A number of years ago, we decided to visit Krakow in Poland. Our teenage daughter found out that Krakow is a short distance from the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp and persuaded us that we should go.
And so we went. We spent the best part of a day in one of the most sombre places on Earth, meditating on the depraved darkness of the human heart.
I'm not trying to tell you that it was a fun day out for all the family. If you want to have fun, go to the nearby Salt Mines. But Auschwitz is a place that's good for the soul. It brings you back down to earth and reminds you that sometimes human beings are really not that good at all.
And sometimes they are terrible. Occasionally Far Right groups have visited Auschwitz, have completely forgotten the point of the place, have mocked the dead and posed triumphantly in the the haunting places where Jews and other minority groups were slaughtered like cattle.
Now that really is depraved.
The cross is like an x-ray. A violent, searing x-ray. It exposes the darkness of the human heart like no other.
This is a difficult subject on which to meditate. It's not at all uplifting. But for us to fully appreciate the triumph and glory of the cross, we must first appreciate its violence and horror.
The three reactions upon which we will meditate reveal the true darkness of the human heart, and I make no apologies for that. The message of the True Gospel does not flinch - and cannot flinch - from the deeply painful reality that the cross is only necessary because people sin. The utter depravity, insanity and psychopathy of such an evil, torturous death was necessary only because our sin required it.
And that is a challenging, disturbing reality. Or it should be, if we allow ourselves to consider it properly.
The first reaction to the cross that reveals its darkness is indifference.
When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. ‘Let’s not tear it,’ they said to one another. ‘Let’s decide by lot who will get it.’ This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, ‘They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.’ So this is what the soldiers did.
John 19:23-24 NIVUK
This is truly evil. Jesus is condemned to death. He is stripped bare naked - twice (Matthew 27:28-31). These soldiers want His clothes. They want to profit from his condition. So they do that - and divide those clothes between them.
And then, in a final act of utter indignity, they gamble for His underwear.
There is something unmistakably callous about seeking to gain from another person's suffering. It's nothing short of insidious. And for something as relatively cheap as underwear... it seems beyond the pale.
And yet we, in the West, have no right to point the finger. Many of us reside in cities that made their fortune from heartless exploitation and the slave trade. Some of us walk down streets named after the places where human beings were bought and sold as commodities, and even those who traded them.
This isn't just confined to the pages of history books. Our goods supply chains are riddled with unregulated exploitation, land grabs, bonded labour and even child slavery. We freely ship our rubbish across the planet in the vain expectation that a developing country will be grateful to recycle it for a pittance.
Even in our own lands, there are sectors of our economy that depend on fundamentally racist exploitation.
So when we see these soldiers gambling for an undergarment while the man who wore it bleeds and is agonisingly asphyxiated to death, we should feel a serious pang of conviction.
They aren't doing anything our society considers as wrong. We have often been equally as callous and indifferent as them.
But as well as indifference, we see mocking:
Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!’ In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, “I am the Son of God.” ’ In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
Matthew 27:39-44 NIVUK
Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!’ In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.’ Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
Mark 15:29-32 NIVUK
The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.’ The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’
Luke 23:35-37 NIVUK
Bearing shame and scoffing rude
In my place condemned He stood
Sealed my pardon with His blood
Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
And those poetic words barely scratch the surface of the awful sight we have before us.
You see, I was brought up on a steady diet of humourists: of comedians who made fun of situations because they understood them. They had a story to tell and their often waspish humour was designed as much to inform as it was to entertain.
This, though, is something altogether different. These are people who do not want to understand, who have no desire to understand, mocking a man as the life leaks out of Him.
This is the sick teasing of a victim of bullying as they lay bruised on the ground.
This is the scornful rivalry of fans of a sports team when their opponents are broke.
This is the hate-filled catcalling and belittling, racist sneering of the victors of war as their defeated foe is humiliated.
This is sick. This is completely wrong.
What makes it far, far worse is that the Jews knew how this felt. They had these words recorded in their own prophets recorded around the time of the exile:
‘And now what do I have here?’ declares the Lord. ‘For my people have been taken away for nothing, and those who rule them mock,’ declares the Lord. ‘And all day long my name is constantly blasphemed.
Isaiah 52:5 NIVUK
They had been ruthlessly mocked by the nations around them as the Assyrians and then the Babylonians took them into exile. Yet, here they were, mocking Jesus as He bled.
This is heartless. Completely and utterly heartless.
And yet their mocking refrain shows their ignorance: 'He saved others, yet He can't save Himself.' They could not see that the reason why He could not save Himself was because He was saving others.
Still today there are those who relentlessly and heartlessly mock those who follow Jesus. In fact, it's nothing new. One of the oldest evidences for the Christian Gospel is a satirical cartoon with Jesus crucified and depicted with a donkey's head. People didn't grasp the significance of the Gospel then. They still don't get it now.
