[0:00]Easter at Ashburn today. Man, there is no greater cause for celebration than this one. We serve a risen Savior. Amen. This has to be my favorite Sunday of the year. And I don't even think it's close. And it might be that I get to see some familiar faces like Jerry, it is so good to have you back. This is Jerry's first Sunday back in a year. He got COVID last year around this time. He was in the hospital for a while and he's back today for the first time. Jerry, we're so glad you're back. Or like Miss Arthur in the back, who I met. She used to come here years ago and she's back today, and we're so glad you're here with us. And many other familiar faces in the crowd as we look around and, although I'm so glad you're here, you're not the reason why this is my favorite day of the year. Everybody look at the person next to you and say, I'm glad I'm here though. I'm glad I'm here though. It's not the photo booth in the back for families, although it is a very cool photo booth that I fully encourage you to take advantage of. That's a plug. It's not the Easter egg hunt at the end of the service, even though I absolutely believe that Reese's eggs are the greatest food group on planet Earth. How many of you can just eat a dozen of those every morning? Scrambled, delicious, love them. It's not the donuts or the treats in the lobby, even though they do look delicious. It's not the Easter bunny. It's not the Easter baskets. It's not the delicious lunch that we're already thinking about after the service. No, the reason I love Easter Sunday so much is because of the triumphal story of the Gospel. Man, I love this day because we get to celebrate that our God, Jesus Christ, is alive. Like I can recall, even when I was a kid, when I first heard that Gospel story and I remember hearing about how Jesus, who is God, was born as a man and lived a perfect life. That means he never sinned, not even one time. He never lied, he never disobeyed, he never complained, he never had a bad thought. He was perfect. And he did a lot of good while he was here too. He fed the he healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He restored the captives. He brought hope to a hopeless world, but he wasn't accepted. In fact, he was even hated by some. Hated so much that they looked for any wrongdoing that they could find in him so they could put him to death. And the only thing that they could find in him was that he called himself God. And he was. But that was enough for them, as they crucified Jesus. And every year around this time, I reread the story of Easter through the different accounts of Scripture. I read about Jesus and the crucifixion and the resurrection and as this time approaches every year, I try to look at new vantages, new points of view, new ways to look at this familiar story. This year, I think we found a very interesting part of the story that I've never noticed before. We find this unusual element in Matthew Chapter 27. So if you have your Bible, open them up to Matthew 27. If you don't, that's okay. We're going to put it on the screen for you, where the Bible says this in verse 27. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head.
[3:17]In mockery, since Jesus claimed to be God, these Roman soldiers take Jesus and they put a robe on him, and then they take a crown of thorns not fit for any king and they jam it into his skull. And as I began thinking about this element, the crown, the crown that's often overlooked, I started to ask myself, is it really even that important? Why a crown of thorns? What's the significance? Why does it happen? What's the origin of the crown of thorns? And does that part of the story really even matter? I started thinking of the mystery of this crown and I believe that it does matter. Because a few verses later, Jesus is about to die and right before he dies, he says these three words that echo through ages to come. You know them well. It is finished. But what's finished? What's complete? We find our answer all the way back in the very first book of the Bible, where we find the origin story of the thorn. It's in Genesis 3, where we find the two first human beings on planet Earth, named Adam and Eve, and they had a good life. In fact, they had everything in abundance. They were living in paradise. They had daily interaction with God. They had no needs. They had no pain. They had no suffering. They had no trouble. They did, however, have one rule. They could eat of any tree in the garden except for one, and if they chose to eat from that tree, the Bible said that they would surely die. That was the punishment. And in Genesis 3, we find those two human beings, Adam and Eve, eat of that tree and take that fruit. And when God comes to them, he has a lot to say about the consequences of their actions.
