Preached in Markham Baptist Church, April 9, 2006

 “When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, Surely he was the Son of God.”

He is no stranger to death.  As a Roman centurion he is in charge of a hundred men.  He has seen war and he has seen men die. He is no stranger to death.

And crucifixions?  He has attended hundreds.  He has seen men writhe in pain.  He has heard the curses and the cries for mercy though he would not answer their cries.  They are criminals after all, not soldiers of Imperial Rome. The shame they bear they deserve.  The death is earned. The pain they endure is justified.    

And make no mistake - the pain is agonizing.  Death by hanging or electrocution is a walk in the park compared to the excruciating agony of crucifixion.  In fact, even the word excruciating comes from the Latin word crucis, meaning cross.  It is an agonizing death by slow suffocation. 

When the Phoenicians had invented crucifixion 600 years before they would nail a man stretched tight to the cross and death would take about half an hour.  The person would die of suffocation as the weight of their body would paralyze the muscles of their chest and breathing would be impossible.

But the Romans, they very cunningly would bend a man’s knees slightly, thus raising the feet six or eight inches.  And this slight modification would extend the agony for hours even days if the man was in good physical shape.  A person who is suffocating, hanging on the cross, soon realizes that if one presses down on the spikes in his feet he can lift himself up and allow his lungs to expand and take in air.  He’d lift himself up and then sink down, down, down.  And slowly suffocate. Lift himself up and then sink down, down, down.  And slowly suffocate. A man could suffer for a long time.

The centurion has seen it hundreds of times.  He is no stranger to death.  There are three being crucified on this day.  

It is the sixth hour and the two thieves are shivering in the cold.  One continues to call out curses desiring an end, one weeps. 

But the one in the middle, the one Pilate mockingly calls “King of the Jews”… the Jews mockingly call him the Son of God, and his followers call him Jesus… whatever he is called, the centurion cannot take his eyes off of him.  He is different.  While the centurion is no stranger to death he has never, never, never seen a man die like this.

In all likelihood the centurion has witnessed Jesus through the whole ordeal, from the arrest to the crucifixion.  He has seen Jesus suffer the horrific whipping. It was his men who probably stripped Jesus, put a scarlet robe on Him, fashioned a crown out of thorns and pushed into His brow so that blood would run down His face.  They took a staff and thrust it into His hands, mocking Him saying, “Hail, king of the Jews.”  They repeatedly strike Jesus with the staff as they spit upon Him, taunt Him, mistreat Him in every way. 

And Jesus endures it all without one curse, or a threat.  No pleading for mercy, no begging the centurion to finish Him off. 

The centurion has seen his own men (he was in charge of 100), seasoned warriors cry out in the face of death.  He has heard the thick, liquid gurgle of a final cry in blood.  A man after suffering a mortal wound would drown in his own blood.  He had heard the best of his men whimper, weep, curse the pain.  O how they would thrash and curse.  Strong, strapping men, they would beg their commander to finish them off, to end the pain – and he would – as a matter of duty, of honour.  He’d run his own mortally wounded soldiers through cleanly as their faces would be stretched with pain and their mouths filled with curses.  

But nothing like that comes from the lips of Jesus.  He says very little. The words He does speak are filled with compassion, forgiveness.  He prays for those who call for His death, mock Him and abuse Him, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

The centurion is no stranger to death but he has never seen anyone die like this.  And so, he cannot take his eyes off Him. 

And it with all this in his mind that the earthquake hits. He feels the earth move under his feet and he and his men who were guarding Jesus exclaim, “Surely he was the Son of God.” 

You’ll notice that the text does say in a footnote that there is a possibility that the centurion said “Surely he was a son of God.”  The text is not clear - the Greek noun can indicate either.  In this case it makes little difference. He is, either way, recognizing the divinity of Christ. 

