Easter 2011 – Easter Music Invitation Service
April 10th, 2011 (PM). By: Rod Earnshaw
Two thousand years ago, outside Jerusalem a young man named Jesus, a carpenter, was arrested, tried, beaten, mocked, whipped, jeered, and eventually hung on a cross, where he died. His suffering was terrible, we’ve just read his agonised prayers; heard the stinging disappointment in his followers; the pain of betrayal; the smarting of injustice in a show trial; we’ve heard the extreme prejudice of the crowd – ‘give us the criminal Barabbas – crucify Jesus’; we can only imagine the pain of a brutal flogging and the insults of the passers by; the ironic mockery of his enemies who put him on the cross ‘he saved others, he can’t save himself’ ‘he trusts in God – let God save him’. Over all that is the excruciating pain of the crucifixion – so notorious that it’s where we get the expression excruciating pain!
All of this is interesting, fascinating even. But why should it matter to us today? Lot’s of people were crucified by the Romans, why do we remember this one death as important? Why are we here tonight, singing songs about it? Why do we get time off from work to celebrate it – two bank holidays no less! Why did we reset the global calendar to measure time from this point on? Those things suggest that Jesus’ death isn’t just relevant to us today but relevant to everyone, at all times. How can one man’s death be so important?
The claim of the Bible – the belief of Christians – is that Jesus death is universally relevant because it reconciles us to our God; that by his death Jesus brought us close to God when by nature very far away. But again, how can a man’s death bring people to God? That’s what I want to look at with you over the next couple of minutes, and I just want to look at two points, two reasons why Jesus death brings us to God.
Jesus death brings us close to God because:
1) It was God’s punishment for sin; and
2) It wasn’t final – Jesus rose from the dead.
Let’s not mess around, let me run you through those two points. Jesus’ death brings us close to God because, firstly:
It was God’s punishment for sin
The bible makes very clear that Jesus death was undeserved. The first reading we heard said that he had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. In the third reading, in the account of his trial, Jesus is called an innocent man – yet the judge condemns his to death for fear of a riot. Jesus didn’t deserve to die, he was an innocent man.
So why would God allow him to suffer and die as he did? The surprising answer of our first reading from Isaiah is that God wanted it that way. Isaiah 53:10 says ‘It was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer’.
Why, why would God want Jesus to suffer? Why? Listen to these words from the same passage, verse 5:
‘He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities – the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’
Later on it says:
‘by oppression and judgment he was taken away… for the transgression of my people he was stricken… it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering… my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities’.
Now the language of transgressions and iniquities might sound a little strange to us today. But the idea’s clear enough: we’re like sheep who go astray – we’re scattered all over the place. We’ve left the path of obedience to God so we can do our own thing. That’s transgression – leaving the right path to do whatever we want. And it gives rise to some pretty rotten things – things like violence, jealousy, rage, dishonesty, injustice, … the sorts of things that we condemn in others but find ways to justify in ourselves – oh, and that’s another one – hypocrisy. Those things are what the Bible calls iniquity. For those things Jesus died.
He died because we’ve gone astray, because we’ve wandered off and done our own thing, sometimes terrible things. His death was our punishment.
Stop right there for a moment. Did you catch the implications of that? This is saying that for those things we deserve to die.
For turning away from God to live life for ourselves we – you, and me – deserve death. In fact we deserve worse than that – this death that Jesus died was a deliberate punishment, not just physical death, but punishment from God that exceeds death.
That doesn’t sound right does it?
We might do bad things but even if we were to list the very worst of them – violence perhaps, dishonesty, betraying trust, maybe even if I were an actual murderer – wouldn’t it still be going too far to say that I deserved worse than death, that God should punish me, crush me, smite me and afflict me by oppression and judgement, cause me to suffer for my guilt?
It seems so over the top, so vicious.
But here it is. That’s precisely what it says Jesus death was. And when he died that death he died in my place, as a punishment for my sins, my transgression, my iniquities – and for yours.
Maybe the things that I do matter a bit more to God that I realise; maybe my sense of right and wrong is so messed up that I’m not fit to pass judgement on myself; maybe I’m so good at justifying myself, at finding excuses and mitigating circumstances and reasons why I had no choice – that maybe I’m in no position to judge what I do and don’t deserve; maybe a perfect God who knows all I think and say and do and why I do it all and how far wrong I’ve gone and how much damage I’ve done to others is in a better position to judge me that I am, and maybe the same goes for you. Maybe turning aside from God and ignoring him or rejecting him is much more significant that it might appear to us who’ve all done it.
See the judgement of God couldn’t be clearer – we deserve punishment from God, a punishment that exceeds even death itself.
Now that raises the stakes doesn’t it?
There are very few things in the Bible taught so clearly or so bluntly as the reality of God’s judgement. And the plain message of the Bible is that we will all face it, and we will all be found wanting. And as a result we will all come under his punishment, his terrible, frightful punishment.
It’s justice, we’re assured of that, but it’s frightful all the same. Jesus himself said that it would be better for us to cut off our own hand and throw it away and escape God’s judgement than to keep our hand and go into the place of punishment, hell; The implication is very clear: God’s judgement is so fearsome that if we saw it coming in all it’s horror we would gladly cut off our own arm to avoid it.