[5:06]And as he begins to speak, he unloads a tremendous amount of torment upon their sinful decision. Along with death, that they would for sure suffer, there'd be a few other things they had to endure. We find that passage in Genesis 3 in verse 16, where God says to the woman, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. And to Adam, he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
[6:08]There's a few things that just happened to Adam and Eve, a few curses of sin that were cast upon them. And the first one that I noticed right off the bat was the pain. The pain of Eve as she would have children. The pain for Adam as he would toil day after day after day just to eat. I noticed the surrender. Eve would have her own desires. She would have her own will, but sometimes she would have to submit to the will of her husband, Adam, even when she didn't want to. I noticed the thorns. Thorns and thistles were brought forth. The origin of the thorn. And as Adam goes through the fields and collects food to eat, he would be poked and prodded by those thorns. I noticed the sweat. As Adam would toil day after day just to eat some bread, as the sweat would roll down his brow. I noticed the death. He was brought forth from the dust, and to the dust, one day he will return. Pain, surrender, thorns, sweat, death, these are the punishments of sin. This is a consequence that they had earned. They brought it on themselves and I'm not sure I'm much different. You're not any different either. Because the Bible says that Adam and Eve's sin, rebellion towards God, was cast to all men. Therefore, just as sin came into the world by one man, and death through sin, so death spread like a cancer to all men for all have sinned. There is none righteous, not even one. All we like sheep have gone astray. Those punishments are not just Adam's. Those consequences are not just Eve's. They're mine. They're yours. The misery of pain is mine. It's yours. The misery of surrender is mine. It's yours. The misery of the thorns and the sweat and death is mine and it's yours. These are the miseries that we've brought on ourselves. But as I began to read through the miseries as the result of sin in Genesis 3, ironically, I find those same miseries in the story of Easter. The misery of the crown. As Jesus is just about to be put to death, we find the pain. Because before Jesus even reaches the foot of the cross, they take him and they whip him 39 times with something called the Cat of Nine Tails. That's a whip with nine individual tentacles with sharp bone and rock lakes throughout. And as Jesus was beaten, those rocks and those bones ripped into his body and held tight until the Roman soldier whipped it back, taking all skin with it. Not once or twice, not three times or four times, 39 lashings. Such a beating that the end of the lashing, the Bible says that you could not even tell that Jesus was a man. Well, there's the pain. We haven't even reached the foot of the cross yet. As they leave, they place a cross on his shoulder. It was his cross to bear as he walked up a hill to the place where he would be crucified. Step by step, antagonizing pain, right after he'd been beaten 39 times, barely able to move, but must take a hike. There's the sweat. In mockery, the soldier cries out, Hail, Jesus, King of the Jews, as they place that purple robe around him and that crown of thorns upon his head. There's the mockery. There's the thorns. When he reaches the top of the hell, it was time for what we know as the crucifixion. It's such an antiquated model that I don't think a lot of us even know what it really is. What is a crucifixion? Well, the wooden cross, two beams are placed on the ground as an exhausted Jesus is quickly thrown backwards with his shoulders up against the wood. The soldier feels for depression in the wrist where he takes a heavy square rod iron nail and drives it deep through the wrist into the wood behind it. Quickly, he moves to the other side and he repeats that same action, being careful not to pull the arms too tight, but leaving a little bit of slack so that there could be a little bit of movement. Then the cross is lifted into place. Jesus' left foot is taken and placed on his right foot as both of those feet are stretched downward with his toes facing in the downward direction. And another nail is driven through both feet into the cross. Jesus is now crucified. But the pain and the suffering had just begun. Fighting for comfort, Jesus slowly slags down with more weight of the nails on his wrist and an excruciating fiery pain shoots up his arm and into his brain and explodes, putting so much pressure on the median nerves that he can barely handle it. So Jesus pushes himself upward to avoid that stretching torments in his wrist. He places full weight on the nail through his feet and he begins to feel that same searing, antagonizing pain through the bones and nerves in his feet. That cycle continues as he just tries to breathe. As his arms begin to fatigue, cramps sweep through them. knotting them in deep relentless throbbing pain. With those cramps come the inability to even push himself any longer to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs, but they cannot be exhaled and he has no strength or ability to pull himself to let out a breath. Jesus fights to finally raise himself in order to get even one small breath and finally at this point, enough carbon dioxide is built up in his lungs and in his bloodstream that the cramps partially subside. Spasmatically, he's able to push himself upward to exhale, bringing in some more of that life-giving oxygen. And what's crazy is at any time he could have made it stop. This was not just a man, this was God. A guy who could do anything that he put his mind to. He could have called armies from heaven and been freed. But he chose to surrender to pain and suffering.
[13:07]There's the surrender. Jesus cries out to his his father, not my will, but thine be done. Instead, he endures hours of limitless pain, cycles of twisting joint rendering cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain, as those tissues are torn, and his lacerated back moves up and down against that rugged cross. And then another agony begins. A deep crushing pain in his chest, as his pericadium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart. It's it's almost over now. The loss of tissue fluids has reached a critical level. The compressed heart is struggling to pump that thick, heavy, sluggish blood through the tissues. And the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to grasp even one more gulp of air.
[14:07]He can feel the chill of death creeping through his tissues. And right before he takes his final breath, he cries out with all he has left those words that would echo through generations even today, It is finished. And there's the death. What was finished? What was finished? The curse of sin. That's what was finished. What was finished? The consequence of wrongdoing, that's what was finished. He endured the pain, he endured the suffering, he endured the struggle, he endured the crowns, he endured the surrender, he endured the death. It is finished.
[14:59]Jesus died, Adam's death. He died, Eve's death. He died my death. He died your death. That's the ministry of the crown.
