At The Cross: The Sign John 19:16b-22
Who can read this?
À la Croix Dieu dit je t’aime. (French)
Am Kreuz Gott sagt ich liebe dich. (German)
En la Cruz Dios dice te amo. (Spanish)
في الصليب الله يقول أنا أحبك (Arabic)
Msalabani Mungu anasema nakupenda. (Swahili)
At The Cross God Says “I Love You.” (English)
Aren’t we glad that when God came to us He didn’t say if you want to become my followers, you have to learn to speak Hebrew…learn to speak Greek…learn to speak Aramaic. How many of us would jump on board if that was a prerequisite to being a follower of Jesus? Jesus likely spoke all three, or at least was bi-lingual in Aramaic and Hebrew. One thing we can know for certain is that Jesus didn’t speak English…King James or New Revised Standard or any other version of English that we commonly read. And yet at the cross, as we come to appreciate the gift of “The Sign” we appreciate the fact that Jesus came to speak our language.
The sign…it was placed there by Pilate. It was placed as a warning. It was the sentence under which Jesus had been condemned to death. He was charged with treason, charged with setting himself up as a king opposed to the Emperor of Rome. This was not how Jesus presented himself, but it was the charge by which Pilate was able to justify crucifying Him. Those who hung on either side of Jesus likely had signs above their heads marking them as bandits. The crucifixion was held in a very public place and was conducted as such to serve as a warning—the deterrent reasoning behind capital punishment is nothing new. To ensure that all who passed by would be able to understand why these three were being executed, the sentence was posted in three different languages…in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek (though some translations suggest it was Aramaic, Latin, and Greek). Again, Pilate posted it as a warning against insurrection. Yet what Pilate intended for harm, God used for good. God made Pilate the first multi-cultural evangelist to declare Jesus as King. If you think that may be stretching it a bit, consider the plea of the bandit hanging beside Jesus on the cross…a man who most likely encountered Jesus for the first time that day…a man who read those words and saw not a man to be condemned…but saw hope and pleaded with Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”[i] And because through that sign, God spoke the language of the thief, the thief heard this response to his “deathbed” request, “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”[ii]
However, I think that the gift of the sign, as it comes to us today, is not the first reminder that God speaks our language, in the life of Jesus, nor is it the last.
The first reminder came in Bethlehem.
Let me tell you a story that you have probably heard or read before…and yes it is usually told at Christmas, but because there would be no cross without the manger, and because as I type this five out of six weather sites I have looked at are calling for some snow today…I will say the story is appropriate. The story is of uncertain origins, but was made popular by Paul Harvey.
The story takes place on Christmas Eve. A family is gathering to go to church for the annual Christmas Eve service. The father of the family, as always, tells his wife that he will not be joining her and the children to church. For him, the idea that any god would come to earth as a tiny baby is preposterous.
After his family left the man watched as it began to snow…then he went and settled into his chair by the fireplace and propped up his feet and began to read the newspaper. As he was reading, he heard first one thud, then another, as if someone were throwing snowballs against the living room window. He got up and went and looked outside. There, huddled below the window, was a flock of birds. Evidently, caught up in the storm and seeking shelter, they had tried flying into the house, not seeing the clear pane of glass.
Distressed at the plight of the birds on the cold night, the man suddenly thought about the barn. He could open the barn door so that the birds would go in and find shelter. He slipped on his coat and boots and plodded through the deepening snow and opened the barn doors and turned on the light. The birds did not respond. He went back into the house and found a loaf of bread, and scattered bread crumbs through the snow into the barn trying to entice them to go into the barn. It did not work. He tried calling to them…nothing. He tried chasing them into the barn, only to watch them scatter and once he had moved on, reform their huddle on the ground.
He realized that they were afraid of him. “If only I could get them to trust me,” he thought. “If only I could become a bird, then I could let them know not to be afraid…I would show them the way to the barn where they could find warmth and safety…but…but…to do that I would have to be one of them.”
Just then, the church bells rang…and he sank to his knees.
Before the sign on the cross, the manger declares that God has decided to speak our language, to tell us how much He loves us…to lead us to safety and security…to save us.When Jesus walked among the people, He taught them deep theological truths…but not in deep theological language…he told stories…he told parables. He talked about God and the Kingdom of Heaven by speaking the language of merchants, of farmers, of shepherds, of widows, of fathers…. While it might be foreign to man of us, those listening to Jesus would have readily understood the stories of merchants looking for pearls…of farmers scattering seeds or pruning trees…of shepherds calling to sheep or searching for lost ones…of a widow sweeping out her house and looking for a single lost coin…Jesus spoke the language of the people that the people might understand.
God’s efforts to speak our language began at the manger…but did not conclude with the sign on the cross…it actually sits in the middle of God’s efforts…just as it did at the crossroads there outside of Jerusalem.
On the other side of the cross we find another attempt…as winds blew through an upper room and flame descended upon the heads of those gathered in that room, they began to speak to all of those gathered around…and folks from all around the region heard those Galileans as if they were speaking in their own native dialect…the Holy Spirit…God’s very Spirit…speaking the language of many ethnicities at once, proclaiming to all who would hear the Good News of Salvation found in Jesus.
At the cross…we encounter the sign…the sign that reminds us that God speaks our language…the sign that reminds us that God invites us into warmth and safety…the sign that reminds us that Jesus desires to welcome us into Paradise this very day…the sign that reminds us that we are called to proclaim God’s message in a way that those gathered can hear and understand.
How do we do that?
It might be as we talk with those around us who don’t know Jesus that we find a common thread, a common story…and we begin there. Maybe we share a common job, a common hobby, a common recreational activity, or even a common struggle. We begin with what we have in common and build from there.
It might be that we have to learn a new language of worship…maybe that’s a new way of doing worship…maybe it’s singing “contemporary” music…maybe it’s reading from a more contemporary, but equally faithful, translation of the Bible.
It might be that we have to become like Jesus in yet another way…it may mean that we have to become bi-lingual…learning Spanish…learning Arabic…learning Swahili…learning the languages of those around us that we might speak in their native tongue…
At the cross we are reminded of the gift of God desiring to speak our language that we might know His love…may our language…in whatever way we speak it to others…always be the language of God…the language of love…and may we speak it in ways that all might hear and understand as He has done for us…through the manger…through the cross…through Pentecost…
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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