His final steps led to the Place of the Skull.

 

Sermon for Good Friday, April 7, 2023

Luke 23:26-33  ²⁶As they led him away, they seized Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country.  They placed the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.  ²⁷A large crowd of people was following him, including women who were mourning and wailing for him.  ²⁸Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.  ²⁹Be sure of this: The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never gave birth, and the breasts that never nursed.’  ³⁰Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’  ³¹For if they do these things to the green wood, what will happen to the dry?”  ³²Two other men, who were criminals, were led away with Jesus to be executed.  ³³When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on his right and the other on his left. (EHV)

His final steps led to the Place of the Skull.

Dear fellow redeemed,

      They led Him out of the city to a hill named for a symbol of death.  Matthew used the Aramaic, Golgotha.  Mark here uses the Greek, cranion, from which we get our word, cranium, for the skull.  Since way back in the mists of time, the skull has been a symbol of death.  We don’t know the actual location of this hill, but it was well known at its time as a place of death.  It was a place reserved for executions. 

The Romans didn’t crucify randomly.  They chose a place for crucifying that would produce maximum impact on the local population.  Rome reserved crucifixion for slaves, rebels, and traitors.  They wanted everyone coming into, or out of, a city to see what happened to anyone who defied Roman authority.  Perhaps, that is one reason the Sanhedrin wanted Jesus crucified.  They wanted the people to see Jesus as a traitor and a fraud.

Both the Jewish and Roman authorities tried to do everything they could to wipe Jesus out of history.  The Jewish leadership stirred up the city to demand that Jesus be crucified for claiming to be God’s Son and the promised Savior.  Pilate, knowing Jesus was innocent, made a feeble attempt to protect Jesus from the Sanhedrin’s jealousy, but in the end, old Pontius used his feeble authority to try to mock both Jesus and the Jews.  Pilate posted a sign at the top of Jesus’ cross declaring in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.” (John 19:19)  The proud leaders of Jerusalem wanted the people to see that no one should defy them, and the Roman government was happy to use Jesus to threaten anyone possibly considering rebellion against it.  However, neither of those two groups comprehended that God was in control of even the minutest detail so that Jesus, the true King of heaven and earth, would suffer and die for the sins of the world.

We meet another Jew on his way into Jerusalem for the Passover festival.  Did Simon know Jesus?  It doesn’t appear that he did until the guards grabbed him and forced him to carry Jesus’ cross the final steps to The Skull.  Jesus had become too weak and had fallen.  Yet, whose plan was this?  Simon may not have been a Christian before he carried Jesus’ cross, but Mark tells us he had a son named Rufus, (Mark 15:21) and years later in his letter to the Romans, St. Paul greets Rufus as one of the elect of Christ.  The same Rufus?  We can’t say for sure, but we can’t say it isn’t either.  Far more people have become followers of Jesus after He was crucified than ever did before.

“A large crowd of people was following him, including women who were mourning and wailing for him.”  Were these the women who had supported Jesus in His ministry?  It does not appear so.  It is likely that most of those women weeping and wailing were doing so only because one of the Sons of Israel was being crucified.  I say that because of how Jesus responded. 

Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.  Be sure of this: The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never gave birth, and the breasts that never nursed.’  Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’  For if they do these things to the green wood, what will happen to the dry?” 

Jesus wasn’t concerned about His own future.  He knew that was secure in His Father’s hands.  Jesus also knew what fate was coming to Jerusalem and to all who reject Him.  A scant forty years after Jesus was crucified, the Jewish leaders’ plans to preserve their authority came crashing down as Rome set a siege around the city, starved it into submission, then tore down every part of the city piece by piece until nothing remained standing, and slaughtered or enslaved every Jew still alive at that moment.  The Roman empire lasted a while longer, but it too is long gone in the annals of history.  Yet, Jesus remains, and Jesus lives, and Jesus reigns.

The immediate cause of Jesus’ crucifixion was Jewish and Roman forces trying to protect their own power and control.  However, the true cause of Jesus’ crucifixion was the sins of the world.  Adam’s rebellion.  Cain’s murder.  David’s adultery.  Peter’s denial.  Judas’s betrayal.  Every sin in between, and your sins and mine, all were counted against Jesus. 

Two criminals were also led out to the hill of execution that day.  Both deserved the treatment they got, just as you and I deserve death for the sins we commit.  Yet, in God’s eyes at that moment, only Jesus was guilty.  “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)  For all the sins ever committed in this world, God put the curse of death on His own dear Son and had Jesus hung on that tree to pay the penalty the whole world deserves.

One of those criminals finally realized who Jesus is, and why Jesus was on that cross.  We don’t know if he came to faith in that moment or if he had heard the Gospel previously, but in repentance for his guilt and abandoning any hope in himself, he pleaded with Jesus for life, and Jesus’ answer to that convicted criminal gives us hope as well.  Jesus told the guilty one, “Amen I tell you: Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

This is why we call this Friday Good.  On this day, we remember and celebrate the truth that God’s Son gave Himself as the sacrifice that would reconcile the world to God.  When His final steps led to the Place of the Skull, Jesus made Himself sin for us.  Then, not only did Jesus suffer physical death because of our sin, He suffered all the wrath of God, the separation from God that every sinner deserves—the punishment of hell, so that people like you and me who believe in Jesus as God’s promised Deliverer can be united with God in true holiness.  Because of Jesus, who cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) God the Father accepts us as His children who though we were once lost and condemned have now been returned to Him pure and holy.

Naturally, none of this would mean too much if Jesus had stayed dead.  Yet, in this, history is on our side.  Jesus didn’t stay dead.  Having conquered death and the devil and even the stubborn flesh of the human condition, Jesus also conquered the grave, and in doing so, He threw open the gates of Paradise to all who believe.

Tonight, we reminisce with sadness the suffering and death of God’s beloved Son because of our contribution to His sentence.  Tonight, we grieve that our sins led Jesus to “the place called The Skull.”  At the same time, we rejoice, because Jesus loved us so much that He bore those sins with honor—the honor He was bringing to His Father by redeeming the world of all shame.

The Jews wanted Jesus dead so that they could stay in their little domains.  The Roman government was willing to kill Jesus to keep control over a rebellious people.  Both of them failed to last.  But Jesus—though Jesus died, He lives again.  Jesus allowed the world to have full control over Him even to the point of death, so that having conquered the devil and the grave, Jesus now reigns over heaven and earth and will until the end.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, King David saw the outcome of Jesus’ crucifixion.  A thousand years before God’s Son gave His life for you and me, David wrote, “You make him suffer need, apart from God for a while, but you crown him with glory and honor.  You make him the ruler over the works of your hands.  You put everything under his feet: … O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalms 8:5-8)  Jesus conquered death and He lives and reigns over all things forever.  He grants us forgiveness of all sin and peace with God, all because His final steps led to the Place of the Skull.  Amen.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore.  Amen.