Meditating on the Cross

No event in history is more important than the cross of Jesus Christ. Yet the world around us distracts us from this great act of love and justice, of mercy and punishment. Thus we need times of intentional focus on this theme. In addition to our services Friday evening and Sunday morning, please take time this week to focus on the cross, and all that it entails.

Here are some resources to help you do that.

The scriptural accounts: We will read Mark’s account of the cross and the resurrection at our services. Read the other accounts also: Matthew 26-27, Luke 22-23, and John 18-19.

Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion: I have spent many a Good Friday afternoon listening to this masterpiece, which includes all of the text of Matthew’s account as well as various hymns and meditations. There are numerous recordings available on YouTube and the usual music apps. Listen especially to the account of Jesus’ dying on the cross and its immediate aftermath beginning at 5:30 of this video, and continuing to the first 2:15 minutes of this video. The links include English subtitles for the German lyrics; the text is from Matthew 27:45-54. Some consider Bach’s rendition of the centurion’s cry, “Truly this was the Son of God” the most beautiful piece in the entirety of western music.

John Piper’s narrative poem, “Pilate’s Wife”: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Pastor John wrote these poems for Advent in 2002, a few weeks after Beth and I moved to this area; I read parts to our fledgling church plant that year. Here is an excerpt from the end of part 1.

Come, children, take your fire, and light
This advent candle one. For bright
And blazing is our hope and deep
Desire that all the world would leap
To know the truth that Christ destroys
False worlds that he might fill with joys.
To know the truth that massacres
Might be forgiv’n and one who errs
A thousand times may find at last
That all his horrid sins are cast
Into the deep, and Christ, by grace,
Has made his massacre a place
Of life where even those who scorned
His face, may be with life adorned.

Bob Chilcott’s St John’s Passion. This piece, first performed in 2013, is new for me this year. In the tradition of Bach’s passions, Chilcott includes all of John’s account, intermixing the English text with hymns written between the 5th and 19th centuries. The music is all new. You can read the biblical and hymn texts via this pdf file and listen to the one-hour performance here. The musical setting for When I Survey the Wondrous Cross – the closing piece – is exceptionally beautiful. Here are the texts of three of the other hymns Chilcott uses, with links to the recordings:

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle by Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530–c. 600), translated by Percy Dearmer (1867–1936)

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
Sing the ending of the fray;
Now above the Cross, the trophy,
Sound the loud triumphant lay:
Tell how Christ, the world’s Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.

God in pity saw man fallen,
Shamed and sunk in misery,
When he fell on death by tasting
Fruit of the forbidden tree;
Then another tree was chosen
Which the world from death should free.

Jesu, grant me this, I pray, 17th century Latin, translated by Henry Williams Baker (1821–77)

Jesu, grant me this, I pray,
Ever in thy heart to stay;
Let me evermore abide
Hidden in thy wounded side.

If the evil one prepare,
Or the world, a tempting snare,
I am safe when I abide
In thy heart and wounded side.

If the flesh, more dangerous still,
Tempt my soul to deeds of ill,
Naught I fear when I abide
In thy heart and wounded side.

Death will come one day to me;
Jesu, cast me not from thee:
Dying let me still abide
In thy heart and wounded side

There is a green hill far away by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–95)

There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all,
Who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains he had to bear,
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there,
He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiv’n,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heav’n,
Saved by his precious blood,
Saved by his precious blood.

Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved,
And we must love him too,
And trust in his redeeming blood,
And try his works to do,
And try his works to do.

May our Lord work though His Word, His church, and the musical gifts He has given us to highlight our sinfulness that necessitates the cross, and thereby to magnify the riches of His grace poured out on us through the death, resurrection, ascension, and return of our Lord Jesus, so that we as His people might endure in faith in Him, boasting only in the cross, Good Friday after Good Friday after Good Friday, until He returns.

Truly This Was the Son of God

How do people react to Jesus?

As we saw in last Sunday’s sermon, in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion, once Pilate condemns Jesus to death, all the people who speak mock Him:

  • The soldiers bow before Him, saying in mockery, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spit on Him and beat Him.
  • Those passing by deride Him, calling on Him to save Himself, to come down from the cross if He is the Son of God.
  • The religious leaders also mock Him, saying He cannot save Himself, and claiming they will believe in Him if He comes down from the cross. They also say, “He trusts in God; let God deliver Him now, if He desires Him. For He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

Where are those who followed Him? Where are those who acclaimed His entry into Jerusalem just a few days previously? Will no one speak for Him? Will no one see Him for Who He is?

Yes. Someone will. Yet, as is so often the case in Matthew and, indeed, throughout Scripture, those who speak are not the ones we would expect.

About noon, unexpected darkness covers the land. The mocking evidently stops – none of the Gospel accounts record any further mocking after the darkness falls.

Jesus yields up His spirit.

Suddenly there is an earthquake. Rocks split and tombs open.

And then someone speaks up. Someone speaks for Jesus. Someone sees Him – at least partially – for Who He is.

The centurion and the others soldiers say: “Truly this was the Son of God!”

The very ones who had nailed Jesus to the cross, the very ones responsible for ensuring His death – perhaps the very ones who had spit upon Him and beat Him a few hours before – now see what the religious leaders cannot see. They see what those who had read the witness to Him in the Hebrew Scriptures cannot see: He is the Son of God.

Those passing by had said, “If you are the Son of God,” laughing at the idea. The religious leaders had mocked Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God. But these Roman soldiers proclaim: Truly. Truly. Jesus is the Son of God.

Surely none of these soldiers would have been able to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. It seems likely when they made this confession they were still polytheists, believing in many gods. But here at the cross, seeing what has happened, they say with certainty: “What this man said about Himself must be true.”

This statement by the soldiers, in my opinion, is a major highlight in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion. All builds to this point. After all the mocking, all the suffering, all the tragedy, these Gentiles proclaim Jesus to be the Son of God. And they are the firstfruits of those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation that will worship Him forever and ever.

Johann Sebastian Bach also saw this confession as the highlight of Matthew’s account. In what may be his greatest work, St Matthew’s Passion, Bach has the entire passion account of Matthew sung by soloists and chorus, interspersed with responses to the record of Scripture. The entire Passion takes around three hours to perform, but I urge you to listen to the seven minutes that include verses 45 to 54 of Matthew 27. In this 1971 recording – which includes subtitles since the singing is in German – this section runs from 2:46:30 to 2:53:36. The only addition to the words of Scripture is one verse of a chorale sung to the tune we use for “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” See how Bach builds up to the confession of the centurion and then renders those words in painfully beautiful but understated music.

Ponder this confession prior to this Sunday morning. Then join us as we look in more detail at the words of the centurion. May we all together proclaim: Truly Jesus is the Son of God.