Title: Lessons from Golgotha
Matthew 27:38-50
We have a saying for when we know something is going to go horribly wrong but can’t be stopped.
We might say, “It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.”
We might say this about a family member who’s making bad choices or the life of any Hollywood child actor.
Usually, it means that someone is going to end up in a lot of pain or even destroying their life.
That’s how it might feel for us to move through these passages in Matthew 27.
We’re kind of going step by step through Christ’s crucifixion as Matthew lays it out.
Thankfully, we know that the rejection, crucifixion and death of Jesus didn’t lead to greater problems.
Instead, we know that He was securing our redemption.
this morning we’re in Matthew 27:38-50 in which we’re learning some - Lessons from Golgotha
In these lessons, we’re going to make some observations and some applications from what we observe.
We’re at Calvary in the midst of Christ’s crucifixion as we read -
38 Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. 39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”
41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” 44 And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.
45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
47 And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” 48 And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. 49 But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.”
50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
It’s helpful to remember that each gospel writer emphasizes a perspective to write their own narrative.
Matthew is seeking to get something across that’s a little bit unique to his gospel.
You probably notice that Matthew leaves out a dialogue that we know and love as those saved by grace.
He omits the salvation of the one known as the “thief on the cross.”
He’s the one that finally confesses Jesus to be the Savior and ask Him to remember Him when He comes into His kingdom.
To that Jesus responds, “Truly today, you will be with Me in paradise.” (found in Luke 23:43)
So, why does Matthew omit this conversation?
It would seem to me that Matthew wants to emphasize Jesus’ status as being all alone among His mockers
He’s finding no refuge even among those who share His fate.
I think the scene Matthew paints is all the more dramatic with seeing Jesus as all alone in His agony as He bears the sins of the world and facing incredible temptation at the same time.
We’re first going to make two observations of these verses followed by two general applications.
First I want us to observe how those mocking Jesus are actually proving Him to be who He claimed.
1. JESUS’ SAVING WORK WAS PROVED BY THOSE WHO MOCKED HIM.
38 Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left.
The term used here for robbers is the same one used for Barabbas.
It means much more than just “thief.”
As with Barabbas, these men are thought to be murdering insurrectionists.
Some speculate they could’ve been partners with Barabbas who would’ve been hanging between them.
We can understand that their presence fulfills –
* Isaiah 53:12b he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “Y
39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”
With Golgotha being positioned along the thoroughfare outside Jerusalem, those who pass by were likely going home after the Passover feast.
They wag their heads in mockery in fulfillment of Psalm 22:7
* Psalm 22:7 7 All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
After the common passers-by, we read how the religious leaders spoke of Jesus.
41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ”
Notice that, while the commoners spoke to Jesus, the religious leaders wouldn’t even do Him that service.
They speak of Him as if He’s not worthy of their attention or recognition as a person.
Again, these words fulfill prophecy concerning Christ’s death –
* Psalm 22:8 “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”
You really have to wonder if these men realized they were quoting this prophecy - because their doing so is so clearly evidence of Jesus being the Savior Messiah who they had rejected.
Not only do we see that those who mock Jesus are fulfilling prophecy, we also see that -
2. JESUS’ SAVING WORK WAS PROVED BY WHAT HE SUFFERED.
45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
The gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus’ crucifixion began at the 3rd hour, which is 9 AM.
For three hours (beginning at noon), there was darkness over the whole region.
This darkness lasted for three hours (to 3 PM).
The Jewish historian, Josephus, tells us this is the time that the Jews would offer the evening sacrifice.
In verse 46, we read of what happens to Jesus at the close of experiencing the penalty for all our sins.
46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The ESVSB calls this question - “Some of the most profoundly mysterious words in the entire Bible.”
I think it has to be one of the saddest statements ever spoken.
One writer states, “This is no dispassionate theological statement, but an agonized expression of a real sense of alienation”
Jesus bore the anguish that is deserved by any and all who are headed an eternity in hell.
That’d be all of us
His alienation and exclamation a direct fulfillment of the opening prophetic words of –
* Psalm 22:1a 1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Other prophetic statements in this Psalm include –
* Psalm 22:16b 16 have pierced my hands and feet
* Psalm 22:18 18 they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.
His cries evoked a little experiment among the uncaring bystanders.
47 And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” 48 And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. 49 But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.”
Once again, we’re left shaking our heads at the callous thoughts and words of those who are watching.
It’s presumed that the bystanders mistook Jesus calling out to His Father for the name Elijah.
Because Elijah was the prophet who didn’t experience death, some rabbis thought that he came to the aid of righteous teachers much like an angel might.
This might not have been as much mockery as it was a curiosity, wondering if Jesus might receive help.
