Good Friday from Alexander's Eyes (Sermon)

 Part 1 Message 

What was it like 2000 years ago, 6000 miles from here, on Good Friday in the city of Jerusalem? Picture a warm arid climate like Texas with more elevation than the flatlands of the Lone Star State but less elevation than the Colorado Rockies, Nevada Sierras, Washington’s Cascades, or the Southeast’s Smokies. Imagine a land where the sun beats down on dirt and rock, baking the limestone, while occasional rain feeds olive groves, desert shrubs, and grape vines. 2000 years ago, people gathered in homes to celebrate the Jewish holy day of Passover on a night like this.

It was a holiday of God freeing his people from the oppressive rule and reign of a long line of tyrants with the title, Pharaoh. These Pharaohs enslaved God’s people for over four hundred years. God’s chosen children had been crying for help. 

They needed mercy, wrestled to a place of poverty. Where was Yahweh in the midst of their pain and suffering? Did he care? Did he see? Did he listen? 

He did. And he raised up an unlikely leader: an octogenarian, an eighty-year-old, a one-time murderer, outsider, shepherd, husband, father, and brother. He was a stammerer, lacking self-confidence. Yet, God saw through this man’s limitations and lifted him up to rescue his people. The man’s name was Moses.

God sent Moses back home after a forty-year hiatus to confront a maniacal Pharaoh through miraculous demonstrations of divine power. Yet, God told Moses that Pharaoh would not listen. 

The Almighty’s magic would grow more and more dramatic. Beginning with a staff turning into a snake, water turning into blood, to the sky going dark for three whole days, and finally to an angel of death soaring over a nation and killing all firstborn sons from the royal homes to the barns. 

God prepared his people for this heavenly vengeance. If people wanted to be protected from this wrath, they needed to kill a spotless lamb and paint its blood over their doorways. God told them that if the people participated in this ritual, the angel would pass over their homes. They complied with this provision. And God did what he said he would do. Death visited Egypt that night. The next day, Pharaoh broke. He finally let God’s people go free. And they left with what little they had and some treasure they permanently borrowed. 

And every year afterward, God instructed his people to reenact this Passover in remembrance of his deliverance. They did so for some fourteen hundred years. 

Then, Jesus came to town riding on a donkey. He was going to celebrate like everyone. His dozen tagalong interns joined in. They stopped at the Temple, a remodeled monument and shadow of the glorious days of Solomon. The mentees watched as Jesus healed, taught, and stood up to a hypocritical religious system. 

As Passover approached, jealous spiritual priests were looking for ways to discredit, trap, and kill Jesus. Yet, he dodged every blow. So, they enlisted an insider, a man by the name of Judas Iscariot. None of his followers were aware of his two-timing betrayal. Jesus was. God had predicted it long before. He allowed Satan to enter Judas, and Judas fell. Evil would win, but not for long. God would, could, and did bring a greater good out of the darkest evil. God saw, heard, and acted. He knows all, sees all, and is all-powerful. And Jesus, his one and only Son, gathered his men to an upper room to meet and talk and celebrate this ceremonial dinner with Judas at his side.

Christ began the evening by washing his disciples’ feet. Dirty from sandal travel in the Middle East. The soil and smells would disappear with water, a towel, and hands. Peter balked as Jesus crouched. Washing the feet of adult men was the job of a slave, not a Master. Jesus rebuked Peter, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8b, ESV). Peter relented, and Jesus washed his feet and the feet of all in that room, including Judas’s. All would be clean, but not all of them. One harbored a double-crossing intention that would not disappear. Jesus taught more and prayed more. Then it was time to eat. He indicated that this meal was not just a signpost of God’s grace in Moses’s day, but a mile marker for the future. A new substitute was reclining right there with them. A new lamb would be slain, once for all. More blood would be spilled, and another body would be given for their benefit. And every year afterward, instead of remembering the freedom from physical slavery and God’s provision to the Hebrew people, the church will thank Jesus for freeing us from the grip of sin, offering forgiveness with Jesus’s blood, and exchanging his body for ours. 

Thus, we too join with Christendom, taking the bread, symbolizing Christ’s body, and the cup, symbolizing his blood. Tonight, everyone is invited to partake if you trust in Christ as your Savior from sin. If you do not, feel free to walk up with us, don’t take the elements. By taking communion, we are demonstrating our convictions in action. Perhaps today is the day when it finally clicks in your heart and mind. You get it. You know you need a Savior, and you see that Jesus is it. Great. Take communion as your first step of faith. If you are a kid and have questions about your faith, talk to your parents. I am sure they would love to hear you out. The ushers will dismiss each row. There is communion upstairs for you, if you are up there. Let us reflect on Jesus’s sacrifice for us. He did this in love. He loves us. Once everyone has it, we will hold the bread and drink it together. I will come back up here and give a bit more instruction before that. 

