(John 2:25)
�And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.�
This may seem like a strange verse to use as a text for an Easter Sunday. It isn�t. Consider all that went into the cross. There was pain. There was humiliation. There was the loneliness of being rejected of His Own people, the Jewish leadership and population. There was also the profound loneliness of being forsaken by those who had been closest to Him for the entirety of His ministry. He was mocked and vilified even by one of the malefactors who was crucified by His side.
There are some who stayed at His side, as it were, during the ordeal of the crucifixion. Even this was a pain as He knew that His mother and some of His closest friends were watching this nightmare of suffering and death.
It is nearly impossible, for the human mind, to find anything that could have brought comfort during this time. One of the thieves being crucified with Him came to salvation because of this death. That was a time of rejoicing for Him. But, other than that what could have been His thoughts.
Parts of His thoughts were that He was doing the will of the Father. Part of His thoughts, I believe, was on us. We were the reason why He died on this cross. He knew all the bad about us. That�s what the text verse says, ��he knew what was in man.� Still, He went to the cross to purchase our salvation.
I know that Jesus was deity. I know that He was on a holy mission. I know that the cross was not an accident or simply a travesty of justice. I know that it was for this purpose that He had come into the world.
Still, I marvel that He went through this agony so that I might have salvation from sins, peace and communion with God, and an eternal home in Heaven. He went to the cross for me.
Today we celebrate the fact that death could not hold Him. Up from the grave He arose. He was victorious over all His foes.
Up from the grave He arose.
Out from the tomb He strode.
Away from death He easily ambled.
Free from the plans and tricks of Satan
He simply moved.
He looked out upon a world that was new.
He gazed upon a humanity which had hope.
He viewed a world which had crucified Him,
But to which He offered Salvation.
He looked past the
Winter of Mankind�s Bondage.
He viewed the
Spring of Salvation, Offered.
He regarded the coming
Summer of the Promise of Heavenly Rewards.
He did not allow His gaze to slump
Toward the Fall.
His death,
His burial,
His resurrection...
They offered man
The antidote for the
Sickness of sin and despair.
While we consider this great and glorious fact of history, let us look at the Scriptural record and consider what manner of Man is our Lord Jesus Christ.
He was, and is, the complete Christ. �And needed not that any should testify of man��
There is an old joke told of a circuit riding preacher coming into a small town in the mountains. The people were very happy to see him coming. This was a rare treat for these fine mountain people.
The preacher said, �God must judge those people that take the demon whisky.�
One lady in the back of the church shouted, �Preach it, Brother!�
�Those people that cheat their neighbor�s are under the condemnation of God,� the preacher continued.
�Amen, brother. Preach it like it is!� The lady shouted back.
The preacher continued, �And, woe unto all those that gossip about their friends and neighbors.�
�Well,� said the lady, �You done stopped preaching and started meddling.�
It�s a human condition. We all like to tell stories about the other guy. We want everyone to know that the other guy is really bad. Part of the reason is that this makes us seem superior. Part of the reason is that we just seem to love human misery - as long as it happens to the other guy.
You know that is true! When we watch those video shows on television, the one�s where people have sent in their own video, which one�s get the most laughs? Isn�t it the one�s where the guy steps on the rake and it jumps up and hits him in the face? If that one fails we are sure to be amused by the one where someone is embarrassed.
You know it�s true.
Jesus didn�t need anyone else to tell Him what was in the heart of man. He knew. He knew that �The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?� (Jeremiah 17:9) That was the reason He had come into the world. He wanted to change those wicked hearts. That was why He went to the cross. He came to be the Perfect Sacrifice for sin. He came to show forth the Love of God unto the race of man.
He didn�t come into the world to feel mirth at the misfortune of others. He came into the world to save the world. �For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.� (John 3:18)
Gossip, and the heart thereof, was not a priority of His.
Neither was griping His plan.
We are told that �Everybody complains about the weather but no one does anything about it.� Well, duh! About the only thing we can really do about the weather is to observe it. We might dress for cold or wet weather. But in the final analysis, we can do nothing to make the weather conform to our wishes.
