keep these promises. A covenant is a promise made between two parties in which a binding agreement or commitment is made and a relationship is formally established. Marriage is a covenant and God often referred to the nation of Israel as His wife. God intended to make Israel His wife and that was why He brought them out of bondage in Egypt. God makes covenants because God wants an intimate partner, not just a passing relationship with His people. Most people are not prepared for a covenant relationship with God. The human race has always been spiritually promiscuous, preferring to worship idols and pursuing other loves besides God.

God’s desire to make a covenant tells us something about God’s nature. First, it tells us about God’s grace. He is in no way obligated to make covenants with us. God has condescended to bind Himself to us in a covenant relationship and He only does this because He wants to, not because He has to. God owes us nothing. We owe Him everything. Secondly, a covenant tells us about God’s consistency or faithfulness. God can be trusted. He never changes as men do and therefore God will always keep His promises. So we should always believe the Word of God. Thirdly, covenant tells us about the love of God for His people. The love of God is only understood correctly in the context of covenant. If we don’t understand covenant we will cheapen the love of God and even underestimate His love, as if God wants to be a casual friend instead of an intimate partner. Without understanding covenant the love of God may be reduced to tolerance, where God lets us go our own way to live our lives apart from Him. But God’s love is more passionate, fiercer, and even more jealous than we are often prepared to accept! God’s purpose in make a covenant was to have a people for Himself, a people He would love and who would love Him in return while forsaking all other lovers.

The covenant God had previously made with Abraham and the covenant God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai were not the same. But these covenants were made for the purpose of God taking a People for Himself. Why do we need to understand something about these covenants? Because at the Last Supper Jesus is bringing in a New Covenant, His very body and blood being the basis for this New Covenant. We call this covenant “new” but it is only new in its establishment not in its purpose or intention in the Divine will and plan. God had already promised this covenant in His original covenant promise to Abraham. God promised Abraham that “through you seed I will bless the world.” That “Seed” or descendant was Jesus Christ, through whom this New Covenant, which was actually the first and the original covenant, would be made. Law that was given through Moses at Mount Sinai was added to that original promise because of the problem of sin, says Paul in Galatians, until the time came for God to send His Son into the world. The Law taught us about sin so we would see our need for the Savior when He came!

A good meal, you see, takes some time to prepare. The finer the meal the longer the period or preparation. The Kingdom of God is compared to a feast and it has taken God a long time to prepare for it. But now the Table is set and we are all invited to come! It is actually a wedding feast. God is getting a Bride for His Son.

When Israel was told to remember what God had done for them they were given a meal to eat together. Eating has to do with fellowship, community, intimacy, and celebration. These things are all elements of entering a covenant relationship. Christians are never told to eat the Passover meal. This is not because the Passover is not important but because Jesus has brought something new and something better. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed! The Passover was the shadow and Christ is the reality. The reality is always superior to the shadow. So this Meal has been prepared and all that remains is for us to receive what God is giving us. What He wants to give us is Himself. If God has not withheld from us His only Son then there is nothing that God will not give to His beloved people!

When Christians come together to eat the Lord’s Supper we are looking back and remembering what God has done in the past, we are receiving His grace for our present need, and we are also looking forward with hope to the future. The writer of Hebrews captures all of the past, present, and the future in the three appearances of Christ:

“For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:24-28 ESV).

1. He appeared to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
2. He is appearing now in the presence of God in heaven as our High Priest.
3. He will appear again to bring full salvation to His people who are waiting for Him.

When Israel ate that first Passover meal they did so to make ready for their Exodus from Egypt. In the same way, Christians eat the Lord’s Supper in anticipation of our Exodus from this present, evil world and our introduction into the Promised Land of the new heavens and the new earth.

I Am Who I Am! Exodus 3.14

When we meet someone we don’t know we usually begin a new relationship by getting that person’s name. If you don’t know someone’s name there is a kind of distance, alienation, or strangeness. Just knowing a person’s name doesn’t mean you instantly know that person intimately, but at least knowing their name is the first step in a relationship by removing the mystery of complete anonymity. A nameless person is a stranger and a mystery, in the same way that being in a nameless place means you are probably lost. In grade school we learn that nouns are persons, places, and things. But nouns need names, or these persons, places, and things remain strange to us and what is unknown is potentially dangerous and not to be trusted. Being able to name things makes those things knowable, familiar, and even comforting.

So what is God’s name?

Many people have never thought about this question because God’s name is obviously just “God.” Right? But actually “God” is not a real name at all, it is a generic noun like “car” or “house” and tells us very little about the characteristics of the thing itself. Most people today have never asked for God’s name because our cultural context is not crowded with deities like the ancient world. If you enter a room full of strangers then knowing everyone’s name suddenly becomes very practical just so you can make distinctions between one face and another. The God of the Bible revealed Himself to the people of Israel in a polytheistic context which is why Moses anticipated that the people would ask the logical question “which god sent you?”

