It is a fact of history that a Jewish man named Jesus lived morally, taught powerfully, and died horrifically in the first century. Ancient literature is littered with attestations to his existence, reputation, popularity, teachings, and eventual execution (see, for example, the works of non-believing first-century historians like Thallus, Tacitus, and Josephus).

So, the question that any honest person must ask themselves isn’t so much “Did this really happen?” but, rather, “Since it did happen, how should I respond?” And, as we’ll be reminded from Luke’s record of Christ’s crucifixion, there are only a few possibilities. First, we can respond in passivity, apathetically or ignorantly doing nothing. Second, we can respond in mockery, arrogantly dismissing the life and death of Jesus as nonsense, insignificant, or mere superstition. Finally and ideally, we can respond with dependancy, recognizing our personal need of what his sacrifice provides.

SERMON MANUSCRIPT 

 

That a Jewish man named Jesus lived morally, taught powerfully, and died horrifically in the 1st-century is historical fact. Consider words written by just a few non-believing first-century historians.

First, there’s Thallus. Describing the day Jesus died, he writes: “On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down” (Africanus, Chronography 18.1). That almost sounds biblical!

Then there’s Tacitus, widely regarded by scholars as one of the greatest Roman historians ever. In recounting a time when Emperor Nero was blaming Christians for a great fire in Rome, Tacitus wrote: “Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular” (Annals 15.44). This is a secular report confirming that Jesus lived in Judea, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and had persecuted followers called Christians unstoppably spreading their teachings everywhere. 

One more. The hostile Jewish historian, Josephus, a man born four years after the death of Christ, was given the job of writing a history of the Jews in which he said this: “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day” (Antiquities 18.3.3).

Ancient literature is littered with such attestations to the reality of the life and death of Jesus. So, the question that any honest person must ask themselves isn’t so much “Did this really happen?” but, rather, “Since it did happen, how should I respond?”

And, as we’ll see today, there are only a few available answers. We can respond in passivity, apathetically doing nothing. We can respond in mockery, arrogantly dismissing Jesus as nonsensical or insignificant. Or we can respond with dependancy, recognizing our need of what his death provides.

Turn to Luke 23. While we believe it to be inspired by God, the Gospel according to Luke is, at the very least, a historical document written by an educated researcher. In fact, as you turn to chapter 23, listen to chapter 1: [1:1–4]. This book is a carefully studied and curated account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. And, in chapter 23, we read of his death.

THE CROSS

Notice first, the cross. Jesus was taken outside the walls of Jerusalem to “the place called The Skull” (23:33). In Aramaic, Golgotha. In Latin, Calvariae. 

“There they crucified him” (23:33). Luke doesn’t sensationalize. He simply reports that Jesus was nailed to a cross and hung to die. What a violent verb in this context but it’s the one used in verse 39: “One of the criminals who were hanged there.” The condemned were victoriously mounted like a framed diploma. 

You see, the cross wasn’t just execution. It was humiliation. While Jesus is gasping others are gaming: “they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves” (23:34). His disfigured, naked body is put on display. “And even the rulers were sneering at Him” (23:35), “the soldiers also mocked Him” (23:36), and one of the criminals “was hurling abuse at Him” (23:39). How hated do you have to be to be bullied by a dying man?

The cross was also propaganda. It was the powers-that-be saying, “You mess with us, this is what you get. If you come for the throne, you get the cross.” Notice how many times Jesus’s identity is mocked: Verse 35: “let Him save himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One”; verse 37: “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!”; Verse 38: “Now there was also an inscription above Him, ‘This is the King of the Jews’”; and verse 39: “Are you not the Christ?” Both the power-hungry Romans and the hard-hearted Jews wanted everyone to know: “This guy is no one special, has claim to no throne, and can save no one.”

Centuries before Jesus lived, Moses wrote, “He who is hanged [on a tree] is accursed of God” (Deut 21:23). And, as we see in Luke 23, the cross was certainly a curse—an agonizing, humiliating, and propagandizing spectacle.

THE CHRIST

How then can the church sing, “O the wonderful cross,” “Jesus, keep me near the cross,” and “Hallelujah for the cross”? If it’s so horrifying why is it worth celebrating? Well, we know it’s because of who hung on that cross, the Christ, and what he did there.

Luke emphasizes the innocence of Jesus by contrasting him with the guilt around him. “There they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left” (23:33), they who are “suffering justly” as the one admits, “for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds” (23:41). So, Jesus has criminals on either side of him, his enemies are taunting from below him, and the false charge is fastened above him. He’s literally surrounded by guilt. And yet, in the eye of this sin storm hangs he who is without guilt. “But this man has done nothing wrong” (23:41).

Jesus was nothing his accusers said he was and he was everything they said he wasn’t. They said he was a blasphemer, an insurrectionist, a danger to Judaism and a threat to Romanism. He was none of those things. Instead, while he was hanging, bleeding, writhing, and dying, “Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing’” (23:34). He was nothing his accusers said he was.