I believe that there is a strong case for the fact that the centurion is saying this is the son of God – you have to understand the context.  And the context is the whole of Matthew’s gospel.  The whole point of Matthew’s gospel is to make it clear that Jesus is the one promised by God, foretold by the prophets, announced by angels, seen for what and who He is by the humble, the lowly, and those who have eyes to see, even those outside the Jewish faith.  Magi in chapter 2, a centurion with a paralyzed servant in chapter 8, a Canaanite woman in chapter 15. They all get it - they recognize who Jesus is while everyone else misses it.  And one of the points that Matthew is making – that even here, when the whole world should see Jesus for who He is, as an answer to Isaiah 53 (read that when you get a chance and you get the feeling that Isaiah has got his telescope firmly fixed on the cross of Christ) when all the Jewish religious authorities miss it, mocking Jesus with the words, “Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” (vs. 40).  And then again, all within earshot of the centurion, “Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ”  The centurion is saying, “Wait a minute, this is the Son of God.”  He is repeating what he has heard, not in a mocking tone, but from the heart.   He gets it.  He has never seen anyone die like this - He must be the Son of God. 

And in some ways we don’t wonder at it.  Jesus Himself said in John 12:32, “When I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.”  Jesus is speaking of His death, saying that when He is lifted up on the cross He will draw all people to Himself. 

There is a magnetism about the cross of Christ.  There is a drawing power in the cross of Christ.  And this is what this event points us to - the magnetism of the cross.

For this is where we clearly see the love of God. The incredible love of God, the love of our heavenly Father who would give His only begotten Son to endure the penalty for the sin of the world. That’s what John 3:16 essentially says.  I like the way the NIV puts John 3:16 - it says that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.”  It is stresses the relationship – this is God’s one and only.  We don’t take it in often enough and don’t allow our minds to plunge into the depths of this mystery that God would allow His one and only Son to die for us. 

What parent here would willing give up their child?  What parent here if given the opportunity to bear pain, or illness or surgery for their child wouldn’t quickly agree to change places? Our love for our children is that deep, we would gladly bear pain, surgery, even death on their behalf. 

It is as we think of our relationship and our willingness to give of ourselves for our children that we catch a glimpse of the love relationship that exists between God the Father and God the Son.  But even that’s a limited understanding because there has never been an earthly parent closer to their child – the Heavenly Father and Son are one – and are broken apart in a darkness. “My God my God why have you forsaken me?”  It is in that expression that we witness the love of God for you and for me. How can anyone in light of the cross say God doesn’t show love?

So the hymn writer states it for us, “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood?  Died he for me, who caused his pain? For  me, who Him to death pursued?  Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God shouldst die for me?” Amazing love, Amazing love!

The magnetism of the cross.  Do you think the centurion saw the love of God in Christ?  Is that why he exclaimed as he did?  Is that why he is drawn to the cross?  Certainly there is that possibility – the thought must have crossed the centurions mind as he saw Christ die, as he witnessed him welcome a common thief into his kingdom. As he heard him pray for his murderers – what but only the love of God can do that? 

And as you see the cross of Christ in your mind’s eye do feel the draw?  Do you see the love of God expressed for you in His Son Jesus Christ?  Do you know in the depths of your heart that God loves you so much that He died for you?   The magnetism of the cross of Christ.      

But not only the love of God, but isn’t it here at the cross of Christ that we discover the forgiveness of God?  Isn’t it here that we see that Jesus is our sin-bearer. Isn’t it here at the cross of Christ that we are moved to say, “surely this is the Son of God,” and are moved to repentance and devotion? And as we do so, we feel like this huge weight of guilt and sin and separation from God fall from our shoulders? 

Some time ago John Bunyan wrote a classic novel called Pilgrim’s Progress – it’s an allegory of the Christian life and journey and he describes the pilgrim Christian coming to the cross of Christ and as he came up to the cross, “his burden loosed from his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.”¹

I don’t know if the Roman centurion experienced this, but it remains today as the drawing power of the cross.  It is here that we are moved to repentance and know the forgiveness of God.