God’s answer to this question is the surprising and profoundly wonderful revelation “I am what I am.”

But that’s not actually a name. It is a description of God’s nature and it is a vague description that needs some explanation. God’s answer to Moses’ question is like meeting someone for the first time and asking for their name, to which they reply “I am just me.” You would think that they were intentionally being evasive and that they probably want to remain unknown. But God’s intention was exactly the opposite! This revelation of the Divine Name is so important in Scripture because it is really a revelation of the Divine Nature and it was also a revelation, if you understand the context, of the Divine Purpose.

God has revealed Himself as the absolute and unchanging bedrock on which everything else is built. This includes God’s solid, unchanging purpose to save and bless His covenant people. The revelation of God’s Name is given so that His people will trust Him absolutely, who is Himself the Absolute underneath all things. God is giving us a reason to have faith. We need a reason to believe or God would not have given this revelation of His Name.

This revelation of God’s Name is the basis for a covenantal relationship, not just a casual acquaintance or a one-time meeting. God is not into dating, He wants a partner, even a wife, if you will. So this knowledge of God’s name is not given so that we can be intellectual about the idea of God. It was given as the prelude to a marriage, to a covenant. Unfortunately, most people today was a casual, dating relationship with God because this has no obligation. And they want to be free to date other Lovers too! Folks think they want a God of love, but are not at all prepared for the implications of God really loving them. There is no question about the love of God. The real question is about our love for God.

We are not born in love with God. In fact, we are not born knowing God at all. Adam’s Race is in a state of alienation from the one, true, living God who created us and everything else. This alienation, or distance, which is caused by sin, implies ignorance. Just as we are ignorant of people we have never met, we are also ignorant of our Creator.

The trouble is that God is not a person we can walk across the room or across the street and meet. The most obvious problem is that God is spirit, which also means that God is invisible. God made the physical, visible world, but He is not a part of the world and that means He cannot be experienced with the five senses which is how we come to know about everything else around us.

Man can come to know certain things about the world around him by philosophical deduction and scientific investigation, but the world by its wisdom cannot know God. In other words, we cannot know about God unless God tells us something about Himself.

The Creation speaks of the existence of the Creator, and we are held responsible for this natural revelation, along with the logical implication that we ought to be seeking to know about the Creator. But the creation, which theologians also call Natural Revelation, only tells us that there is a God and gives us very little about what kind of God there is. Perhaps we could deduce from studying nature that the Creator must be wise and powerful. But if we are to understand that God is good, kind, or that He cares about us humans, these things must be revealed through some kind of special revelation because creation may not lead you to come to those conclusions about God. Creation’s voice is not silenced, but it has been frustrated. And we might conclude only by studying nature that God is cruel and uncaring. What kind of God makes a great, white shark, for example? What kind of Creator makes a python snake?

But the problem is more complex than just our ignorance of God or we would just require more information about God. The human race has already rejected the information God left behind in the Creation and we have chosen to worship the Creation itself rather than the Creator. Mankind has always been spiritually promiscuous, which is what the Bible calls idolatry. The ancient pantheon crowded with deities has been transformed into the modern, intellectual idolatry of pluralism and tolerance, but the result is exactly the same: mankind continues to reject the absolute truth of the one, true God.

People today don’t have a problem with the idea of a God, or a Higher Power, who may or may not exist, and who does not intrude into our lives and tell us how to live, making moral demands and holding us accountable. But people get very uncomfortable with a God who defines Himself, telling us that He is THIS and not THAT, and then expects us to do something in response to who and what He is.

God names Himself and we do not get to name God. God brought all the animals to Adam for him to name because God’s creation was originally given to man for him to rule over or manage in God’s behalf. But man does not rule over God and we are not allowed to name our own version of deity or create a god we would like to worship. God is who He is, and we must accept who He is, not make the god we would prefer to serve.

“I am what I am” is a statement about the absolute reality of God, standing there immovable like the Rock of Gibraltar or the very foundations of the earth. No wonder the Bible says that “there is no rock like our God!” You can build your life on this Rock or you can be shattered against it. But you cannot move it or change it!

The immutability of God means that God stands unaffected by change. Time, decay, and corruption cannot touch the Divine Nature. God is unmoved and unchanged by man’s changing views of theology, the latest progressive philosophy, or the shifting sands of cultural trends. Men value being progressive, which involves change and a movement from imperfection toward perfection or from ignorance toward enlightenment. Change implies imperfection, incompleteness, and weakness or vulnerability to some greater, more powerful force and influence. Given enough time, wind and rain can erode a mountain, which is a symbol of strength and stability. So even mountains are not immutable and can be changed over time. But God does not change!

