Suffered and Crucified

Suffered and Crucified

Twentieth after Trinity

Collect: O almighty and most merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things which thou commandest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Text: I believe in Jesus Christ...who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified.

There is no symbol more associated with Christianity than the cross. There is a cross on the outside front wall of our church and one over the Communion Table. Bishops and priests wear crosses. You may be wearing a cross necklace or a pair of cross earrings. The minister makes the sign of the cross when he pronounces the absolution. Some cross themselves when they receive Communion.

St. Paul wrote, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why is the cross so central to our faith?

Today we consider, “I believe in Jesus Christ...who...suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified.”

1. What the Creed Says

1.1. Suffered under Pontius Pilate.

The Creed speaks of 5 persons. Three are divine: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Two are ordinary mortal human beings like us: the Virgin Mary and Pontius Pilate. We surely understand Mary’s inclusion in the Creed. She was the mother of our Lord. But why Pontius Pilate?

If it were not for his condemning Christ, Pilate would be at most an obscure historical figure. He was governor of Palestine from A.D. 26 to 36 and not a very good one. Jesus was arrested Thursday evening. The Jewish leaders put him on trial over night. They found him guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death. They lacked the authority to execute to the death penalty, so the next morning they took Jesus to Pilate and asked Pilate to execute him. After interviewing Jesus, Pilate found nothing worthy of the death penalty, but the Jewish leaders persisted. Pilate tried to remove any guilt from himself by symbolically washing his hands. But he wanted to please the Jews so he condemned Jesus death as a threat to the state. Jesus was an innocent man killed for reasons of political expediency.

The importance of naming Pilate in the Creed is that it sets the death of Jesus in history. Mythical stories can begin, “Once upon a time, in a place far away, there lived a handsome prince,” because the story is not dependent on time. You can’t do that with a historical figure like George Washington. That’s why all four Gospel writers say that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate. Jesus is a historical person who was condemned by Pilate and was crucified outside Jerusalem on a hill called Golgatha.

The sufferings of Jesus under Pontius Pilate were horrendous. Pilate had him scourged with a whip. Soldiers dressed Jesus in a royal robe of purple, placed a crown of thorns on his head, pulled at his beard, and mocked him saying, “Hail! King of the Jews!” Jesus was forced to carry his own cross until he collapsed under its weight because of the earlier torture. Jesus suffered great pain and humiliation under Pontius Pilate.

1.2. Was Crucified

Jesus was condemned to death by crucifixion, one of the cruelest methods of execution man has ever devised. Death by crucifixion was slow and torturous. It was a public spectacle meant to shame the victim and to deter would-be criminals. In cases of rebellion there were mass executions on busy roads. Crucifixion was not often described by Roman writers, because it was so gruesome and repulsive.

The condemned and flogged criminal was often forced to carry his own cross to the place of execution. At the place of execution, the crossbeam was laid on the ground, the criminal was stripped of his clothes, and forced to lie down on the cross. In our Lord’s case nails were driven through his palms and feet. The executioners then picked up the cross and dropped into a hole dug in the earth.

The victim bled from the wounds inflicted by the whipping and the nails. But he did not die of blood loss. He died from asphyxiation caused by exhaustion. Hanging on the cross made breathing hard work. Over hours breathing became shallower and shallower till at last the victim died.

There are two things we ought to note before we move on:

• There was nothing unique about the form of execution used to put Jesus death. Thousands upon thousands of criminals were put to death in this way throughout the empire. Our Lord was one of many put to death by crucifixion. In the view of the time Jesus was just one more rebel executed on a cross.
• It is remarkable that Christians use the cross as the symbol of their faith. Who would put gallows over the holy Table? Which of you ladies would wear a gold electric chair around your neck? What bishop or priest would wear on his chest an axe and chopping block used to lop off heads? Why do we sing, “In the cross of Christ I glory,” when it was an instrument of execution despised by Jews, Greeks, and Romans?

2. What the Cross Means

The fact that Jesus was crucified does not make his sufferings unique. You have to know what God was doing at the cross.

On February 23, 1945, Marines captured Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. At the top they found a piece of pipe and raised an American flag. As a fact, it is one of many American flags raised all over the world by Americans. What sets that flag raising apart from others? Planting the flag was symbol of the triumph of the Marines on Iwo Jima and has stood for 61 years as symbol of the fighting spirit of the Marines. It is inscribed in the nation’s memory in a sculpture at the Marine Corps Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The question we have to ask about the cross of Christ is: What makes it unique? What was happening when Jesus was crucified?

If you ask many Christians the meaning of Christ’s death, they are likely to say, “To show us that God loves us.” Taken by itself that statement is not true. What would you think of a husband who demonstrated his love for his wife by stepping in front of a speeding truck, or a mother proving her love for her child by having a gang member shoot her. Those acts would be meaningless and futile expressions of love. But, what if a husband pushed his wife out of the path of the truck and was killed in the process? What if a mother shielded her child from the gang member and was killed? Those are demonstrations of love.

But there is another element. A wife is worthy of her husband’s love and a child worthy of a mother’s love. But would you out of love die for a person who is hostile toward you? A person who has done his best to harm you? A person who is your enemy? A person whose actions deserve your righteous anger?

This is the kind of love God has for us in Christ - purposeful love to redeem us, undeserved love to save his enemies from eternal death. St. Paul wrote:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life (Romans 5:6-10).

If you want eternal salvation, there are three things you have to come to terms with:

• We are sinners who are naturally hostile toward God and have rebelled against him.
• God hates sin and is determined to bring sinners to justice. He is rightly and justly angry with us. If he were not, he would not be a good and holy God.
• Christ took responsibility for our sins. On the cross he became the object of God’s anger with us and paid the penalty that our sins deserve, so that we may be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God. The Prayer Book says what Christ did was “to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; (and to make) there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.”

Do you acknowledge you are a sinner? Do you believe you are by nature under God’s condemnation? Do you trust in Christ who died for you so that you may be forgiven and given eternal life?

When we come to this holy Table, we come always as sinners trusting in the Savior’s cross. Let us come with the words of our first hymn in our hearts:

              For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation,

              thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation;

thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,

              for my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,

              I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee,

              think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,

              not my deserving.