Love
Loving someone can be the most powerful thing we experience in life. It can also be the most painful.
1.
What is the greatest expression of love that you have ever witnessed or experienced?
2.
What does it say about humanity that love can be so painful?
A lot has happened in the previous chapters. The religious leaders have become increasingly hostile to Jesus as he has exposed their hypocrisy and challenged their authority. They are outraged at Jesus’ claim to be the promised Messiah of God.
As Jesus enters Jerusalem, their opposition reaches its violent conclusion. Although Jesus is totally innocent, he is betrayed by a friend and arrested. He faces an unjust trial, and is then beaten, humiliated, and sentenced to death.
Yet Jesus has repeatedly said that he must go to Jerusalem. He knew what was coming. He had even told his disciples what to expect on several occasions. Jesus is not a helpless victim: his death is something he is purposely choosing to suffer. We pick up the story as Jesus is led outside of the city walls to be killed.
Read Luke 23:32-39
32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals – one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’[a] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.’
36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’
38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’
Crucifixion was a brutal and humiliating death. In Jewish understanding, to be crucified was a sign of being abandoned by God. The victim was stripped and nailed by their wrists and ankles to wooden beams. Luke describes the event in a simple phrase: ‘they crucified him there’.
Luke is more interested in recording the words and actions of Jesus and those watching on. He wants his readers to understand the meaning behind it all.
3.
What words would you use to describe the way Jesus is treated as he is crucified?
4.
As you read Jesus’ words in verse 34, what are you left thinking and feeling?
5.
Why do you think the rulers, soldiers, and criminal mock him in the way they do?
Though he had claimed to be the powerful Messiah king, Jesus is now ridiculed and defeated. But Luke draws our attention to another voice: the voice of another criminal crucified alongside Jesus.
Read Luke 23:40-43
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’
42 Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[a]’
43 Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’
6.
What do the criminal’s words reveal about his view of himself and his view of Jesus?
7.
How do you think this criminal would have felt as he heard Jesus’ promise?
Luke is building a picture. Though Jesus is innocent, he is disgraced and about to die. Yet in love he looks to others. His words to the criminal whisper the possibility of forgiveness and life beyond death.
Suddenly, Luke zooms out. He describes two supernatural occurrences which display the cosmic significance of Jesus’ death.
Read Luke 23:44-49
44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.
47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, ‘Surely this was a righteous man.’ 48 When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
The first supernatural occurrence is that darkness covers the entire land.
8.
What do you think this darkness communicates about Jesus' crucifixion?
For the Jewish people gathered to watch the crucifixion, their culture associated darkness with God’s judgement.
The second supernatural occurrence is the ripping of the temple curtain. The curtain referred to is likely the huge curtain which separated the ‘most holy place’ from the rest of the temple. The ‘most holy place’ was where God symbolically dwelt, separated from human uncleanness and sin.
9.
What does the tearing of this curtain suggest is happening as Jesus dies?
Jesus has already given clues as to what will happen when he dies.
In Luke 22:37 Jesus said that he will be ‘numbered with the transgressors’. He is quoting from a passage written by the prophet Isaiah. It describes the Messiah who would restore and heal God’s people. Jesus says that he is that figure. Here is more of what Isaiah writes:
3 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way…
5 …But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
7 He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word…
8 …Unjustly condemned, he was led away.
Isaiah 53
(NLT)
10.
Where do you see parallels between Isaiah’s words and Jesus’ death?
11.
How do Isaiah’s words help us to understand why Jesus died?
Process Together
Luke has revealed the problem that lurks inside each of us: like the lost son, we have run away from the God who made us. Like Zacchaeus, we have lived for ourselves and harmed others. Like the religious rulers, we would rather push God to the side than have him interfere with our lives.
Each of us deserves to face God’s anger and justice for how we have treated him. Yet in love, Jesus chooses to face that anger and justice in our place. The same offer extended to the criminal is extended to us. As he hangs above the crowd, Jesus offers each of us forgiveness, eternal life, and access to God.
12.
What does Jesus’ death tell you about what humanity is like? What does it tell you about what Jesus is like?
13.
How do you respond to Jesus’ offer of forgiveness?