All things in this created order are subject to change and decay, the creation itself being subjected to the bondage of corruption. And so the hymn-writer could say that “change and decay in all around I see. O Thou who changest not, abide with me.”

One of the outstanding lessons of the Old Covenant is the absolute separateness of God from everything we see in the world around us. This separateness of God is called holiness. God’s stands separate from the world that He made. He is outside of time and inhabits eternity, being unaffected by time, decay, and corruption. God’s separateness, or holiness, makes human beings uncomfortable because we fear what is not like us or what is unfamiliar. We greatly fear staring into the face of some alien life-form, utterly strange, yet vastly superior, with unknown intentions. It is no wonder that the ancient, superstitious fear of the gods has been replaced by the modern fear of science-fiction aliens invading from another planet! We fear holiness, which is the attribute of God most often mentioned in Scripture.

Holiness, not love, is the attribute of God mentioned the most in Scripture. The idea that a holy God could also love us is only understood within the context of covenant and God choosing to take a People for Himself. God is holy, but God also wants to be with His chosen people and He is willing to go to great lengths to make that relationship happen.

This revelation of God’s Name is made in the context of covenant where God actually speaks and makes certain promises to certain people, namely to Abraham and his descendants. The real revelation in “I am who I am” is the faithfulness of God to keep the promises He has made. God is absolutely holy and our response is to fear Him. But God is absolutely faithful and our response to that revelation is to trust Him. God will always be who He is, and that means God can be trusted. God makes promises and His people can trust Him to keep His word. How could we trust a God who is not absolute, but who might suddenly change and forsake His original purpose? We have trouble trust people because they just might change their minds and therefore their words are not reliable in every case. But “God is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent!” The only way to have a relationship is to have trust. To have a relationship with God we must be able to trust Him or we will only fear Him and run the other direction. But “the righteous shall live by faith.” We can live by faith because God says “I am who I am.” So our faith and hope are in the living God!

God not only reveals Himself as “I am who I am” but as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God wants to be remembered for what He said to the Patriarchs, the promises He made to them, and the faith that they had in His word. If the Divine nature is wrapped up in the revelation “I am who I am” then the Divine purpose is wrapped up in the covenant promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God had not forgotten His promises and that is why He was speaking to Moses. The great “I am” does not forget and that means that His people are never forsaken! God made a promise to bless the world through Abraham’s family and that was still God’s purpose when He spoke to Moses in the burning bush. The nature and purpose of God burns like an eternal fire that cannot be extinguished. God’s original promise to Abraham, which is God’s unchanging purpose, was to bless the world through Abraham’s seed, which Paul reminds us is in the singular and not the plural. God said “seed” not “seeds.” That “seed” of Abraham is Jesus Christ! All the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ.

But in his letter to the Galatian Churches, Paul also said that the covenant of Law was necessary before the promise to Abraham could be fulfilled. The Law was added because of transgression. Jesus would come to save us from our sins and reconcile us to a holy, unchanging God. But we would know nothing about holiness, sin, or reconciliation without the teaching of the Law of Moses. Before God could bring His Son into the world to save us from our sins, God had to send Moses to save the Israelites from Egypt. God was going to demonstrate what salvation was all about by bringing Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Everything about the Exodus, which only the great “I am” could have orchestrated, were teaching us about salvation. God sent the Deliverer, judged the King of Egypt, provided the covering of the Passover Lamb, made a covenant with the people, and would then bring them into the Promised Land. These were shadows of an even greater Exodus that is to come.

Our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed and the blood of the New Covenant has been applied. Our great High Priest has gone into Holy of Holies. Now we wait for our Deliverer to appear again, judge this present, evil world, and take His people out into the Promised Land of the New Creation.

But while we are still in this world we are the People of God. God’s purpose was to have a People for Himself, who are in covenant with Him, like a husband and a wife are in covenant with one another. Do we really understand what it means to be the People of God? To be in covenant with God means that He is the center of our lives. Our first desire is to please God in everything we do. This is not a burden for us because we love God and we know He loves us. If we are living to please God then we are not going to be concerned with pleasing people. How can having the praise of mortal man be compared to the praise of the eternal God?  Being the People of God means we worship God in reverent fear. This is not a cringing fear that hides from God because we fear His wrath and punishment. We serve God as holy priests with access and confidence through the blood of Christ. We are getting ready to leave Egypt behind for good and so we have already cut our affections for it in our hearts. So we choose to obey the Word of God instead of the culture of Egypt. To belong to a Holy God means we must be like Him. We must be separate from the World. While we are still in this world we have nothing to fear because the great “I am” is for us! And if God be for us, who can be against us?