[15:14]Capital punishment is a controversial issue. Both sides of the argument cry out with an ever-increasing fervor, but regardless of which view you hold, there is one one common ground for all of us. When a convict is strapped to a gurney or an electric chair, put in a gas chamber seat, everybody recognizes that there has been a heinous crime that's been committed. Because capital punishment is never administered to marginal offenders of the law. No, it's reserved for those who've done the worst. Those who've committed the most heinous crimes. And this morning, maybe as you're sitting in this place and we heard of the misery of the cross and the pain that Jesus endured in his death, it made you a little bit uncomfortable and a little bit emotional. It should. It should. We should be reminded of the severity of the sin that was committed, not his sin, he had none. No, Adam's sin. Eve's sin. My sin. Your sin. We've committed the most serious offense of all. We've all rebelled against God and chose to sin. It's a crime worthy of pain. Oh, it's a crime worthy of surrender, a crime worthy of thorns, a crime worthy of sweat, a crime worthy of death, but Jesus took our pain. He took our suffering. He took our surrender. He took our sweat, he took our thorns, he took our death on that hill of execution. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes were healed. He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we could become the righteousness of God.
[17:24]In him. That means Jesus took our place. He died the death that belonged to us. He he died so that we could trade places and at this point in the story, I'm not exactly sure that's a place I'm wanting to trade places with. Jesus has just died. And now he sits in a tomb, lays in a tomb with no life in his lungs, no life in his body. He is dead. That is not a place I'm willing to trade with. But at the end of Matthew 27, after Jesus dies, he's behind the closed tomb. Three days later, those two women, both named Mary, came to the place where Jesus was buried. And when they arrived, there were no guards, but there was an angel. And there were several different eye accounts. In fact, hundreds of people saw this happen after it happened. The angel says to the woman, don't be afraid. I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified, but he is not here for he has risen. He's alive. He removed that thorny throne and replaced it with a crown. A golden crown because he is the king of kings. He is the Lord of Lords. He is the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is the way, he is the truth, he is the life, and he is alive. And he's seated at the right hand of the Father. That's the majesty of the crown. Because if Christ, who had died, had stopped at the cross, his work would have been incomplete. If the Christ who was buried had stayed in the tomb, he'd only known defeat. But the way of the cross never stops at the cross. And the way of the tomb leads on to victorious grace and a heavenly place where our Lord and Savior has gone. And now this risen King offers you his salvation, his escape, as John boldly proclaims in three and verse 16, that God so loved the world. That he gave his only son to a sinful world who had no deserving of him. And Jesus died and rose again from the grave and that whoever believes in him as king, as savior, won't perish.
[19:58]Won't have to endure the consequences of sin, won't have to endure a place called hell, but can have heaven. Ashburn, this is the greatest story ever told. But what are you going to do with it? Nine-year-old Bron lived in a little village just outside of London. Bron's parents were agnostic. They did not believe in God, but they felt that at least one time in his life, he should attend church. And so they dressed him up in a little black suit with a little bow tie and asked the nanny to take him to church. That Sunday, Bron and his nanny sat in that row and listened to the old preacher talk about the crucifixion of a man. The preacher described the nails that were driven through the man's hand, the crown of thorns that was jammed onto his head, the blood that ran down his side and face, as the rear as the spear ripped into him. He described the agony and the pain in his eyes, the sorrow in his voice as he prayed, as he prayed, Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing. As this story's being told in deep description as you heard this morning, Bron looked over at his nanny in frustration and said, why isn't anybody doing something about this? Why isn't anybody helping this man? Somebody should stop it. He doesn't deserve it. And as he started to make a little bit noise, the the nanny calmed him down and said, don't let it trouble you. Be quiet, be quiet. It's just a story. Just listen quietly. And when we're done, we'll go home and you'll forget about this old story. And you know, I think that might be my greatest concern this Easter. That you leave this place treating what you just heard as just some old story. Friend, this is so much more than a story. This is salvation. Salvation to anybody who believes. For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. Come to him today. Ask for his forgiveness. He is faithful and he is just. He will forgive you of any and every sin. He will take that sin and cast it as far as the East is from the West. He will one day welcome you into heaven with open arms like we sing a moment ago. The Father will welcome us into our homecoming of heaven. Because Jesus has paid the ultimate sacrifice. He's cleansed you of all unrighteousness if you believe. But if you only believe, has there ever been a moment in your life? Understanding what Jesus did on the cross, understanding how he rose again from the dead. Where you placed your faith in Jesus to save you, where you came to him as best you knew how and said, God, I'm asking you to save me. I believe that you died for me. I believe that you rose again from the dead for me. And right now I'm placing my faith, my trust in you to save me. I promise you, I will not call attention to you, but we want to celebrate that with you this morning. If that's you and you just placed your faith in Jesus, asking him to save you, the best you know how, will you place your hand by your head and put it right back down? Josh, I just asked Jesus to save me.
[23:25]Amen. Amen. Several hands. The Bible says that when one comes to repentance, that when one joins the family of God, that all of heaven rejoices. Heaven's going nuts right now, Ashburn. Will you join heaven with me in giving God a praise for the lives he changed in this place?