And he is everything they said he wasn’t. He is “the Christ of God, His Chosen One” (23:35), the one God said he’d send to conquer sin and bring God’s presence to people. He is “the King of the Jews” (23:37, 38), the divine monarch who will build and rule over a perfect kingdom forever. And, he is the Saviour (23:35, 37, 39), capable of delivering those who deserve the death he died. Jesus is everything they said he wasn’t. He’s the Christ.

The Bible, from front to back, teaches that sin brings guilt and death and that all people have sinned. But that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). Jesus, truly God, “became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), showing God to humanity, calling humanity back to God, and dying to reconcile humanity with God. The sinless one, the “lamb unblemished and spotless” (1 Pet 1:19), he “who knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:19) died like a sinner, willingly laying down his life for criminals like you and me and, inso doing, paid the sin debt we all owe but cannot pay. This is he who was named “Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt 1:21). This is the Christ hanging on the cross in Luke 23.

THE CROWD

But what about the crowd? In Luke’s account of the crucifixion, we find three responses to the Christ on the cross. The first is those standing in passivity. Verse 35 says that, “the people stood by, looking on.” The people became “part of the audience in the theatre of death” (Butler, Luke, 393). 

Perhaps some, knowing the scene would be talked about around town, showed up to watch. Maybe some were curious or wanted to be seen supporting Rome. Perhaps some were aspiring centurions or just enjoyed awkward situations. Whatever their motives, this was a group who just observed. They’re not teasing or repenting but just standing and watching.

Many do this today. Whether because of ignorance, fear, selfishness, or apathy, they do nothing with Jesus. They’ve heard about him but they’ve never been moved by who he is, what he did, and why he did it. They’re just watching. 

And maybe that’s you. Even in light of Luke 23, you see no urgency, you feel no deficiency, you view no legitimacy, or you discern no efficacy on the cross. Up until today, you’ve been responding to Jesus by doing nothing. 

I want to put a pebble in your shoe today, one that will annoy you in perpetuity until you deal with it. One day you’re going to face death and, in that moment, indifference won’t bring comfort, indecision won’t give hope, and fence-sitting won’t offer forgiveness. Don’t waste your life—this life or the next—by watching, by standing in passivity.

Back in Luke 23 we find a second response: rejecting in mockery. 

The rulers, soldiers, and one of the criminals were not passive. They taunted Jesus, smugly rejecting everything he had said, everything he had done, everything he had proven, and everything he had offered. “You’re not the Christ, you’re a joke. You’re not the Son of God, you’re a fool. You’re not our king, you’re a criminal. And you’re not anyone’s Saviour, not even your own!”

This response is also common today. Many reject Jesus with levity and glibness. Many consider his followers, too weak to endure life without a celestial crutch, are people who cling to fables for faux meaning, purpose, and hope. Christianity is moronically presented as the opposite of science, logic, and reason; an indefensible spiderweb of incoherent fairytales.

No one that responds to Jesus with derision is unique or clever. People have been taunting Christ for millennia. Why? Because rejecting in mockery is a much simpler and self-congratulatory way of dealing with the claims of Christ than actually considering them and their implications. 

The third response in this text is the best one: it’s believing with dependancy. Hanging above those standing in passivity, one of the criminals joins those rejecting in mockery. [23:40–41] 

It seems that dying—and watching how Jesus was dying: submissively, forgivingly, and prophetically—granted this man some clarity: “There is a God and I’m about to meet him. I deserve this but Jesus doesn’t.” In fact, based on what he says next, it’s clear that he has come to understand that Jesus is who the mockers are saying he isn’t. [23:42] 

This dying man is making a desperate request rooted in what he now knows: this guy is “the Christ of God, His Chosen One.” He is “the King of the Jews.” He can save me. And, don’t forget, this guy knows they’re both dying, which means his request assumes life after death, a kingdom after the grave, and resurrection, all realities that Messiah was promised to provide. He’s believing with dependancy.

He has nothing to offer Jesus. His resume, it would seem, is deplorable and his present condemnation is just. He can’t promise to turn his life around and give back to the poor. He can’t vow to go into ministry, to treat people nicer, to pursue holiness, or to kill sin. He can’t even give to the temple or get baptized. All he can do is throw himself on the mercy of Jesus, the crucified Christ. All he can do is believe with dependancy. 

And, friends, that’s all we can do as well. There’s nothing that we, dying criminals, have that we can offer to God aside from our faith in his Son who died for us and rose from the dead. And, when we do that, when we respond to the Christ on the cross by believing with dependancy, how does Jesus respond to us?

Well, how did he respond to the criminal dying next to him? [23:43] Not “sometime in the future,” not “after a season of preparation.” No, “today.” “Today you’re going to die and today you will be with me in paradise.” 

The cross was horrific. The Christ is beautiful. The crowd is varied. Where do you stand in the crowd? For those of us who have believed, where do the people around us in our lives stand in the crowd?

 

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