But not only the love of God and the forgiveness of God, do we not also see here the victory of God? 

Do you know that Mark records the event and the words of the Centurion also in his gospel?  But he has just a little different slant on it.  Mark 15:37-39, “With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.”  Then verse 39 says that when the centurion heard his cry … he says “Surely this man was the son of God.”

A loud cry.  In Greek the words are phone megale, which transposed begin to look familiar: a megaphone. 

Walter Wangerin points out that this is a cry that the centurion has heard before – but never in defeat, and never, never in death, always when the soldier has won the battle or a king has won the war!²

This is a cry of victory.  Victorious over what?  The centurion cannot take his eyes off of him, what is the victory? Victory over sin, over death, over all the power of hell itself.  And the centurion has to say, “Surely this was the son of God!”

John Gladstone, the great preacher who pastored Yorkminister Park Baptist Church for over 25 years tells of a time when he was going through seminary.  He was having coffee in the cafeteria of Manchester University and a young economics professor approached him and asked, “What are you studying?” 

Gladstone replied, “Theology.  I’m going into the ministry.” 

The professor said, “You stupid fool, the future belongs to Marx!  You’ll be out of a job in a few years.”

Gladstone, after a life time in the ministry and seeing hundreds of people transformed by the power of Christ says, “Today, Marx, Marxism is dead.  And the church?  The church is more alive than ever.” 

“If I be lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.”  That’s the magnetism of the cross.  Nothing can stand in its way.  This is the magnetism of the cross.  

Do you see the application of this?  Do you recognize the power of this?

For those who are seeking God - you’ve never had a relationship with God, but there is something in your heart and mind that keeps prodding you, something in you that says that you want to draw near to God but you don’t know where to start, you don’t know how to start.  My friends, go to the cross.  By this I mean, read your Bible, read Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, read those books with an eye on the cross of Christ.  And take time with those closing chapters and allow yourself to enter into the event and allow yourself to see the Saviour who loves you and forgives you through His sacrifice.   Allow yourself to see the one who dies for you in victory and is willing to share that victory with you, so that you can live a life of victory, free from sin, free from fear of death, free to do the good that you long to do but just can’t without His help and Spirit living in you.  

And for those of you whose relationship with God isn’t what it used to be and you want it to be greater – then meditate on the cross.  Review these sermons, read the gospels, think of the miracles that surround the cross, think of the seven last words of Christ and see if your love for God doesn’t become deeper, your devotion to God become stronger and your desire to serve Him doesn’t become firmer.

And for us as a church – O that we would know the power of the cross, the magnetism of the cross, to draw all people - and may we never fail to proclaim the cross of Christ.  For it is only as we proclaim the cross and live the way of the cross, of self-denial, and giving of self to God that the Holy Spirit is able to transform others. 

A journalist once went to a series of meetings held by D.L. Moody, and he went to discover the power which drew so many people to Moody’s evangelistic meetings.  Was it Moody’s superb oratory?  Was it the wealth of Moody’s learning?  The journalist discovered it was none of these.  Instead wrote the journalist, thousands come to Moody’s meetings and are held spellbound for an hour for one reason. “It is the simple lifting up of the cross of Christ – the holding forth the Lord Jesus before the eyes of the people in all the glory of His Godhead, in all the simplicity of his manhood, in all the perfection of his nature, for their admiration, their adoration, for their acceptance.”

No one has ever been saved by a pastor preaching his doubts. No one has ever been transformed by a preacher giving out a few feel good stories. No one has ever been made new by a church that refuses to live the way of the cross. It is only as we lift up Christ in our preaching and living that people are drawn to the cross of Christ and are transformed.

So, may we be found faithful, for victory is guaranteed.

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - April 2006

ENDNOTES:

1. John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (Boston and St. Louis: I.N. Richardson and Co.), 49.

2. Walter Wangerin Jr. Reliving the Passion (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 131-132.

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