We complain about the things done in the Statehouse and the White House. Once again, that�s about all we can really do. We can vote; but the promises of the politician are as certain as the weather. All we can really do is watch and hope for better times.
Even the price of gasoline to get our cars to and from work and church is well beyond our control. All we can really do is watch the price of the stuff rise and rise until it reaches orbit well above our heads.
So, we complain. But, our complaints are but exercises in futility. We realize that there is not much about which our influence is considered.
Now, Jesus is of a different Sort. He didn�t need to complain. He could act. Was there a storm threatening the boat in which His disciples were crossing the sea? He told the wind and waves to quiet down. They did.
Were there over five thousand men, with their families, who were listening to Him teach? All these people were hungry. All Jesus could find was a few fish and a couple loaves of bread. No problem. He just made these to expand until they filled the hunger of the crowd.
Did there come a time when Jesus needed to pay some tax to the Roman government? �Peter, run down to the water and catch a fish. The money is in the fish�s mouth.� Crazy thing to say? No; the money was in the fish�s mouth.
Was He saddened by a funeral procession? �You, in the casket, get up!� And the young man did return to life and get up.
Was He cruelly tortured until He died? Was he buried in a sealed tomb with a contingent of Roman soldiers guarding the only entrance - and that blocked by a stone so big that three strong women wondered how they could move it to anoint His dead body?
�Folks, its Easter. I just got up and moved the stone. I still have work to do!�
Did He gaze on my soul and see that I was headed for an eternity in Hell? Yes; He did. So He offered me salvation, based on His Own work at the cross. �You aren�t good enough to save yourself. You are burdened by a load of sin which forever separates you from God. I�ll solve that problem for you.� And, He did!
Jesus never griped about problems. He had all the solutions.
The Gospel was His pronouncement. Jesus came to this earth for one purpose. He came, as He said in Luke 19:10, to find those who were lost in their sins so that He could offer them a free gift of salvation.
That is the Gospel Message. Jesus Christ came to earth to die in time so that others could live in eternity.
He did His job. Now He asks that we do ours and tell others the great story of Easter. He is not in a tomb. He died; but He rose from the dead. He offers salvation, free salvation without work or effort on our part, if we will but accept Him as our Savior.
If we think that this offer is just too good to be true� Look at the empty tomb. He proved His ability beyond any semblance of doubt.
This is the real meaning of Easter. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is the Savior to all who would accept Him.
Jesus is also the conquering Christ. ��for he knew what was��
As we walk through this earth,
We all know what we know.
From a small child we learn
That a hot stove will burn.
We find that water really
Tends to be wet.
We are so very wise.
Our minds surmise.
We know that what was,
Was.
We know what is,
Is.
And we learn what will be
Only as it become what is.
Our limitations we deny.
That�s the nature of you and I.
This limitation was not the Nature of Jesus. He knew all. On this Easter morning we are reminded that these sentences should be put in a present tense. This limitation of ours, or of time, is not the Nature of Jesus. He knows all.
We have already been through a long and tiring political season as politicians seek their party�s nomination for president. On all of the debates and news programs we have seen these politicians questioned.
We tend to choose the politician who answers these questions to the best of our own positions. But we can never really be certain that the politicians are always telling the truth. A political person tends to find his or her rendition of truth in the morning poll results. They are generally for whatever the electorate is for. Even when they are not they will spin their answer in such a way as to appear to be of that position.
The politician�s answers are couched in double talk. They are for lower gas prices; but those big oil companies deserve to make forty billion dollars profit a year. We are told that we must balance the Federal budget on a �bridge to nowhere� as we rein in spending programs.
We are no better than the politicians. �Dear, does this dress make me look fat?� �No! Of course not.� That is our answer even as we mutter under our breath that �Obese is not the same as fat.�
All those little �white lies� of social lubrication are but practice for the whoppers of commerce. �This is a fine used car. It was only driven to church one a week by a little old lady.�
Jesus understood people. More than this, Jesus knew people. He knew the truth from the lie.
