Every Last Word

Guest (Male): On the way to the cross, Jesus passed many who were shedding tears, but he would not let them cry. There are events to come that are even more pressing for their concern. As we prepare to get a deeper understanding of this odd moment, let’s turn in our Bibles to the Gospel of Luke.

Mark: Welcome to Every Last Word, a radio and internet program with Dr. Philip Ryken teaching the whole Bible to change your whole life. We continue our study in the Gospel of Luke. Our message will cause us to look forward to a future judgment and also to God’s salvation. Phil, Simon carried the cross of Jesus up the hill to the final location of the crucifixion. What does his act of cross bearing teach us?

Phil Ryken: Well, Mark, sometimes this is taken as an example of our own calling to follow Christ in the way of discipleship, to take up our cross and follow him. You might see it as a kind of picture of that.

But I think the weight of the cross that Simon was carrying also shows the condemnation that we deserve for our sin. Because the truth is that we all deserve the weight of our sin. Simon is an example of someone bearing that weight and then released from that burden because Christ died for Simon’s sins as much as for anyone’s sins, Mark, including your sins and my sins.

Mark: Well, as Jesus was painfully making his way up the path that would lead to his death, he tells those who he’s passing by to weep and mourn for themselves and not for him. Considering the circumstances, why do you believe he said something like that?

Phil Ryken: It is surprising, isn't it, Mark? Because you would think that it was appropriate to show sympathy for Jesus in his sufferings. But Jesus understood that those people themselves would come under judgment and what they really needed to be concerned about was their own sin and their own salvation.

So I think there’s a lesson in this for us too, Mark. When we consider the sufferings that Jesus went through on his way to the cross, we shouldn't feel sorry for him primarily. We should be thinking about the reality of our own sin and the judgment of God and our need to come to Christ for our own salvation. That's what Jesus would want us to be thinking about.

Mark: All right, thank you, Phil. Let’s turn in our Bibles now to Luke Chapter 23, verses 26 through 31, and listen together to Dr. Ryken.

Phil Ryken: And so, my friends, at last the time came for the Savior to die. He had been given his fatal kiss. He had gone through his midnight trial. He had received his unjust sentence. He had been beaten cruelly by the soldiers. And then they led him away to die.

And as they led him, Luke tells us, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and they laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus. Let me encourage you please to turn in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 23, where these events are recorded for us and where we will consider particularly something that Jesus said. Something, I think, very surprising, even shocking that he said, and maybe even shocking enough to save your life.

Well, let’s see what the Gospel says. It was customary in those days for a criminal to carry his own cross, a kind of final indignity before the fatal event. And it seems likely, therefore, that Jesus must have been very close to the point of total collapse. Why else would the soldiers make someone else carry his cross, if not for the cruel mercy of making sure that he lived long enough to be crucified?

We have seen in our study of the Gospel of Luke that Jesus was close to death the night before in the sweaty, bloody tear drops of Gethsemane. And we have seen how that morning he had been scourged with cruel whips and beaten with bloody fists. We know from various ancient sources that such torture often cut to the bone, grotesquely exposing vein and sinew.

Here was a man whose appearance, as the prophet said, was marred beyond human semblance, a man whose life was already bleeding away. And as he struggled up Calvary under the weight of his heavy cross, his obvious physical exhaustion must have made the soldiers wonder whether he would die before they had the satisfaction of killing him. And so they seized a passerby and compelled him to carry the cross.

He was a man, we are told, from North Africa, Simon of Cyrene. And since there is little use arguing with soldiers, he did as he was told. He carried the cross of Jesus. Now, many preachers have seen in this a kind of symbol of our discipleship. Is it not the case that Jesus has told us that if we are to be his disciples, we are to take up our cross and to follow him? That certainly is a Gospel truth.

But I wonder if it may be better in this case for us to see the cross as a symbol of our own condemnation. Because we are the ones who deserve to die for our sins, not Jesus. And as we watch Simon carry the cross up Calvary—not his own cross, you see, but the cross of Christ—we should see the heavy burden of our own guilty sin.

