More People At The Cross | Ep14

What is Meditating On The Word?

Join Wayne Burger each week as he explores various topics and scriptures and challenges listeners to meditate on God's Word more deeply.

The death of Christ on the cross is an event that, of course, any Christian person or denomination understands the significance of that and understands some of the events related to it. In a previous lesson, we talked about some of the people at the cross. In this lesson, I want to continue that idea of people at the cross, because the cross, the crucifixion, was a public event where the whole public could come and see it that wanted to.

We looked at a number of people already, as we think about at the cross. There's another group of people that I want to mention. I call them people passing by.

Both Matthew and Mark mention those who were passing by as Jesus hung on the cross. The text says they were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself if you're the Son of God. Come down from the cross.

In biblical times, wagging the head or shaking the head was a gesture signifying disapproval or scorn or mockery or disbelief. It was a physical expression of contempt often used to convey disappointment and disbelief in a particular statement. So here are these passerbys.

What little they know about this man, they know something we're going to talk about that, but they're wagging their head, as it were, to say, we don't believe you. And notice that they quoted some of the things that had happened to Jesus' life. First, this action of being tormented by and hurled at the abuse is a fulfillment of Psalm 22:6 and 7. There, the psalmist said, but I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people.

All who see me sneer at me, they separate with their lips. They wag the head saying, commit yourself to the Lord. Let him deliver him.

Let him rescue him because he delights in him. So here's a statement from Psalm 22 for telling part of what's going to happen while Jesus is on the cross. And we stop and think about this.

Not only was it foretold, but second, they either had heard Jesus say that he was going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, or maybe that statement that he made had become so well known and repeated so often that they had heard that he had said that. And so it is interesting to think, here are people who, they don't stop. We have some that's going to kind of stop.

We have a crowd gathering. These people seem to pass by, but as they're passing by, they hurl abuse. They repeat some things that Jesus has said and challenge him.

You were going to destroy the temple and raise it in three days. Get off the cross if you can. You see, they did not have faith in what he said, but they knew something about what he did say.

Let's think about this idea. How many people today hear something about Jesus would jump to the wrong conclusion because they're not willing to listen to all the facts. You see, there's the situation there.

When Jesus mentioned in John 2 that he was going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, he was talking about his body. He was not talking about the destruction of Jerusalem that was going to take place in 70 AD. It's unfortunate today that so many people have bits of information about Jesus but really haven't checked it out to see is that accurate.

Can we believe that? They just hear a little fact here and a little fact there, but have not really studied to find out for themselves. They just simply jump to a conclusion, a false conclusion, and draw whatever idea they think without checking it out. How sad to see that there's so many people like that today who do not study Jesus.

Many folks read about Jesus, except they don't read about Jesus in the Bible. They need to check the Bible. These kinds of people, their minds are made up and they don't really want to be confused by the facts.

It's a lot easier just to assume something or to twist something or to accept what anybody says about Jesus that you agree with when they're negative about Jesus. Often, they are misinformed because they have not checked the Bible to see if what they're being taught is accurate. In Acts 1711, it says that when Paul went to Berea, he said those in Berea were more noble than those of Thessalonica and that they received the word of the readiness of man and searched the scriptures daily to see whether or not those things were so.

That's the attitude all of us need to have. It doesn't matter who is saying it, we need to check it out. And we check it by checking the scriptures.

How sad that in the day of judgment, they will learn the truth, but it'll be too late to be saved. No matter who is speaking, check it out. You know, this is called the information age.

There is information about any subject you want. Now, some of it is good and true. Some of it is not.

But with religious matter, because religion deals not just with life on this earth, but life in the next world, we ought to check it out, evaluate it. The fact that we sometimes do not bother to check it out is really an indication that we do not really believe that there is another life after death. Most folks do not want to think about standing at a judgment where all their deeds will be exposed and that they'll have to give an answer to people or to God.

We don't like having to submit to somebody else. Another group of people who were at the cross were the religious leaders. These were the people who should have promoted Jesus as their messiah.

Instead, they turned against him because he refuted their traditions. Christ's influence caused them to lose the respect and the popularity they had with the common people. Therefore, these religious leaders were trying to destroy his reputation and then ultimately to destroy him.

Often, they were misinformed and twisted the minds of people and would not accept what Jesus was saying. Often, they are leading people in the wrong direction, who are the very people who ought to guide people spiritually. You see, these are the religious leaders of the day, the scribes and the Pharisees.

This led to their decision to first destroy his reputation and then to ultimately kill him. And so, as we look at it, these pastor-byes that were listening to them, in the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him, Matthew 27, 41, and 42. We would have expected that of them at the cross because through the three years of Jesus' ministry, it was the religious leaders who were his antagonists.

They were the ones who rejected him. They were the ones with whom he argued to show that they were binding traditions and ignoring the commands of God. These were the people who had access to the law.

They could read it and study it and were supposed to be teaching it to others. With Jesus on the cross, they felt they had won the battle. Because of their education of the law of Moses, they should have been the ones who have welcomed and promoted Jesus.

Instead, they were the ones who were crucifying him. What kind of application can we make of that? Our country is filled with religiously educated people, usually referred to as pastors. Many of them have gone to seminaries where one would think one's understanding of God's Word would become clearer and should have created a stronger faith.

Too often, this is not the case in the seminaries. They are not seminaries to establish the faith. It would be more likely to call them a cemetery where their faith is buried.

