The Criminals - Death by Crucifixation

If I'm going to be honest, my driving habits probably aren't the best.  I love driving with the windows down, blasting my music, and singing along to my favorite songs.  I wrongly view driving as a great chance to catch-up on phone calls or text messages (which I'm convicted I should probably change in the immediate future).  And I have a tendency to rebel against the 25mph speed limits that make driving through Oxford painfully slow. Despite my lack of attentiveness, my roommate lovingly commented that she feels safe with me driving - unlike her feelings towards most of her other friends when they are behind the wheel.  Ironically, no less than 15 minutes after her comment, a cop handed me a hefty speeding ticket in my favorite - 25 mph speed limit. 

I must mention that I have witnessed several friends receive much more costly speedy tickets in the past few months - and they handled the situations with amazing grace and humility.  As they truthfully said, they were guilty of speeding and therefore they justly deserved the given ticket.  As I recalled their grace and poise while being handed my own speeding ticket I greatly struggled against resentment and self-righteousness.  Why should I pay a speeding ticket when hundreds of college students are drinking under-age AND driving, smoking illegal drugs, abusing prescriptions... doing things way worse than speeding in a 25!  I am so innocent compared to their destructive and idiotic life decisions!

Yet, I did breach the law that leaders have set in place for the good of America.  I broke the law.  Regardless of my view of the moral importance of the speed limit I was guilty and I justly deserve the ticket that I received.  I had no right to be angry at the police officer - all he did was catch me in my sin and deliver the predetermined fine.  Not only did I deserve that ticket, but I deserve hundreds more that I have never received.  How many tickets would you receive if a cop watched your every "stop" and speed?  I have actually received way more grace than justice as a driver!

In a similar way we all stand guilty before a holy and righteous God.  God correctly sees every man and woman as a criminal in both nature, since we are born in Adam, and in action since we actively seek and choose sin.  When God sent his Son he did it knowing that we are utterly depraved and guilty of sin.  As we read about Jesus' crucifixion in Luke 23, we must see ourselves within the criminals being crucified on either side of Jesus.

32 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 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... 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.”

Luke 23:32-33, 39-43

We are those criminals.  There is no choice in the matter of our guilt - we are guilty before God. 

However, there is a difference, ONE great difference.  Which criminal will we be?  We are either the first who railed against Jesus, mocking and denying him, or the one who feared God, seeing Jesus as holy and blameless, Lord and Savior, and trusting in Him alone for eternal life.

The first criminal ridiculed the name of Jesus saying "Are you not the Christ?  Save yourself and us!" (39).  He had no faith in Jesus as the Son of God, no shred of belief that Jesus could be his savior.

However, the second criminal, equally foul in deed and guilty in sin saw Jesus differently.  “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong” (40-41).  This man identified the weight of his own condemnation in light of Jesus' innocence.  By faith, he identified Jesus as God and cried out to Him as savior, begging “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (42).  And Jesus' response is the best news in the history of the world!

That's why what we believe about Jesus is the most significant decision we will ever make.  Which criminal will you be?

Jesus Christ - Death by Crucifixion

Living within the 21st century of Western culture, the image of the cross is subconsciously linked with Jesus Christ crucified; Christianity.  However, we often don't consider that the cross as a Christian symbol or "seal" didn't come into use until the second century, close to a hundred years after Jesus was crucified.  During the first two centuries of Christianity, the cross may have been rare in Christian iconography, as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution. The Ichthys was used by early Christians. The first appearance of a cross in Christian art is on a Vatican sarcophagus from the mid 5th century.  Interestingly enough, the first crucifixion scenes didn't appear in Christian art until the 7th century.

 

Raising of the Cross by Rubens, Pieter Pauwel, 1610, Oil on panel

Today, we react to the image of the cross very differently than men and women did in the first or second centuries.  This painful and gruesome act of execution is something we have probably never witnessed in real life.  Perhaps watching The Passion of the Christ with Mel Gibson is our best visualization - which I personally remember watching with tears and nausea.  Concerning death by crucifixion, pastor Mark Driscoll writes:

The ancient Jewish historian Josephus called crucifixion 'the most wretched of deaths.'  The ancient Roman philosopher Cicero asked that decent Roman citizens not even speak of the cross because it was too disgraceful a subject for the ears of decent people... the Romans... reserved it as the most painful mode of execution for the most despised people, such as slaves, poor people, and Roman citizens guilty of the worst high treason... The pain of crucifixion is so horrendous that a word was invented to explain it - excruciating - which literally means 'from the cross.'  The pain of crucifixion is due in part to the fact that it is a prolonged and agonizing death by asphyxiation.  Crucified people could hang on the cross for days, passing in and out of consciousness as their lungs struggled to breathe, while laboring under the weight of their body.  It was not uncommon for those being crucified to slump on the cross in an effort to empty their lungs of air and thereby hasten their death.*

This historical truth concerning crucifixion should leave us amazed by God's great demonstration of love and mercy on the cross.   Paul writes boldly in Romans 5, "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly... God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (6, 8).  Jesus Christ endured and pain and agony of crucifixion for our sake.  In God's perfect timing and plan He sent Jesus to live the perfect life, and die the perfect death - perfect because it fully satisfied God's wrath against man's sin.  Paul continues, "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God" (9).  This is the truth that Christians must live by, "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation" (10-11).  The cross first brings sobriety at the recognition of our sin and God's wrath, than sorrow at the pain Jesus endured, but finally joy that reconciliation with God has been accomplished.  For each of these reasons - we can never think upon the cross too often.  The cross in the foundation of our justification, sanctification, and glorification.  Every day we must seek to humbly sit beneath Jesus' feet, nailed the cross, thanking God for His mercy and grace.

We can never think upon the cross too often.

* Quoted from Driscoll, Mark. Death by Love. pp 18-19.