Beloved congregation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Jesus asked us that we would carry our cross. And I think we know that when we hear that, that that's symbolic. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of us are going to be crucified. And when Jesus said that to his disciples and his hearers of long ago, they would have known exactly what he was speaking about in a way maybe differently than we do. Especially after the Middle Ages, when the artists began to give their interpretation of the story, for good or for bad, but often without the proper details, we have this sense of Jesus carrying a great big cross, walking out of town. But what he was carrying was called the petibulum, and that was the cross piece. The three upright pieces would have been hanging there. Another thing I think that we often quite misunderstood, I always thought as a child that Jesus was kind of way up there. that Golgotha was quite high, and that Jesus was quite high on a pole, maybe 10 feet up, but the top of the pole would only have been 10 feet, because remember, they have to somehow get these bandits, these criminals, hanging on a cross. Jesus' feet are maybe three feet above the ground, but likely even closer, suspended there for all to see. You could touch him, you can hear him, you can see all of it. And Jesus, who has been through a mock trial, has had no sleep for quite a long time, who has been beaten near death, who is openly bleeding, that you can see inside of him, who has been mocked and ridiculed, is now moving into the heat of the day. And Pilate says, enough of you Jews, I've had enough of them. This is your king? Look what I do to your king. This is what you think of your king? What kind of people are you? And now Jesus simply becomes a pawn and a tool in his hand. But notice that Jesus went with them, the soldiers. He's handed them over now, Pilate, Jesus, to eight soldiers. And now they're walking. But Jesus doesn't fight it, does he? John wants you to see Jesus in control. You're going to take me? You're going to take me to the cross? I will go with you. You want me to carry my own crossbeam? I'll do that too. And think about the excruciating pain. I was blessed to have eight or so of the men of this congregation come and help me put up a fence. If you see those four-by-four, six-by-six posts that we use to stick in the ground, and then you double that, if the men there remember the weight of those posts, then you're getting an idea of how heavy it still is. And when you put that on a broken back, when you put that on open skin, and when you're carrying that, you realize how strong Jesus Christ must have been. But then I realized how strong Jesus is for you and for me. What Jesus is willing to do from the depth of his soul, from the purity of his humanity, from the divine power of his divinity, He is strong for you. He is willing to walk to the cross for you. He is willing to suffer. Because while He's walking to the cross, they're laughing at Him. They're mocking Him. They're saying disgusting things about Him. And I think we can all understand that. Maybe we have more of a memory of the things of people when they used to put them into stalks here in Canada, with their hands through the holes in their heads, and people would throw rotten fruit at them or rotten vegetables and laugh at them. Jesus is going through that and even worse. And why do I mean even worse? Well, see, those two bandits are doing the same thing. They're walking with their petibulums as well. They're carrying their cross, but in a wholly different matter. It's interesting the way John writes it. It's beautiful, it's powerful, and it's so simplistic. I think all of us ministers can learn from that. John and the disciples who write the Gospels always write it so poignantly. Then they took Jesus and led him away, and they went out to a place called the place of the skull, which in Hebrew is Golgotha. They led him away and they led him out from Jerusalem to Golgotha, the place of the skull. We might call it Boothill. Why is Jesus being led away? Why is Jesus being led out? Because it's an impossibility in the corrupt morality now, in the twisting of what holiness really is, that Jesus Christ would die in Jerusalem. There is no possible way he could be crucified in Jerusalem. But Jesus Christ now is considered to be the awful, O-F-F-A-L. So let me give you context for that. The high priest carries the blood of the animals into the Most High as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus suffered outside of the city to make the people holy through his blood. So Hebrews chapter 13 gives us the New Testament application in Jesus of Leviticus 16. The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought into the most holy place to make atonement, must be taken outside the camp. Their hides, their flesh, and their offal are to be burned up outside the camp. Is Jesus the high priest? No, the