And as we continue in the Gospel and see Jesus nailed to that cross, we should know that he is dying in our place for the sins that we deserve to carry. Really, the whole Gospel of Luke has been leading us to this point, to the point where we can see the cross. We have said from the beginning that Luke is the Gospel of knowing for sure, and one of the things that we have known for sure for a long time is that Jesus would have to die.

Already when he was presented at the temple, the man Simeon prophesied the piercing of a sword. And then starting in chapter nine, Jesus began to speak to his disciples plainly about his rejection and his death. He said that he had to go up to Jerusalem because that is the place where the prophets always went to perish. He even told a parable, you may remember, about the murder of a father’s only beloved son. And who do you suppose that parable was about?

You see, we have known for a long time that Jesus would have to die, but here finally, Luke is showing us the cross—this cross that Simon of Cyrene carries up the last and fatal hill, the cross where Jesus was crucified for the salvation of sinners. And here, for the first time in the Gospel, Luke speaks plainly in verse 26 of the cross, bringing into focus this man who is about to die.

And surely, the mood of this entire passage is unspeakably somber. It is sad because we know what is about to happen. We see this innocent man, the perfect Son of God, the beloved Son of the Blessed Father, and we know that he is taking his last steps to the cross. It is somber as well because of the intense emotional response of the mourners who are following him up to Calvary.

Luke tells us about this in verse 27. He says there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. Now, this information is unique to the Gospel of Luke. I don't think that’s surprising. We’ve seen it before, that Luke takes a special interest in the relationship that Jesus had with various women. And he notes here that there are these women following Jesus and weeping for him.

Nor is that surprising. Even to this day, open demonstrations of public grief are very common in Israel and throughout the Middle East. We see them on the television anytime there is another terrorist bombing, women crying loudly in the streets, wailing with lamentation. This is the ritual of a community lament. And here, their tears are flowing out of sympathy for the Man of Sorrows.

They have pity for a man they rightly perceive to be an innocent victim. How sad they are to see this young man taken out of the city and cruelly executed. Now, it may be that some of these women were among the disciples of Jesus. I’m not sure about that, though, because Jesus here addresses them simply as daughters of Jerusalem.

And most of the women who followed Jesus and supported his ministry, as we’ve seen in the Gospel, came from Galilee, not from Jerusalem. I think very likely these women are—some of them, at least, are women from the community. They’re part of this Jerusalem community. They know something about Jesus, but perhaps many of them not at the point where they've already made a commitment to him. I think that may be evident from the way that Jesus speaks to them in the warning he gives them in the verses that follow.

Nevertheless, these women surely are kindly women with sympathetic souls. They recognize an injustice when they see it. Their hearts go out to this innocent man in his painful suffering, and so they take up their lament. I think today we find that lamentation is a forgotten virtue. It is right and good for godly people to mourn the innocent victims of wrongful violence, to weep for children in the city who get gunned down in the street, to grieve the loss of many lives in war and terror around the world.

This is part of our calling as the people of God, to have a heart response to the sufferings of the world, to lament its many losses in our fallen condition. I think, for example, of the evangelical statesman Michael Cassidy, who traveled just a couple of years ago from his native South Africa in the aftermath of the terrible genocide in Rwanda. And there, he and his team witnessed appalling atrocities.

And they had gone with the thought that there might be something that they could do to begin rebuilding the country, and there were various things that they could do, but really the first thing was to offer holy lamentation for the dead. This was part of the believer’s response, to grieve these losses. I wonder, is your own heart touched by the losses of the world or have we in so many ways become callous to suffering?

We see the godly lamentation, I think, exemplified in the biblical prophet Jeremiah, who himself wept for the suffering people of Jerusalem. You can read all about that in the Book of Lamentations. But Jeremiah also encouraged the daughters of Jerusalem to share in his tears. And here we see the women of that holy city doing the same thing as Jesus walks his Via Dolorosa, the Way of Tears, winding up to Calvary.

