Sunday, October 16, 2022 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Luke, chapter 23, I'll be reading verses 26 through 43, as we're thinking about Christ and the world.

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Begin to think about Christ and the world as we focus in on His crucifixion.

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Beginning in verse 26. Now, as they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man,

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Simon a Cyrenian, who was coming from the country. And on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.

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And a great multitude of the people followed Him, and women who also mourned and lamented

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Him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, Cover us, for if they do these things in the greenwood, what will be done in the dry?

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There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called

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Calvary, there they crucified Him. And the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.

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Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

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And they divided His garments, and cast lots with them before the

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Son of God.

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The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying,

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If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself. And an inscription also was written over Him, in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

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This is the King of the Jews. Then one of the criminals, who were hanged, blasphemed

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Him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us.

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But the other, answering, rebuked Him, saying, Do you not even fear

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God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?

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And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.

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Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And Jesus said to him,

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Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise.

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So last time, as we looked at this text, we simply reflected on Simon the

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Cyrenian. How it is that he came from a place called

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Liberia, a little bit west of Egypt.

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And he came all that way, as a Jew, to celebrate

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Passover. Very strong Jewish community amongst the

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Cyrenians. And we find later that there were several

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Cyrenian Jews who had turned to Christ and became members of the church.

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Even Simon himself, his two sons are mentioned in Mark, as if they are well known to the church.

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We reflect on Rufus and Alexander, and then later on Rufus mentioned again in Rome, in the letter to the

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Romans. And we reflect that, possibly through this encounter, that Simon himself believed, and his sons believed, and God used it to bring them to faith in Christ.

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But, you know, Simon is a stranger, from out of town.

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He's just showing up for the Passover, and then he gets roped into this event. And being forced into this traumatic moment, certainly he would be thinking about his responsibility before God.

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But not simply a stranger, but the local crowd. The crowds that were already there.

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We read about these daughters of Jerusalem, these women in Jerusalem. And of course there were the traditional mourners, who often hired out their services, or perhaps they did so for free in certain situations.

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They were meant to add a sense of reverence and value to human life.

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That they would come, and that they would mourn, and they would wear the clothes of mourners, and that they would add to the heft and the significance of any funeral.

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So that even if somebody didn't have folks in their family, and they were perhaps elderly and they had no one left, the mournering women would come out, and they would attend the processional as the body was taken to the grave.

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Now these women seem to be a little bit different, as they are not at a funeral, but they are attending the path of the condemned, those who are on their way to be executed.

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And it makes sense that living in this society where you have the

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Roman oppressors, that the Jews themselves would want to act in ways that would bring attention to what they would consider to be something wrong or something unjust, and they would add to the focus through their laments.

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So they're following Jesus and they're lamenting. A great multitude of the people was following Christ, even as they did in his earthly ministry all along the way, whether he was by the

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Sea of Galilee, or he was traveling from one town to the next. The multitudes were always seemingly present there.

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Often Jesus had a hard time getting away from the multitudes. But amongst this great crowd there are the women who mourned and lamented him, and it's with these women that Jesus interacts in this specific moment.

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And of course what they're doing is traditional, it's to be expected. They're not expecting any real response from Jesus or anybody else, this is just what you do.

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They're not giving it perhaps a lot of thought, but they just know that this is proper.

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And Jesus wants them to think about what they're doing in this moment, to think about what's happening as he himself is going to the cross.

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And so he addresses them, he turns to them, freed from the burden of the crossbeam,

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Simon of Cyrene has that, but he turns and says to them, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.

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Now these are not the same women of faith who have been supporting his ministry, who attended his sufferings at the cross.

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These are daughters of Jerusalem, they're identified with the

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Jerusalem home crowd. And he wants them to think about what they're doing and what's really going on.

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He says, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, very interesting, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

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That sounds rather ominous, and it is ominous. Here is a man condemned to die, he's in bad shape, he's so weak he can't even carry his own crossbeam, he's been brutalized, he's been beaten, he's condemned by both the religion and the state.

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And he's saying, don't pity me, pity yourselves.