high priest says he's unworthy. Is Jesus a priest? No, he's not good enough. Is Jesus the Lamb of God? Yes, he is. Is He the bull for the sin offering? Is He the goat for the atonement offering? Is He the animal whose blood now has been shed for the first Adam and Eve? Yes, that is what's going on. And what's going on is that Jesus in Himself may not be the priest who brings it, but He is it, His hide, His flesh. and is awful, the inside, the eternal organs, they must be taken out of the city, into the dump, into Gehenna, into the place where the fire never dies and where the worm never goes away. Jesus has become that unworthy for you and for me, outside of the city, outside of the law. He has been declared illegal. Think about that. He is now placed outside of the law of God, outside of the law of ceremony, outside of the law of purity, outside of the law of morality. He has broken every ten commandments, and we know he's innocent. We know that he has done nothing wrong. But now God has considered him to be the second Adam, to be us, for us, dying for us outside of the city, unclean. unclean as a leper that he had healed, blind as a man that he has healed. As a sinner counted sinful for you and for me, and they took him out of the city, and they led him away to Golgotha. The place of the skull. We know from the other Gospels that Jesus didn't make the whole trip of the Via Della Rosa. If any of you are artists here, then you've certainly heard about the Via Della Rosa, the way of suffering, the path of passion. If you go into a Roman Catholic church, you'll see all stained glass windows, and you can go to each station of the Via Della Rosa and most big Roman Catholic cathedrals. If you've ever been to the big one in Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, they have all the stops there. And I remember my boys were young, and they were actually weeping. What's going on? Why are they doing this to Jesus? It's quite a thing to sit in church and see all of these paintings and pictures of these things. And yet, does it really capture it? The Via Dolorosa has become actually a way to portray beauty, a way to make art. But we know deep down it's ugly. We know how horrible this has become. That the broken, whipped, beat up, mocked, humiliated, unclean Jesus, the Son of God has become the Son of Man? This is downright brutal and ugly. Oh, dearest Jesus, how has Thou offended, O sacred head, sore-wounded, with grief way down. And as he walks out of the city, he says to the women weeping for him, weep for yourselves, for in 40 short years, Jerusalem will be wiped out for what they did, sending our savior out, sending him away. And Jerusalem to this day has never received his glory. The temple has never been rebuilt as the wrath of God falls upon that city. crying out that the Jews would turn to Jesus and turn away from the temple and the bulls and the goats and give their lives to Jesus. And the world around them in the Middle East needs that so desperately as we need it desperately. We need this to happen, beloved, as we come to the table now and we think of that bread and we're reminded of that body and what's going on while Jesus is walking to Golgotha. And we drink of the fruit of the vine and we remember that blood flowing down, see, from his head, his hands and his feet. Yes, they've taken him now and they've laid him down. They could have strapped him, the Romans did that, you know. They sometimes would just lash the hands with harsh rope or leather that would dig into the skin. But we know from John 20 that Jesus said to Thomas, put your finger in the holes of my hand. And so they drive six inch nails through the hands into the wood and then bend it so that you can't get out of it, you can't pull the nails or the hands free from the nails. They turn the feet and thereby your heels and that soft part between the heel and the ankle, turning it like this, they drive the nails in through there and they bend the nail there too. And then they lift Jesus up. one or two soldiers on each side and pressing it, they push it and they nail that cross beam to the upright and now Jesus hangs. Like we said, two or three feet above the earth, but really two or three feet above hell, suffering hell and hell's deep agony alive because he cannot do it dead. With his head underneath heaven, suspended between heaven and earth, Nowhere and everywhere altogether at once And I look there and I behold the man I Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world And I weep Do you understand what's going on beloved? I? Hope you do. I hope this isn't just some poetic wonder that you're going. Oh my isn't Jesus wonderful and awesome because he is I But this is what God has given you to say no to unrighteousness. This is what God has given you, parents, to teach your children to say no to sin. And all of you who are teachers here, this is what God has given to us to say no to morality. And I know all of