THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS

 Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name.  Him they compelled to bear His cross.  And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink.  But when He had tasted it, He would not drink.  Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet:

"They divided My garments among them,
And for My clothing they cast lots."

Sitting down, they kept watch over Him there.  And they put up over His head the accusation written against Him:

THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left.  And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, "You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself!  If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross."  Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save.  If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.  He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, 'I am the Son of God.'"  Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing.

- Matthew 27:32-44

Yesterday we read that when Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all with the crowd, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just Person.  You see to it."  And all the people answered and said, "His blood be on us and on our children."  Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.   Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him.  And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.  When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand.  And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!"  Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head.  And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified. 

 Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name.  Him they compelled to bear His cross.  And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink.  But when He had tasted it, He would not drink.  Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet:  "They divided My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots."   The prophesy is from Psalm 22:18.  The entirety of the Psalm tells the story of Jesus' crucifixion.  Simon of Cyrene is possibly a pilgrim in Jerusalem for the Passover, or he is possibly there for other reasons and is not a Jew.  At any rate, he is compelled as one from a Roman colony.  Cyrene was originally a prosperous, cultural Greek city in eastern Libya.  He and his family would become known in the early Church, as Mark's Gospel refers to him as "the father of Rufus and Alexander" (Mark 15:21). 

Sitting down, they kept watch over Him there.  And they put up over His head the accusation written against Him:  THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.  Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left.  And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, "You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself!  If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross."  Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save.  If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.  He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, 'I am the Son of God.'"  Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing.  My study bible tells us that Jesus accepts mockery and endures the weakness of our body in His won to take upon Himself our sufferings.  He accomplishes this by uniting His divine nature to our human nature.  His humanity is our humanity.  A note tells us, "Although He has no sin, He was made to be sin for us, that through His flesh He might condemn sin itself (Romans 8:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 2:9)."   We are told here of the two robbers on either side of Christ.  Although one would later repent (Luke 23:39-43), Matthew tells us that at first both criminals mock Jesus.

Once again the Gospels give us a picture within a picture:  although Christ is mocked, the truth is here in the story.  It is here in the accusation:  THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.  Apollinaris of Laodicea (Bishop of Laodicea) comments that Jesus is now glorified while the day of the righteous is always mocked by the ignorant.  The world brings to Jesus in this scene all of its scorn and mocking, a projection of its hatred and destruction and condemnation.  Leo the Great (Pope St. Leo I) sees in Simon of Cyrene compelled to carry the Cross a vision of the faith that would come to the Gentiles, to whom the cross of Christ was not to be shame but glory. He writes, "It was not accidental therefore but symbolic and mystical, that while the Jewish rulers were raging against Christ, a foreigner was found to share his sufferings. Thus the apostle would say, 'If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him'" (2 Timothy 2:12; Romans 8:17).  It seems essential to understand how Christ stands in for us in this place of mocking and derision.  The cruelty of His extreme suffering becomes something to laugh about, to make worse through jeers and rebukes.  He is the One who is wholly innocent and without sin, and yet He takes on this sin and bears it for us.  But the irony is that it is sin being crucified so that we may be reborn without it.  This is the hour, contrary to the worldly appearance, that Christ calls His hour of glory (John 12:23).  Regardless of what is being done to Him, the true reality of Christ is one of glory and divinity.  The lies and injustice -- for injustice is also a form of a lie -- cannot truly touch the essence of Christ, His substance.  Through faith, this becomes our own hour of glory, as to be to crucified with Christ is to awaken to our own true nature as His children:  we may be reborn through His suffering to be "like Him," to take on and grow in His likeness, and to come to understand ourselves as creatures made in the image of God.  Is this a picture of humanity, made only for the lowest and most miserable existence -- or is it rather a picture of what we do, how we sin, what lies we tell ourselves, what suffering we cause or are made only to endure?  That particular picture of sheer misery is the "worldly" one, in which meaning and value are only attached to appearance -- a "material-mindedness" that subjects us to a valuation based on rank, competition, manipulation, a hierarchy of who can claim what.  But Christ's crucifixion turns that world upside-down, gives us a reality that transcends it and even more -- the reality that is present here transforms that suffering.  It takes the suffering and through it tells us the truth instead.  That truth is that God is love, who loves us and values us so that we are worth God's suffering -- even to give us life in ways we didn't have it before.  This is a picture of the eternal God who intersects our time in order to bring us the gift of life, even hidden in this picture of a gruesome and miserable death.  There are several here who will themselves be transformed:  the centurion and men who are with him, one of the robbers crucified with Christ, Simon of Cyrene and his sons -- and these are just the immediate beneficiaries we can name, for whom a new life begins at the Cross.  And there is even more to this story:  our faith may come to us even when we are alone and outcast, when the whole world seems to collaborate to tell us we are nothing but sin.  Leo the Great goes on to note that Christ is crucified outside the gates of the city; He is the new lamb slain not in the temple whose sacrifices will come to an end, but on the altar of the Cross once and for all -- and for all the world.   This transfiguring moment means that we are never alone, He is always with us in every hour and at all times of our lives.  His gift of life is waiting for our own suffering to be transformed in His image, if we live our own suffering with Him.  And in this understanding, nothing will ever be the same again.