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Think of your children. Mourn for what is to come.

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He says, for indeed the days are coming, and he means days relevant to them, doesn't he?

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He tells them to mourn for themselves. He tells them to mourn for their children, so the days that are coming are the days that they themselves would experience.

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He says, days are coming in which they will say, blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore and breasts which never nursed.

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What kind of days are those? What kind of days are those? Terrible days, horrific days, days of violence, days of famine, days of war.

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Even in Jesus' counsel to his disciples, when he was talking about the coming judgment upon Jerusalem, he spoke of their needed flight out of Judea to the hills, and said, pray that your flight will not be on the

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Sabbath day, you know, when people wouldn't accept you into their homes as you were traveling through the area, they make it difficult.

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He also said, pray that you won't be nursing children or pregnant because of the hardness of the journey that that would create.

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Same days, violent days, days of danger, days of war. So much so that they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us.

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What are mountains and hills to those who are in distress normally? Places of refuge.

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We read of the Israelites in the days of the judges, and it seemed that when their enemies would come flooding in and taking over their towns and their farmlands and their villages, they would run for the hills.

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That expression, run for the hills, is as old as the hills. And they were going to hide out and outlast their oppressors.

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But in this case, the destruction is so complete, the violence is so assured, the disaster is so overwhelming that the mountains and the hills, which once were seen as places of refuge that they could maybe outlast their opponents, places like even

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Masada, where the last of the Jewish rebels lasted, they were, such would be the disaster that they would call upon the hills and the mountains to crush them, to take them out before the violence caught up with them, before the suffering grew even worse.

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And of course those on Masada did commit suicide before the Romans entered into their walls.

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So what Jesus says here is very startling. I mean, he's going to be crucified, the cruelest form of execution known to man.

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He's condemned. He's about to go suffer horrific things upon the cross. But he says, do not weep for me, weep for yourselves, daughters of Jerusalem, for days are coming, days of disaster, days of war, days of suffering.

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You wonder how they responded, what they thought about that. And then he says in verse 31, something of a proverb, but amazingly applied to the situation.

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He says, for if they do these things, or if men do these things in the greenwood, or in the words, to the greenwood, what will be done in the dry or to the dry?

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The word in there, if your translation is in, it's a location kind of in, not a timeframe kind of in.

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He's talking about men doing things to a type of wood and then to a different type of wood.

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Now who's the greenwood in this passage?

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Jesus is. It's like, you're weeping for me? Don't weep for me.

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Consider yourselves. Look what men do to the greenwood now. How much far worse is it going to be when they do these things to the dry?

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Who's the dry? Jerusalem is. They're the dry. What an interesting analogy and expression.

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And yet, what does Jesus mean by it? What did he say about himself? I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

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I am the vine. You are the branches. In him, in the greenwood, we have life.

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Right? But who's the drywood? Those who are cut off. Those who have been set aside for judgment.

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Those who have no life in themselves. Like that fig tree that Jesus cursed and it withered up and it was dry and ready for tender, ready to be kindled.

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He's saying to them, don't weep for me. He suffers as the greenwood.

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He suffers as the true life for the world. He suffers as the one who is truly connected to God.

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Consider how disastrous it's going to be when they set fire to the drywood. In many ways, we understand that what

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Jesus suffered upon the cross, as he suffered for his own, as he laid down his life for his sheep, he suffered all the hell that we deserve.

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And the suffering was indeed great. But Jesus went to the cross and he had an understanding of what lay beyond the cross.

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Consider the way that Hebrews talks about our Lord putting his face toward that suffering. For the joy of the reward, for what lay beyond, he endured the cross.

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He would be raised from the dead. And he would win unto himself a bride.

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He would bring many sons to glory. How meaningful is this suffering? How valuable, decided from eternity and brought about in history according to all the prophecies.

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Don't weep for me, Jesus says, weep for yourselves. Weep for the utter disaster that comes when they set the fire to the drywood.

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For what good is that? What good comes after that? What would their suffering mean?

