It’s amazing that in spite of Christmas being a celebration of the birth of Christ, essentially celebrating Jesus’ birthday, the enemy is doing everything he can to detract from the true meaning and diminish people’s recognition of what it is all about. I can’t imagine that our culture would tolerate the kind of animosity that is happening today towards Christmas if it were a celebration of any other historical or religious figure’s birthday.
But even so, Christmas is still a very popular holiday celebrated the world over. However, I’m afraid that even when we recognize Christmas for what it truly is, the birth of Jesus, we still often fall short of understanding the real reason for the season. It’s not too difficult to be sympathetic towards a little baby being born on a cold night in a manger because there is no room for them in the inn. It’s somewhat easy to be sentimental about young mother and father taking refuge in a stable and having a baby and lying him in a manger. It’s a beautiful story, a story that evokes compassion and sympathy and sentimentality. And if we leave it there, then that is all that it is. A sentimental story. A story that has a sad ending. A poor baby who grew into an innocent man who went around doing good, who died as a martyr at 33 years of age.
The fact is though that the story may begin in sympathy, but it ends in triumph. What seemed to be the untimely, sad end of Christ’s life as we look at chapter 23, is actually the triumph of the ages. It is the greatest victory of all time. . The real reason for Christmas, the reason that Jesus came to earth as a baby in a manger, was to go to the cross. Jesus came to earth to die on the cross, to defeat the enemy, to take away the sting of death, to purchase reconciliation for man with God by offering Himself as a sacrifice at Calvary.
There is no doubt that Jesus was an actual, historical figure who walked the earth 2000 years ago. Historians agree that this is an undeniable fact. And yet simply believing this fact will not save you. And to the same extent, there is no saving grace in having a sentimental feeling towards Jesus as a baby in a manger. There is no saving grace in having sympathy for an innocent man being put to death on a cross.
And today’s passage illustrates that fact very well. As we look at Jesus walking through Jerusalem to the hill outside the city called Calvary, the Place of the Skull, there is a crowd following Him. It is made up of Roman soldiers, the high priests and scribes, members of the Sanhedrin, and the mob that called for His crucifixion before Pilate. But as this crowd winds through the narrow city streets, it attracts a large crowd of what we might call sympathizers. People that may have been attracted to Jesus at some point during His ministry. Many of them may have been there when He came into town just a week before riding on a donkey, and offered up their voices to cry “Hosanna!” along with the rest of the multitude. And included in this crowd, Luke tells us in vs. 27, are some women who were mourning and lamenting for Him.
Now at first glance this could be viewed in a positive light. These women obviously had some sense of the injustice of this act perpetrated on an innocent man. They must have had a certain fondness for the person of Jesus. They were sympathetic towards His suffering. After all, I’m sure they had heard of the kind things He had done in healing the sick. They had some sort of sentimental feelings towards Him as a person. They had compassion for the fact that this kind, gentle man who had done such good things had been arrested and wrongfully accused, sentenced to die and was now beaten and bruised and bloodied, walking through the city on His way to the cross.
These women were sympathetic to Jesus’ condition. They were feeling sorry for Him. They had sentimental feelings about Him and so they mourned for Him. They were wailing as was the custom of that day to wail for the dead or dying. Their emotions were running high. Their tears were flowing. And I would think that many of us if we were there that day would have thought such sentimental expressions of sympathy were appropriate. I suspect that very similar emotional expressions are a part of many contemporary worship services even today and might be considered to be honoring to Christ.
But Jesus does something extraordinarily unexpected in response to their sympathy. He rebukes them. Even though He has been beaten repeatedly in His face, lashed 39 times with a barb tipped whip until He is literally at the point of death, hasn’t eaten or drank in many hours and suffered a sleepless night at the hands of His enemies, He turns around to these women that are mourning and lamenting for Him and rather than thanking them for their sympathy or acknowledging their sentiments, He uses what little strength He has left to rebuke them. Now that is an extraordinary thing and worthy of our consideration.
Let’s look at what He says in vs. 28, “But Jesus turning to them said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.’” Now how are we to understand this? Is Jesus just snapping at these poor women because He is under a lot of stress and their wailing is getting on His nerves? Or rather is Jesus is still teaching, still concerned about the needs of others, even in this moment of agony? I would have to say it was the latter. Jesus uses this opportunity to teach one final lesson before the cross. Even in the midst of all the anguish that He is going through at that moment, He is not thinking of Himself, but of them.
