Many people have issues with the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified.  Certainly the Jews of His day could not get their minds or hearts around that truth.  It was a stumbling block to them, as Scripture tells us.  The Messiah, the Savior, would not die—never mind the fact that He supposedly rose again—He just wouldn’t have died in the first place—and certainly not a death like a crucifixion.  We live in an age where the appearance of strength and of being in control is important.  Leaders, especially candidates for political office, hire specialists to help project an image that they are on top of things.  We should not be surprised if contemporary people find repulsive the idea that the person who claims our allegiance meekly submitted to so ignoble a fate as death by crucifixion.  Muslims respond to the idea of Christ’s death on the cross in a manner similar to the Jews and find it impossible to accept that one they regard as a prophet died in this way.  For many the idea of a crucified Messiah is a contradiction in terms.  But it’s important we look at the crucifixion not as a defeat, but as a victory.  Peter’s speech on the day of Pentecost highlights this point. 

We are told that on the day of Pentecost all the believers were together.  At that time they numbered only about 120.  Pentecost was a Jewish harvest festival—it was celebrated 50 days after the Passover.  It was one of the three Jewish pilgrimage festivals, when people were to come before the Lord with gifts and offerings.  It celebrated the end of the barley harvest and the beginning of the wheat harvest.  It is appropriate that the event that was going to propel the gospel to the ends of the earth took place at a time when people from the ends of the earth were in Jerusalem. 

The Holy Spirit comes upon the believers who are gathered—at least the 12 apostles and perhaps more out of the group of believers.  They are filled with the Spirit and begin to speak in other tongues, other languages.  These are languages they had not previously known, but they are able to speak them and consequently to reach many people.  People from all over heard the apostles speaking in languages native to the different places represented.    They were amazed and perplexed and they asked each other, “What does this mean?”  Others made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”  Still today there are those who will give Christianity a chance and others who will mock rather than investigate.  That is true with all religions.  It’s true with a certain pastor that may have been in the news lately.  Some ask questions and ponder and think, others rush to snap judgment based on inadequate information.  So Peter stands up to address the issue.  He sees an opportunity to answer those who are asking the right questions. 

Peter explains that the apostles are not drunk—after all, it’s only nine in the morning.  No, rather this is a fulfillment of prophecy, what the prophet Joel had written about.  Peter quotes from Joel 2 and says, “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.  Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy.’”  Peter tells the people that Jesus was accredited by God by virtue of His miracles, wonders and signs.  His miracles are a demonstration of the power of God, the wonders arouse astonishment, the signs embody or signify spiritual truth.  God worked these things through Jesus to prove who He was.  But there is another side to all of this—a dark side.  Peter doesn’t pull any punches here and he tells it like it is.  “This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men (Gentiles) put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.”  There are two sides to the death of Christ: God was involved—first, it came about because of His set purpose and foreknowledge.  Later in Acts chapter 4, the believers are praying to God and they say this: “Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.  They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.”  So there is a sense in which God orchestrates the death of His Son.  He knows it is coming and it seems He allows it, even ordains it, wills it.  But those who were involved in His death were held accountable for their actions.  God was not helpless throughout these events, but at the same time that does not mean the people were puppets in God’s hands and are not responsible for their actions.  It may have been God’s purpose at work and God knew it would happen, but the responsibility still lies squarely on those who carried out the deed.  Peter says to the Jews, “You, with the help of wicked men (Romans) put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.”  Here then we see, as we often do in Scripture, the paradox between divine providence and human responsibility.  While God planned for Christ to die on the cross, those who carried out this act were still responsible for it. 

Christ’s death was a stumbling block to the Jews.  The apostles responded to this issue by presenting it as a victory that had been planned by God.  It was not the unfortunate defeat of a good man who had no power to save Himself from such a death.  The New Testament is clear in this portrayal of the victory of Christ through His death.  In His trial and crucifixion, Jesus marched on, amidst pain and humiliation, as a strong man who had the situation under His control.  When He introduced Himself to the guards in the garden, for example, they drew back and fell to the ground.  He took time in the middle of His arrest to heal the ear of the high priest’s servant and to admonish Peter about the uselessness of wielding the sword.  He also reminded Peter that twelve legions of angels were available for Him to use if He wished to go free.  He told the high priest about His return on the clouds from heaven.  He told the women who were weeping for Him not to do so, but rather to weep for themselves.  From the cruelly painful cross He pronounced salvation to a thief, asked God to forgive His crucifiers, and made arrangements for His mother’s care.  That’s important to emphasize on Mother’s Day. 

In the same way, in our witness for Christ today, we should seek to present Christ’s death not as a defeat or a great tragedy but as a triumph.  Jesus was no weakling as He went to the cross.  Instead, He manifested incredible strength, which people today try so hard to have.  Using professionals to make one look good does not enable someone to feel good, for deep inside is that gnawing sense of insecurity that one cannot adequately face the challenges of life, and especially the challenge of death.  That is something we discussed last night at the movie night.  But in Jesus we see a man who was everything a leader wishes to be—one who did not fear any problem and had the strength to face anything.  Are not such people the happiest on earth—those who do not fear either life or death?   

     Furthermore, Jesus died His cruel death out of a commitment to us.  In our selfish world, people suffer much from the effects of people who have broken their trust, who forsook them when the going got tough.  By contrast, we proclaim the truth that the love of Christ for us exceeds our highest imaginations.  Let’s remember too what the cross achieved—the salvation of the world.  Jesus was no failure, because He after all founded what can rightly be called the most influential organization in the history of the world—the church.  And the church has as its symbol the cross.  The favorite name given to the triumphant Christ in heaven in the book of Revelation is the “Lamb”, indicating that His triumph was achieved when He was slain.  As Paul says in Colossians 2, “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”  We must remove misconceptions about the cross and show people what the cross really means—the greatest triumph in the history of the human race. 

The crucifixion scene is like all other moments—it belongs to God.  At the crucifixion many thought a problem was gotten rid of—a blasphemer and heretic and threat to the establishment was done away with.  Not so.  What was done away with was the power of sin over us all.  This scene, this hour did not belong to Pilate or Caiaphas or anybody else, it belonged to Jesus.  Jesus was in control of the situation.  The theological message of the cross is that despite the darkness of the hour, this is in fact the hour of glory.  Jesus is not a victim, but a king assuming His throne, transforming death into a passage, a return, a celebration of His returning to glory with the Father. The passion story is indeed a story of tragedy, but it is not Jesus’ tragedy; it is a human tragedy as we witness the futile and tragic efforts of people blinded by darkness, unable to see the true king in their midst.  No person is capable of stifling the glory of God if God intends for that glory to be shown.  God is in control of history—it is His story—even this hostile, seemingly darkened chapter of history that offers little hope.  If He is sovereign in place like this crucifixion of His Son, if He can manifest glory and accomplish His purposes when to the observer everything seems like defeat and disaster, our history can be no different.  If God could transform this “hour” with glory and victory, so too He can transform any hour.  The death of Christ is a victory for all who believe.  Amen.