If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross

 

 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 as he tried to have Jesus released instead of Barabbas, 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."  This quotation is from Psalm 22:18.  If we read the entire psalm, we see it is a picture of the Crucifixion.

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.  Of today's entire reading, my study Bible comments that Jesus accepts mockery and endures the weakness of our body in His own in order to take upon Himself our sufferings.  This He accomplishes by uniting His divine nature to our human nature.  His humanity is indeed our humanity.  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).  Of the two robbers, we know that one would later repent (Luke 23:39-43), but at first both criminals mock Jesus, as Matthew notes.

So why does Jesus endure all of this at the Cross?  Why has He gone through scourging and mocking and cursing and all the rest of it?  He has said Himself that He could pray to the Father and be given twelve legions of angels to stop what is happening to Him (Matthew 26:53).  In every way, the Gospels teach us that this is a voluntary place that Christ goes to, even this horrible miscarriage of justice, with intentional violations of the Mosaic law at every turn in His trial, from false witnesses to a night trial to all the rest of it.  Even to be "betrayed into the hands of sinners" (Matthew 26:45) is part of what He voluntarily undergoes.  None of this takes away the sin of those who commit such acts (Matthew 26:24).  But the deliberate cruelty and injustice that Christ endures here tells us a story for all of us and for all time, about the power of God for transcendence and Resurrection, about divinity and goodness that are nonetheless not impaired through bad treatment, and especially about the power of God that goes first before us into a deeply sinful world and shows us the way through.  But even more powerfully, we are to understand holiness through Christ and through the gift of the Spirit.  Resurrection, for example, is a mystery far beyond some sort of rational explanation or moral aphorism.  It is the same with the Cross, and all of these aspects of Christ's Crucifixion.  Jesus as both God and Man enters into the territory of the worst of human sin and atrocities of injustice, unrighteousness.  As the Son of God He is blasphemed, tempted, mocked, scourged, derided, and treated to behavior meant to number Him among the lowest criminals, worthy only of cruelty and contempt.  But none of these actions change who Christ is.  There is no injustice or lie that can actually change the truth about Jesus Christ, that He is both divine in origin and sinless as human being.  This alone is a powerful lesson and inspiration to any of us who have experienced injustice in our lives, for we look to Him as the example of righteousness.  Rather, we look to Christ's faith as an example of how we ourselves should endure in a sinful world.  We hold fast to what is good.  It is the transforming power of the divine, of the very mission of Incarnate Christ, that turns the Cross into a way to redeem our lives and to fill even the worst of times with meaning and mission.  For what the divine has touched and endures through Christ sanctifies and heals our lives, even in the worst of what we do or what is done to us.  It is He who went to the Cross voluntarily who has the power to reach into our deepest places, and to teach us what needs to be changed and healed, to teach us what is properly love, to radically transform what needs transforming, and to teach us His love and redeem us through it.  Only through "becoming sin" -- this image of the worst of the worst, the One who was numbered among the transgressors, among the lowest criminals, who appears to the world as cursed (Galatians 3:13), and reviled, and all the rest of the things we see in today's reading -- can Christ's divinity touch us in all our most difficult and dark places.  For if He came to the world in the image of the all-powerful glorious majesty that is truly the Son of God, what would that have done to lift us up with Him?  What would that have done to make us come to Him and reveal our most shameful secrets so that they may be healed in His love?  The beloved disciple writes:  "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19), and that is what this story truly tells us today.  This is the answer to those who taunt Him to come down from the Cross.