It's amazing, but you can find the facts. As to what many seminaries teach, they deny the virgin birth. They deny miracles.

They deny the inspiration of scriptures. Just like the religious leaders of Jesus' day, these religious leaders today are not really promoting faith and causing people to believe in Jesus, too often they're destroying people's faith and, in a sense, rejecting Jesus. And they have lost their faith, and they are causing others to lose their faith.

It is sad when people listen to religious leaders who are not promoting Jesus and not looking at God's Word as authority. They were people who were leading people astray. And, unfortunately, those people were blindly following what their religious leader said.

One day, Jesus said, there are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit. Matthew 15, 14.

Notice what that said. He said of those religious leaders and those who were following him that they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into the pit.

Spiritually speaking, that's what's happening today. Spiritually blind religious leaders are leading spiritually blind followers. And the sad part is they're going to both fall into the pit.

Ignorance is no excuse. Both the teacher and the student will be lost. If you are believing what some pastor says, and what that pastor says does not match with the Bible, you are not excused because you're following the wrong person.

You have the obligation to check it out, to see if your religious teacher is really teaching the truth. If what he's saying does not comply and line up with the scriptures, you need to leave that man and turn back simply to the Bible. Why are they there? What are they doing? It would seem that just watching people die and there's religious leaders mocking, making fun of, rejoicing in the death of their Messiah.

How sad that we have that today. Another group that's spoken of as being at the cross are spoken of as simply being bystanders. As Jesus was about to die, the Bible mentions people at the cross who are called bystanders.

That's found in Mark 15, 35, 36, and Matthew 27, 47. Why were they there? What were they doing? It seemed that they were just watching people die. Is that a noble calling? Is there something rewarding in seeing people die? Here they are as bystanders.

They're not religious leaders. It doesn't seem necessarily that they've even got anything against Jesus. They're just there to watch men die.

And it was such a cruel death, a torturing death. But you've got these men and women standing at the foot of the cross, just watching not only Jesus, but the other two to die. When Jesus began to cry out to God near the end of his life, there were a couple of different reactions.

One, Matthew 27, 48 says, one of them ran and taking a sponge. He filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. Others thought Jesus was calling for Elijah to come and wait and take him off the cross.

They stood around to see if that was going to happen. So you have here these bystanders. When something happens, one group of them says, let's go give him some wine and maybe revive him.

The other say, well, he's calling for Elijah. Let's just wait and see if he's going to if Elijah is going to come. Here's my question.

Are you a bystander when it comes to commitment to Christ? These people were not really interested. They were just interested in seeing the death. What is your relationship to Jesus on the cross? Are you just a bystander? Now, you know about it.

You've read about it. You've heard about it, but it really means nothing to you. Isn't that a sad condition? Jesus died on that cross for you.

And you're just a bystander that says, oh, well, it's just happening. It doesn't mean anything to me. Are you a bystander when it comes to the commitment to Christ? These people, they're people in our communities along the bystanders.

They want to see what kind of sign before they really become involved with Christ. The Bible is full of Christ's sign. If one will not become an active believer by reading the signs which are recorded, they would not become believers even if Jesus were here to do the signs.

You see, John wrote his book, The Gospel, and he said, truly did Jesus do many other signs which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe and that believing may have life eternal. You see, there are some people today who constantly look for signs. It may be something in the sky.

It may be something in their life. It may be something unusual, and that's going to give them a message that says, well, I need to do this. Friends, God does not communicate through signs today.

God communicates through his word. These people saw some signs, but rejected them, and they were even asking for more signs, but they would not accept the signs that they had seen. So the question is, are you a sign seeker? The only way you're going to receive a message from Jesus is reading the scriptures.

Hebrew writer said, God who at sundered times and diverse manners spake in times path from the fathers by the prophets, path in these last days spoken of us by his son. God speaks to us through his son through the written word of God. And that's the way he's going to communicate and has communicated.

The Bible is full of Christ signs. One event that we could read about that gives us some insight on this is that you remember the event of the rich man in Lazarus in Luke, the 16th chapter. Some think it's a parable.

I believe it was an actual case because parables don't name people. Here, the rich man and Lazarus was named. But when the rich man awakened in torment, he realized he had made a mistake.

And now then he wants Abraham to go back and warn his brothers not to come to this place. And Abraham made an interesting statement. He said, if they will not believe Moses and the prophets, they wouldn't believe somebody even if he rose from the dead.

Signs of Jesus are recorded in scripture and they can cause us to believe. Are you looking for that kind of sign? Or are you going to believe by reading the signs that are recorded? Remember, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Romans 10, 17. One last statement is the centurion.

The centurion was a soldier in charge of a hundred men. There was a centurion at the foot of the cross, probably the man in charge of the crucifixion. As a soldier, he had probably seen many men die.

But when he watched Jesus die, he knew this man was different. The text says, now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God saying, certainly this man was innocent. Luke 23:47.

Notice when he saw Jesus die, he began praising God. Jesus' death had done just what Jesus said it would do. Jesus, while on earth it said, and I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me to myself.

If the death of Jesus does not draw you to God, nothing will. Let me close by urging you, which ones of these people identifies with you on the foot of the cross? Why not become like the centurion and believe? The Bible says that Jesus was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. Why is it that a heathen Roman soldier can be converted with you who has every opportunity to learn about Jesus and his death have not submitted yourself to his will? Let me urge you to be like the centurion and believe that Jesus had died for you.