Rev. David Holwick Good Friday
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
March 29, 2002
John 12:27-33
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John 12:32 - "When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself."
I. My mother, the ambulance-chaser.
A. At sound of any siren, her eyes lit up.
My father was more controlled but if mom was driving we could
expect a U-turn.
She has passed this trait on to her grandsons.
B. We are fascinated with danger and death.
1) "The Fear Factor" on television.
a) How far will people go with danger?
2) NASCAR races. All have crashes. Boring without them.
a) (My mom was a big fan of NASCAR)
3) 9-11 documentary on CBS.
a) Grim, but utterly fascinating.
b) Videotape from inside the tower with lines of people
slowly escaping while debris rains down outside.
c) "Mayday!" is called out and firefighters race for exit
as everything turns black.
d) I think - how would I have reacted? Would I have
survived? I always assume I would.
II. We are attracted to disaster and cruelty.
A. Biggest tourist attraction in New York City - Ground Zero.
1) I have been twice.
2) We don't want to dishonor dead, but feel compelled to look.
B. If Jesus were hanging on our sanctuary cross, would you look?
1) He was crucified by a road leading into the city so
travelers could jeer at him, and they did.
2) You wouldn't want to look - but you would.
3) Military chapel in my high school years - cross rotated
with Catholic and Protestant versions.
The Catholic version intrigued me.
C. There is no attraction like that to the cross.
1) On the cross we find a Savior.
a) Initial attraction is to the ghoulish nature.
b) Second look brings us to the Savior.
2) Cross draws us to him.
III. Comparison with snake in wilderness. Numbers 21:4-9
A. Complaining on the journey.
1) They were forced to take a detour.
a) Moses wanted to avoid Edom's hostility.
b) The people sensed they were going backward and not
forward.
2) They criticized God and Moses.
a) No bread, no water, just lousy manna.
1> Before they called it monotonous.
2> Now they call it miserable food.
b) Why'd you bring us here?
3) God sent snakes as judgment.
a) The Israelites repent real quick.
b) Moses is asked to be an intercessor on their behalf.
B. They, and us, have been unfaithful to God.
1) There is a penalty for our unfaithfulness.
2) Physical and spiritual death.
C. Unusual remedy - look at snake on a pole.
1) God didn't remove the snakes - he left them there.
a) (He doesn't remove all our troubles either)
2) But he gave them a way of escape, a cure.
a) In the same way, the cross of Jesus is a cure for
our real problem, separation from God.
1> It does not remove our turmoil or distress.
2> But it shows us there is hope.
b) Michael Benson: "It is an awesome thing to be died for."
IV. Someone has taken our place.
A. Television testimony.
1) "Good Morning America" had next-of-kin of military
casualties in Afghanistan.
2) Many of the families expressed their faith in Jesus.
3) Young widow to Katie Curic -
"Katie, my husband died for you.
He died for his children and for me.
He died for the country he loved.
He did not die in vain."
B. There is no greater message than a substitute.
It was 1941, Auschwitz, Poland.
Maxmilian Kolbe was a Franciscan priest put in the infamous
death camp for helping Jews escape Nazi terrorism.
Months went by and in desperation an escape took place.
The camp policy was enforced.
Ten people would be rounded up randomly and herded into a cell
where they would die of starvation and exposure as a lesson
against future escape attempts.
Names were called.
A Polish Jew, Frandishek Gasovnachek, was among them.
He cried, "Wait, I have a wife and children!"
Father Kolbe stepped forward and said, "I will take his place."
Kolbe was marched into the cell with nine others where he
managed to live until August 14.
This story was chronicled on an NBC news special several
years ago.
Gasovnachek, by this time 82, was shown telling this story
while tears streamed down his cheeks.
A mobile camera followed him around his little white house to
a marble monument carefully tended with flowers.
The inscription read:
IN MEMORY OF MAXIMILIAN KOLBE.
HE DIED IN MY PLACE.
Every day Gasovnachek has lived since 1941, he has known,
"I live because someone died for me."
Every year on August 14 he travels to Auschwitz in memory of
Kolbe.
"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's
life for his friends" (John 15:13).
#12620
C. The Cross is a tool of death, not a piece of shiny jewelry.
1) Jesus became sin for us.
2) It is an awesome thing to be died for.
D. Quote by Rev. George McCloud,
"I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center
of the marketplace as well as at the steeple of the church.
I recover the claim that Jesus was not crucified
on a table between two candles
but on a cross between two thieves,
on a town garbage heap,
at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to
write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek,
and at the kind of place
where cynics talk smut
and thieves cursed
and soldiers gambled
because that is where he died and that is what he died about
and that is what Christ's followers ought to be about."
#22680
V. We "play church" a lot.
A. Our churches are beautiful and comfortable.
We get all upset about church dinners and programs and
we do this and that.
We try to make everyone happy.
We have padded pews and nice stained glass.
We present the gospel in a modern way.
B. People want the cross.
1) Outside these doors there are people who want to know
about the cross of Christ.
Because they want something that's going to challenge
them to change and make a difference in their lives.
They don't want to know about all this other stuff.
They just want to know, "What can Jesus do for me?"
2) (Dover Hospital today - I visit a young couple who,
unknown to me, had just miscarried their baby)
3) We have the answer - lift up the cross.
Lift up the cross!
It is an awesome thing to be died for.
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Adapted from the sermon "The Magnetism of the Cross," by Rev. Harold
Armstrong; First Christian Church of Clearwater, Florida; 3/10/2002.
SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#12620 "Substitute At Auschwitz," by Victor Knowles, Peace on Earth
Ministries. Adapted from Crossroads Family Circle.
#22680 "The Cross Must Be Raised," by Rev. George McCloud, from sermon
by Rev. Harold Armstrong, First Christian Church;
Clearwater, Florida. March 10, 2002.
These and 20,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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