us have been raised with, do this, don't do that. We've been raised with commandments. We've been raised with the law. There's a place for the law. Absolutely there's a place for the law. So I know why Jesus had to die. I know he's dying under the law and outside of the law. I know he's dying ex-lex, outside of the realm of purity and goodness for me, for you. But what's going to change me? What's going to change you? What's going to get me to stop the habitual sin, to stop looking at the things that I'm looking at? What's going to change? It's to see this Son of God who has become the Son of Man dying on the cross for you. If this doesn't change you, nothing will. You can try it on your own. You can try it with willpower. But I guarantee you, you will fail because our wills are corrupt. Our hearts are corrupt. Our bodies are corrupt. We just are sinful. We cannot save ourselves. We look to the one who can save us. We give our lives. We bring ourselves, our burdens now, to the one who said, come unto me, you who are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. Take my burden. I am gentle. I am lowly in spirit. Oh, how can he make himself more lowly? But how can he make himself more powerful? What's going to change my life? That I walk around and wash my hands in innocence. That I don't walk around with mere mortals and idolaters and the immoral. What's going to change me is grace. For the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through the Word, the Logos, who became flesh. Jesus, the Son of God, is taken on human flesh, and in all of His perfection, in all of His glory, He is willingly going with those soldiers. He willingly takes the Petribulum. Patibulum and he is willingly allowing his hands and feet you say well of course he does but think about who he is He's the son of God He can destroy them all wherefore do the nation's rage and take a stand against the Lord and his anointed Let us break their chains. They say and the Lord will send his son. I have established him on my holy hill on Golgotha not in Jerusalem now And the son of David, who is the son of God, who could destroy you in a minute, could destroy the planet in a minute, says no? For all those people sitting in Zion who love me, in August 2024, I must do this. Take and eat. Take a drink. Remember and believe. And no more now, oh, I'm too dirty, or I'm too guilty, or I'm too sinful. Yes, you are. But Jesus is not. Do not dishonor the cross now by pleading your overt sinfulness. Plead his wonderful righteousness. Children, there's a story of when Israel was walking through the wilderness, and then they mixed with the other nations, and they did things that they shouldn't have done, and they were doing all kinds of sinful things, and God was angry. And He sent disease among them. And He sent punishment among them. And finally, hearing the pleas of his people, hearing the pleas of Moses, he had Moses create a bronze snake, a serpent. And he had that mounted. And Moses was to lift that up between earth and between heaven. And everyone who looked at that bronze serpent was healed, was saved, was redeemed. And this is exactly now what is happening. You must look up You must look up, beloved, when you eat that bread and you drink that wine, not down where the earthly elements are, but up where Jesus is. Did he die for you? Do you believe it? Take and eat, take and drink, remember and believe. Ah, dearest Jesus, I have offended, but you, you have not denied me. You were crucified for me. That's what you need now to sing and to celebrate. Yes, it's sobering, but there needs to be joy in this place this morning, beloved. There needs to be joy of a God who loved you this much, he gave you his son, of a Jesus who loved you this much that he gave himself, like Isaac of old. Remember what Isaac did, children? When God was going to have Abram burn him alive on the altar, Isaac carried the wood, and Isaac did it willingly. But now for Isaac and Abraham, and for you and me, Jesus is lifted up. On either side, there's two criminals, two bandits, two associates of Judas Iscariot. Jesus has brought salvation in an earthly way to Judas Iscariot. Where is he now? Certainly not thanking Jesus. And there are two men beside him. John doesn't give you all the other details, in part because the other Gospels had been written, and in part because he wants you to see it. And there's a reason why God in his providence uses Pilate and the soldiers to put Jesus in the middle. Because we know that whenever we look at art, or whenever we look at something visual, we're drawn to the thing in the middle. We're drawn to the person in the middle. And yet he is surrounded by an entourage. And it's an entourage of criminals. Jesus' posse, so to speak, is the wicked and the unrighteous. He is counted to be one of them. But those two men represent you and me. We should be hanging there. We're no different from them. Oh, okay, we're not criminals, we