They don't understand that the wounds Jesus bore on his body are for them. They don't see that the violence meted out against Him should have fallen on them. They don't realise that the blood He shed was for them.
Satirists have mocked us for centuries. Let them mock. One day they will realise that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was no joke. Let's pray, for their sake, that they don't realise it too late.
We have indifference. We have mocking. We also have conspiracy.
While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.” If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
Matthew 28:11-15 NIVUK
It should not surprise us in the least that Matthew, a Jewish Gospel writer, mentions a Jewish conspiracy in relation to the cross and the resurrection. Human beings have always invented wild theories - some plausible, others less so - to explain happenings that don't fit their narrative. Whether it's the shootings of JFK or John Lennon, the Moon Landings or 9/11, or any sports fan perpetuating an 'always cheated, never defeated' narrative, human capacity to stretch the truth to its breaking point knows no bounds.
The cross and resurrection are events that didn't fit a lot of narratives at the time, and certainly don't now.
Jesus' death on the cross has been difficult for some scolars and theologians to take for many generations. The very idea that God would place the guilt of a myriad sinners on the spine of His Son and allow Him to suffer the worst death imaginable turns the stomach and insults the constitition of people ranging from Islamic scholars to modern-day revisionist theologians with the constitution of a salted slug.
But their pathetic explanations make no sense whatsoever. Jesus switched for another disciple? Really? The precise Roman killing machine acting in concert with the Jewish leadership to snuff out even the faintest whiff of a rebellion, in days that were heated and anxious, with the strong possibility that they might boil over, but they might have killed the wrong man?
Preposterous.
That God could inspire His prophet Isaiah to foretell the cross in the masterful prophecy of Isaiah 53 and yet wimp out when His plan came to fruition because He thought some weak-kneed theologians in the twenty-first century would consider this plan a little too violent and potentially abusive?
Simply incredible.
That a terrified and dispirited bunch of fishermen, tax collectors and women of ill-repute would suddenly transform into Ninja warriors that would defeat the Roman guards, break the Roman seal, shove aside a heavy stone, steal Jesus' body and pretend He was risen from the dead, before choosing to die for this fact?
Utterly untenable.
The cross and resurrection challenges and shakes every human pretention. As Paul wrote:
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
1 Corinthians 1:22-25 NIVUK
Jesus was born, lived, died and rose again in a time when many struggled with the basic truths of what He would do.
The Jews could not tolerate the idea that Jesus had risen from the dead, because that was a sure-fire sign that He was the Messiah and the Son of God - and they had not believed in Him. Their credibility was on the line.
The Greeks could not tolerate the idea that Jesus was risen from the dead because that violated their closed-minded views on the natural world. Their intellectual ability and reputation was on the line.
The Romans could not tolerate the idea that Jesus was risen from the dead because that meant that He was greater and more powerful than Caesar and all their so-called 'gods'. Their right to rule was on the line.
The Muslims could not tolerate the idea that Jesus was risen from the dead because Mohammed is dead and buried in a tomb in Mecca. He failed but Jesus succeeded. Mohammed's primacy was on the line.
Still today, humanist scientists and thinkers deny and decry the resurrection. They can't accept it. Their 'closed system' view of the world allows for no God to exist, let alone to interfere with the human race and overthrow the natural order of things. Their theories and formulae are on the line.
But Christ lived. He died on the cross. He is risen from the dead.
These are indisputable facts.
No conspiracy can ever match the truth. The lie will always be defeated. No matter how fast it travels.
So let's dispense with the niceties here. The cross happened. The resurrection happened. You can believe it or not. You have the freedom to choose.
But let's set aside the nonsensical conspiracy theories people have dreamt up out of their own imagination to escape it.
And let's bear in mind that there are consequences for choosing to believe it, or not.
The dark side of the cross is something few of us would wish to contemplate. However, there is no doubt that it's right up to date. Even today there are people who mercilessly prey on and profit from those in need. Even today there are those who mock the poor and the struggling for their own tasteless entertainment. Even today there are those who spin ridiculous and untenable webs of lies and conspiracy theories so that they are not confronted with uncomfortable and inconvenient truths.
The cross brings all this darkness to the fore. It brings it into the light. And then we have a choice - a choice that is outlined by John and Jesus:
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:5-10 NIVUK
This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
John 3:19-21 NIVUK
So what will we do? Will we attempt to hide or reason away our indifference, mocking and conspiracy, or will we confess them and repent of them?
We have to choose.
Questions
1) In your culture, where do you see signs of indifference and cynical exploitation of those in need? How can you stand against it?
2) How do you react when you are mocked because of your faith?
3) Conspiracy theories are a fact of life nowadays. Is there such a thing as absolute truth? How can you tell the truth from the lie?
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