« Jesus, Crucified for our Sake | Main | Jesus Arose As the Bible Said »
May 01, 2005
Jesus Suffered Death and Was Buried
Q. 60, Heidelberg Catechism / Isaiah 53: 1-6/Matthew 27: 57-61
May 1st, 2005
This morning I would like to speak about why Jesus suffered death and was buried. I think that we customarily think of Jesus’ death as the means God used to take care of the problem of sin—as far as He was concerned. We may fail to see how Jesus died to take care of the problem of sin as far as we are concerned. I would much rather stand before the bar of God’s justice than to stand before a human court. God’s mercy, after all, is everlasting on those who fear Him.
The holy God looks at your sin and mine and says to us who ask forgiveness, “I forgive you for Jesus’ sake.” He bore in His body on the cross your sins and mine. But a human court looks on the offending person and thinks one thing: punishment.
We carry this outlook over into ordinary life. We notice one another’s faults and find it very hard to forgive. We who sin are hard on the sins of others. How keen and indiscriminate is the gift of memory. We who are forgiven live maintaining crossfires of condemnation that can make of life a very painful experience. Depression and anxiety are major causes of physical illness because we have perpetuated guilt before one another.
Jesus died not only to grant us peace with God, but also in order to give us peace with one another. After God has cared for sin at such cost, have we not tried to perpetuate the sense of being offended?! This is why Jesus suffered death—to put an end to this problem between people as well as before God.
In a way it seems odd to say Jesus “suffered” death because probably nothing is less painful than death itself. But I have taken this term, “He suffered death” from the Nicene Creed as we have it in our Book of Confessions. In the sentence before this in the Nicene Creed we read that Jesus was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. The crucifixion was the painful part.
Again we heard today the stark words of Isaiah 53 that remind us of the ancient prophet’s words that it was “incredible” it was that this perfect One should suffer. “Who can believe our report?” The Gospel of Matthew lays out the details of the incredibly grim day of Jesus’ suffering and death. From noon until 3: 00 o’clock PM there was darkness enshrouding Jerusalem. At 3 o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Then, after refusing a sip of vinegar from a sponge—offered, some think, to relieve the pain, but perhaps it was pressed to His parched mouth when He had no longer the energy to turn His head away from it to revive Him and prolong His pain, Jesus cried out again and yielded up His spirit.” That is, He died.
At that moment the veil in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. There was an earthquake and many tombs were opened in the city. A number of us here have seen those ancient graveyards in Jerusalem, one of which has the tomb of King David. Did he rise that day? I wonder. Many bodies of holy people came to life and walked into the city. Imagine the consternation in those who saw this! The centurion who administered Jesus’ crucifixion was filled with awe. He said, “Truly this was the Son of God. A number of women watched this from some distance. We don’t know how long these events took to unfold. Perhaps within the space of a few minutes. And then silence settled over Golgotha where Jesus was crucified. Three hours or more passed with Jesus hanging there dead.
Evening came and a rich man from the city named Joseph a follower of Jesus who Mark’s Gospel tells us was a member of the Sanhedrin went to Pilate asking to care for Jesus’ body. Perhaps it was a guilty conscience that compelled Pilate to command that this rich man be given Jesus’ body. I wonder how Joseph and his servants cared for Jesus’ body. Did they lift the cross out of the hole in which it was planted, laying it flat on the ground. Or did they use ladders to reach his hands? They had to get those spikes out of his hands and feet—which must have been hard to do because they were pounded deep through His hands into the wood.
Joseph wrapped Jesus’ body in a clean linen shroud and had it carried to his own tomb which had been carved from rock in a hillside. He had a large stone rolled in front of the tomb, perhaps to keep Jesus’ enemies from desecrating it. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary stayed behind, sitting in front of the sepulcher. We don’t know when they left to go home. Perhaps they stayed through the night till the Temple guards arrived the next day. They were sent to guard the tomb so Jesus’ disciples wouldn’t steal it and then say He was risen.
Why all of this? During Holy Week we pass through these details so fast, mostly remembering the general effect of that dreadful Friday before Easter’s joyous victory. But the Gospels spell out the details of Jesus’ death first. Why did Jesus suffer like this? We think the answer is theological—to satisfy a holy God who so hates sin that the only way He could love us was to expunge our sin at this kind of cost—the Incarnate Son of God’s body.
I have many questions. Our questions are legitimate.
Why all of this? God could have taken care of the chaos of sin as swiftly as He took care of the chaos before creation, with a word. “Let there be a separation of sin from humanity,” and instantly Pilate and the Sanhedrin would have been changed to become saints, as holy as St. Francis of Assissi. Jerusalem would have changed into a gracious city with all the wealthy people immediately caring for the street people, inviting them home, sharing those extra rooms that stood vacant, letting them feast in their dining rooms. And all who were in prison released—the criminals instantly reformed, the political prisoners no longer with the cause that made them hostile to Rome. Why did God not accomplish this reordering of society with a Word?
God made His Son suffer, die, and be buried so as to include the sequence of life to its end as miserably as any human being can endure it. Because God, for reasons known only to Him, needed to take on Himself the sin and its full misery that afflicted the human race. He recapitulated in the life of Jesus the full possible misery of human life—injustice, abandonment by friends, physical pain, and then death.