don't murder people. Really? Is that what you're gonna stand in front of Jesus and say on Judgment Day? Really? Jesus is counted one of them symbolically through those men. And the words of Isaiah, come true. He was accounted as the unrighteous. In his death, he died like one of them. And yet, in all of that, Pilate has to have his last kick at the can. He puts on the titulus, as we have it in Latin. Our word title comes from that, and the new King James does a good job using the word title instead of sign. Likely, Jesus would have had that wrapped around his neck on a little rope, The King of the Jews. Behold the King of the Jews. Yes, Pilate's being petty. It's really interesting because the first century writers, both churchmen and philosophers, see Pilate as utterly weak, despicable, and pathetic. This man who represents Rome is spending his time laughing at someone who he knows is innocent? He's like a little kid. You Jews bugged me, so I'm going to make fun of your king. And of course the Jews are angry. It's in all the three languages of the empire. I don't think we need to make more of that. I've heard sermons on that. It was to the Greek, and that means one thing. It was in Latin, and that means another thing. And it's to the Jews in Hebrew there. It's probably Aramaic. You know what, beloved, the point was everybody walking by, remember the Jews are coming from all over the empire. If you're coming from the city of Rome, you can read it. If you're coming from the other parts of the empire, the lingua franca, the normal language of business, philosophy, literature is Greek, and then there in town, the Aramaic. Everybody walking by can read it, and that's why the Jews are upset. Because they're saying, that's not my king. They're rejecting him. They don't want him. We've kicked him out of Israel. He's not the son of David. He's not the Messiah. He's not the Psalm 2 anointed one. Pilate, stop it. They demanded of him. And then Pilate, in his egomaniacal way, says, I have written, I have written, literally. What I have written, I have written. Oh, of course you have. You had no choice in the matter. Because God is speaking through you, Pilate. God is telling the Jews, this is your king. This is what Isaiah was writing about. This is what David was writing about in Psalm 16 and in Psalm 22. And in Psalm 23 about the shepherd who lays down his life, Jesus said all these things to you. This is your king who has to become the second Adam, who has to become like you, Jews, so that you might be saved. And that king is sparing you. He's not destroying you. Roman soldiers, the king is not destroying you. Beloved we were born and given life that we might come to believe and you must believe you must hold on to this great truth you must embrace this bloodied broken being crucified king and If you look at him right now in the heat of that day, there's flies everywhere And there's birds picking at him your king Do you love Him? Can you celebrate Him? All glory has been given to Him. He is the beloved Son with whom God is well pleased. It cannot be otherwise, else we will never be pleasing in the sight of God. Do you see what's at stake? This isn't just a remarkable story. Everything that's written here is absolutely factually true. There's a power behind it. There's a wonder behind it. But if it doesn't get you to repent, and if it doesn't get you to believe, then the Spirit is not in you. Then don't come to this table and pretend. But don't stay away from the table if you believe. Come to the table now. Come, sinner, come. Behold the man. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Behold the King of the Jews. Behold your Savior. He says, come to the table. Come unto me, you who are heavy laden. And I will give you rest. I will give you rest from that headache. I'll give you rest from that sore back. I will give you rest from that relationship that you're struggling with. I will give you rest from those skinned shins. I will give you rest from your habitual sin. I will give you rest from your guilt. I will give you rest from that thing that somebody did to you that you feel horrible about. I will give you rest from all the abuse and all the brokenness. I will give you rest as you carry your cross. Carry it, you must. Carry it to the table. And just for a little while, rest in Jesus, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, true God, true man, beautiful Savior. Amen. We're going to gather around the table now to eat and drink in remembrance of what we've just heard. It's too much for us. The emotion's well up in us. Oh, God, we're sorry. We're sorry for who we are and what we've become. We bring all of these sins to the cross and ask that you would remember them no more, creating us a new heart, oh, our God, and renew a right spirit within us Feed us now and quench our thirst. We come before you in the name of Jesus, true God and true man, the ever-living intercessor, our Lord. Amen.