Scripture reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12.

Sermon text: Romans 5:1-11.

Which pummeled the pain-wracked body the worst: The physical, excruciating agony of a crucifixion, or the taunts of His own words hurled at him from His enemies?

For most of us, we’d have to vote for the physical pain. After all, the English word “excruciating” comes from the Latin “ex crux,” or “from the cross.” Any cursory search on the Web will provide numerous sites that explain the pain of a crucifixion.

However, in Jesus’ case, the insults probably proved just as unbearable. After all, He had faced detractors His entire life, but to face them now, as He died a humiliating death, was too much for anyone to bear.

The gossips first tore into Jesus’ family in Nazareth, a sleepy village about 65 miles north of Jerusalem. Nothing would have fed the gossip line in a first-century Jewish community like an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The tongues wagged as word ricocheted around the village: “Mary’s pregnant! Joseph’s going to divorce her!” No wonder Mary’s family sent her to spend time with Zechariah and Elizabeth, her aged cousins who also experienced the blessing of God.

Even Joseph’s determined decision to wed Mary anyway couldn’t quench the fire. Joseph raised Jesus as his own son, along with his other children by Mary. However, when Jesus later visited Nazareth and taught in the synagogue, the gossips reminded everyone in listening range: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon” (Mark 6:3)? Notice the description: Jesus was Mary’s son, not Joseph’s.

Then, as Jesus began His ministry and demonstrated His identity as the only-begotten Son of God, the torments never stopped. How dare He heal someone on the Sabbath? How dare He say, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19)? Why does He ignore the carefully crafted tradition of the Pharisees, a tradition that shackled its adherents into strictly obeying the Law?

Then, consider the crowd with whom this Man enjoyed His time. He never missed an opportunity to offend the good folk of Judaism. He partied with the traitorous publicans, He healed the servants of the hated Roman oppressors, He touched lepers, and He let women hang around His crowd. (The horror!) He called 12 men as disciples as if He had any credentials to act like a rabbi. Then, He refused to teach them the traditions of the faith, letting them eat without washing their hands, even.

And did you hear what He said? Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), costing Him one of the largest followings a teacher had enjoyed in Galilee in generations. The statement, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), almost cost Jesus His life. He actually accepted worship from those He helped, acting as if He were God Himself!

It could, and did, get worse. Jesus sent Jericho into an uproar on His way to Jerusalem by eating with the worst tax collector of the lot, a shrimp of a man named Zacchaeus. He almost turned Jerusalem itself on its head even before Passover when He raised a man named Lazarus from the dead a few miles south of the city in Bethany.

Then, following His entry into Jerusalem for Passover in A.D. 33 (how dare He ride into town as if He were the fulfillment of Daniel and Zechariah’s prophecies!), Jesus swept through the Temple like a hurricane, upsetting the marketplace the Jewish leaders had built in the very sanctuary of Almighty God. What a scandal! Can’t this Man avoid trouble? Why does He insist on wreaking havoc everywhere He goes?

Now, it would seem, the bill has come due. This Man — this Jesus — has finally received His comeuppance. After all the trouble He’s caused, and all the anxiety He’s brought the Jewish leaders, Jesus hung naked on a Roman cross, crucified by a Roman governor who found his own scandals coming back on his own head. Pilate’s scandalous behavior against the Jews had earned him a stern reprimand from Rome. The emperor had made it clear to Pilate: Keep the peace in Judea, or else. Faced with a choice between crucifying an innocent man or risking trouble with the Jews, Pilate caved.

By this time, Jesus’ appearance barely resembled a human at all. “His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and His form beyond that of the children of mankind” (Isaiah 52:14). “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5); “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). The Roman whip had left almost no skin on His torso; Roman soldiers had battered His face, and the blood from His scalp wounds — caused by the cruel crown of thorns the Romans had roughly jammed onto His Head — streamed down to join the blood and gore left behind by His scourging.

You’d think such a site would bring pity to anyone. However, the Pharisees and Sadducees who accompanied the crowd to Golgotha that day brought no compassion with them. Instead, they slung back at the dying Jesus the words they found the most scandalous: “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” Not content to murder Jesus through sham justice, these men stood on top of Golgotha and gleefully insulted Him as He hung, dying, on a cross.