Nevertheless, Jesus tells these women that their tears are misplaced, that they are mourning for the wrong person. Now, we might well have expected Jesus instead to thank these women for their sympathies. I mean, here he is, it seems almost friendless, going to the cross in great suffering. And here are women who are actually weeping and mourning for him. You might think that Jesus would thank them for their sympathies.

But instead, to our surprise, he does something much more important for them. He gives them this mild rebuke and serious warning: "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." You see, these women thought that Jesus was the one who was the person to be pitied. After all, he was about to die in excruciating pain, and everyone knew that.

Nevertheless, he did not need anyone’s assistance, nor did he need anyone’s sympathy. He would do with courage what he was called to do to the very death. He would do it in reliance on the Holy Spirit. He would not require the comfort of anyone’s tears. Rather than weeping for him, therefore, these women should weep for themselves.

I don't know that Jesus is saying here that their sympathetic tears are sinful, but I think he is saying that they are really missing the point. That if anyone needs to be pitied, it is the people of Jerusalem and not the man that they are putting to death. And so Jesus says, "Do not weep for me, weep for yourselves." And also, he says, "Weep for your children."

Now, Jesus spoke these words, you’ll notice from verse 28, to the daughters of Jerusalem. That’s a phrase that refers, I think, to the nation of Israel as a whole. These women are representative of the people of God in that time and in that place. In effect, the women who wept for Jesus represented God’s people. And so whatever Jesus said to them, he was really saying to the whole city.

But I think also he is saying it to us: "Do not weep for me, but for yourselves." And I think further that this needs to be said because sometimes people do weep for Jesus. Many paintings of the crucifixion, many statues, many icons of the cross are really designed to evoke feelings of pity for Jesus.

And I think we also find that many Christians believe that Good Friday, for example, is a day when they should feel sad about the death of Jesus, that they should get themselves into the right emotional state to grieve the crucifixion. Well, let me say that Jesus does not need our sympathies. He didn’t need them when he was going to the cross; he certainly doesn't need them now that he is finished with suffering for our sin.

And so if we do weep for the cross, it really should be with sorrow for our own sin, or perhaps it should be with gratitude for the gift of our salvation. But it should never be with sadness for Jesus. No, the Savior himself says to us once and for all: "Weep not for me."

Now, why does Jesus tell us to weep for ourselves instead of for him? What's the reason for this lamentation? Well, I think it’s very clear in the verses that follow. It is because judgment is coming. And unless we find safety in Jesus, we are in mortal danger of coming under the wrath of God. Now, this is a serious subject. I doubt whether there are any more serious verses in Scripture than these words of Jesus on his way to the cross.

And I cannot prove to you the coming judgment, although I do think I can show you good evidence for it from the Scriptures. But I can certainly testify to the fact that Jesus himself believed in the coming judgment, and it was on that basis that he gave these words of hope and words of warning. The person truly to be pitied is not the Savior who died for sinners. No, it is the sinners who die in their own sins and therefore fall under the judgment of God. This is the concern of Jesus Christ.

Now, you see, this is why Jesus speaks to us plainly about these things because he wants us to know the truth of God’s judgment, and on that basis to see the truth of God’s mercy and to understand the saving work that he was doing on the cross. And so after telling these women not to weep for themselves, Jesus went on to say this: "Behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Cover us.'"

Now, it was out of pity that Jesus made this prediction. You see the compassion of Jesus? He’s going on to the cross and yet he’s not thinking about his own situation. He is showing pity for the daughters of Jerusalem and all their children. He’s thinking in love of their salvation. And you see, Jesus knew that destruction would soon fall on that holy city, that Jerusalem would be destroyed because in so many ways these people had rejected the coming of the Messiah.

