He Chose the Nails
A Reflection on the Cross of Christ Including the Ordinance of the Lord’s Supper
HFBC Sunday Morning, November 2, 2014
Long ago, even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the wonderful kindness he has poured out on us because we belong to his dearly loved Son. He is so rich in kindness that he purchase our freedom through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven…
God’s secret plan has now ben revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Chris, designed long ago according to his good pleasure. And this ins his plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because of Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us from the beginning, and all things happen just as he decided long ago.
Ephesians 1:4-7, 9-11 (NLT)
And part of that decision was that He would give us great gifts. When we survey the scene of the cross we see many of these gifts. The cross itself , the nails, the crown of thorns, a wine soaked sponge and a sign written mockingly but proclaiming he truth, “Jesus, King of the Jews.” All of these are divine gifts intended to grab our attention, to hold our gaze and to make us breathlessly whisper, “You did this for me?”
As we reflect upon our Savior this morning, as we think about God’s glory and His wonderful plan, as we remember the cross, as we consider his broken body and shed blood let’s pause and listen. We may just hear him whisper, “I did it for you.”
Hymn: Tell Me the Story of Jesus (220 Baptist Hymnal) 1,2,3
The story of Jesus is one filled with amazing acts of self-denial. Consider the fact that he swapped eternity for calendars. Think about it, Scripture says that the number of God’s years is unsearchable, there has never been a time when God was not. God is not bound by time. But when Jesus came to earth that changed, he heard a phrase never used in heaven, “your time is up.” As a child he had to leave the temple because his time was us, as a man he had to leave Nazareth because his time was up, as the Savior he had to die because his time was up. He also came and lived among us in a human body. That may not sound so sacrificial but consider who his is. He is God. The boundless spirit spoken of by David in Psalm 139:
Where can I go to get away from your Spirit? Where can I run from you? If I go to the heavens, you are there. If I lie down in the grave, you are there. If I rise with the sun in the east and settle in the west beyond the sea, even there you would guide me.”
There is no place where God is not. Yet when Jesus became a man he was bound, imprisoned in flesh. Restricted by muscles that tire and eyelids that get heavy. his limitless reach was limited to the stretch of an arm and the pace of human feet. not once did he choose to reclaim his boundlessness for selfish comfort. he never turned the hard ground into a soft bed, he never transported himself from Samaria to Jerusalem with out using his two human feet and he did not paralyze the hand of the soldier who nailed him to the cross or strike the one blind who fashioned the crown of thorns. Instead he accepted the nails and the thorns, not only the ones upon his brow but also the thorns of our sins upon his flesh. That is the most amazing of his sacrifices. he who was sinless accepted the spiny, prickly, cutting thorns of our sins as they pierce not his head but his heart. But even so Jesus Chris remained ever faithful to his purpose and he did if for God’s glory and our good.
Hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness (96 Baptist Hymnal) 1,3
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide; strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
Why can we have peace that endures and bright hope for tomorrow? Because we have pardon from our sins. Those nails that held Jesus to the cross held something else as well. They held a list, a lengthy list, of each of our sins. If we were to write on a piece of paper each sin we have committed, every weakness, every shortcoming, we would not want it to be seen by anyone else. Yet it already has been. It was posted on the cross of Jesus Christ. Let’s reflect upon the cross of Calvary for a moment.
Try to imagine as “the soldiers shove the Carpenter to the ground and stretch his arms against the beams. One presses a knee against a forearm and a spike against a hand. Jesus turns his face toward the nail just as the soldier lifts a hammer to strike it. Couldn’t Jesus have stopped him? With a flex of the biceps, with a clench of the fist, he could have resisted, Is this not the same hand that stilled the sea? Cleansed the Temple? Summoned the dead? But the fist doesn’t clench…and the moment isn’t aborted. The hammer rings and skin rips ad the blood egis to drip, then flow. Then the questions follow. Why? Why didn’t Jesus resist? Because he loved us we reply. That is true, wonderfully true but only partially true. There is more to his reason. He saw something that made him stay. As the soldier pressed his arm, Jesus rolled his head to the side, and with his cheek resting on the wood on the beam he saw: A hammer, yes; a nail, yes; the soldier, yes. But he saw something else. He saw the hand of God. He saw the fingers that had formed Adam out of clay and that had written in stone on the ten commandments. With a wave, this hand had toppled Babel’s tower and split the Red Sea. From this hand flew the locusts that plagued Egypt and the Raven that fed Elijah. He saw the mighty hand of God. The crowd at the cross concluded that the purpose of the pounding was to fix the hands of Christ to the beam. But they were only half-right. We can’t fault them for missing the other half. They couldn’t see it. But Jesus could. And heaven could. And we can. Through the eyes of Scripture we see what others missed but what Jesus saw.
He canceled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross.