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Their suffering would be had outside of Christ. The suffering of judgment, of condemnation, the burning of the drywood would mean that they were not greenwood, they were not alive in Christ.

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Their disaster and their destruction would come in their separation from Christ. Weep for that,

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Jesus says. That's real disaster. That is true disaster.

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Now, when we follow the life of Israel in the Old Testament, you know,

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God promised them, you know, hey, I'm your God, you are my people. I want you, you know,

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I am the Lord, so live this way. And if you live this way, then

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I will bless you, right? I will honor and exalt you as a nation. I'm going to put you up as a pinnacle.

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And the nations are going to see the light of my glory in you, right? Directing everybody to the one true

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God, to the real creator. No, there's not a God of the river and a God of the moon and a

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God of the dead. No. No. No, there's one true God. He created everything. Everybody pay attention to your creator and see what promises he has made and made and put on display through his people.

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But God also promised that if his people, if Israel were to break covenant with him and to be unfaithful, then he said that he would punish them and he would bring wave of disaster after wave of disaster upon them, seeking their return, seeking their repentance.

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But he promised them and said, if you don't and I destroy your city and I bring you low, then he said, the nations are still going to learn something about me.

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They're going to walk by your disaster and they're going to shake their heads and they're going to hiss and they're going to say, wow, why are they so laid waste?

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How did that happen? And the answer is going to be told to these people, to these nations, because they did not obey the

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Lord, because they were not faithful to God. And you see the nations would learn one way or the other about who

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God is by the faithfulness and the blessing of Israel or the unfaithfulness and the curse of Israel.

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Either way, they would learn about who God is. That's how God set it up. But what happens after the

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Messiah comes, who lays upon his own shoulders the mantle of Israel itself, then when they suffer in the rejection of Christ, then when their city is destroyed after the rejection of Christ, then what good is it?

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Where is it now? Jesus said, don't weep for me. Weep for yourselves, daughters of Jerusalem, for what is yet to come.

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Two thoughts about this. One is that often when we are compelled by various forms of art or through various religious traditions to consider the sufferings of Christ, the goal tends to be to draw our sympathy for the sufferings of Christ.

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And indeed, they are great. They were great. And the crucifixion was indeed cruel.

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The beatings he received were indeed cruel. The sufferings he endured on the cross under the wrath of God were indeed unfathomable.

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But consider what Jesus says here to the daughters of Jerusalem. Does he entreat them to sympathize with him?

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Does he compel them to look upon his sufferings and to feel sorry for him?

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He does not. He immediately makes it about where do they stand with God?

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Right? Where do they stand with God? Because suffering was coming to them. And the question really comes down to this.

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Were they going to suffer as dry wood or were they suffer as green wood?

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We go back to Isaiah and we consider the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. We read that Christ as our mediator, as our savior.

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He indeed bears all of our transgressions. He bears our sins. And he is our substitute sacrifice.

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The perfect lamb of God whom God accepts and in whom we are also satisfied. But he also bears our sorrows.

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He also bears our griefs. He bears our sufferings, our weaknesses, our sicknesses.

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So that everything that we experience as Christians in Christ, you know what that is?

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We're not suffering as dry wood. Right? He's the vine, we are the branches, and in him we're green wood.

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And our suffering, whatever it is, whatever its nature, even if we can't classify it perfectly, is always suffering in Christ.

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Right? So, if we're grieving, we grieve as those who still have hope.

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If we suffer, we suffer patiently, asking God to teach us the lessons that we need.

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If we are chastised, we recognize the loving hand of a faithful father. And in all these things, we are not in the situation as these daughters of Jerusalem.

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It's not hopeless. We don't have to look to the hills and the mountains and say, I give up.

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You know, this is just too terrible. We don't have to consider the difficulties and the dangers of a corrupt and wicked world in which we live and say, better that we don't have children.

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Right? I wouldn't want to bring a child into this world. That kind of hopelessness and despair, that's not us.

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We're not the dry wood. We're the green wood. We're in Christ. And so, our suffering has to be understood from that perspective.

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I hope that's encouraging to you. Any questions or thoughts? All right.