Scripture: Luke 23:33-43
33 And when
they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified Him, and
the criminals, one on
His right and one on His left. 34 And Jesus
said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide His garments. 35 And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself, if He is the Christ of God, His Chosen One!” 36 The
soldiers also mocked Him, coming up and offering Him sour wine 37 and
saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!” 38 There was
also an inscription over Him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
39 One of the criminals who
were hanged railed at
Him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” 40 But the
other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same
sentence of condemnation? 41 And we
indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man
has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he
said, “Jesus, remember me when You
come into Your kingdom.” 43 And He said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
The
place of Calvary is a place of life and death.
So before we talk about the death of Christ on Calvary, let's talk about
life first. Specifically, let's talk
about three great incentives for living a life for Christ.
Number
one, there is the holiness of our God. That
holiness is best described in Isaiah 6, which is the prophet Isaiah's vision of
God. It begins, "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high
and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face,
and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And
one called to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his
glory!'
"And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him
who called, and the house
was filled with smoke. And I said: 'Woe
is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!'"
Isaiah is concerned beyond all understanding
because he has just seen the glory of the holy God, who cannot and will not
stand in the presence of sin. And Isaiah
as a created man realizes his own sinfulness, something that cannot exist in
the presence of a holy God. He is
overwhelmed by the sinless glory of a holy God.
Secondly, there is the promised return of the
Christ, who has taken away the sins of the world, that we might remain in the
presence of a holy God. While Isaiah
felt only shame, guilt and panic at being in the presence of a holy God, 1st
John 2:28 advises us, "And now, little
children, abide in Him, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in
shame at His coming." John, who has experienced this in his own
life, urges us to have confidence in the privileges we have as the children of
a holy God. Throughout the writings of
1st John we are admonished to continue to "live in Him", and to let
the word of God "remain" in us, assuring that we will "live
forever" in the Son and the Father.
Our abiding in Him reassures the permanence of God's blessings.
Finally, the third great incentive for living in
Christ is the cross, that cross itself upon Calvary's hill; the greatest demonstration
of God's holiness and love. The love of
the Father sending His only Son to be the bridge back to a holy God for a
wayward and sinful humanity. And then
the love of the Son, willing to be born into that sinful humanity. He became heir to all the pain and sorrow and
separation from God that came with it as he died a wrenching death on a wooden
cross of torture, hate and punishment He didn't deserve; a load of humanity's
sins so wretched a holy God had to look away.
Even before we knew Him, Jesus the Son of God loved us so very deeply.
So let's take a look at what was going on there
at Calvary where we find two other men besides Jesus in that same condemnation. Verses 39 and 40 of our scripture lesson
describes the moment: "One of the criminals who
were hanged railed at Him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you
not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?"
Three men hanging on three torturous crosses, and one man, a
thief, is so far gone into sin that he mocks the only just man among them. But notice the words of the other thief. He acknowledges his own condemnation and
speaks out of a sense of repentance. In
verse 41 he recognizes his own guilt, and then he speaks a truth that
contradicts all earthly authority, "this man
has done nothing wrong.” That is a truth that Pontius Pilate, King Herod, and all of
the Sanhedrin knew, but would not say. A
thief in the final moments of his death contradicts them all.
And yet, while he is to be commended
for what he said on the face of it, yet that second thief spoke yet a great
spiritual truth in the larger frame of things.
He spoke a truth that is very difficult for most people on earth to
acknowledge and admit to, that all people are equally guilty before God.
In this nation today, indeed
around the world, one of the hot button words you hear constantly is
diversity. Some say there is too much,
some say there is too little, and yet they are all wrong. Everyone of them ... wrong. For the great divisions we make among people
of the human race have to do with ... RACE ... FACE ... PLACE. But with our holy God there is but one
dividing factor ... GRACE.
There exists no other division
among us when we stand before God, nothing else that separates the sheep from
the goats, the innocent from the guilty ... except grace. We can use whatever measuring criteria we
wish to claim; birth, money, beauty, it has no standing. There is no difference before God between
your Mayor and the Meter Maid in her police uniform on the street. No difference between the movie star and the
street walker; the doctor and the patient; the warden and the criminal. None.
Today it seems the hardest thing in the world
is to realize that all are lost.
All. Lost. All in need of a Savior.
That great preacher Charles Spurgeon knew it,
and declared, "If sinners be damned, at least let them
leap to Hell over our bodies. If they
will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one GO there UNWARNED and UNPRAYED for.”
The evangelist C.T. Studd knew it and lamented, “Some want to
live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop
within a yard of hell.”
Evangelist Oswald J. Smith said of all the lost, “Oh,
to realize that souls, precious, never dying souls, are perishing all around
us, going out into the blackness of darkness and despair, eternally lost, and
yet to feel no anguish, shed no tears, know no travail! How little we know of
the compassion of Jesus!”
How little we know, indeed. For Jesus is the friend of sinners. He has not demanded we get ourselves cleaned
up first, but has reached out to sinners.
In John 15:15, we find Jesus saying, "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not
know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I
have heard from my Father I have made known to you."
It doesn't take an evangelist or a doctor of theology to see
that God's entire plan of salvation is made not for the righteous, but for
sinners, and that Jesus Christ died for the ungodly.
Take a good look at that hill of Calvary, and see that
alongside the Son of God hang two men, two thieves. Both ask Jesus to save them. One scornfully mocks Jesus saying if He can
save Himself, then save them, too. The
other admits his guilt and asks Jesus, "Lord, remember me." The first is demanding to be saved from his
situation with no thought given to his guilt or repentance. The second is asking to be saved from his
sin.
The first is asking, or better yet demanding a temporary
fix. He doesn't even have the decency to
admit his own sin, or to express faith in who Jesus is; "if" you are the
Christ....
The other thief is asking for a lifetime change. All of us are guilty before God, and
conviction of ourselves must precede conversion. No problem can be addressed without knowing,
without admitting, what the problem is.
The second thief, in his own agony, has faced the real issues
of life. He admits his sin and accepts
that Jesus Christ is his Lord. He
anticipates the resurrection of Christ and has faith in his own resurrection
through Christ, and finally, he looks at Jesus in the midst of the Savior's own
agony and humiliation, and he sees a King.
When we look to Calvary we need to focus on Jesus, whose
entire purpose is salvation. Even in the
midst of His own dying pain, Jesus focused on saving one more soul. The second thief prayed and Jesus said amen
to his prayer request. Jesus set aside
Himself for one more soul.
In addition, Jesus' last moments on that cross answered some
very important questions for us. For
example, can one be saved in his dying hour?
Can one be saved after a lifetime of wickedness? Can one be saved without baptism or
communion? And finally, can one be sure
of heaven after death? Oh yes! The answer to each of these questions is
"yes", through Jesus Christ.
When we look at Calvary, when we look at the cross, we should
see all of humanity there. For the sins
of all humanity were certainly at that cross, piled high upon the person of
Jesus Christ, innocent, sinless Son of the Living God. For certain, greater love has no man than
this.
Out from the cross, then, just as there were two thieves,
there run two paths stretching out across all eternity. Which one will you take?
Amen.
Jesus, Friend of Sinners, by
Casting Crowns
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