The sour wine would’ve been to quench His thirst at the least.
And it may have been to dull His pain.
Still the person who stopped it from being given was uncaring about Christ and only concerned about conducting a demented experiment rather than giving aid to Jesus.
50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
The gospels make it clear that Jesus didn’t drift in and out of consciousness at the end.
He gave a loud cry, which may have been the statement quoted in John 19:30 – “It is finished”
After this, He yielded up His spirit, meaning He died physically.
What’s it matter that the words of these mockers and how Jesus suffered proved that He is our Savior?
This was the only way that the righteousness of God could be made available for us.
And without God’s righteousness made available to us, we would all face judgement for our sin.
As Romans 3:23-25 describes the righteousness that’s necessary as -
* Romans 3:22–25 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation[appeasement of God’s wrath] by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
The only way that God could remain a just judge and also forgive us sinners was by pouring out His wrath on Jesus.
This allowed Him to be just and us to be justified (declared righteous).
And God was good enough to assure us of Jesus’ acceptable sacrifice with the fulfillment of prophecy popping-off one after another as it was going on.
This brings us to the first of our applications from these verses.
I hope that we can learn from the mistake of the mockers on this day and with this -
3. DON’T JUST ACKNOWLEDGE GOD’S TRUTH. SURRENDER TO IT!
39 And those who passed by derided him, waging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”
Do you notice how much half-truth is stated in these verses?
It’s like none of these people could ever grasp that their own words could come back to haunt them.
If you just took little snippets out, you could think these folks were tracking with the truth.
“you are the Son of God”
“He is the King of Israel”
“we will believe in him”
“He trusts in God”
“he said, ‘I am the Son of God”
As far as most of the crowd was concerned, Jesus had made false claims.
As we mentioned before, destroying the temple was a common threat of insurrectionists.
For these onlookers (rubberneckers as we’d call them in Tennessee), Jesus is clearly at the end of His life.
And He’s not going to be tearing down a building in His condition.
Clearly, they misunderstood Jesus’ words because He had been talking about His body.
And He was going to fulfill this statement just 3 days from now.
If these people had known what they were in the middle of, I’d hope to think they would’ve surrendered to their suffering King.
The religious leaders also leave us wondering if they can hear the words coming out of their pieholes
41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, "I am the Son of God."
Yes, as they said Jesus saved others.
And it’s a lie that he couldn’t save himself.
We should all be eternally grateful that He didn’t save Himself in that moment.
Jesus was obviously not looking like the mighty Savior He had claimed to be
He didn’t look like the Commander of legions of angels
He didn’t look like the one to whom the heavy laden could come to and find rest.
Yes, as they said He is the King of Israel.
And we should be eternally grateful that He didn’t come down now from the cross
Yes, as they said He trusts in God.
And we should be eternally grateful that God the Father didn’t deliver him.
I’ll say more to what we should be grateful about.
For now, we should shudder to think that people can be so aware of truth and so far from it’s impact.
We’ve all heard the statement "close, but no cigar."
The saying originated in the United States, from carnival games where cigars were prizes.
The phrase basically meant, “You almost had a prize, but there’s no prize for almost”
The British adapted the statement to "Close, but no banana" – I guess they think they’re being healthier.
The German phrase is " Just-missing is still missing.” – That’s kind of the lecturing approach.
The Russians like to say "Almost doesn’t count."
I remember growing up hearing “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
A way to think of how we must handle God’s truth is to make sure it gets from our heads to our hearts.
Or it’s helpful to recognize that believing in Christ means to entrust ourselves to Him and His saving work.
Jesus described the crucial nature of belief in –
* John 3:16–18 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
What truth about being in Christ might you be acknowledging but not owning or claiming?
a. I’m truly forgiven of all sin past, present, & future.
b. I stand before God in Christ’s righteousness.
c. He will return at any moment and take me to be with Him.
d. I can trust God’s will is what’s best for me.
As God’s Word clearly teaches that we were made for His glory, do you bristle at this or surrender to it?
Do you sit down with God’s Word daily to be reminded of who’s world you live in and get your marching orders for the day?
or (if you do) do you treat it like something you have to do as if doing so will get Him to make things go your way that day?
There’s another application that we can make from these verses.
It flows from the fact that followers of Christ are… well… supposed to follow Christ.
We’re supposed to learn from how He lived and glorified God the Father.
One of the ways that we can learn from Jesus is how He handled the temptation of the moment.
So, the final application that we can make from these verses is -
4. DON’T JUST BE GRATEFUL FOR THE CROSS. TAKE UP YOUR OWN!
39 And those who passed by derided him, waging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”
Something that struck me as I studied this moment described by Matthew is this.
These statements likely verbalized the greatest temptation that Jesus ever faced.