Communion (1 Corinthians 11)

Pass some out to the worship team

Music 

Institution (Rob)

We remembered Jesus’s Last Supper, we will sing some more songs and remember his last hours. 

More songs and scripture 

Part 2 - Message 

Israel had spread out over time. It was a diaspora. The Jewish people lived in places like Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Egypt. They were in Athens, Rome, and Alexandria. In fact, on a day like today, around 2000 years ago, a man from roughly 800 miles away traveled by land and sea to Jerusalem to likely remember Passover. He came from what we know now as Libya, a city named Cyrene by the Green Mountains in North Africa, ten miles from the Mediterranean Sea. 

The Bible tells us he had two sons, but we don’t know whether they joined him on the journey. One son had the name of one of the greatest rulers in history, who by thirty-three had spread Greek culture and its kingdom around the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. His name was Alexander. The other was named with a well-known Roman politician and orator’s name, Rufus. Were Rufus and Alexander twins? We don’t know. We do know their father’s name, which was neither Roman nor Greek, but Hebrew: Simon, meaning “to listen.”   

Not much had happened in Israel’s history for centuries. There was the Maccabean revolt. Israel stood up to the governing authorities with a modicum of success. But there were no prophets. There was no Messiah, or no new Scripture. Simon probably heard the rumors about a mysterious man who may have been changing all that, ushering Israel into a new age, a man by the name of Jesus. Jesus, the Greek name for Joshua, meaning “the Lord is salvation.” Was he the Lord’s salvation, a prophet? Was he the prophesied one? The gossip was that he could walk on water, calm the storms, multiply food, heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. He had just raised a man by the name of Lazarus in Bethany, a few miles from there. This Jesus was Hebrew like Simon but from the royal house of David, the tribe of Judah, just as the Scriptures predicted. He came to town on a donkey, fulfilling a prophecy from Zechariah. 

            Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! 

      Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! 

                  Behold, your king is coming to you; 

      righteous and having salvation is he, 

                  humble and mounted on a donkey, 

      on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9, ESV)

Simon likely didn’t have a Passover sacrifice with him. No worries. The Temple had him covered. They sold doves and lambs at exorbitant prices. It was like buying a meal at a professional sporting event. Those selling are making bank. It may have felt like highway robbery. But what do you do when you are desperate? God called them to worship. They wanted to obey. Adding to this obstacle, payment for sacrifices required a special currency, the Temple Shekel. The exchange rate was in the priest’s favor. But fortunately for the worshippers, they had exchanges right there, like an ATM with a little kick back for the priests. Upon discovery of this greed, Jesus was furious. He turned over tables and let the sacrifices out of their cages. He protested. His enemies fumed.   

Early in the week, the animals were selected, and at the end of the week, they were killed “Within a two-hour time slot (from the ninth to the eleventh hour, or 3:00–5:00 pm).” In 1969, “Joachim Jeremias, [conservatively] calculated that the three courses of priests on duty could slay … 18,000 lambs during those two hours.” Picture the blood bath, as the priests held the yearling lambs and doves down, sliding knives along jugular veins. The sewers would hemorrhage a crimson flow into the Kidron Valley below, carrying the stench of a swollen pilgrim population. This was the effect of a day of worship: God’s freedom and provision remembered.  (https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/dxr2ez/just_how_many_animals_do_we_know_were_sacrificed/#:~:text=Philo%20of%20Alexandria%2C%20in%20De,individuals%20at%20their%20own%20homes.) 

2000 years ago, Simon minded his own business on the street near the center of town during this Paschal week. Then it happened. He was caught up in the ruckus. A man claiming to be the “Messiah,” this Jesus, was being forced along the street. They were leading him to a hill called Golgatha, the Hill of the Skull, on the northwestern side of Jerusalem. It wasn’t far, but it was far enough for him to collapse. No amount of shouting, kicking, and beating was going to make his body move. 

This man Jesus was with two other criminals. They were on the clock. They had to die before sundown. Sabbath was coming. Rest was coming. “You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 26:2, ESV)

No one could work on the Sabbath. Not even executioners. They had to follow God’s law as they sought his demise. 

Irony. 

