|
|
|
| John #30 The Crucifixion |
 |
The Crucifixion
Reading: John 19:16b-42
Introduction: “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (I Corinthians 11:23-26).
We’ve just enacted this scene that Paul describes from the life of Jesus—eating the bread, experiencing afresh the body, participating in, fellowshipping in the body of Christ. We drank the cup; we participated in the blood of the new covenant. We announced our participation in his death. Paul would say we proclaimed his death until he comes. It is strange in so many ways that the scene itself is not found in John’s gospel, because so much of John’s account links us to Passover, the meal transformed by Jesus into Lord’s Supper. We remember that Jesus did have a last meal with his disciples in this story, but the event John described was that of washing the disciples feet. Rather than the last supper itself, there were allusions to Lord’s Supper with those double meanings that could not be missed back in chapter six: unless a person drinks the blood of Jesus and eats his flesh, one cannot be his disciple.
It is equally odd that the baptism of Jesus is never described. John the Baptism saw the Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove, but we don’t hear about the fact that the Spirit came upon him at his baptism. We just learn that Jesus will baptize others with the Holy Spirit. We hear him tell Nicodemus that we humans need to be born from above. Jesus and his disciples are twice described as baptizing; we are told in the second reference that Jesus himself is not baptizing, just his disciples. We listen to all of the water imagery—the “living water” that Jesus offers the woman at the well, the promise of a well of water springing up to eternal life in chapter seven, the washing with water in chapter thirteen. While the events of his baptism and the institution of the Lord’s Supper are not found, we know that John knows about them and evidently assumes his audience will make the connections with all of the allusions to them.
We come to this climactic scene in chapter 19, and it is important that we recall all that John has written in his account about the “hour” that is the goal of Jesus being on earth, the glorification of the Son of God. It is equally important that we not hear all that we remember from Matthew, Mark, and Luke as we read through the final scenes portraying the crucifixion. We are so accustomed to the other story that it is difficult not to import it all onto this account and simply think of the harmonized version. But pay attention to what is not important to John in his telling the story. The trip to Golgotha is not important to John. There is no burden of the cross that cannot be borne on the way; no Simon of Cyrene compelled to carry the cross, no discussion with the women who are following along; no apparent suffering or agony on the journey from the praetorium to the place of the skull. Once placed on the cross and lifted up, there is no suffering. There is no cry of agony from the cross—“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” There is no mocking from the crowds or from the two men crucified alongside him. Rather than soldiers making fun of him or even authentically witnessing to him after his death, the soldiers in John’s scene are off to the side dividing his clothes, gambling for the rights to his seamless cloak.
There are no identities offered for the two others hung with Jesus—you have to look elsewhere to learn that they are bandits like Barabbas, the person released by Pilate in honor of Passover. There is no darkness that comes over the land, no word about earthquakes or temple curtains being torn or graves being opened. There is no word of forgiveness spoken. There are disciples witnessing it all, but in the other three gospels they all stand at a distance, removed from the scene yet mourning his death. Here the disciples are close enough for Jesus to have a conversation with them. He looks down on his mother and sees the disciple whom he loves. He says to her “Woman, here is your son.” He looks at him and says, “Here is your mother.” John even offers the aside that from that day forward she came to live in his house—an odd thing unless Joseph was dead. Even so, it is still odd because we know there were my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots” (v. 24, cf. other siblings of Jesus that could have cared for Mary if she was a widow.
With so much that is familiar in the story left out of John’s account, what does he want us to hear and see in this scene? I’m sure there is more, but at the least he wants us to know that everything that takes place is to fulfill Scripture. This is the culmination of the activity of God in the flesh. This is what Scripture predicted. The soldiers divide his garments to fulfill the scripture, “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Psalm 22:19). Once Jesus knows that everything is accomplished, he says (to fulfill the scripture) “I am thirsty.” When High Sabbath is rapidly approaching and it is time to speed up the deaths of those they have crucified, they break the legs of the two others, but when they come to Jesus they recognize he already is dead. So a soldier thrusts a spear into Jesus side in order to fulfill scripture. John stops at that point to give his readers absolute assurance that the testimony he is giving is 100 percent true, and then he tells them that these things occurred in order to fulfill the scripture, “None of his bones shall be broken” (v. 36, cf. Exodus 12:10, 26)—a direct link, by the way to the Passover lamb. “And again another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced” (v. 37).
