Title: The Torn Curtain: What the Cross Means to followers of The Christ

Text: Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me.”
FIRST SLIDE
Greeting
Rev 1.4, 5: Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to
come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is
the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the
earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

Prayer
Let’s bow our heads in prayer
I thank you God for the blessing that you have given me to speak to Riverside on this day and I pray that
You use the words that I say to minister to those who are here. I desire only one thing today, I have only
one objective, that is to lift up the risen Christ, Your Son, as the only hope for any and all of us for life
here and life eternal. For His Sake and through His name AMEN

Greeting
This is a beautiful day no matter what the weather what the political situation or what the economic
situation this is the day when we commemorate the resurrection of our Savior, the Messiah of Israel,
The Redeemer of the World.

SECOND SLIDE
Title of the Sermon Slide
The Torn Curtain: What the Cross means to The Christian is relevant to all of us who
are His followers. The cross as the way to the resurrected life is my focus.
What I hope to do is make this so real each one of us can apply it and say to ourselves “what does the
cross, or more importantly on resurrection Sunday, what does the resurrection mean to me
individually?” It is the empty cross, the resurrected Christ that is important to those of us who are
followers of the Living Christ.
THIRD SLIDE
In the sermon today I will touch on the following main points:

The Crucifixion in History

The Crucifixion foreshadowed in the Old Testament
The Cross as Place of Sacrifice
The Cross as mere symbol
The Cross in the New Testament
The Sacrifice on the Cross and the Torn Curtain

FOURTH SLIDE

A. I have for many years thought about why it was that the early church didn’t use the cross as one
of its symbols. Why was it only later in history that it becomes prevalent? Could it be because of
the following facts with which the early Christians were all too familiar?
Let’s look at a few of the things that are known about
crucifixion:
>Historians write that untold hundreds of thousands were
crucified in the 800 plus years that various cultures used it
as a form of execution, it was so commonplace that any
person living in the far flung empire would have been
confronted with its brutality regularly.

But it wasn’t for everyone as,,,,

>Roman citizens were exempt by law with only a few

exceptions.

It was used on the outcasts and was…

>It was primarily reserved for Slaves and non-Roman

criminals.

This made it a place of execution for the most despised

outcasts…
 >The cross was a sign of servitude to a higher authority
with total power over life and death.

So with respect to Christians…

>Not only was Jesus executed in a way that was not in

conformity with Jewish Law, which we will see in a
moment. He was also executed by a method for the
despised of the world power at the time. He was executed
as one of the lowliest of the secular culture, despised by the
religious leaders of Israel, and cursed by His Father God as
we shall read in a moment.

So it may be that the early church which lived in a culture

where the cross was so common and so horrific that they
didn’t want to elevate it to a place of veneration. Instead
they looked to the hope it offered of reconciliation with
God and life eternal.

But let’s look at Deuteronomy to see God’s perspective on

the cross…

FIFTH SLIDE

Deut 21:23 22
If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a
23
tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day,
because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land
the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

And yet this is the way God planned for our redemption...the via dolorosa for His Son as we read
in …
 Galatians 3:13 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for
us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

But why THE curse? What was the significance of becoming the curse? We encounter the
curse first in Genesis

SIXTH SLIDE
God in Speaking to Satan as the serpent says

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring
and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

We encounter here the first revelation of the nature of the Messiah and His mission.
It is the offspring of the woman, the unique Divine one of Israel, the only man born solely of a
woman, who will conquer The Serpent’s rule over mankind.

The Pastor read Friday night of The Israelites and the Serpent in the desert. Let’s revisit that for
a moment. There is a plague of snakes, snakebites and death.
Think about that…Satan in the form of a serpent brings sin into the world through his
temptation of Eve. Now in the desert where the Israelites have been in open rebellion against
God He sends the very creature that was used by Satan to first trick mankind into sin as their
punishment. The serpents visit the camp and spread death and destruction. What happens next
is so important that Christ Himself mentions it to His disciples.
Let’s first look at the book of Numbers…

SEVENTH SLIDE
Numbers 21:8-9 8
The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look
at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by
a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

It is faith of those who looked upon the snake lifted up that healed them. It was their acceptance of
God’s provision in obedience not the symbol itself.
And then in the Gospel of John we read these words of Jesus as He points back to this event and its
relevance as a foreshadowing of His cross…

EIGHTH SLIDE
John 3:14–1514 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted
up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Here he makes it abundantly clear that it is the belief in Him, not in the symbol that saves…
Ninth Slide
Let’s return for a minute to the Old Testament. It is very interesting to see what happens to the Serpent
on a Pole later…after the substance of the event, the true meaning of the event has been replaced with
the symbol of the event…

Second Kings was written several hundred years after Moses and the Israelites walked through the
desert. Let’s read what happened during the reign of Hezekiah…

2 Kings 18:4 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah
poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites
had been burning incense to it.

What!!! How could that be?

Lest we say how could this have happened let's talk a moment about what has been done to the
Cross unconnected to the substance of the sacrifice of our Lord.

