Scripture Reading

Matthew 27:33-50

When they came to a place called Golgotha, which means the place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, 'This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.' The two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on the left.

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, 'You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!' And also the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him, saying, 'He saves others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now if he desires him, for he said, "I am the Son of God."' And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness all over the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' That is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' And some of the bystanders hearing it said, 'This man is calling Elijah.' And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But others said, 'Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come.' And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. This is the word of the Lord.

Some things feel like a footnote until you realize that they change everything. There's a story that came out of World War II, out of Auschwitz, where a prisoner had escaped and the guards found him and brought him back. As a punishment, they found 10 men at random to punish by starvation. One of the innocent men chosen at random, as he was being taken away toward a part of the camp where he would be starved to death, saw his wife and his children and broke down crying out, 'My wife! My children!' In the camp, there was a pastor who stepped forward. His name was Maximilian Kolbe. He didn't protest the injustice. He didn't negotiate a sentence. He simply offered himself. He said, 'Take me instead.' And that's exactly what happened.

The man who was saved later recalled: 'I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on, the immensity of it. I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offering his life for me, a stranger. Is this some dream? I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian. I was saved and I owe him the fact that I could tell you all of this today.' The guilty went free, the innocent took his place. That is substitution. And everyone understands why a story like that would stay with you, because substitution is the only kind of love that saves.

Big Question

Why did Jesus have to die?

We like the idea of forgiveness when it is cheap. We love the idea of love without justice. In some sense, we want a God who says, 'It's fine,' while still being a God who's holy. But if God just forgives, if he ignores sin, he stops being good. He stops being just. And if God punishes sin without mercy, then we have no hope. How can God be truly just and truly merciful all at the same time? That's the question — why did Jesus have to die? It's because sin cannot be waved away. Someone must bear it.

Outline

1. A Crown of Shame (Matthew 27:33-37)

2. The Mockery of the Truth (Matthew 27:39-44)

3. The Cry in the Dark (Matthew 27:45-49)

4. The Final Surrender (Matthew 27:50)

A Crown of Shame (Matthew 27:33-37)

Matthew doesn't just point out the pain of what happens on the cross; he shows us shame. A king being treated like a joke. Let's look at Matthew 27:33-34: 'And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means "Place of a Skull," they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.' They are going to the address of death. This was outside the city and it is important to understand that during Passover it was against Jewish custom to kill someone inside the city. The Jewish leaders thought they were just expelling a blasphemer from their holy city, except they're doing something infinitely more important.

Just like in Leviticus, a sin offering had to be given outside the camp. Jesus, in this moment, becomes the sin offering the world needed, sacrificed outside the city. They were enacting Leviticus without understanding it, sending a sacrifice outside so sinners could stay inside. John Calvin on this section has this written in his commentary: 'In no other way could our guilt be removed than by the Son of God becoming a curse for us. If God declares that our salvation was so dear to him that he did not spare his only begotten Son, what abundant grace do we here behold?'

We see in this section Jesus taking the blows as he's being cast out. And this is the cup that he must drink in order to satisfy the wrath of God, which is exactly why he passes up the cup mixed with wine and gall. This cup was most likely a mild narcotic. When Jesus was in the garden praying to God, the imagery of this cup kept coming up. The cup he must drink is the cup of God's wrath, which is why he cannot drink this numbing cup. He must be fully present in order to bear the full weight of our sin. In Gethsemane, he resolved to drink the cup of God's wrath to the full.

Matthew 27:35-37: 'And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head they put the charge against him which read, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."' Matthew sprints past the crucifixion, gives it just a couple words because he wants us to see that the mockers are the dialog here. He's writing in irony, not a gruesome description. This echoes Psalm 22 where they strip him and cast lots. The mockers are performing Psalm 22 in front of the one who wrote it.

As Pilate nails the charge sheet above the cross intending to mock Jesus, the charge becomes a coronation proclamation. Despite every intention to strip Jesus of his kingship, every event here solidifies it. Look at who Jesus is crucified with — he's crucified with the accomplices to Barabbas, the one who was set free as Jesus took his place. The Romans wanted people to see that Jesus ends up on the wrong side of history. He is crucified with criminals. But the scene secures his kingship. The cross is his throne, the thorns his crown, the mockers his court, his witnesses. Everything is being set for Jesus to become the king that the world has longed for.

