A medical doctor provided this physical description of crucifixion: "The cross is placed on the ground and the exhausted man is quickly thrown backwards with his shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to allow some flex and movement. The cross is then lifted into place.

All this the Bible records with the simple words, "and they crucified Him." What Wondrous Love is This? And WHO was Jesus doing this for? Let’s take a look…

The people of Israel, whom Jesus had come for, were passing by the cross and letting Jesus know that they thought He was a loser! They wanted no part of Him. "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" Jesus had wanted them to know He had the power to raise the temple of his body from the dead in 3 days. These Jews, however, taunted Him to come down from the cross before He died – if He really was the Son of God. What horrible blasphemy that the Son of God had to hear these people mock Him for being the Son of God by telling Him to save Himself, when saving Himself would have kept Him from saving us by dying for our sins! What wondrous love that Jesus didn’t come down from that cross and destroy them!

The religious leaders, who should have known better, also took part in the mockery. "He saved others,…but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel!" "Let God rescue him now if He wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ " Jesus had wanted them to know that his kingdom was something He wanted to establish in their hearts! Jesus wanted them to believe in the work He had come to do to set their hearts free from the burden of their sins. These leaders, however, did not feel the burden of sin in their hearts. They felt that the only burden or pain was Jesus, the One who had come to ease the pain of all who knew the sickness of their sin. What horrible blasphemy it was for these people who studied the Scriptures to speak so abusively about the One to whom all those Scriptures pointed! What wondrous love that Jesus didn’t come down from that cross and show them what a King He was! But it was these Mockers for whom Jesus had come!

We have put our trust in Jesus. Through the gospel message, we see the One who was being mocked here as the one who won the victory over Satan by being mocked. But our trust is a very humble trust, because we know that the victory on the cross included the triumph over all of our mockeries and tauntings and insults too! Whenever we have insisted on having our own way in sin, we too have dared Jesus to come down from heaven and do what we want Him to do. But in his wondrous love, He continues to rule over us from above by ruling in us with his love, calling us to repentance, and forgiving our sins. Yes, you have mocked Jesus with your life too. But He went through that torture so you would be forgiven!

You and I are forgiven because Jesus was Forsaken by the One from whom He came. We now want to focus on when Jesus, after three hours of darkness, cried out: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" During those hours of darkness, Jesus’ Father had turned away from Him, leaving Him to suffer hell all by Himself, because that is the only way the debt of your sin and mine could be fully paid. The curse of hell had to be fully suffered and endured. The sinless Jesus had to pay the price of being damned for the sins of those who should have been damned for their own sins (i.e. you and me). God had to be forsaken by God.

We obviously cannot even begin to grasp how this could happen, but we do marvel and rejoice that it did happen. And the reason that we marvel and rejoice is because the One who was forsaken was truly sent by the One who forsook Him. He truly was, as the centurion in charge of the Roman soldiers had to exclaim, the Son of God!

Think of how clear God the Father made it! He darkened the entire earth for 3 hours as his Son completed the task that had been promised and talked about and awaited for centuries!

Think of how clear God the Father made it! He allowed his Son to be invigorated with that drink of wine vinegar so that at the end of this excruciating suffering, He could be able to cry out with a loud voice for all of us to hear, "It is finished!" And victoriously give up his life.

Think of how clear God the Father made it! Once his Son bowed his head, God had the temple curtain rip in two, meaning that there were no more restrictions about who could go to the other side of the curtain, to the Most Holy Place. There was no more need for a Most Holy Place, or for a high priest, who alone could go in there on his once-a-year mission. Jesus now just offered the once-for-all sacrifice for all sins, which never had to be repeated. It was finished!

Think of how clear God the Father made it! Once his Son bowed his head, the Father sent an earthquake, made rocks split open, and had some of the tombs give up their dead. People who were already enjoying their happiness with God, God wanted to make use of in another way by having them be testimonies to his awesome power and to the fact that Jesus really had accomplished the work he had been sent to do. No one who saw one of these dead people who was no longer dead should possibly have come to any other conclusion than that the one whose death caused this resurrection truly was the Son of God!

There is another earthquake coming! A very blessed earthquake! You don’t usually think of earthquakes that way, but this one is going to accompany your tomb being broken open, and God bringing you back to life! That is a truth that this account assures us of! We will someday see those people who came out of the tombs on that Good Friday and have the chance to talk to them about what that was like, because we have God’s assurance that since Jesus was forsaken by his heavenly Father, we will never be! Instead, we will be what we are right now – treasured possessions of our God, who sent his Son to pay the price to make us his own!

This is what you and I can be sure of because of Jesus’ wondrous love on the cross: He was mocked by those for whom He came – mockery of which we are also guilty. And He was forsaken by the One from whom He came – which means all our sins against the heavenly Father have been emptied of their power to harm us. That, my friends, is wondrous love! Love that leads us to live on to His glory! Amen.

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