Outside Jerusalem there stands a hill, which in the Hebrew is called Golgotha. Sometimes in English it is called Calvary, derived from the Latin, which itself means, as the Hebrew does, place of the skull. It is debated whether that name came from the shape of the hill, or its use as a place of execution, or for some other reason. But one day, about 2,000 years ago, an execution took place at that location that set an indelible mark on human history. A man hung upon a central cross on the hill of Calvary. He was flanked by two others. His name was Jesus of Nazareth. He was the particular object of the attention of the crowds who gathered around those crosses on that fateful day. He was numbered among transgressors, convicted of grievous crimes. He himself was there in the place of a murderous rebel known as Barabbas, there by the people's demand that Barabbas be set free and Jesus of Nazareth be crucified. as he hung there on that cross. He had already been brutally treated for hours. He had experienced a sleep-deprived night being transferred from location to location. He had undergone fake trials on trumped-up charges He had endured cruel beatings and humiliating ridicule. He was now the object of unceasing taunts and scoffing. He was now subjected to an excruciating execution over extended hours. Why was he there? this Jesus of Nazareth. Why did he hang upon a Roman cross outside Jerusalem on Calvary's hill? Here we see the horror of man's depravity. Scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of the Jewish people, righteous men, upstanding citizens in society, men respected and held with reverence and in awe. These men approved these proceedings simply out of envy. Such is the heart of the righteous. The high aspiring pilot, the Roman governor of the region, he endorsed the barbarity. It was simply out of self-preservation. calloused soldiers relishing the brutality participated in the cruelty. You will find similar horrors perpetrated in different parts of the world today. And don't think that it's just the gang members. Don't think that it is just those who are dragged up from the gutter of society. Given the right circumstances, any high-ranking official, any upstanding member of society, even you, could stoop to these things. He was despised by men. forsaken by them for their own ends. But that was not all. That doesn't satisfy the question, why was he there upon that central cross on Calvary's Hill? All of the physical anguish was nothing to the hell that he endured in the darkness of divine forsakenness on that cross. Stricken, smitten and afflicted, see him dying on the tree. Many hands were raised to wound him. None would interpose to save, but the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that justice gave. Who can know the horrors of the cross? Who can plumb the depths of the agony of the anguish of Jesus of Nazareth as he hung upon that cross on that fateful day. Why was he there? He was pierced by a divine sword for transgression. The all-knowing All-seeing, holy, righteous, just eye of the Creator was upon him as he hung there upon that cross. The searching sight of the omnipotent God plumbed the depths of his heart went over the actions of his life, saw thought and word and deed. And what did he find there? As the all-seeing eye of God looked upon Jesus of Nazareth, what did he behold? He beheld in this man every kind of sexual immorality. He beheld in this man the deepest, darkest brands of idolatry. He saw in this man Every evil desire. A lying tongue. A covetous heart. The Holy God looked upon Jesus of Nazareth and this is what he saw. And the sword of divine justice pierced him there. He was crushed under the weight of iniquity, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, the passions of the flesh. These all scarred and marred the visage of the one that was beheld by the Holy God who looked upon Jesus of Nazareth as he hung upon that cross outside Jerusalem and crushed him there. He was inflicted with the wounds of divine chastisement because he was a rebel. He did not love the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength, this Jesus of Nazareth, as he hung upon that cross. He did not love his neighbour as himself. great commandments given by the living God for this world to observe and obey, Jesus, it would appear, had failed. For he was inflicted and chastised as a rebel before a holy God. That is why Jesus hung upon that cross and you say to me, but Jesus wasn't like that. Jesus' heart wasn't filled with these thoughts, these ideas, these plans, these purposes. He was not a sexually immoral man. He wasn't an idolater. He never lied. All his words were true. And as for a covetous heart, he was a man of compassion that sold himself to serving others and giving of himself to others. There was no unrighteous anger in him, no malice in his heart, no obscenity upon his lips. And he loved God. with all of his heart and all of his mind and all of his soul and all of his strength and his neighbor as himself. This is the Jesus of Nazareth that I know. This is the one who is presented to us in the gospels. But as he hung upon that cross, he was a different man. For as he hung upon that cross, he hung in the place of others. He bore their sins in his body on that cross. Paul says to the Colossians, you see the sexually immoral, you see the impure, You see those of evil passion and desire, you see the covetous and the idolatrous, you see the angry, the wrathful, the ones with malice and slander on their lips, the one whose thoughts are obscene. You see that? You were once one