So we must ask ourselves, why does Jesus tell the women not to weep for Him? Well first of all, Jesus tells them not to weep for Him because He had come into the world to go to the cross. They did not understand what was happening. This wasn’t a tragedy that required their sympathy. He was fulfilling His purpose. When Jesus prayed the night before in the upper room He prayed as recorded in John 12:27 "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” Jesus suffered the humility of coming to earth as a baby in a manger so that one day He would deliberately make that walk to Calvary to die on the cross. It was the purpose of His incarnation. Hebrews 2:9 says, “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” Jesus tells these women not to weep for Him because this is no unfortunate circumstance, but rather He is deliberately going to His death to die in our place so that we might live.
Secondly, Jesus says do not weep for Me because He knows what is actually happening. The women think that this is some sort of tragic coincidence and so they wail and mourn. But Jesus knows that what is happening is not some cosmic accident, but the divine plan of God. Not just the crazed actions of angry men, but the predetermined plan of God. Peter would later characterize this day as fulfilling the plan of God when He preached on the day of Pentecost, saying in Acts 2:23 “this [Jesus], delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”
Thirdly, Jesus tells them not to weep for Him because He knows that what He does will glorify the Father as nothing else can ever do. His sacrifice for our sins glorifies the Father, because it manifests God’s love for the world in the most exquisite way possible. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him shall have eternal life.” The love of God for sinners required Him to offer up His only Son on a cruel cross so that He might save us from death.
Jesus understood what love meant. Those women along the road that day did not understand love. They understood sentimentality. They understood emotionalism. They understood sympathy. But they did not understand love. However, God understood love and He demonstrated agape love to the fullest expression by offering up Jesus on the cross for us. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God does not demonstrate sentimental or superficial love for us, but sacrificial love, by offering His only Son to die in our place. That is how we are to understand love. Not in terms of emotion, or in terms of sentiment, but in terms of sacrifice. 1John 4:19 “We love, (we understand love) because He first loved us.”
Fourthly, Jesus tells them not to weep for Him because He knows the consequences of the cross. For Him, the joy set before Him was more than worth the sacrifice. In John 12:31 Jesus said concerning His impending death, “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” The consequence of the cross is that sin is defeated, Satan is thrown down and the sting of death is taken away. He knows what the victory means. That if He is lifted up on the cross on Calvary’s hill, He will draw all men to Himself that they might be saved. The sacrifice is well worth the victory.
Col. 2:13-15 “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” That is a reference to the rulers, the powers of darkness, the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places spoken of in Ephesians 6. Jesus triumphed over them at the cross, shouting out in victory “It is finished!” Jesus knows the consequences of the cross, therefore He tells the women not to weep for Him. This is no accident, this is His destiny, the divine plan of God set before the foundation of the world so that men might be reconciled to God and nothing will stop Him from completing His mission.
So Jesus says to the women who were lamenting Him, “Don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.” Why such a rebuke? Why does Jesus take what precious little energy He has left to offer this stirring rebuke to these well meaning women? Well, the answer is simple. He says weep for yourselves because you don’t really know who I am. Weep for yourselves because of your ignorance concerning Me. And weep because of your ignorance for your own condition. Weep for your sins, for your own guilty condition before God.
James 4:8-10 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” Jesus tells these women to weep for themselves and for their children because that is the way of repentance, and the way of repentance is the path to righteousness before God. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Secondly, weep for yourselves and your children because you don’t understand the judgment of God is coming upon you. Jesus had warned the citizens of Jerusalem in Luke 13:34-35 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! Behold, your house is left to you desolate; and I say to you, you will not see Me until the time comes when you say, 'BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!'"
They did not understand that they were putting to death the very Son of God. They did not understand that God would pour out His wrath upon them for their rejection of His Son, just as Jesus had prophesied, that the kingdom would be taken away from them and given to others who would make good use of it. And in AD 70, we know that Rome entered Jerusalem and massacred hundreds of thousands in one day and burned the city and the temple. Children were dashed to the ground as their mothers watched in horror as the day of judgment came upon Israel for it’s rejection of the Messiah.
