THERE ARE NO INNOCENT BYSTANDERS AT THE CROSS OF CHRIST!

by Pastor Paul Naumann

"For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again." 

— II Corinthians 5:14-15

In Christ Jesus, beneath Whose cross we stand once again this Good Friday, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

Are you the kind of person who can always pick out the murderer in a mystery story ahead of time? I am. Or at least I thought I was...until I settled down one evening to read Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. I must have read all her novels at one time or another, and I could usually figure out who the villain was long before the end. This one was different, though. In this story, all the characters seemed to have a motive for killing the victim, they all had the opportunity to do it, and they would all benefit from his death. So which of the characters was the actual murderer, and which were just innocent bystanders? I was stumped. When I finally got to the part where the detective solves the mystery, I was so surprised my jaw dropped open: as it turns out, they did all kill him! They all conspired in his death, and each of them took a hand in the actual killing. As it turns out, there were no innocent bystanders!

Well, you can take or leave a murder mystery, I guess. It's easy enough to close a book, or turn off the TV set. But today, on Good Friday, you and I are faced with a killing that we cannot ignore — a killing that actually took place, almost two thousand years ago, on a barren hill called Golgotha. The death of God's Son on the cross is a killing that's very much like the one I just described. No one who was present there that day was uninvolved in His death. More to the point: no one sitting in this church today is uninvolved, either. The words of our text will prove that to us, beyond the shadow of a doubt! Our theme today:

"THERE ARE NO INNOCENT BYSTANDERS AT THE CROSS OF CHRIST!"

I. Each of us killed Him II. Each of us benefited from His death III. Now each of us must live for Him!

Shock and anger are among the emotions we tend to feel when we're confronted with the scene of Good Friday. We look up at the cross and see the lines of pain on the face of our Savior. We ask ourselves, How could they do it? How could the Jewish mob keep screaming, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"? We see the blood flowing from his hands and feet, and we ask ourselves, How could the Roman soldiers drive those nails into Jesus? He was innocent! How could they do it?

But we're asking the wrong questions. What we should really be asking is not, How could they do it, but rather, How could we do it? Yes, WE! Because, after all, we're not just innocent bystanders here. At the cross of Christ, there's no such thing as an "innocent bystander." Each of us conspired in the death of the Son of God. Each of us killed Him!

Yes, we are the killers. Four words from our text lay the guilt for Jesus' death right on our own doorstep. "HE DIED FOR ALL." For all the sins you and I commit every day, Jesus died. For all the times in your life that the love of money or the love of pleasure was stronger than the love of God, Jesus died. For all the commandments you broke instead of kept, for all the people you hurt instead of helped, for every act of malice, of lust, of greed, of sin...these are the reasons Jesus died! Don't doubt it for a moment — it was your sins and mine that caused this suffering to our Savior, just as much as if you yourself had pushed the crown of thorns down on His head or had driven the spikes through his hands! In II Corinthians, the Apostle tells it like it is: "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." — II Cor 5:21.

And that brings us to another reason why we can't consider ourselves simply bystanders at the cross. Because each of us benefited from His death. Not in the way that the Jews in Jerusalem benefited — all they received was the grim satisfaction of seeing their hated Enemy writhing in agony on the cross. Not the way the Roman soldiers benefited — all they got was a portion of Jesus' clothing for each of them. No, our benefit is of a more substantial, a more lasting kind. Because you see, Jesus has written us into His will. It's true! The writer to the Hebrews says, "Jesus is the Mediator of a new covenant. By dying He paid the ransom to free people from the sins under the first covenant, and those who are called are to get the everlasting inheritance promised them. Where there is a will, it must be shown that the one who made it died, since a will takes effect only when a person is dead. It is not in force as long as the one who made it is still living." — Heb 9:15-17 AAT. Good Friday may be the only time in history when a Person purposely allowed Himself to be killed...so that His heirs would receive their inheritance! The heirs, of course, are you and me. Our inheritance is everlasting life!