of them. So how can they get into heaven? How can they approach a holy God and not be consumed? How can they, who as Paul says to the Ephesians, once submitted to the prince of darkness and followed the passions of the flesh, how can they approach a perfect, a pure, a holy God? There is no way that such people can approach a holy God. His justice would consume them. And that's why Jesus hung on that cross. He went there in their place. He went there to bear their sins. He went there to be condemned in their stead. It was their immorality. It was their passion, it was their anger and malice, it was their sin that he bore and suffered under so that he was pierced with a divine sword and crushed under divine justice and wounded by divine chastisement. And so Jesus hung And so he suffered. And so he was forsaken by God. And endured the hellish judgement of holiness. And he died. And he was buried. And this Jesus, God raised. This sin-cursed Jesus, God raised. This justice-condemned Jesus, God raised. This death-enthralled Jesus, God raised. The God who is perfect in his righteousness and pure in his holiness raised him. The God who cannot look upon iniquity and cannot stand in the presence of sin, God raised him. The God who year in and year out for centuries has dispatched sinners to an eternal grave. This God raised him. The sin-cursed, justice-condemned, death-gripped Jesus from the dead. How can it be? How can it be that he should bear the righteous justice of a holy God for sin and live? It never happened before. No one had ever escaped the clutches of death before. No one had ever risen from the grave before in order to stand in the very presence of the Holy God and look upon his perfection and live before. None had done it before. How can this one do it? This Jesus of Nazareth despised, forsaken by men, judged and condemned by God. How could he rise from the dead? Well, this Jesus of Nazareth didn't have his Genesis in Bethlehem. He came from heaven. He was the humble son of God, who emptied himself of glory and honour to become a man of sorrows in this world and acquainted with grief. To become a servant, obedient even to the point of death, And so he lived on earth. He lived here among men and women and boys and girls, the offspring of Adam, afflicted with the disease of sin that permeated every fiber of their being, every thought and every word and every action corrupted by this sinful nature. And he came to this earth as the promised son of Adam to live in righteousness and holiness among a sinful people. He came and he delivered people from sickness and from demons for he had authority. He was the eternally reigning son of David whom God had promised. He was sovereign over all. He even raised the dead. For he is the life-preserving ark of Noah. who shields from judgment and therefore from death. Yet he died, this son of God, this son of Adam, this son of David, this one like Noah. He died. He died the death of sinners. He died as the Lamb of God. who came into the world to save sinners. He came as that sacrifice that would atone for sin and satisfy the wrath of God's justice against sinners and bearing in his own body on the tree the sins of his people, he died in their place and he was buried in a tomb. And this sin-bearing Jesus God raised. He raised him from the dead. For death could not hold the author of life. Death could not cling to the one who with a word of his will brought all things into existence. And yet that great Creator and Sustainer of all things, the Eternal Son of God came as a propitiatory sacrifice, that is He came into this world to deflect and absorb the wrath of God that His people deserved. He absorbed the full measure of God's wrath on behalf of His people. and the infinite Son of God swallowed up the finite, and the immortal Son of God embraced mortality and brought it back to life again, for death could not hold him. Jesus satisfied all of the justice of God and lived. All those sins imputed to him and justly condemned in him, he bore them and he freed his people from death's claim upon them. And there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. This glorious Jesus, God raised. Come to this glorious Jesus. Come to him now in repentance, come to him in faith, come and receive with gratitude the life that he purchased through his death and that he has secured by his resurrection. For he sits enthroned upon the throne of God in heaven, and he has all authority in heaven and on earth, and there is nothing that can prevent those who come to him for life from receiving the life that he purchased through his death. It is as secure as his reign is in heaven. eternal, infinite, transcendent, and glorious. Let's pray. Almighty God, help us to see in Jesus the great and glorious Saviour that you have provided for this world Oh how can we plumb the depths of the riches that he has secured for those who will trust in him? We will spend eternity exploring the greatness of your love for us in Jesus Christ the Saviour. We will spend eternity exploring the realities of all that he has done for us to secure life eternal. Help us, we pray, that even while we live yet in this world of wretchedness and sin, that we may see in Jesus our hope and our life. And clinging to him by faith, may we walk with him, even through the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil. For he will bring us into the abundantly green and water-filled valleys of the paradise that he is preparing for us. And what joy will be ours then, and forevermore, Hasten the day, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.