TENTH SLIDE
The cross has had a long historical road since the crucifixion. But it took on an all new role Starting with
Constantine first banning crucifixion as a form of execution and then placing the Cross on his military
standards and incorporating it into the royal symbology of the Roman Empire. The people of the empire
became more and more separated from the actual experience of the cross and this provided fertile
ground for it to continue its development as mere symbol in what became known as the Holy Roman
Empire and then through to the Crusades where it was used as a sign of Divine endorsement and
support and for Divine protection on the armies of Europe as they marched off to faraway lands. Then
into the medieval period as a sign for good luck, where frequently both sides in a battle would have the
cross central to their banners. And finally in our day where it adorns most Christian churches one way or
another. All of this time, it is being more and more removed from the substance that it represents…The
death of sin in Christ on a cross.

Many times it is even used to consecrate, if you will, sinful behavior; as in seeking divine protection for
war and conquest. Because of this it more often than not serves as a symbol of a mix of politics and
theology that offends others… Mind you the sacrifice of a Divine Redeemer is offensive and a stumbling
block for many as Paul says… but it is the substance behind the symbol not the symbol itself that should
cause the stumbling. The symbol should not get in the way of what the world needs to hear and where
the symbol gets in the way of the substance it is no longer pointing to the Christ, but instead causing
division for all of the wrong reasons.

If the misuse of it as a divine symbol isn’t bad enough many people wear it only as jewelry, absent the
recognition of the terrible price paid on that Roman Cross 2000 years ago.

It has been removed from its representation of the cruelty and depravity of man, and man’s redemption
on that perfect symbol of his own depravity.
To many Christians who lift it up or bow before it… it has become as the Serpent on the Pole an object
for veneration in and of itself…divorced from all faith in the act of Christ’s sacrifice and replaced with
faith in the place of Christ’s sacrifice. Worship of the altar instead of the Divine one on the altar.

ELEVENTH SLIDE
The cross reigns over many empty and dead places and churches and people… READ THE SLIDE

We frequently hear from the Pastor of the spiritual deadness in the world, and in our country. And yet
we see the cross everywhere devoid of significance, a mere talisman.

TWELFTH SLIDE
But the Living Christ reigns over the Living Church, Place, And People

There were many crucifixions but only one of the perfectly blameless victim, The Lamb of God

The cross is where the Lamb goes before He Becomes the Lion of Judah.

The cross without the resurrection is truly empty and at most another human tragedy

……………………………………

……………………………………

We have looked at the cross in history, The cross in the Old Testament, and the cross in the world…

Now, let’s turn our attention to a New Testament understanding of the cross.

In the Gospel of John It is recorded that Jesus said …

THIRTEENTH SLIDE
John 10:18 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to
lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my
Father.”
Jesus tells us here that He gave His life on that cross of His own will in obedience to the Father
and that He exited the grave by the power given Him by the Father.
How does this apply to us, let’s look at Jesus’s statement in Mark…

FOURTEENTH SLIDE
Mark 8:34-35 34
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone
would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants
to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
WE must take up our cross as He did, willingly, and submit ourselves to His authority and follow Him as
He submitted Himself to the Father. We do this by crucifying, if you will our sinful natures on our
personal cross, where we obey our Redeemer.

Paul and writes of the cross quite a bit and in 1 Corinthians

FIFTEENTH SLIDE
1 Corinthians 1:18 1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

What is ironic is that the cross is the only place where we find meaning to life. It is the place of
purpose and significance… but life absent the cross is truly foolish…The world has it precisely
upside down!!!

And then in we read in Galatians

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives
in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me.”
This is what is foolishness to those who are rejecting the cross, this dying to self, this thing about Christ
being alive and alive in the believer is just too difficult for the unrepentant person to get his mind
around…But God opens our hearts to hear His voice and follow Christ so that the foolishness of the cross
becomes our forgiveness and new life. A life with purpose and meaning for eternity…

SIXTEENTH SLIDE
The cross IS the turning point! It is the event on which history turns and the event where we die to sin
and live for Christ. It is not only the turning point of History but our individual turning point as well…as
Peter says in…

1 Peter 2:24“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might
die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

The cross is the place where God enters history to redeem His creation on His terms in His Son…He
provides the answer to our separation from His Peace…

In Abraham we see the foreshadowing of His Provision on our behalf….

SEVENTEENTH SLIDE
God provides the sacrifice to Abraham… Abraham desires to obey God and in faith embarks on the
journey with his son, let’s read a couple of verses from….

Gen 22:8, 13 “Here is the fire and the wood,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
22:8 
“God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham replied… Abraham
looked up and saw behind him a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. So he went over and got the ram
and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

In Genesis God provides the sacrifice and foreshadows His provision of the ultimate sacrifice on a cross
almost 2000 years in the future. The significance of the cross is that it is God’s provision for us on that
cross that redeems us by our faith…Just as Paul writes in Romans referencing Abraham’s faith…

EIGHTEENTH SLIDE
Romans 4:23-25 :23 But the statement it was credited to him (referencing the righteousness because of
his faith) was not written only for Abraham’s sake, 4:24 but also for our sake, to whom it will be credited,
those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 4:25 He was given over because of
our transgressions and was raised for the sake of our justification.