The Mockery of the Truth (Matthew 27:39-44)

Matthew in his gospel loves this theme of the upside-down kingdom. And here is the deepest irony in all of his gospel. Every taunt in this section accidentally becomes true. Matthew 27:39: 'And those who passed by him derided him, wagging their heads.' Any reader steeped in the Psalms would have been slapped in the face by Psalm 22:7, which says: 'All who seek me mock me, and they make their mouths at me, and they wag their heads.' These mockers are not improvising; they are performing a script that they have never read. Matthew wants us to see that we are inside Psalm 22, the psalm about the righteous sufferer, and here is a better David suffering beyond what any human ever had or will suffer.

Matthew 27:40-44: 'You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in 3 days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!' Notice that phrase — 'If you are the Son of God.' That line has a history. It points directly back to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Luke records Satan saying, 'If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.' And when the temptation ended, Luke records: 'when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.' This is that opportune time. Satan has come back to tempt Jesus one more time through the mouth of the mockers — saying, 'Prove who you are by saving yourself.' But Jesus' mission was not to save himself.

The crowd's logic is: if you are the Son of God, your divine identity gives you the power to escape. So do it. Prove it and we will believe. But the gospel logic is this: it's precisely because Jesus is the Son of God that he cannot come down. More evidence will not produce faith in people who have already hardened their hearts. Coming down from the cross will not make them believe. But even more — it will not save them.

Jesus must be our substitute. He must stand in our place. He must be treated like us to treat us like him. He cannot save himself because we could not save ourselves. This is substitutionary atonement spoken out by mockers. John Stott in The Cross of Christ says this: 'The concept of substitution may be said to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be. God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserved to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone, and God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.' This is what Good Friday is all about.

The Cry in the Dark (Matthew 27:45-49)

For 12 verses, Matthew's been focused outward — on the soldiers, the passersby, the Sanhedrin, the criminals. The noise has been relentless, taunt after taunt, wave after wave of mockery. And then everything changes. Everything up until this point was about the horizontal suffering, the physical suffering from others. Now we will see not only the physical punishment but God's wrath and the spiritual punishment as well.

Matthew 27:45: 'Now from the sixth hour there was darkness all over the land until the ninth hour.' Anyone who had read the Old Testament — this darkness equals judgment. Judgment has fallen on the Son for all the sin that God hates. A crucifixion was a spectacle, a show. People walked by just to see. It may be in this moment that the Father is hiding the Son's agony from public view. The holiest moment in the history of the world happens under a veil. 3 hours where heaven is saying, 'This is no longer entertainment; this must be atonement.'

'And about the 9th hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?"' — that is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Matthew writes this down in Aramaic because he was there. He remembers these were the exact words Jesus spoke. Everything else in the gospel is written in Greek except for this. He remembers the exact phrasing, the dialect, the language in which Jesus spoke it. This would have been a memory you couldn't possibly forget. And in this moment, Jesus quotes Psalm 22:1. This is not Jesus quoting a verse to stay religious. This is Psalm 22 becoming flesh. He is the righteous sufferer, and he is alone.

Notice what Jesus says. He says, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Every prayer that Jesus has spoken up until this point started off with 'my Father,' 'our Father,' 'Father.' And here on the cross, he can't say that anymore. Jesus was not just experiencing the physical brutality of the cross; he is now abandoned by his Father. Jesus is suffering true, actual hell on the cross. The full wrath of God is being poured out. Jesus is not just experiencing what hell would be like if any one of us were there — he is experiencing every single chosen person's hell compounded into one moment. An agony, a spiritual agony no one of us can imagine. Jesus is bearing the full weight of sin on his shoulders.

Isaiah 53 explains what's happening on the cross: 'Like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.' This is the answer to our big question: why did Jesus have to die? Because the Lord laid our iniquity on him. The curse that belongs to every lawbreaker, every idolater, every rebel against God is here concentrated and falling on the head of Jesus. Sin cannot be simply waved away. God could not have just snapped his fingers and said, 'We're going to let this go.' Sin had to be paid for. When something is broken, it has to be fixed. If you are the one who broke it, someone can forgive you, but that means the cost is now passed on to the owner. And that's what happens here on the cross.

