This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

[Music] We're in day two today of our look at what happened on the day that
Jesus died. Verses 13 to 18 of John 19. Yesterday we began this look of the
pictures of that day that are in this chapter.

The pictures of Jesus being whipped, Jesus being ridiculed. Today, picture five
is a picture that happens at 6 a. m.

, we're told, on that day. 6 a. m.

on the day that he died, Jesus at a place called Gabbatha. John chapter 19,
verses 13 to 16. When Pilate heard this, he heard that they said, "We still want
him to be crucified.

" When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and he sat down on the judge's
seat at a place known as the stone pavement, which in Aramaic is Gabbatha. It
was the day of preparation of Passover week, about the sixth hour. "Here is your
king," Pilate said to the Jews, but they shouted, "Take him away, take him away,
crucify him.

" "Shall I crucify your king? " Pilate asked. "We have no king but Caesar," the
chief priest answered.

Finally, Pilate handed him over to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of
Jesus. This place called the stone pavement, or Gabbatha, was located on the
northwest corner of Herod's temple.

And by Roman reckoning, the sixth hour would be 6 a. m. , our time.

And Pilate is here wanting to appear as a fair and impartial Roman judge. The
priests want to appear as righteous and just, but it's interesting to me that
the closer we get to the cross, the more clearly we see who people really are.
The more clearly you see who Jesus really is and what he gave for us.

And the more clearly you see the real heart of those that were condemning Jesus.
The more clearly you see Pilate is just a self-centered politician. He's just in
it for himself.

The more clearly you see that the priests are just trying to retain their own
control and power. In these verses, the priests commit the very blasphemy they
accused Jesus of. "We have no king but Caesar.

" They called Caesar their king instead of God. Just to get Jesus out of the
way. They would do anything to get Jesus out of the way.

Here is this picture at this corner of Herod's temple of Jesus being handed over
to be crucified. Others thinking they're in control, but Jesus is still in
control. The sixth picture in John chapter 19 of this day is the picture of
Jesus carrying his own cross.

John 19 verse 17. In a crucifixion, the condemned man was forced to carry the
cross beam. He usually weighed, we read from history about 110 pounds.

And they carried it from the prison to the place of execution. Now that may not
seem like a great weight, but to carry it that far is a great weight. And even
more significant, Jesus had been awake all night.

Jesus had just been scourged, whipped, almost to the point of death. And even at
that point, he's asked to carry his own cross. He took that cross along a way
that's come to be known as the Via Dolorosa, the way of the cross.

And even if you walk through the streets of Jerusalem today on what is supposed
to be that way, we're not sure what it was, you still get a pretty strong sense
of what it must have been like that day. Even though early in the morning, the
shopkeepers were beginning to open things up, it was a crowded day, it was a
busy time in Jerusalem with the Passover, so there were great crowds. And Jesus
is walking through these crowds of people, some laughing, some questioning, some
wondering.

There's the noise of that day, there's the confusion of that day and the turmoil
of that day. And then there's Jesus in the midst of it all, loving us by
carrying his own cross. The other gospels tell us that Jesus was helped at a
certain point in this journey by a man named Simon, Simon of Cyrene, but John
focuses on Jesus, Jesus who carried his cross for us.

Don't lose that picture. The next picture is the picture of Jesus being
crucified. John chapter 19 verse 18, "Here they crucified him and with him two
others, one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

" These two others were crucified with Jesus to fulfill the words of Isaiah 53.
He was numbered with the transgressors and Jesus was put on a cross. You know,
I've thought about what I wanted to say next about the crucifixion.

I know that some of you are listening to this as you're driving, and I could
give a strong explanation of what happened in the crucifixion, but I think it
would be difficult to drive even while listening to what Jesus went through. I
decided not to detail the horrors of the crucifixion as we talk about it today,
but as I decided that, I realized neither did the gospel writers detail what
happened in the crucifixion. They just said, "Here they crucified him.

" They didn't talk about the nails, although everybody knows there were nails.
They didn't talk about him being put on the cross. They didn't talk about it
being a death by suffocation really as the muscles constricted on the cross.

They just talked about what simply happened. The details weren't needed. The
word "crucified" spoke all that was needed to be heard.

Jesus was crucified for you. He was crucified for me, for our forgiveness of
sins. What does crucifixion mean?

To the Phoenicians who were in power before the Romans and who designed this
idea of crucifixion as far as we know, the cross was a means of death that
satisfied their belief in a god of this earth. To the Romans who picked up this
idea and began to use it to torture and to kill criminals, the cross became an
expertly used instrument of torture and control. Crucifixions were done publicly
so that all who walked by could realize, "I don't want to cross the Romans.

I don't want to get up against that power that would do that to me. " To the
Jewish people, crucifixion represented the most disgusting form of death.
Deuteronomy 21-23 says, "Anyone whose body is displayed on a tree is cursed by
God.

" To the Phoenicians, belief in a false god. To the Romans, an instrument of
torture. To the Jewish people, a place of curse.

But to the Christian, to those of us who have said to Jesus Christ, "We believe
in what you did for us on the cross. We believe in you because of what you did.
" The cross is the glory of God.

It is the place of glory where God showed his love for you, where he showed his
love for me. Oswald Chambers has said, "All heaven is interested in the cross of
Christ. All hell is terribly afraid of it, while men are the only beings who
more or less ignore its meaning.

" You see, I'm talking about the cross right now. And as I talk about the cross,
it's almost impossible for it not to capture your thoughts. What did this mean
that somebody would love me that much?

What does this mean that Jesus would die for me in that cross? Jesus would die
for me in that kind of a way. But if you're like me, as you walk through
ordinary life, as you're not talking about the cross, you can ignore its
meaning.

You can ignore the fact that you are forgiven and live as if you're not. You can
ignore the fact that you are loved and live as if you're not. The meaning of the
cross is that Jesus forgives you and he loves you, if only you will trust him.

And once you have trusted him, his forgiveness and his love are given as a gift
to you. You may have never received that gift. As you think about what he did
for you that day, I invite you right now in this moment to receive that gift, to
say, "Jesus Christ, I don't want to ignore this.

And so right now I receive the gift of your forgiveness. You tell me you died so
I could be forgiven. I don't understand all that that means, but I believe it.

Jesus, I receive the gift of the new life that only you can give me. Give me
life in your name. " For others of us, there may be a moment today where the
glory of the cross, the meaning of the cross, the passion of what Jesus Christ
did for you on the cross comes to you in a fresh and new way.

And so say to him, "Jesus Christ, you were crucified. This really happened. And
the fact that you really died for me, that encourages me, that challenges me to
really live for you.

I pray that I would today see in the cross the love that you have for me and
that my life would be motivated by that love. Thank you that you gave your life
for me on the cross before I even knew you. I didn't have to earn that love or
earn that death.

I couldn't have earned that love or earned that death. And yet, Jesus, you gave
yourself for me. And so in this moment, I recognize what you did for me.

And I pray that it would impact my heart, my heart towards you, my heart towards
others. I pray that it would impact my heart and my actions this day. Jesus,
thank you.

Thank you for the cross. Thank you for giving your life for me. In your name.

Amen.