This was now at least, I think, the seventh time that Jesus in one way or another had prophesied doom for Jerusalem. And do you know that all of these prophecies came true not many years later in AD 70, which is the year when the city was sacked by the Romans? And Jesus here is predicting that when that terrible day came, women who were married with children would envy the single and the childless.

Now, that's not always the way it is in the world. In fact, in those days, it was not uncommon for people to think of barrenness as a kind of curse. But Jesus is saying here that when judgment comes, it will be counted a blessing—better not to have any children at all than to see them suffer sword and famine, as mothers did when Jerusalem fell.

The historians who record these things speak of the terrible suffering of those days, particularly for women and for young children. Many people surely, as Jesus prophesied they would, wished that they would be destroyed, that the mountains around the city would fall on them, not to protect them, but to kill them, and thus to deliver them out of the misery of their distress.

And you see, it is out of pity for all of this suffering that Jesus tells the daughter of Jerusalem to have pity on themselves. Rather than being so concerned about what was happening to him, they should be more concerned about what would happen to them, and then maybe they would come to him and to his cross for salvation. And then when the day of judgment came, they would escape with their lives.

And do you know that most, maybe nearly all of the Christians did escape in AD 70? You see, they knew these prophecies of Jesus; they remembered them. It was part of the collective memory of the early church, and when they saw that the Romans were coming and would besiege the city, they knew the city would not be delivered, it would be destroyed.

And the result of that is that the people of God went to various places around the Mediterranean world. They went sharing the Gospel, you see. They believed this promise, they heeded the warning of Jesus, and they were saved. They were saved in that temporal sense from the destruction of Jerusalem, but I think as we go on, we’ll see they also had the opportunity to be saved in a deeper sense from everlasting judgment.

Now, to strengthen this warning, which I think really was strong enough as it was, Jesus nevertheless followed his prophecy with a curious proverb. You see it there in verse 31. I wonder what you make of it. "If they do these things when the wood is green," Jesus said, "what will happen when it is dry?"

This is a way of driving home the point of his warning by using his own example. Jesus here is drawing a sort of analogy. He’s making a comparison between his own sufferings and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem. I suppose that any outdoorsman, any good Boy Scout would be able to testify to the truth of the basis for this example that Jesus gives. Isn't it the case that an old stick always burns faster and hotter than some living branch torn fresh from the tree?

In using this analogy, Jesus is comparing himself to that green and living tree. And he’s comparing the people of Jerusalem to that old dry wood. You see, Jesus himself is perfectly innocent. Really, he is the last person who ought to be crucified. I mean, he’s the green branch; he’s not the one that you use for the fire.

Nevertheless, here he is. He’s on his way to the cross. The green wood is, so to speak, about to be thrown into the fire. Here is the punishment of the Romans, and in a deeper sense, we see it as also the judgment of God because Jesus is bearing the guilt of our sin, and there on the cross, he is suffering the wrath of God. And what do you suppose then will happen to the people of Jerusalem?

They are like the dry wood. They’re the ones that actually deserve condemnation. They deserve to fall under judgment for their sin. Will they not therefore quickly be destroyed? That’s the point of the analogy. Here is how J.C. Ryle paraphrased what Jesus was saying: "If the Romans practice such cruelties on me, who am a green tree and the very source of life, what will they one day do to your nation, which is like a barren withered trunk, dead in trespasses and sins?"

Yes, what will the Romans do? And what will God do? If he did not spare his own innocent Son, will he spare the sinners who reject him? You see, that's the point of this analogy. Here is how Leon Morris said it in his commentary: "If the innocent Jesus suffered thus, what will be the fate of the guilty?"

Now, Jesus knew what the fate of the guilty would be. And so in mercy, he told the daughters of Jerusalem to weep before the coming destruction. And the tears that he is calling them to cry are not tears of sadness only, but I think also of repentance. Jesus here is calling people to be concerned about their spiritual condition, concerned enough to be sorry for sin.

And this is always the way to prepare for the coming judgment. You see it all the way through Scripture. When people are speaking about the coming judgment, from John the Baptist, for example, and his prophecies about the Christ, the point is to repent of your sin while you still have the opportunity.