The Final Surrender (Matthew 27:50)

'And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.' Matthew doesn't record what he says, but other gospels do. The Gospel of John says that Jesus said, 'It is finished' — meaning the debt is paid, the account is settled, the curse has been borne. All the wrath towards God's chosen has been paid in full. There's no more wrath for you. There's no more wrath for me. He gave up his final breath. The irony of the cross is that the one who spoke the world into existence breathes out his last word, his last and final breath. Everything now that has been broken begins to come right.

The King, the true King, reigns by giving himself and completing the work the Father set before him. If you want the simplest summary of Good Friday: Jesus' death is not a tragedy. He died as your substitute. And when he said, 'It is finished,' he meant there is nothing left to add. Not only does he bear the curse and remain faithful — at the very moment when he feels the most forsaken, he is the most faithful. This is not Jesus losing his grip. This is Jesus holding on. Richard Sibbes says this: 'Jesus is never more obedient, never pleases the Father more than when he utters these words on the cross. The moment of maximum God-forsakenness is simultaneously the moment of maximum obedience for Jesus.' The Father turns away, but Jesus doesn't. He does not recant. He does not curse the Father. He could have come down, but he stays. Not because nails held him, but because love did.

Main Idea

Behold the King who bears the curse for sinners

Jesus stays on the cross so he could have you. He could have your whole heart, everything you are, because he loved you already. When Jesus cries out, it's not in a moment of weakness. It is in a moment of ultimate faithfulness. This is the greatest display of love in human history. Jesus becomes the promise of life made to us all the way back in the Old Testament, and he purchases it through his death. Jesus is treated as guilty so we can be treated as righteous. He is shut out so we can be brought in. Jesus is treated like us so we can be treated like Jesus.

Application

You cannot help yourself

Jesus, as he's hanging on the cross, is mocked to save himself and yet he does not come down because we could not save ourselves. Everything that happens on the cross is a trade — a radical reversal. Jesus gets what we deserve. We get credited his righteousness, because we could not save ourselves. No amount of goodness in us makes us better in God's eyes. The beauty of the cross is that Jesus declares, 'It is finished.' If we try to save ourselves, if we try to add anything onto the cross after that, we're trying to make Jesus a liar. We're saying, 'Well, Jesus, I know you said it was finished but you didn't really mean it.' There would have been no need for Jesus to die if you and I could have been even 1% good enough to save ourselves.

Believe that it is finished

Have you come here tonight with spiritual agony in your soul? Have you come here with guilt and grief that you don't know what to do with? The cross answers this. There is a story of a Puritan pastor who sat at the deathbed of a man who had lived in spiritual darkness for 30 years. The man said to the pastor, 'What can you say to a man who is dying and feels that God has forsaken him?' And the pastor replied, 'What became of the man who died, whom God did actually forsake? Where is he now?' The dying man caught it and said, 'He is in glory and I shall be with him.'

Charles Spurgeon commenting on this says: 'So the light came to the dying man who had been so long in the dark. He saw that Christ had been just where he was and that he should be where Christ was, even at the right hand of God the Father.' Christ came to trade places with you. And today, if you believe that that's true — not as a cold fact, not as another add-on to your life, but as a total life-transforming reality — today is the day to believe that. Some of you have been in the dark for a long time. Tonight, the light is the same as it was for that dying man as it is for you. Not a feeling, not as a fix, but as a King who went where you were, where you are.

As we come to a close, we all live under a verdict. Throughout our life, either by ourselves or by others, we feel guilty, not enough, ashamed. On the cross, that verdict came down on Jesus. Jesus takes this verdict for us. Not near you, not in some proximity to you — for you, in your place. The curse that should fall on us falls squarely on him. And the guilt that our conscience fears is spoken over Christ. And now there is nothing left to add, no debt left to pay. He said it was finished. So tonight we believe him before we see in 2 days what finished looks like. Church, behold the King who bears the curse for sinners.

Closing Prayer

Father, we praise you that our sin was paid in full. God, we cannot imagine what it looked like to see our sin on the cross. Father, your verdict has been spoken on the cross, and you've declared us innocent by treating your Son as guilty. Father, thank you that we can be received into you, that we can have you through this. Help us to go knowing the peace and knowing that this story is not over. In 3 days we will see a resurrected Christ. Father, we love you. We love to do your will. So help us worship you here now. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

Church, your verdict has been spoken at the cross. Christ was treated as condemned so you could be received as beloved. So go in peace knowing the story is not over. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, be with your spirit now and forever. Amen.