Jesus said that.
And then Jesus went to the cross to stand in our place and take that same punishment for us.
God’s punishment for our sin: Punishment so horrific you’d cut your arm off before you’d go through it.
He took that punishment for me and for you.
That’s why Jesus death is remembered 2000 years later.
That’s why Jesus’ death is important for every single person who walks this earth, because we’ll all die and face God’s judgement – but he’s taken the punishment for us.
Jesus bore the sin of many, poured out his life unto death; he bore our iniquities, he was pierced, he was stricken, he was despised and rejected, he was smitten by God and afflicted – for us. The Lord made his life a guilt offering to make us clean before God.
God says we deserve judgment, but that’s not the same as saying that God wants to punish us. Actually, God wants to save us from that punishment. That’s why Jesus died. We may not like the idea that the things we’ve done deserve punishment, but surely this is an idea that we can all accept – the punishment that we deserve has already been taken for us! We can walk free because he died in our place.
What do we have to do to escape God’s judgement? We don’t have to cut our arm off, we simply need to turn back to God and accept his offer of life in Jesus. It’s that simple.
That offer is open to anyone purely on the basis of what Jesus has done. That’s why Jesus death is so important. He takes away guilt, our debt to God. Jesus death brings us to God because it was God’s punishment for our sins.
But the significance of Jesus’ death goes even beyond that, because he didn’t stay dead. Jesus death brings us close to God for this second reason – because:
It wasn’t final – Jesus rose from the dead.
Jesus’ death was remarkable. But it was only the beginning. It’s sequel was, if anything, even more remarkable. Having died in our place, Jesus promptly rose from the dead. In Matthew we read that some women were there at the scene when Jesus was crucified. They watched him breathe his last and give up his spirit – they watched him die. When Joseph of Arimathea asked for Jesus’ dead body and laid it in his own tomb, the women followed along behind. When the tomb was sealed up they stayed outside, mourning.
And after the Sabbath was over they were the first back there. There hadn’t been time to prepare his body properly for burial, so they came to preserve it with burial spices. They didn’t expect Jesus to rise from the dead. They went to his tomb to anoint his dead body with spices.
But, when they got there they found the tomb empty and an angel announcing that Jesus – who they saw crucified, dead and buried – had risen. Jesus was dead, but now he is alive. And as they left the empty tomb, confused and mystified, they met the man himself – Jesus.
There was an empty tomb, and the dead man was up and walking and talking – Jesus was no longer dead, but alive.
Now I don’t pretend that this is normal, this is unprecedented, frankly it’s hard to believe. Dead men don’t come back, of course they don’t. But we have more than enough evidence to believe the testimony of those who saw him – hundreds of witnesses testified that he was definitely dead, and he was definitely alive after death.
It only makes sense when we remember that Jesus died for a specific purpose – he died in order to take the penalty for our sin. And his death exhausted that penalty – it paid the price in full.
Since that’s the case it shouldn’t surprise us to find him up and walking again. Death has no more hold on him. He’s overcome it, defeated, turned the tables on death, put death itself to death. Death has been swallowed up by life.
If Jesus’ death was for us, then how much more his resurrection! He’s paid the price we owe and now he’s alive and he offers life to us. Not only can we be forgiven and make a fresh start with God, but we can have life after death. Jesus’ resurrection means an end to death for everyone who follows him – not that we’ll never die, but that we have life with Jesus after death. And we can certain of it, because he’s alive right now.
Does it all sound a little too good to be true? I can understand you thinking that. That’s why we run a course called Christianity Explored that gives you a chance to hear the story in full, and to explore what it means, to check the evidence for and against, and ask whatever questions you have, even to raise whatever objections you might have.
If it sounds too good to be true sign up for Christianity Explored and check the facts for yourself. It starts with a free meal and an introduction to the course on Thursday the 5th May, you can’t do fairer than that – take the free meal and see where it leads you… And you don’t need to wait till then to check things out for yourself – you could start with either of these short booklets – this one which explains the significance of Jesus death, or this one which goes through the evidence that he did die and rise again. They’re both free and you’ll find plenty of copies in the foyer, so please take one on your way out and read it with our compliments.
Now as I finish can I remind you what we’ve seen. Jesus death really is important enough to justify Easter and even to sit at the centre of world history. By it Jesus brings guilty people back to God. Though he was clear that we all deserve punishment, he was also clear that God wants us to be saved. Jesus death saves us – Jesus takes the punishment for us. Because he’s died and risen we can be forgiven, made friends with God and given life after death with him.
That’s a brilliant offer and I say take him up on that offer – come to Christianity Explored and read those booklets to find out more. And most importantly turn back to God and accept forgiveness and life through Jesus.
And I can’t finish without a warning. I know how easy it is to hear something like this and shrug and walk away as if it didn’t happen, or it doesn’t matter to you. But I want to ask you not to do that. This is true, I’m absolutely sure of it. Jesus said God’s punishment is so awful you’d be better off cutting your arm off to avoid it. Don’t mess with that; don’t ignore him – but gratefully accept his offer and find forgiveness and life.