Here is how one poet expressed the words of Jesus in these verses: "Weep, O my daughters, but grieve not for me. Weep for yourselves and your children. Shed bitter tears of mourning and pray. Oh, pray, Miserere nostri Domine." They should pray, in other words, that the Lord would have mercy, that he would have mercy on their souls.

And you see, this was infinitely more important than feeling sorry for Jesus. I mean, you could feel sorry about that; it was a lamentable thing in itself. But sadder still to die in your sins without ever finding forgiveness. And so Jesus says, "Weep for yourselves and for your children."

Now, let me ask you if you will listen to what Jesus said to these women and weep for your own sins. You see, his words are important for us to hear because we too are facing the prospect of judgment. I think what Jesus says here is certainly prophetic of the fall of Jerusalem, that national disaster, if you will, but prophetic also of the final judgment that will happen to all nations at the end of the world.

The Bible speaks about this. It says that the wrath of God is coming against all unrighteousness. It promises that one day Jesus is coming again and that on that day, every enemy of God will be judged to eternal damnation. Now, are you ready for that final judgment? And if not, or if you're not sure if you’re ready or not, what would it take to get ready? These are the things we should consider as we hear the words of Jesus.

Many people hope that they will never be judged at all. I was reading this week about a bumper sticker that reads as follows: "Non-judgment day is coming." Not Judgment Day is coming, but Non-judgment Day is coming. You see, it’s a way of poking fun at the final judgment, but it’s also a way of insisting that no one should ever be judged for anything.

Let me say that is not a perspective that the Judge himself shares. You see this all the way through Scripture. He speaks frequently about judgment. You see it all the way through the Word of God. And do you know that when that judgment comes, people will say the same thing that Jesus said the women of Jerusalem would say when their city was besieged? People will beg in vain for their own destruction.

There’s a prophecy about this in the Book of Revelation. It might be wise to turn there. It’s Revelation chapter six. It bears a close connection to the words of Jesus before he went to the cross. We read in these prophecies of terrible calamities in the last days, of the earth shaking, of the sun going black, of the stars falling from the very sky, and the mountains being flattened to the sea.

Then, reading in verse 15, the Bible’s grim prophecy: "Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free," you see, everyone from the greatest in the world to the least, all of them hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks—and notice what they said—"Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb," that is Jesus, "for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"

Now, do you hear in those words an echo of the words of Jesus? People calling for the mountains and the hills to fall on them. We see this other places in Scripture. It’s in the prophet Hosea as he looks forward to the coming Day of the Lord. You see, people under judgment will end up with a death wish for their own destruction, desperate and in despair, wanting the very mountains to cover them up.

And do you see that even the fact that they are begging to be destroyed shows that they are still in torment? That these pleas are in vain? And this is why Jesus tells us to weep for ourselves, so that we will not end up in that horrendous situation. This is the time to come to God in repentance, to take a serious concern about our spiritual condition, consider carefully the realities of the coming judgment.

Jesus speaks about these things because he believes in the final judgment more than anyone. With all of the testimony of Scripture behind it, the fires of hell, as the Scripture says, eternal damnation, all of the things testified to in the Scriptures. Jesus believes in all of those things, and not only those things, but he also suffered the wrath of God himself on the cross.

And because of that suffering and because of his great love to show mercy for sinners, knowing that no one needs to go through that kind of destruction and judgment, he invites us to be concerned about our salvation, to weep for our sins, and to come to him at the cross for grace. You see, this is the great concern, not what happened to Jesus, but what will happen to us.

And so I ask you again, will you listen to Jesus and to his plea that you would weep for yourself and also for your children, having a concern as well for their salvation? You know, the Bible teaches us, I think, really everywhere to believe in the wrath of God, nearly from the very first page until the very last. The Old and New Testaments give us many vivid examples of divine judgment.