John also wants us to understand that the events taking place ironically serve as the enthronement of Jesus as King. The words, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” are inscribed on the cross not just in Hebrew, but in three languages—Hebrew, Latin, and Greek—so that the whole world can read and understand. When the Jews protest and wish the sign to read, “This man said, I am King of the Jews,” Pilate ignores their protest. John clearly wants us to remember Jesus’ announcement earlier, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (12:32). Alongside the royal enthronement imagery, we also hear the good shepherd imagery. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep (10:11-18). It is clear in John’s account that Jesus gives his life; it is not taken from him. When he says, “It is finished,” he simply bows his head and literally “hands over his spirit.” Even the care of his mother while hanging on the cross is testimony to the care of the good shepherd.
John spends an entire paragraph just on the corpse of Jesus. Verses 31-37 deal only with the dead body. There is nothing like that in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Perhaps it is simply a matter of convincing his audience that the Son of God really was human and he really did die a human death. When John then goes on to describe the burial of Jesus, much of his account is an explanation of the “secret disciples,” Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. They take the body, and perform all of the burial rites. What is described seems lavish, 100 pounds of spices—a mix of myrrh and aloes, a garden nearby, and a new tomb where no one had ever been laid. This is the burial of king, not a convict! “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself”—even those who were too afraid to come forward during his life now publicly display their allegiance.
John wants us to hear all of the previous testimony about the one who has come to give abundant life to those who believe in him. He wants us to know that when the “hour” comes, Jesus is fully in control of the moment. He wants us to make the connections with Passover. Remember, the death of Jesus occurred at about the sixth hour—the same time in which the sacrificial lambs were being slaughtered for the Passover meal. In John’s telling of the death of Jesus, he wants us to see Jesus as the new Passover Lamb. There is no Passover meal described in John’s account because Jesus is the new Passover Lamb. When water and blood from the side of Jesus, we are to hear the call of chapter seven, “Let everyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-39). John chooses a very odd phrase for describing the death itself: “He handed over his spirit” (19:30). Perhaps John wants us to hear at that point the promises of chapter seven and chapters 14-16 about the coming of the Holy Spirit when Jesus goes away.
In the multiple meanings that we have seen throughout John’s gospel it is easy to get carried away and start seeing double meanings in places where they don’t exist. But it does seem possible in John’s storytelling that the reference to blood and water coming from Jesus’ side and the reference to handing over his spirit may all be allusions for John to the three living experiences of Christ in the lives of believers: Baptism, Lord’s Supper, and reception of the Holy Spirit. Think about it for a moment. It is in Baptism that believers announce participation in the cross event, our own death, burial, and resurrection. In the Lord’s Supper, we participate in his broken body and his blood. In handing over his spirit, he must go away so that the Spirit of Truth can come. I would think this is just my own fanciful reading into the text except for these words in I John 5: “This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree” (I John 5:6-8).
Three witness, all enacted in the believer’s lives. The water and blood that flowed from his side; the Spirit that he handed over when he announced, “It is finished.” The human body was dead, the mission was accomplished, but the end was just the beginning.
Once more we have to remind ourselves that where we stop in John’s storytelling this morning is not the end of the story. A dead corpse in a new tomb is not the end of the story. We have to race ahead of the story long enough to know that we are witnesses, not to a dead convict but a living Lord! All who experience the Spirit and the water and the blood are witnesses. I use the word “experience” very intentionally. Baptism and Lord’s Supper are not human performances carried out in to make one “doctrinally sound,” they are experiences of the living Christ. They are gifts of God, by which we proclaim his death, by which we announce our own participation in his death—by which we announce his resurrection and our own into new life. The New Passover Lamb does not bring freedom from bondage in Egypt from freedom from bondage to sin and freedom from bondage in “the world.” We are washed, we are clean, we eat and we drink, we experience the power of his Spirit. We remind ourselves, “It is finished!”
Delivered at Woodmont Hills, May 26, 2002.
media
|
|
|
Site-specific content Copyright (c) 2000 FaithSite.com or Used by Permission
All other content Copyright (c) 2000 FaithSites, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use of this site is subject to Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy.
If you are offended by anything on this page, click here.
| |
