An Extraordinary Word

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Most of us accept the fact that one day we are going to die. We might not like that. It might not give us great joy, but we accept the fact that it's going to happen. I think — don't we say, what are the two certainties in life? Death and taxes. And you guys haven't done your taxes yet, and I know because it's two weeks away and you're all stressed. No, but get your taxes in. Anyway, most people going through life don't really worry about it. I mean, some people do, but we have this sense that it's a long way off. It might not — we might not even ever get there. You know, we have this sense that, even though we know it's certain, we don't really have to worry about it right now. It's in the distant future. Even as we age, we know statistically the day is getting closer. It's easy to imagine, though, that it's out past the horizon. We can't see it just yet.

It wasn't like that for Jesus. He didn't live his life with this sense that "I know one day I'm going to die and it's out there somewhere, but I don't know where it is. I don't know when it is." In fact, it was just the opposite. He lived knowing when he was going to die and how he was going to die. He knew the exact details of it. He lived his earthly life focused on a specific point in time, a specific set of events that would unfold by his prompting, and there would come a specific point in human history where he would be nailed to a cross and, as we just read, would die. He would be innocent, but he would be killed as a common criminal, charged with, of all things, claiming to be king and wanting to overthrow Caesar.

We know that in the Garden of Gethsemane, in the hours leading up to his arrest, as the time for his death was drawing near and the reality of what that would mean for him was increasingly, ever more and more, weighing on him — agonizing him, grieving him — it was painful. It was something that he knew he had to do. He was willing to do it, and yet the significance of what he was about to enter into in that moment of crucifixion was agonizing. And it wasn't so much the death. It was the reality of taking on himself the wrath of God for the sins of humanity. In fact, in the first passage — the passage that Chaz read from Isaiah 53, verse 10 — it was the will of the Lord to crush him. It's a poetic description of the full force of the weight of the infinitely holy God of the universe pouring out his wrath toward sin on one individual.

Sometimes I wonder how much the reality of that impending death affected him during his earthly ministry, as he went throughout life day after day doing the things he needed to do to identify himself as the Messiah, to identify himself as the Son of God who has come in the flesh. As he ministered to his disciples, as he poured out himself for the crowds that followed him wherever he went, as he confronted religious leaders, as he entered into synagogues and read scriptures and told the people there how they pointed to him — as he did all these things in his life, how much was his mind focused on and thoughtful about this coming day of his crucifixion?

Have you ever heard the Latin phrase "memento mori"? Memento mori. Sometimes you will see pictures of medieval thinkers or scholastics, and they have a skull on their desk or in their study, and it's not there just to be grim and dark. It's there to be a reminder. "Memento mori" means "remember you will die." And so these medieval scholastics would keep a skull there to remind them of their coming death. Jesus lived his whole life with that focus, with that purpose ever before him — focused not just on dying a normal death like you and I anticipate one day happening to us. We don't know what the exact circumstances are, but we anticipate it's going to be normal. He lived his whole life with his purpose focused on dying, not because he deserved it, but because we needed it. Dying for sinners.

And this evening, as we focus on the death of Christ, we think about that life that he lived, anticipating it and then actually arriving at that moment in time. I want to focus on one very important word — one extraordinary word, actually — and it is the word "for." F-O-R, for.

Let me give you some examples of how Jesus used this word throughout his ministry, as we have recorded in Scripture. In John chapter 10, verses 11–15, Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. But I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, I lay down my life for the sheep." In Mark 10:45 and also similarly in Matthew 20:28, Jesus says this: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." In John 15:13, Jesus says, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends." In Matthew 26:26–28, it says this: "Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to his disciples, and said, 'Take, eat. This is my body.' And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, 'Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'"

What's the common theme in all those verses? The common theme is death. It's dying. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The Son of Man came to give his life. The blood of the covenant is his blood poured out — shed blood for us. Even the greatest love shown for friends is shown in this way: that you lay down your life for your friends. So what is the connection between death in these verses and our special, extraordinary word "for"? How do these two realities intersect?

Well, did you ever like to trade in the lunchroom? You know, you had a pickle and a string cheese in your lunch, but you really were hoping for some Doritos. And so you show up in the lunchroom and you've got work to do, right? You start hitting up everybody there. "Hey, you want some string cheese and a pickle? I'd take those Doritos off your hands if you really wanted — we could trade." Or a pudding cup. I remember when I was a kid, a pudding cup was the killer trade. I don't even know if they let kids have pudding cups anymore in school because it was just such a dominant thing. You could pretty much claim whatever you wanted. But a trade, right? You make a trade. That's the connection.

The fancy word for "for," if you're a theologian, if you're a seminary student, if you want to dig into this stuff and really get into it, is the word "vicarious." We talk about vicarious atonement, which means one in place of another. It's a trade. That is the connection between death and our special word. Jesus' death is a trade. It's one in place of another. That's what the word "for" points us to — that when Jesus is nailed on the cross, he's nailed on the cross in place of someone else who deserves it. Even in that very moment of history, there was an individual who was supposed to go be crucified with the others: Barabbas. So even in that, there is an exchange. But there's a much bigger exchange than just that one person, just Barabbas the common criminal.