You see it again and again, people rejecting God and then refusing to repent of their sin and then suffering terribly as a result. And every one of those disasters is a kind of prophecy of the coming judgment. It’s a portent of the wrath of God. This is the way stories work, including the great story that God has written in the world. You see things early in the story that are warning you about what will happen at the end of the story, and that’s the way the testimony of the Scripture about judgment works.

I think you could say the same thing about all of the disasters we see in the world today. Every tsunami, every terrorist attack is reminding us of the great and terrible Day of the Lord. When people go through those experiences, they often think that it’s the end of the world, and you see, that's what God wants us to think about these acts of judgment, so that we are taking a concern to our spiritual condition.

How sad it will be for anyone who dies and goes to judgment without believing in Jesus. Consider the implications of this proverb that Jesus told about the green wood and the dry wood. I mean, consider what Jesus suffered on the cross, the wrath that God the very Son endured when he was bearing guilt for sin. And then consider what judgment will surely fall on those who refuse to trust in Jesus to take away their sins and therefore have to stand under the judgment for themselves.

You see, if this is the wrath that came on the innocent one, what judgment will fall on the guilty? And Jesus is inviting us to be spared from that wrath. That’s why he’s speaking to us about it; it’s why he’s asking us to be concerned about our situation, to be concerned about it while there is still time. This is why Jesus came into the world. It’s why he died on the cross. It’s because he suffered the punishment that our sins deserve.

And now he is not looking for our pity and for our sympathy. He’s looking for our repentance and faith. That’s the thing that he desires; that’s the response that he desires from us. He comes to us in love and tells us to weep for ourselves and for our children, not feeling sorry for ourselves, but taking heed to the coming judgment, saying that we are sorry for sin, coming to him at the cross and believing that he died there for our sins.

You see, Jesus is talking about shedding the kind of tears that will lead us to trust in him for salvation, tears that actually do something, that lead to a response of life—a life that is lived in hope for the mercy that God will show to us and to our children.

You know, I think Simon of Cyrene took heed to these words. I don't know if he wept over his spiritual situation. The Bible doesn't speak to that. It doesn't talk about any tears that he may have cried. But I think the Bible does give us a pretty clear indication that this Simon of Cyrene, this man who was there following Jesus and carrying the cross, he did trust in Jesus. And furthermore, he took concern for the work of the Gospel in the lives of his children, praying that they too would be saved from judgment.

Now, I say that not because of anything further that Luke tells us, but there is an interesting detail in the Gospel of Mark. There we read that this Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. That's Mark chapter 15, verse 21. Now, that's a very interesting detail. Why do you suppose Mark includes it in his Gospel? I mean, why would you just mention this little bit of family history?

Well, I think only because you know that the first readers of your Gospel will find that interesting and of note. And the reason that they will find it of note is because Alexander and Rufus were well-known men of the faith in the early church. They were men like their father, men who followed Jesus to the cross and believed in him for salvation. I think it’s not unlikely that the apostle Paul is referring to the same family in some of the comments he makes in Romans chapter 16.

And you see, here we have right in the story, then, an example of the kind of response that we should give to the words of Jesus. It’s the example of this man Simon. He believed that judgment was coming. He knew that the important thing for him was to get right with God, and having done that, to teach his family the Gospel, to speak to them about Jesus, to pray for them and for their salvation, and to trust in what God would do in the lives of his children.

How privileged Simon was to carry the cross of Christ. How wise he was to heed these words of Jesus and to weep for himself and for his children. How joyful he will be at the final judgment that he has come to Christ for his salvation. And may I say, how happy you will be if you follow his example and come to Jesus.

Our Father in heaven, we give you praise that Jesus does not speak obscurely, but plainly. And that as we consider carefully what he has said in the Word of God as we have it in front of us this very day, that as we consider these things, we may know for certain that judgment is coming and that there is a way of escape for us in the mercy of Jesus through his work on the cross. Father, we give you praise, in Jesus’ name, amen.