Perhaps you're beginning to see, now, how impossible it is for us to passive on Good Friday. We're involved. We are not simply watching the drama unfold on that cross-studded hilltop; we're participating in it, maybe in more ways than we realize. The Apostle says as much in our text: "For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died!" You can't remain an uninvolved bystander, Paul says. You can't come to Good Friday services and say, "Well, after all, it's just another church service; nothing's really changed!" No, Paul says, the love that Christ poured out for us on the cross, that love constrains us, it forces us to the conclusion: if One died for all, then all died. If Jesus died on the cross, something in us died there, too!

What is that something? What part of us perished on the cross of Christ at three o'clock on Good Friday afternoon? Paul tells us in the book of Romans, "Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin." — Rom 6:6. The power of our sin, and the power of Satan to condemn us for our sin is what died that day. Can we be indifferent to that? Can a man who's waiting for execution on death row be indifferent when the doors of the prison are opened, and he's allowed to walk out into the street a free man? That's what Jesus has done for us! With His death He's freed us from the eternal punishment of our sins. He's brought us from the pit of hell and opened wide the doors of heaven to us!

In the ancient orient there was an interesting custom. If a person saved your life, you were bound to be that person's servant for the rest of your days. It makes sense, doesn't it? Since you owed that person your life anyway, the best way you could show your gratitude was by dedicating what remained of your life to his service. Shouldn't the same be true of our relationship to Jesus? After we've stood beneath the cross and watched Him give up His life for us, can we then just go back to living a life of self-indulgence and self-gratification like the unbelievers of this world? No, our text says, that's not what our Savior died to accomplish! "He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them." The love of Christ constrains us. Each of us killed Him, each of us benefited from His death...and now each of us must live for Him!

I don't expect that to be an easy concept for Americans to follow. Perhaps more than any other nation in history, the people of the America today are a people who live for themselves. Union workers ask, not "How can I do a better job?" but, "How can I get more money and better benefits?" People ask prospective presidential candidates, not "What will you do for America," but "What will you do for ME? What will we senior citizens get if you become president? What will we farmers get? What about us minorities - what will we get?" Give me what I want! More wealth, more pleasure, more leisure time!

God calls on us today to make a 180-degree turn away from that kind of thinking. God has called us Christians away from this vicious circle of SELF-service, to a life of service to HIM. When we come away from the cross of Calvary, all thoughts of getting should be replaced with the question, "What can I give? What can I give to my Savior to show how much I appreciate His sacrifice? What can I give to my friends and acquaintances to show them that Jesus died for them, too?" In a very real sense, we are just like that person in the orient whose life has been saved, and who in return serves the one who saved him with his own life. We owe a debt of thanks and gratitude to our Savior. We'll spend endless ages of eternity expressing that gratitude, face to face with Jesus; but I think you'll agree with me that it would be a mistake to wait until then to begin! God wants our service now. Perhaps a bumper sticker I saw recently put it best — it said simply, "SAVED...TO SERVE!"

In conclusion. I hope I've gotten through to you today. I hope you're saying to yourself right now, "He's right — I can't come away from Good Friday as though it were just another religious festival. I can't walk away from the cross as though I'm not involved in what happened there; I am involved!" I hope the message of the cross makes you ask yourself, "What can I do? How can I serve the One Who gave His life for me?" I think the answer to that question lies in how you arrange the priorities in your life, you know — your family, your job, your hobbies, your leisure time. The answer lies not only in making sure that Christ is on the list, not even in putting Christ at the head of the list...but rather in making Christ the list! In making sure that your faith in your Redeemer pervades every part of your life; leading your family to a closer relationship with God; reflecting your faith to your co-workers on the job; carrying your Christian character and attitude even into your hobbies and leisure time. We have indeed been "saved to serve." So let's serve Him. May we join our voices with the Apostle Paul in confessing, "For me, to live is Christ!" AMEN.