Saving Others; Luke 23:35-43

 

The first Sunday in Lent in just two weeks away.  Generally, the first Sunday in Lent is recognized as “Temptation of the Lord Sunday.”  It’s a story we all know well, and yes, we will hear it again, but even now, I want to remind you that two of the 3 named temptations that Jesus faced from the devil were ones in which He was tempted to save Himself—turning stones into bread, and throwing Himself off the Temple, in which case, it would be the angels that would come to His aid.  The devil, for all three temptations, started out by challenging Jesus’ identity, “If you are the Son of God” or “Since you are the Son of God.”  Here at the end of His earthly life, Jesus faces one last temptation to save Himself.  Those daring Him to do so, use similar, devilish words, “If this is the Christ of God, the Chosen One,” “If you are the Messiah,” “If you are the King of the Jews,” then save yourself!  But Jesus’s mission was always, “I have come to seek and to save the lost.”  Jesus’s mission was saving others. 

            The challenge for Jesus to save Himself was all done in a mocking, critical way.  The first ones to start it were the “rulers”—that is the Jewish religious rulers.  They start their railings by saying, “He saved others.”  Note that even though they are jeering and once again trying to rile up the bystanders who came to watch the crucifixion, they admit a truth:  Jesus saved others.  No longer are they denying what they had seen and heard—Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, and forgave sins.  For their mocking and challenge to make sense, they have to admit that Jesus did and can save!  Even so, they do not want to admit that He is the Messiah.  As they mock Jesus, they are fulfilling prophetic words found in the Apocrypha.  I would like to read to you from the Wisdom of Solomon.  This is from the King James version.  Yes, the early King James Bibles contained the apocrypha.  There are people who try to say that the apocryphal books are not quoted in the New Testament, but I think that’s because they haven’t read them. Jesus quotes from the book of Sirach, also called Ecclesiasticus, many times.  Other passages, like this one I’m about to read are alluded to.  This is from Wisdom 2:1 and then picking up in verse 10 to the end of the chapter.  I found more in later chapters of this book as well.  But listen and see if you can picture the religious rulers at the foot of the cross.  

For the ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright, Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave.

2

10Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged.

11Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.

12Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education.

13He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord.

14He was made to reprove our thoughts.

15He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion.

16We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father.

17Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.

18For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.

19Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience.

20Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected.

21Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them.

22As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls.

23For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.

24Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.

            The second group to mock Jesus is the Roman soldiers.  The Roman soldiers pick up the taunt for Jesus to come down from the cross.  Instead of saying, “If you are the Christ, the Chosen One, the Messiah,” terms which held little to know meaning for them, they pick up on the title, “King of the Jews.”  “If you are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.”  They can see the sign Pilate has had written and placed on the cross.  The sign was written in 3 languages so that everyone who was literate could read and understand these words, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.  The longest version of the sign is recorded in the gospel of John, “Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews.”  If all this was on there, then the sign would have been of significant size.  In his commentary on Luke, Craig Evans points out that these words are probably the only words about Jesus written in His lifetime.  The disciples wouldn’t have written the gospels until after Pentecost.  The earliest gospel manuscript dates to around 52 AD.  Paul wrote about Jesus earlier than the disciples did!  We can date Galatians to 49 AD.  This title for Jesus, written above His wounded head, though incomplete, was nonetheless true.  He was and still is King of the Jews.  Pilate wanted to believe in Jesus.  He refused to write what the Jewish leaders wanted him to write, which was, “He says He is the King of the Jews.”  And yet, Pilate could not embrace the truth even as he knew and professed Jesus’s innocence.  Jesus wasn’t just King of the Jews.  He was King of the Roman soldiers as well, and He didn’t come off the cross so that they too might be saved. 

            Even the criminals on the crosses on either side of Jesus joined in the mocking and challenging Jesus to come off the cross.  Matthew’s gospel tells us both were involved.  These men would have known nothing about Jesus, and still they jeered and cried out for Jesus to save Himself.  But they add something extra—“Save yourself, and us.”  Perhaps they were really hoping that Jesus would prove Himself and take them all off their crosses, and yet they didn’t really believe He could do it.  Would they have changed if He had?  I don’t think so.  I can imagine them getting freed and then booking it just as hard as they could.  Maybe the one would have, like the one leper out of the 10 that returned to Jesus to give thanks, still have turned to Him in worship and thanks.  That’s not what happened.  However, even though Jesus doesn’t take Himself and them off their crosses, one of the thieves is saved.  At some point one of the criminals changed his mind.  He stopped mocking and called across to the other one saying, “Don’t you even fear God, since you are under the same condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds.”  As death approaches, the reality of what he has done sets in.  He is about to meet his maker.  This is not the time to joke around, but to prepare for eternal judgment.  Some people try to say that the thief was saved without repentance.  No, he doesn’t ask Jesus to forgive him, but he DOES confess his sin before God.  He acknowledges that he has committed crimes which deserve the death penalty and he confesses referential fear of God before God.  And then He looks to the One who can really save Him.  He goes on to say to the other criminal, “But this man has done nothing wrong.”  Somehow, he discerned Jesus’s innocence.  Perhaps it was hearing Jesus pray, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  The words above the cross that Jesus is a King hit him in a new way.  The Holy Spirit is at work.  He turns to Jesus and says, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom.”  Because Jesus didn’t save Himself, He could save the man hanging next to Him.  Jesus replies, “Truly, I say to you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise.”  Paradise was a mythological walled garden.  Jesus uses language this man can understand.  It is a return to the Garden of Eden.  This walled garden of Paradise is the garden of the King.  To be invited in, was a huge honor.  To be with Jesus in Paradise means being a companion of the King in a safe place of peace and beauty!  How much better than simply coming off the cross! This man has eternal life!  Peace and fellowship with God forever where no evil exists and no harm can be done by him or to him. 

            Three different groups of people challenged Jesus to save Himself and to come off the cross, but Jesus didn’t come to save Himself.  Could Jesus have come down off the cross?  Of course.  Could He have healed His own wounds like Wolverine in X-Men?  I’m sure.  But that was not His purpose.  Jesus came to save others.  If He had come off the cross, even if He had gotten the other two men down off their crosses, Jesus wouldn’t have saved anyone but Himself.  The criminals would have died some other way, even if was at the end of a long life, but they would have still faced judgment and eternal condemnation.  The repentant thief wouldn’t have had the promise of paradise with Jesus.  Jesus didn’t get off the cross because He was in the business of saving others.  He died to save all who believe from the second death.  He died to give us eternal life.  He died that the world might be saved.  He died that those who lived thousands of years before Him and thousands of years after Him might be saved.  Jesus died that you might be saved.