He could’ve saved Himself.
He could’ve come down from the cross.
Let’s think back to Matthew 4 when Jesus is tempted by the devil in the wilderness.
Jesus is hungry after 40 days of fasting.
And the devil tells Him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
The devil took Him to a high precipice and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.”
He offered “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” – to be exalted without going to the cross.
All these temptations were temptations were actions that been able to do if He just tossed out the plan for Him to suffer and die.
Much the same is seen in the taunts of the Religious Leaders.
41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ”
Once again, Jesus easily could’ve saved Himself just as He saved others.
And Praise God He didn’t give into the temptation to come down from the cross
These men thought they were only mocking Jesus like a child slowly eating the ice cream that only they get to enjoy.
But they were being used to tempt Him to derail God’s eternal plan.
These men touched on a personal struggle that Jesus had revealed in His prayer at Gethsemane.
They mockingly say, let God deliver him now, if he desires him.
And they unknowingly wave the same issue in Jesus’ face as we’re aware that He prayed to the Father.
“My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” - Matt 26:42b
45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”… 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
It’s thought that the darkness represents the phase of Christ’s sacrifice when God the Father had turned His face away from God the Son.
It’s thought that these three hours are when Jesus bore the brunt of the penalty for our sin.
The ESV Study Bible says, “He was experiencing God-forsakenness not for anything in himself but for the salvation of others.”
Jesus experienced the agony of being “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)
=>This 3 hour eternal agony made possible what’s told us in -
* 2 Corinthians 5:21 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
In our verses, we see Jesus all alone,
depleted of blood and strength,
in the worst agony,
and embracing His cross
despite being tempted by the very people that (without knowing it) were like us.
They desperately needed Jesus to stick it out and purchase their redemption.
They desperately needed Him to stay on that cross, forsaken by God the Father unto His death
Imagine Ulysses, the great Greek adventurer, sailing through the treacherous waters where the Sirens sing.
He knows their song is irresistible, that countless sailors have been lured to their destruction by its haunting beauty.
So, in wisdom, he orders his men to plug their ears with wax and bind him to the mast of his ship.
As the ship draws near, the Sirens’ voices call to him, weaving melodies of false promises, stirring desires that nearly overwhelm his soul.
He thrashes, pleads, and strains against the ropes, but he remains bound—secured not by his own strength, but by a commitment made before the moment of temptation.
Because of that commitment, he makes it through the deadly waters alive.
Now, think of these temptations that Jesus weathered on the cross.
As He hangs, the voices of temptation rise from the very people He came to save.
The temptation was real.
The taunts, like the Sirens’ call, were meant to pull Him away from His mission, to lure Him into abandoning the path of suffering for a display of power.
At any moment, Jesus could have spoken a word and legions of angels would have come to His rescue.
The nails did not hold Him there—He held Himself there.
But Jesus did not come to save Himself—He came to save us.
He had already bound Himself, not with ropes, but with covenant love.
He had set His face like flint toward the cross (Isaiah 50:7).
No insult, no pain, no tempting whisper of escape could dampen of His love for those He’d redeem.
So He stayed.
He stayed until the price of sin was paid in full.
He stayed until the work was finished.
He stayed so that we might live.
And because He stayed, we can now hear a different song—not just the deadly song of temptation.
We can hear the song of God’s grace through Christ, calling us to follow Him.
But don’t just be grateful for the cross.
Take up your own!
The fact is that we’re called to set our eyes on Christ who embraced the cross.
No matter what temptation we face , we can ask our sympathetic and merciful Savior for help.
We should remind ourselves of what was purchased for us as we’re told in
* 1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
We can remind ourselves of what we have in common with the Apostle Paul as he states in -
* 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.
In moments of intense temptation, what are you willing to do to follow Christ? What do you do?
a. Refresh my mind of God’s truth which I’ve surrendered myself to.
b. Get myself away from whatever it is that triggers temptation.
c. Contact a friend for accountability.
Seasons of trials and moments of temptation are times when we can be especially grateful for the grace that was purchased for us.
But we can forget or neglect they’re also times when we should be following Him in obedience.
Trials are opportunities to participate in the sufferings as we learn about in Colossians 1:24.
Suffering is the opportunity to identify with Christ as Paul shares as his goal in
* Philippians 3:10 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
Temptation is an opportunity to take hold of the “new life” which we’re promised access to in Romans 6:4.
We aren’t meant to simply be modern day observers of the events of Christ’s crucifixion.
We’re not meant to just be grateful for the cross.
We’re meant to take up your own whenever God’s will gives us opportunity to do so.
Just as we’re not meant to just acknowledge God’s truth.
We’re meant to surrender our decisions, plans, and hearts to
