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Good Friday 2014
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A number of years ago – more than 30, in fact – a California minister had himself nailed to a cross in order to draw attention to the local crime rate. The Reverend Willie Dicks, of St. John's Missionary Baptist Church in San Jose, set up a large wooden cross in a park. Using carpenter's nails sprayed with Bactine, an assistant nailed the pastor to the cross, hammering the nails through the tissue between the third and fourth fingers of each hand, and between his first and second toes.As a crowd formed, The Reverend Dicks lecturedthose gathered about crime and morality. "I would like to say from this cross that I'm disgusted that our senior citizens cannot walk through the streets of this city without fear of being robbed and raped," he shouted. "I'm asking you to do everything in your power to fight crime."Ironically, after about 15 minutes on the cross, the police arrived and arrested Dicks for disorderly conduct and several other misdemeanors.
We may question this pastor's judgment, but it was a rather dramatic way to get his point across.In a related story, a man in Brazil hiked across that huge country bearing a heavy wooden cross on his back. This was his way of expressing his feelings of thanksgiving following his fiancée’s miraculous recovery from a paralyzing illness. Unfortunately, during his absence his fiancée married another man.
Long before C. S. Lewis published his popular children's story, The Chronicles of Narnia, John Bunyan wrote a spiritual allegory which he called Pilgrim's Progress. In Bunyan's work, the protagonist, Christian is walking down the road toward the Celestial City. As hetravels through a mountain pass, he sees a pair of lions crouched beside the path. He is frightened and intimidated by them. Immobilized, Christian is unable to continue his journey. Standing there in fear, he hears a man calling to him from farther down the trail. The man tells him that the lions have been chained. At first this is hard for Christian to believe, but as he ventures closerhe sees for himself that it is true. The lions are shackled. And although they are next to the road, ready to pounce, they are restrained so that they cannot harm Christian as he makes his way on toward the Celestial City.
The lions are shackled . . . This was Bunyan's way of describing salvation. The lions are the forces of death and decay, but they no longer have dominion over us. How did this occur? We need to go back nearly 2700 years to the Kingdom of Judah, the territory around Jerusalem, and a prophet named Isaiah. At the time, Judah was threatened with destruction by Assyria and Egypt.More than any other prophet in the Old Testament, Isaiah focused on the salvation that will come through the Messiah. The Messiah will one day rule with justice and righteousness. Instead of war, the reign of the Messiah will bring peace and safety. Through the Messiah, Israel will be a light to all the nations. It is during his reign that God's righteousness will be fully revealed to the whole world.
In a seeming paradox,Isaiah also prophesied that the Messiah would suffer. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth . . ."
How were the lions of death and decay shackled? They were shackled by this man of sorrows bearing our infirmities, "pierced for our transgressions . . . crushed for our iniquities."
When President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines in 1972, he did more than merely take power. He seized all of the media outlets--newspaper, TV, radio--and nationalized them. During the ensuing chaos, the head of one of the television stations was kidnapped. The kidnapped man was the son of a wealthy businessman named Lopez, living in the United States. Lopez received a phone call shortly thereafter and was given a choice: relinquish his rights to all of his Philippine holdings or his son would be killed. It took the old man no time to make his decision. His assets were transferred to the Philippine government and his son was released.
Imagine receiving a telephone call like that—asked to give up everything you own to spare the life of one of your children. That puts things in perspective, doesn't it? Yet that is the price God paid to shackle the lions of our destruction. “. . . like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth . . ."
On May 12, 1993 two slivers of wood from an ancient olive tree, said to be from the cross on which Jesus was crucified, were sold at auction in Paris. The bidding started at $1,800 and was completed ninety seconds later. A woman in the front row offered the equivalent of $18,587. Accompanying the relic was a certificate of authenticity issued by the Vatican back in 1855. That's a high price to pay for a memento, particularly if it is a fraud. But even that sum of money pales in comparison to what the cross cost Christ. "…The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed”.
Back in 1995, Chuck Colson, former Nixon hatchet man turned prison minister, visited a notorious prison in Brazil called Humaita (who-my-tah). It was once a government run prison, but is now operated by Prison Fellowship International as an alternative prison. Instead of armed guards and high-tech security, Humaita is run on the Christian principles of love of God and respect for the dignity of all human beings.
The prison has only two full-time staff. The rest of the work is done by the 730 inmates serving time for everything from murder to robbery to drug-related crimes. Wherever he walked, Colson encountered men at peace, smiling and working industriously. He saw clean living areas with walls decorated with motivational sayings and Scripture verses.Humaita has an astonishing record. Its recidivism rate is 4 percent, compared to 75 percent for the rest of Brazil. How is that possible?
Colson found the answer when his inmate-guide escorted him to a notorious cell once used for solitary confinement. The guide explained that now it houses only one inmate. As they reached the end of the long concrete corridor and the key was placed in the lock, the inmate paused and asked Colson, "Are you sure you want to go in?"“Of course," he replied impatiently. "I've been in isolation cells all over the world."Slowly his inmate-guide swung open the massive door, and Colson saw the sole prisoner in that cell: a crucifix, a beautifully carved cross with a figure of Jesus hanging on it. "He's doing time for the rest of us," the guide said softly.
" . . . He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken . . . He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth . . ."The lions are shackled, but think of the cost.
An artist once painted a most unusual portrait of Jesus on the cross. The background is dark, but the body of Jesus can clearly be seen. As one gazes at the painting, a second figure begins to emerge from the shadows on the canvas. Behind the suffering Savior is the Heavenly Father. And the nails that pierce the hands and feet of Jesus also pierce the hands and feet of the Father. A crown of thorns that cuts into the brow of Jesusalso cuts into the brow of the Father.
That is why we are here today. To remind us of what Christ has done on our behalf and also the cost paid by the Father. "…he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors . . ."
The lions are shackled. The forces of death and decay are defeated. You and I need not fear the grave. How can this be? There is one who hung on a tree, whose body bore the scars by which we are made whole. What is our response? To pass by as if we neither see nor care? Or to make a new commitment to being all that God created us to be.
My friends, the lions are shackled. Let us go forward with confidence and without fear.