Jesus says weep for yourselves and for your children, for the days are coming as prophesied when such a horror will fall upon Jerusalem that they will say “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed. Then they will begin TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, ‘FALL ON US,’ AND TO THE HILLS, ‘COVER US.’ It would be better to be barren in those coming days of judgment than to see the destruction of your children. And the terror of those days would be such that men and women would call out for the mountains to fall on them and destroy them, rather than fall into the hands of the soldiers.
Jesus says weep for yourselves and your children, because if they do these things when the tree is green, what will they do in the dry. That means that if they do this to the innocent, meaning Himself, then what will they do to the impenitent and rebellious? What will happen to you who reject the Savior of the world? If they crucify the Holy Son of God, then what punishment is deserved by those that rejected Him? Listen, if you die in your sins, after so magnificent a sacrifice was offered for you, then you deserve to suffer the terrors of hell for eternity. Jesus suffered and died such a horrible death so that He might taste death for us. But if we reject Him and His offer of salvation, then the cross is of no use to us. It merely condemns us to a greater condemnation, because we trampled underfoot the blood of Jesus Christ. We considered it worthless.
So weep for yourselves because of the ignorance of the world who doesn’t understand that they are lost and will perish for eternity without Christ. Weep for yourselves and for your children because they did not understand their need for the cross. Listen, the sentimentality and sympathy of men can be a detriment to your discipleship if you believe that suffering and sacrifice are not part of God’s plan for you. Not understanding how God uses suffering to conform us to the image of Jesus, will impede your discipleship and cause you to question the purpose of God.
Probably the greatest skateboarder of the 1970’s, which was really when skateboarding started to become popular, was a guy named Jay Adams. I remember seeing him in the skateboarding magazines when I was a teenager. He rose to world wide fame at a young age as part of the Zephyr skateboard team which was from Dogtown, an area near Venice, Ca. Jay was a natural talent and a real innovator of what has became modern skateboarding. But like a lot of people from that era, Jay became involved in drugs and partying from a young age. As he got older, that lifestyle led him into crime and street gang violence and he ended up spending a lot of time in prison. But the amazing thing was about 10 or 12 years ago Jay Adams became saved. I remember hearing about it when my son and I were in Hawaii at the time. Jay showed up at a Bible study and some of our friends were there and they heard his testimony.
But not long after that I heard that Jay was arrested and put in prison again, presumably from an old outstanding warrant. I must say even though I really wanted to believe Jay was truly saved, I wondered about his salvation. From time to time though I ran across something in a magazine or on the internet that he said or did which gave me hope. Eventually he got out of prison, and he seemed to be doing ok. He was married, had a family and he experienced a resurgence in his career. Hollywood even made a movie about Dogtown and he was featured prominently in the story. But then in August of this year, just as it seemed Jay’s life was finally getting together and things were working out, he died of a heart attack while surfing in Mexico on vacation with his wife. He was 53 years old. It seemed like such a tragedy.
Then just the other day I happened to come across a video of Jay’s memorial service. It was held at a large church in Los Angeles. Hundreds of people were in attendance which included a large number of older skaters who had been his friends. These guys were some of the most hard core looking guys you could imagine. All tattooed up and a lot of them with pretty gnarly backgrounds. And there were two pastors that preached at that service as well as a testimony given by another professional skater named Christian Hosoi, who was also a born again Christian. It was really amazing to hear their stories about the Jay Adams that they knew that had been transformed by the power of Christ. One pastor read several letters written by Jay while in prison in which he talked at length about how God was changing him daily as he studied his Bible. And as I heard these three men’s testimonies, I was happy to be confirmed in my hope that Jay Adams was truly a man of God. He wasn’t perfect, and he did stumble on more than one occasion, but he had been saved and transformed by the power of the gospel.
But there was still the nagging question of why would God take this man, just when his life seemed to be getting on track, especially considering how his life could have been effective at reaching a lot of people. Why did God take him now? And the answer came in a couple of verses from one of the messages; Isaiah 53:10-11 “But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” What that says in a nutshell was this; by the death of One, many were made righteous. And though that verse is talking about Jesus, it also applies to Jay’s life. By his death, many were made righteous. At the conclusion of that service, the preacher gave a simple invitation and a dozen old friends of Jay’s came up to the altar to receive Christ. God often uses suffering and trials which seem incomprehensible to us, for the good of the kingdom of God. Our part is to trust Him that He knows what is best and yield ourselves to be used by Him.
