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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

At the Cross

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

Standing at the site of an enormous memorial a little more than 30 miles from the Spanish capital, Madrid, is the world's largest cross.

It's about as tall as a 50-story building.

The cross stands on top of a 3, 000-foot tall mountain, so it can be seen from miles away.

It's part of a complex called the Valley of the Fallen, which features, among other things, a church and a monastery.

For more than 40 years, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was buried there.

Owing to the controversial nature of Franco's rule—estimates say he was responsible for the deaths of between 30, 000 and 50, 000 people—Franco's body was exhumed in 2019 and relocated to a cemetery in Madrid where he was laid to rest a second time, this time next to his wife.

Now, while Franco is gone, that cross remains.

It's impossible to miss as it reaches into the sky, reminding people, well, reminding people What, exactly?

The cross is ubiquitous in Western society.

And even in the secular age, it can only mean 1 thing.

The death of Jesus, who 2, 000 years ago died on a cross.

His death and subsequent resurrection gave rise to Easter, observed today in dozens of countries around the world.

Of course, much of what gets lumped into commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus has nothing to do with either the death or the resurrection of Jesus.

Several pagan customs have been absorbed into the Christian celebration of Easter.

Not surprising, considering pagan customs crept into Christianity itself.

Eggs and rabbits, which are totally unrelated to the death of Jesus, were ancient symbols of new life and fertility.

Add commercialism to the mix and Easter became an opportunity to sell copious quantities of chocolate and other Easter items, such as hot cross buns, while crowding out of the spotlight the actual event that gave rise to Easter.

And unlike a national holiday or observance, such as the Fourth of July or Australia Day, The date of Easter moves.

Easter Sunday occurs on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the vernal or spring equinox.

That's the day when there's an almost identical amount of darkness and daylight.

This confusing calculation is an attempt to associate the date of Easter with the timing of the Jewish Passover.

Easter is when Christians commemorate the death of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus on a cross, which itself has been used as a pagan symbol.

It's thought that crucifixion originated with the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

5 or 600 years before Christ, it was used by the Persians, then by the Greeks, before it was perfected by the Romans.

The thing about crucifixion as employed by the Romans wasn't just the pain.

But beyond the pain, the cross was akin to the gallows or the electric chair.

It was a symbol of shame, defeat, condemnation.

And given that crucifixion victims were executed naked, it was a shameful, undignified way for a person to die.

If you were crucified, you were the off-scouring of the earth.

The Bible says He did no sin, but He got under the skin of the Jewish leaders to the extent that they wanted Him gone.

And because they had no authority legally to execute anyone, they appealed to the Roman authorities who sentenced him to be executed.

Even though he wasn't a criminal, certain people wanted him dead.

Jesus had swept away the rubbish under which truth had been buried.

But the religious leaders felt, in Israel, that He was sweeping away the truth itself.

But why did Jesus have to die from a biblical perspective?

Let's go back to the beginning, just after Creation, to the first promise ever made.

It was made by God, and it was made to you and me, essentially.

The first promise made in the Bible was a Gospel promise.

Immediately after Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, God spoke to the serpent that tempted them and said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." That's Genesis 3.15.

Speaking to Satan, God said, "...there will be enmity between you and the woman, God's people, down through time.

Saying there would be enmity between the devil and the Church was a promise that there was a way out of sin for sinners.

Turning their backs on God and surrendering to temptation left Adam and Eve fundamentally flawed.

As long as they were surrendered to God, living in connection with God, They were protected.

But when they chose to go it alone and followed the suggestions of the devil, they were altered.

Connected to the heart of God, they were 1 with God in purity and holiness, but no more.

And they couldn't remake themselves or fix themselves.

As long as they remained connected to God, trusting God, they could look forward to eternity.

But when they turned away from God and sinned, They forfeited the gift of eternal life.

It's as though they said, thanks for creating us God, but we're going to go on our own way without you.

It's either life with God or death without God.

He would put enmity between His people and Satan.

God said, He, the seed of the woman, shall bruise your head.

That's God saying a descendant of Eve would ultimately crush Satan.

Good news for Adam and Eve, and good news for the world.

But notice God said to Satan, "...and you shall bruise his heel." While Satan would be defeated, heaven wouldn't get out of this unscathed.

He would die for the sins of human beings.

When Adam and Eve realized that they were naked, they stitched together fig leaves to cover themselves.

God provided clothing for them, skins, the skins of animals from the Garden of Eden.

There hadn't been any death until that time.

But now, as a consequence of sin, Death came into the world.

Genesis 3.21 says, For Adam and his wife, the Lord God, made tunics of skin and clothed them.

Something had to die to provide a covering for Adam and Eve.

The death of those animals prefigured the death of Jesus.

When Adam and Eve sinned, along with losing what had covered their nakedness, they lost much more.

And that's where we find ourselves today.

Paul wrote, "...do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?" He said, "...all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Jesus died so that we could receive righteousness.

The prophet Isaiah wrote that all our righteousnesses are filthy rags.

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At the Cross

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