The Apostle Paul summed it up: “God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” We usually think of sin as category of offense to God, little realizing how offensive you and I find sin too. Jesus died to take care of the sin problem that bothers us as well as the sin problem that bothers God. Because it is the sins that bother us that are the cause of so much distress in this life.
We imagine God to be angry with sinners. But are you and I not angry with the sins of others?! And how many are the categories of offenses that we maintain!
Paul Tournier, a Swiss Christian psychiatrist, wrote a report of his clinical experience with this problem in a book he called Guilt and Grace. He wrote, “All people are continually making mutual accusations.” “A guilty conscience is the seasoning of our daily life.” He summarized how burdened we are with guilt for so many “sins,” many of which are not sins at all.
A child who grows up in a home with parents who were sharply critical carries with her through life a feeling of guilt for not measuring up to their expectations. She is eating at the dinner table. She asks for the butter, and when it is passed to her, rather than cutting from the end that has already been cut, she cuts from the uncut end. And father chides her, “You should cut from the other end.” Then silence. No happy conversation. And so meal time breeds indigestion.
For some young people it comes naturally to study and to do well. But not for all. It may surprise you to know I was not at first a good student. I know I’m perceived as a scholar with this spiffy doctoral robe and all that—but that came later. I’m grateful that in America we have an educational process that gives second chances.
For reasons I think had something to do with moving from one culture to another, from one school to another the first fourteen years of my life, I never found stride in grade school and high school. It was hard for me. So I can sympathize with those who are afraid of report-card time. While some are getting their valedictorian pins and National Honor Society commendations, you lurk in embarrassment at Cs and Ds on your report card, maybe even an F or two. But you don’t know how to do better. And in a society that rewards achievers, you feel guilty.
I have known young people who feel guilty simply for showing up, so accused do they feel. They hug the shadows, desiring not to be seen. Their complexions embarrass them. They cannot love themselves because they have learned to feel condemned—not by God, but by their peers and by grown-ups. Some children so cringe before criticism that they never find their way in life. They imagine criticism to add to their burden. Other children rebel. They are protesting against the guilt they can stand no longer.
What is the source of eating disorders? I feel guilty because I’m fat. Even if I am lean as a beanpole I may be suspicious I’m fat, so I eat and purge. I feel guilty for not looking like the model of good looks established by society. Or I am taught to feel guilty for being of the “wrong” race. In our religious differences we hold others to account for not seeing things as we do. Sometimes we speak to each other in ways that we intend to arouse guilt as a means of making them do what we think they should do. All of this should not be!
There is valid guilt, of course. It is a wholesome guilt that comes in response to doing wrong—violating trust, telling lies, hurting someone by word or deed. But even for legitimate guilt God offers us such a simple solution: confess your sin. Acknowledge you did it. Be forgiven. That’s it, accept that you are forgiven, then pass along the forgiveness and be on with life.
But all guilt is not valid guilt. And in so far as we maintain a society of false guilt, as Christians, we have failed to enjoy the benefit to us of Jesus death on the cross. He died that we could live to Him who loves us that much, in order to create a community of forgiveness in which we embrace one another.
There are times when I think the Christian faith and the Church are the most wonderful things possible in life. I certainly had this in mind thirty-three years ago when the idea hit me that I should spend some time serving in the church. I thought it would maybe last two years, a sort of tithe of my life the way Mormon missionaries do.
The Christian faith, after all hovers under the spell of the Gospel. The Gospel is God’s love poured out for the world. The Gospel provides you and me a context in which to think about everything and everyone. God’s love at huge cost—on His part. His love in me—on my part. The Christian faith is spelled out vividly by the Apostle Paul when he wrote, “He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” What a possibility. The perfect goodness that God approves and that you and I long for, given to us—handed to me on a golden platter of grace. All you and I have to do is to accept it with a grateful heart.
The Church is the society of those who have received this grace. It is the community of all people throughout time who have received the favor of God. It is homes like this. It is Bible studies like this. It is congregations like this.
But you and I have not always found it this way. How often we live accused, and accusing. And each of us is right. When I am found wanting, I must agree. The one who accuses me has hit the target. If only that one knew the full extent of my fault!
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Who shall lay any charge against God’s elect?/ It is God—but then God justifies, declares us to be as though we had never committed a single sin or ever been sinful, having fulfilled myself all the obedience which Christ has carried out for me.” We live unforgiving, and unforgiven, accused and accusing. How far this is from the Gospel life!
Why did Jesus suffer death and was then buried? To take on Himself the complete burden of our real guilt, to take it to the grave where it could decay. Jesus bore our sins in His body to free us from them, to make it unmistakably clear how much God loves us. He did this to create in us a clean heart and to renew a right spirit. And it is the Christian way to live basking in this forgiveness, and then spreading to others the blessedness of this way of life.
Thus may our children be nurtured in such a way that they know how God loves them because of how we love them. Thus may we nurture each other, building up one another. Let us lure each other into the grace in which we believe we stand before God. Here is the antidote to false guilt, to that insidious disease that makes of life such a miserable thing for so many. Here is the love of God manifested in a way that we can see it and feel it. This prods us to good works, to works of mercy, to works of blessing—all out of gratitude for the grace of God shed abroad in our hearts.
Let us pray: O Lord God, we are astounded at the magnificence of your mercy. Give us the grace, now, to accept your mercy, and to enjoy it fully. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson, Pastor
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at May 1, 2005 09:30 AM