Now there was one other person on the road to Calvary that morning that did see the value of the cross. And I believe that person is given here as an illustration of what it means to understand the significance of the cross. That person was Simon of Cyrene. Luke doesn’t tell us a lot about this man, but we can find mention of Him in other scriptures which helps us to understand who he was. He was probably a Jew, living in what is now known as Libya, in Northern Africa. He was undoubtedly in Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. So he would have been a God fearing Jew that had come from the country into Jerusalem to worship God.
And though we are not told a lot about this man at this point, we do know that he was pressed into service by the Roman soldiers to carry the cross of Christ. This happened just before Jesus spoke to the women along the road. Perhaps Jesus was so weakened by the flogging and the beatings that he had endured, along with a sleepless night and the loss of blood and so forth, that they wanted to be sure that Jesus made it to the cross without dying along the way. Or maybe they wanted to get there quicker and so they picked out a strong looking passerby to carry the cross of Jesus so they could get along with their business.
But the scripture is careful to tell us that after taking up the cross Simon followed behind Jesus. And here we have a picture of what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ. This guy is following his own plan and purpose, and then one day he is suddenly face to face with Jesus Christ, and he takes up his cross and follows Him to Calvary. Jesus made the cost of discipleship clear earlier in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” He said in Luke 14:27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” And again in Matt. 10:38, "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”
Listen, Jesus never offered a cross-less salvation. He never offered a blood-less Christianity. Modern Christianity today wants to present a blood-less, cross-less Christianity where all the sacrifice was done by Christ so that we can be forgiven and then get on with our life. Come as you are and stay as you are. Get your get out of hell card and carry on. But Jesus never teaches that. He teaches that just as He went to the cross, so we are to take up our cross and follow Him. Faith in Christ’s death on the cross produces our justification, which in turn produces our sanctification which requires crucifying our flesh and it’s desires and obeying the Spirit of God. Gal. 5:24 “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
Gal. 2:20 tells us what that looks like; "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” In other words, I no longer live for myself, no longer live like my flesh, my passions tell me to live, but I live now as the Spirit tells me to live. I crucify the passions of my flesh and let Christ live through my body. That is the picture that we see in Simon the Cyrene leaving the path that he was following, and picking up the cross and following Jesus.
Now I’m sure someone will say, “well Roy, that’s a nice illustration, but how do we know that Simon the Cyrene became a believer? He’s just some poor guy who carried the cross of Christ, but we don’t really know what became of him.” Well, actually there are a couple of indications that he was a believer, and furthermore his family came to believe in Christ. When Mark writes his account of this event, he includes the information in Mark 15:21 that Simon was the father of Rufus and Alexander. The point being that the church Mark was writing to would have known these two brothers as they were a part of their congregation. Furthermore, Paul mentions Rufus in Romans 16 and his mother who also was a Christian and esteemed by the apostle. So we can be sure that this experience on the road to Calvary was a life changing experience for Simon as he followed Jesus, carrying His cross.
Unlike the superficial women that lamented Jesus on that walk, Simon undoubtedly came to say, as the centurion did when witnessing Christ at the cross, “truly this was the Son of God.” He came to understand the purpose of Christ’s crucifixion as he shouldered the cross of Christ and followed after Him. And as such he is a great illustration for us of someone who has entered into the fellowship of His sufferings.
Paul, talking about the fellowship we have in the sufferings of Christ describes what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus in Phil. 3:8-11, “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
I will close today by asking you a question. What effect has the cross of Christ had on you? Does it just evoke a feeling of sympathy? Does the person of Christ, or the birth of Christ produce only sentimental feelings? Listen, Jesus Christ doesn’t ask for, nor does He desire our sympathy. The cross of Christ is designed to produce in us repentance. Weep for yourselves and for your children. Let His example of love for us become our expression of love for Him. Not a superficial sentimentality, but a sacrificial love for Christ which considers everything that I once considered gain as loss, in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus.
What use is it to gain the whole world and lose your own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for His soul? The answer is everything. I surrender all. I completely surrender my heart to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He is worth it all. Whatever loss I have to surrender in this life is worth it for the sake of Christ. Can you say that this morning? Have you wept over your sinfulness? Have you trusted in Christ as your Savior? Have you experienced forgiveness for your sins? I pray that today is the day of your salvation and that no one here would reject the offer of salvation purchased by the blood of the Son of God.
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