“Finally,” they thought, “this scandal is over. We’ve preserved our power and removed a thorn from our sides with one fell swoop. Jesus is dead, Pilate’s in his place, and we still hold the Temple. Life can’t get any better than this.”

When we hear the words of Scripture on Good Friday, it certainly seems as if Jesus’ enemies were right. It looks as if nothing worked. The miracles, the healings, the feeding of thousands, the raising from the dead; everything in His life all brought Jesus full circle. His birth caused a scandal in Nazareth; now, His death in Jerusalem seemed the worst kind of scandal as His hung naked before the world, dying the death of a traitor to Rome.

When we read the accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings in the Gospels, we wonder why the Pharisees and Sadducees so vehemently fought Him. Couldn’t they see how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies? How did they miss His demonstrations of God’s love to the ignored, the vilified, the oppressed?

The more I think about it, the more I realize the reason Jesus’ detractors missed the point.

To the Pharisees, everyone else fell into another category: “Them.” Who refused to follow the Law as stringently as the Pharisees? “Them.” Who lived in constant sin, never following the traditions of the Law? “Them.” Who lived godless and immoral lives and therefore didn’t deserve God’s love? “Them.”

“They” don’t belong in our group. “They” don’t belong in our community. “They” will only corrupt everything “they” touch. “They” have no business with us.

It’s confession time. A few generations ago, my family fell into the “them” category. You’d have a hard time finding a group who could party harder, womanize more lustily, gossip more effectively, and drink themselves into a stuporous rage (trust me; it’s possible) than my ancestors. As I study my genealogy, I learn a lot about my ancestors I didn’t know. I learned we hadn’t always served as the stalwarts of the Church. I learned that “we” were the “they” the churches around Walker County warned their children about.

What happened? How have we moved from the “they” category to now claiming a heritage of 3 generations of service to the Church?

Grace. Scandalous, undeserved, totally unsought-for grace.

To Jesus, all the ones in the “them” category needed redeeming. “They” needed salvation from sin. “They” needed reconciliation and peace with God.

To Jesus, all the Pharisees, and Sadducees needed salvation just as much as the publicans, drunks, adulterers, and Romans.

Tonight’s sermon passage was written by a Pharisee who finally realized that he was one of “them.” St. Paul spent his early life as a Pharisee; as he explained to the Philippians, he was “a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless” (Philippians 3:5-6). However, St. Paul met a risen Lord on the road to Damascus and realized he, too, needed the salvation Jesus brought to humanity. St. Paul realized he, too, fit the profile described by Isaiah: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.”

Isaiah had written, “With his stripes we are healed.” Isaiah had described the sacrifice Jesus would make on the cross: “    The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” St. Paul told the Romans, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” However, everyone who would accept Jesus’ grace would receive undeserved peace: “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Our rebellion against God — the “transgressions” mentioned by Isaiah — would be transformed on the cross. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

The people rejoicing in Jesus’ shameful, scandalous death didn’t understand the true nature of the scandal that day. Read St. Paul’s passage again and notice the pronoun: “We.” We had no reason to expect God to atone for our sins; we had no reason to expect God to forgive us and take us back, to offer us peace from the war, and then — adding to the scandal — to give us the assurance of eternal life, free from sin and death.

To offer such riches to undeserving people truly merits the word “scandal.”

Yet, God did so, through a mangled, broken Man who hung on a cross and died for the sins of the world. Jesus accomplished more with His death than anyone had accomplished in a lifetime. Tonight, anyone can find that grace comes free to all who will confess the scandal-ridden Jesus as Lord, believing in His resurrection as we’ll celebrate on Sunday.

Tonight, Christian, look to the cross, and see the price of your salvation. Christian, look at the Body broken for you, and see yourself as one of “them,” one of those for whom Jesus died and to whom He has commanded we carry the Gospel. Search your history, and remember that you, too, were once one of “them.” Look for someone scandalous in your life; and then, play your part in the greatest scandal of all. Let “them” know “we” deserved death, but received life; “we” deserved justice, but received mercy.

Humanity deserved condemnation.

Instead, we received grace.

Wonderful, undeserved, unsought, freely offered, forgiving, atoning, scandalous grace.