Jesus, a fan favorite (of some), was a rising star but had now fallen. Some say he claimed that he would topple the Temple. And others said that if someone destroyed it, he would rebuild it in three days. Some said he was a rival king. Yet, judging by the shape he was in, he was more like a dying beast, wet and dried blood, flies, torn flesh, and a back like raw hamburger. He lay on the ground by Simon. For sure, onlookers were weeping, many were staring, others were joking, and a few were shouting. 

Commotion. 

The crowd pushed and pressed like the start of a foot race.  

Meanwhile: 

Judas had tried to take back his money, regretting what he had done. Too late. 

Peter hid himself in the shadows. Ashamed of his three-fold denial of his intimate friendship with Jesus. 

And ten other followers followed no more, barring one, the youngest, John. 

Jesus was all but abandoned except for some women, his enemies, and those watching for sport. 

Yet, he was in control. He endured this agony of the pathetic trial hours before. The justice system is anything but a spectacle, a mockery of what it was supposed to be. The prosecution couldn’t find any witnesses who agreed. Eventually, his enemies had had enough. “‘Are you the Son of God, then?’ And he said to them, ‘You say that I am.’ Then they said, ‘What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips’ (Luke 22:70–71, ESV). Blaspheme! Jesus claimed to be equal to God, one with the Great I Am. 

Impossible. 

They sent him to Pilate for sentencing. Upon investigation, Jesus was found to be under Herod’s jurisdiction. And like a hot potato, Pilate sloughed off this bother. 

Receiving Jesus, Herod was not pleased either. He hoped Jesus would perform a trick like a circus attraction. Silent, Jesus refused, and Herod was bored. He returned this guest with a token and a joke, his purple cloak. 

Herod and Pilate did not want to be the lackeys of a petty religious squabble. Neither wanted to be bothered by busywork, be manipulated, or used. The Pharisees knew they needed Rome to carry out this execution to maintain their balance of power. So they pulled an allegiance string, questioning Pilate’s loyalty. Jesus claimed to be king. There is only one. Whom do you serve? Disloyalty would be deadly. Pilate relented begrudgingly, the Governor washed his hands and set in motion Jesus’s crucifixion. 

Crucifixion worked not by bleeding but by asphyxiation; losing one’s breath meant death. The person would suffocate after not having enough energy to push down on the nails to raise oneself to grab a breath. Crucifixion could last for days. But they only had hours. Sabbath was approaching, and the Son of God was dying.

That was the back story. Simon likely heard some of it. His path crossed Jesus’s as he went to the cross. Soldiers saw Simon and grabbed him to help lift the one who spoke the World into existence and hold together the molecules of life by the word of his power. What if Simon refused? These soldiers were not to be trifled with. Simon picked up the tool of torture, the crossbeam weighing 70 to 125 pounds; his legs and back must have eventually ached with his steps, but it was nothing like what the three men were about to endure. The march was about a quarter mile and included a small ascent. 

(https://www.calvarybirmingham.com/elevation/#:~:text=people%20were%20saved.-,Mt.,Calvary%20stands%20higher%20in%20elevation.) 

Summitting, Simon let go of the beam. It was morning time, the sun was rising, and warming the air. Trees are sparse in a city and on a hill of death. The only notable trees were the cursed ones. “For a hanged man is cursed by God” (Deuteronomy 21:23, ESV) and “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatians 3:13, ESV). The soldiers moved the three men onto these three curses. Thick, railroad-like spikes were being driven into the wrists and feet. 

That would hold them. That would kill them. 

The men screamed. 

Where were Simon’s sons? Were they with him? If they were, did he instruct them, “Don’t look. Don’t listen.” Did they ask, “What was happening? Why are they being treated like this? What did they do?” How would Simon explain this Friday to his family? 

At some point, he left and went about his business. Some speculate that Mark records his children’s names because they became Christians and were familiar to the early church. In Romans 16:3, we read, “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well” (Romans 16:13, ESV). Could this Rufus be the same one? Possibly. We don’t know. 

We do know that the death of Christ was and is hard to comprehend. Good Friday allows us to reflect on its sadness and its goodness. Jesus gave up his life, his blood, for our sins. He died knowing what he was doing. He died knowing the extent of our rebellion. He knows us better than we know ourselves. But he died anyway. He died to be the Passover lamb to free us from our slavery to sin and give us a hope of heaven. He loved us that much. 

Let us let the historical and theological truth percolate in our souls. 

Let us not rush off to play video games, watch a show, or party. 

Let us enjoy each other, but live in the moment. 

We will sing, and after we finish, let us part in silence. And then come back on Sunday for a time of celebration.