Colossians 2:14
Between his hand and the wood there was a list. A long list. A list of our mistakes: our lusts and lies and greedy moments. A list of our sins. So the hands of Jesus opened up. Had the soldier hesitated, Jesus himself would have swung he hammer. he knew how; he was no stranger to the driving of nails. As a carpenter he knew what it took. And as a Savior he knew what it meant. He knew that the purpose of the nail was to place your sins where they could be hidden by his sacrifice and covered by his blood. So Jesus himself swung the hammer. The same hand that stilled the sea stills our guilt. The same hand that cleansed the Temple cleanses our hears. The hand is the hand of God. The nails is the nail of God. And as the hands of Jesus opened for the nail, the doors of heaven opened for us.” So let us seek this wonderful Savior and follow him as our shepherd.
Hymn: Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us (161 Baptist Hymnal) 1,2,3,4
A pastor received a call from a new father. He wanted the pastor to be present when he told his wife she had given birth to a beautiful baby boy, healthy in every way, except the newborn had no ears. The baby had auditory openings and all the inner ear parts necessary to receive sound, but no fleshly parts outside which we know as ears. The doctors assured the parents that the problem would be corrected when his growth was complete and a donor was found. School was tough for the boy. Many times he came home crying, “I’m a freak!” He became aware of the stares, whispers, and taunts of the other kids. He grew up learning to live with this. He became an excellent student and entered college to study geology. One day he received a call from his father saying, “Well son, we have finally found a donor. The operation will be this summer. Following the operation, he was so happy! His new ears were beautiful. He graduated with honors and moved to the Midwest to work. One day he received a call from his dad saying that he needed to come home because his mother had had a heart attack. he soon arrived, only to learn that his mother had died. At the funeral home his dad called him over to the casket, pushed back his dear mother’s hair to show the son: his mother had no ears. This moving and true story brings to us only a glimpse of God’s great love. This mother gave a part of herself to her son who had a deep need. God however gave not his ears, but His all, to us through His blessed Son!”
Let’s consider for a moment the sacrifice of the Mother and that of God. I truly believe that every parent here would make deep personal sacrifices for their children, we can identify with this lady. But if someone were to give us a pencil and a piece of paper and ask us to make a list of people for whom we would allow our children to be sacrificed for, our lists would be very short, in fact mine and I suspect yours would be empty. I wouldn’t even need time to consider the question. But God’s list was long, it was a list that included my name and yours. This is the greatest sacrifice in all of history and because of that, Christ should be our life. After looking back upon the great love he has poured out upon us we should then look forward “proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes” again. christ Jesus should be the object of our worship, the focus of our love and the purpose of our lives. He should be more important to us than the air we breath and the bread we eat.
Hymn: Wonderful Cross (239 Baptist Hymnal) 1,2, chorus, 3, chorus
Ordinance of The Lord’s Supper
Hymn: In Christ Alone (506 Baptist Hymnal) 1,2,3,4
Let’s return to the scene of the cross for a moment. The hill is quiet now. Not still but quiet. For the first time all day there is no noise. The clamor began to subside when the darkness—that pus sling midday darkness—fell. Like water douses a fire, the shadows doused the ridicule. No more taunts. No more jokes. No more jesting. And, in time, no more mockers. One by one the onlookers turned and began the descent. That is, all the onlookers except you and me. We did not leave. We came to learn. And so we linger in the semidarkness and listen. We listen to the soldiers cursing, the passerby questioning, and women weeping. But most of all, we listen to the trie of dying men groaning. Hoarse, thirsty groans. They groan with each rolling of the head and movement of the legs. But as minutes become hours, these groans diminish. The three seem dead. Were it not for the labored breathing, you would think they were. Then he screams. As if someone had yanked his hair, the back of his head slams against the sign that bears his name, and he screams. Like a dagger cuts the curtain, his scream cut the dark. Standing as strain as the nails permit, he cries as one calling for a lost friend, “Eloi! MY God.” Ignoring the volcano of erupting pain, he pushes upward until his shoulders are higher than his nailed hands. “Why have you forsaken me?” The soldiers stare. The weeping of the women ceases. One of the Pharisees sneers sarcastically, “He’s calling Elijah.” No one laughs. He’s shouted a question to the heavens, and you half expect heaven to shout one in return. And apparently it did. For the face of Jesus softens, and an afternoon dawn breaks as he speaks a final time. “It is finished. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
As he gives his final breath, the earth gives a sudden stir. A rock rolls, and a soldier stumbles. Then as suddenly as the silence was broken, the silence returns. Broken only by a confession from the unlikely lips of a Roman soldier, “Surely this was the Son of God!”
We need to make this confession this morning, many of us have, let’s renew our commitment to him thanking Him for his sacrifice. Perhaps there is someone here this morning that has never uttered those words, accept his sacrifice today. Or perhaps you simply need to thank him again, to recommit to worshipping him in all you do. What ever your need, come this morning or pray where you are as we sing.
Hymn: Lord Here Am I (……Baptist Hymnal)
Matthew 26:30 says that when the supper was completed they sang a hymn and went out. They worshipped God. Let’s do that now as we dismiss.
Hymn: As We Turn to Leave this Place
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