Jesus was a substitute for us. He doesn't just simply go to the cross and lay down his life on behalf of us or for our benefit. He lays his life down in our place. He makes a trade — so much bigger and better than anything you've ever traded for in the lunchroom. He trades his righteousness, and what he gets in return for his righteousness — his sinless perfection, his holiness, his infinite value, his pure purity — what he gets instead is our guilt. He gets our punishment. He gets our condemnation. He gets what we deserve. He gets what should be poured out on us. It is the most lopsided trade you have ever heard of. It is infinite punishment traded for eternal life. That's what it is. We receive his perfect record. We receive his righteousness. We receive his standing before the Father. That's why we talk about one day being clothed in righteousness. That righteousness we will one day be clothed in is the righteousness of Christ. And he gets our punishment. He gets our filth. He gets our iniquity, our transgressions, our sins, our brokenness, our wrong.

That's the "for." When we read that word, it's because, as Paul says in Romans, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all do not measure up to God's standard of perfection. And so, as Paul then goes on to say in Romans chapter 6, the wages — or the penalty — for sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. But he says it's eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, or through Christ Jesus our Lord. It isn't just something that falls out of the sky. It's something that has to be acquired for us. It's something that has to be purchased on our behalf in order for God to remain just. Payment has to be made.

Here's how Peter and Paul explained it. In 1 Peter 3:18, Peter explains it this way: "For Christ also suffered once for sins" — and then here's our exchange word, he just said "for" — "the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit." In Galatians 3:13, Paul said it this way: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'" We could paraphrase those two verses this way: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse in our place." Or, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous in the place of the unrighteous."

And when we come to Good Friday, when we think about Jesus Christ and we read what happened to him, it can be really easy to spend all of our time focused on the beating and the scourging and the crown of thorns and the nails and all the agonizing torture that he endured — the physical pain, the brutality of it. It is horrific to think about. It's hard for us to imagine anyone going through that, and yet to do it in such a public way. It's hard for our minds to comprehend. But we can't lose sight of the fact that what he dreaded in the Garden of Gethsemane was not necessarily the physical pain he was going to endure. In fact, the writer of Hebrews kind of addresses that — really, anyone, and certainly other people, endured similar physical pain. There were in fact two other people crucified with him. They went through very similar experiences, and yet their lives do nothing for us. What Christ did that was different from them was that he became the object of his Father's holy wrath. Every sin ever committed by every person who would ever trust in him — the full weight of divine justice — landed on Christ. It fell on him in those hours, so that when he cries out, "It is finished," what is finished is his work of atonement. He has completed it. He has satisfied the Father's demand for justice. And the reason why he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is because he is enduring the agony of that wrath.

Why does this matter? Why are we here tonight? Why have we taken time out of our lives on a Friday night to hear about this, think about this, meditate on this? It matters because the justice of a holy God demands that every person who has ever lived deserves to pay the penalty for their sins — from Adam and Eve all the way down through human history to you and me today. Fairness from the perspective of a holy God — and holiness means absolute perfection, pure sinlessness, infinite righteousness — from that perspective, justice means you don't get away with it. You have to pay the penalty.

But the Bible says that God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ died on behalf of and in the place of every sinner who would ever be saved. And God remains just because the sin is punished. We can be redeemed; we can be saved from our sins — not because God just says, "Oh, I won't worry about that. You're good. You're okay. I know you. I've seen how you tip your barber. I've seen you help the little kids in T-ball. You're a pretty good person, so I'm not going to worry about the wrongs you've committed." No, that's not the reason why we are justified. We're justified because our guilt is assigned to Christ as he hangs on the cross and he pays the penalty. We are declared righteous because Jesus takes our sinfulness, and in exchange we are credited with his righteousness.

So as we come to this evening — or any other evening in your life, really, when you contemplate Jesus being nailed to the cross, when you contemplate him having his arms stretched out and nails driven into his hands and his feet to support him hanging there on that cross — you should imagine yourself. You should imagine yourself being beaten. You should imagine yourself being bloodied. You should imagine your arms getting stretched out. You should imagine them being nailed. You should imagine yourself right along with those two other men who were crucified, because that's what you and I deserve. This is what we should receive, and we should receive more agony than all the physical pain in the entire world could ever compare to.

So when you consider the cross tonight, or any other night, you should never think, "Wasn't it a nice thing that Jesus did, hanging on that cross?" That should never be the way you think about it. The honest question you should ask is: Have I made the trade? Have I put my trust in Jesus Christ? Am I trusting that what he did is a trade that will satisfy God's demand for justice? Do I believe that him hanging there, dying, and taking on himself my punishment for my sins is enough to make me right before God the Father? Is that what I am trusting in? Is that what I'm putting my faith in — that he has borne that in my place, and I believe that that is enough to satisfy a holy God?

If you have, then you're looking at the cross. You're looking at your sentence that was carried out by someone else, your payment that was paid by someone else. But if you haven't — if you're not trusting in that, if you don't believe that, if you don't think that's necessary, if you don't think you need that — the offer to trust in that is still open. It is always open. You can put your faith in the work of Jesus Christ. You can believe that it is enough — that that is enough to satisfy God's demands for justice for your unrighteousness. And you can rest easy knowing that it is finished, that he has done the work that you could not do for yourself.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to invest time in our lives to reflect on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. We thank you for his willingness to endure such pain and agony, to endure such a horrific punishment — something that he did not deserve, something that we deserve. And yet he willingly stood in our place. He was willing to make that exchange, and his work of atoning for sins is sufficient — an acceptable substitute. We ask that you would help every one of us here to recognize the significance of that act and to trust in it to make us right before you. We ask that you would help us to be serious about that. Help it bring us a sense of soberness to our lives, knowing what has been done on our behalf, but also a sense of joy, knowing that Christ has completed that work on the cross. There is nothing more that needs to be paid.v