God did provide the sacrifice for me… My sin was on that cross with Christ …and yet He died alone on
my behalf, despised by God and Man… as I said a little earlier…

NINETEENTH SLIDE
Jesus the only begotten of the Father, the Messiah of Israel, and the Redeemer of the world cries
out in solitary anguish in Mark 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi,
Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He is
forsaken by his followers, his countrymen, his culture and most importantly His Father in
Heaven as sin for us…

But that is not the end of the story as it would be if we had to die for our sin, it would be over
but…Because this is God’s way not our way, He opens the door to heaven through what
happened on that particular cross…and afterward.

TWENTIETH SLIDE
It is the final sacrifice and in Matthew we read of the eternal significance of this ultimate act of God on
our behalf…

Matthew 27:50-51 50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51 At that
moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks
split.
…(Describe the slide)…

The Veil to the Holy of Holies in the Temple of God was parted never more to separate the people of
God from his presence. Jesus was the final sacrifice, His blood covered our sins and we now enter freely
before God’s throne as His children

The significance of the cross is found in our new life in Christ…The Resurrected Christ.. we may not see
him yet with our eyes but…

like Job, we come to Him in faith

TWENTYFIRST SLIDE

We hear of the patience of Job a lot but what was the foundation of that patience…it was his
faith as we read in…

Job 19:25
25 
For I know that my Redeemer lives,

and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

26 
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

yet in my flesh I shall see God,

27 
whom I shall see for myself,

and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me!

Which brings me to the emphasis in the first centuries of Christianity as it was spread from
Jerusalem to the ends of the earth …

TWENTYSECOND SLIDE the focus was on the whole gospel … the perfect sacrifice
of God on our behalf and the resurrection of the Christ because in that resurrection we are given
sure and true hope as Paul says in Colossians 1:18

Colossians 1:18–20 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the
firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness
of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on
earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

He Is not Here…He Has Risen, just as he said!!!

TWENTYTHIRD SLIDE
Call to action… What does after the cross mean to those of you who have come to it in faith and
repentance?

A. Is the message of the cross real to you?

B. Is the resurrection real to you?
C. Not do you believe it was a real event but is it real to you!
D. Christ lives and He also lives in and through us … and we live because of Him
E. To recognize that it is Christ in me means it is not about me but about Him and Him
alone
F. Are we ashamed of the exclusivity of the crucifixion
G. Are we ashamed of the Call of the Risen Christ
H. Do we desire to be accepted more than the desire to testify to the Risen Christ
I hope not, because Jesus calls us to a different life and Paul calls us to imitate himself as he imitates
Christ…Every Christian should be able to say the same thing!!! This is what it means to die to self and for
Christ to live in us…

TWENTYFOURTH SLIDE
Are you an imitator of Christ…Jesus says to His followers… in

John 14:23–24 “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and
WE will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep
my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

Paul calls us to be imitators of God in Ephesians

Ephesians 5:1–2 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ
loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

And in … 1 Corinthians 11:1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

Can we say the same thing to those around us? That is our charge in the resurrected life we live.

______________________________________________________________

We are called to be a witness to the true Cross and the Eternal reality of the Resurrection
The Veil is torn…Christ the Lamb of God is the resurrected all-sufficient sacrifice

We approach the Father through Him, our Resurrected Redeemer Who we shall see in the flesh, the
resurrected flesh.

I have talked about faith today. The faith of Moses and the Israelites in the desert, the faith of Abraham,
the Faith of Job, and the faith that we are called to, This is a faith in God’s provision not a faith in empty
symbols.

TWENTYFIFTH SLIDE
To conclude let’s remember what we have covered today

We have looked at the Cross in History

We have seen how the cross was foreshadowed in the Old Testament

I have repeatedly talked of the Cross as a place of the Sacrifice of God the Father through His Son

We then turned our attention to the New Testament references to the Cross and heard of how we must
take up our own cross of service to Christ in obedience

And lastly, we saw how the cross was all sufficient to destroy the veil that separated us from our Father
in Heaven

The cross of Christ is where we are called to repentance and forgiveness by God Himself. But we are also
called to move past the Cross as believers to a new life of Christ Living in us. To not stop at the Cross but
once forgiven to enter the resurrected life of Christ and experience his joy in us.

TWENTYSIXTH SLIDE
So what should the cross of Christ mean to us… I think it means the Fulfillment of an Amazing Promise,
displayed in an Amazing Love, & offered to each of us in Amazing Grace!!! For that is the Gospel of the
Cross and the Resurrection

When you leave here today I pray that the life of Christ will shine in you to your lost and dying friends
and associates. May they see the Christ who lives in you and want to know him at the cross so he will
live in them also.

As we sing If anyone wants to pray at the front please come. If anyone does not know that they will see
their redeemer in the flesh and needs to meet Christ in repentance at the Cross please come and speak
to one of the elders at the front. Could we have a few of the elders of the church be available for those
that would like to talk to someone.