We are told that the group of people at church on Sunday Morning is those who love the church. Those in attendance on Sunday Night are those who love the pastor. Those who show up on Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting are those who love the Lord.
This may be man�s judgment. But Jesus really does know those who Love Him and those who would just love to use His influence in the marketplace of business and personal relationships.
Jesus also knows the end from the beginning. Nothing came to Him as a surprise. That �Palm Sunday� experience could have been a heady time. But, Jesus looked past that time in the sun and saw these same people at the dark hour of His death on the cross. That person who said, �Hosanna to the King,� was the same one who said, �Crucify Him!�
He knew all the terrible actions, thoughts and, yes, sins that we would commit in our life. He knew all the times we would hurt our neighbor. He knew all the times we would cheat the corner grocery store. He knew those times that even our families do not know. He knows what was in our actions. More than this, He knows what was in our hearts.
Yet, He still went to the cross to offer us salvation.
Yes. The cross. He knew that He would die even from before His birth.
This was a knowledge which surpasses our own knowledge of our own mortality. I am old. When I hear the date of a proposed project on the television or radio, I can pretty well calculate that I�ll never see that project�s completion.
Fifty years ago this month I was sitting in a barracks at my Basic Training facility at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. Many of us were encouraged to consider making the military our career. �After all,� we were told, �In just twenty years you can retire at half your salary. In thirty years you can retire at three quarters of your salary. On top of these you will have free medical coverage.�
It didn�t sound like a really bad deal. The problem was �twenty years� or �thirty years.� Good grief; that is a l-o-n-g time. As I said, this was forty years ago. Many my age are saying, �If I�d have known then what I know now��
Jesus did know. He knew the time of His death. He knew the hour of His death. He even knew the manner of His death. And, yet He marched toward that ordeal.
�Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God.� (Hebrews 12:2)
�The joy?� Jesus was not surprised by the events of Good Friday. It was for this purpose that He had come into the world. He came to set people free from their sins. He came to offer a way for people to have fellowship with God. He came to offer eternal life to people who were creeping toward eternal death.
His joy lay in the fact that He was completing His mission. He was not just �staying the course.� He was steadying the course of countless millions who would look unto Him as their Savior. He came to offer us a salvation we couldn�t earn and a pardon we did not deserve.
He died the death of a substitute for us. He rose as the Conquering Christ. He had defeated Satan, sin and death.
Jesus is the compassionate Christ. ��in man.�
Jesus knew the negative things in man. He knew the weakness. He knew the sin and rebellion against the things of God. Jesus knew all of this. Still, He went to the Cross of Calvary.
A house is burning. There is a young child trapped inside. The firemen will risk anything to get into the inferno to rescue that child. Sometimes, though, the fire is so hot, or so extensive, that the flames drive even the bravest of the firemen from the effort. Those firemen will wail and bemoan the fact that they could not extract the child.
Jesus is of that ilk of bravery. He took upon Himself the cruelest form of death so that He could rescue the perishing and care for the dying. Jesus is more than a mere man. There was nothing that can keep the Savior from His appointment with the cross.
Jesus died in time so that others could live in eternity. Such was, and still is, His great compassion for the souls of the lost.
Jesus also knew the naturalness of man. He knew that the sin nature had made mankind utterly unable to approach the Holy God. He knew that the sin nature had made mankind utterly opposed to the things of God. He knew that the sin nature had made mankind a traveler on a one way street that leads to eternal perdition.
He knew all this. The urgency of the need caused Him to set His face toward Jerusalem when He knew this meant the cross. If was for this purpose that He had come into the world. He would not turn back. His enduring of the cruel cross meant that mankind would have the opportunity to turn to Him for salvation.
Such was His compassion for the souls of the lost that He counted it joy to endure the torture and pain.
Such was his compassion for the world of men which crucified Him that He rose from the grave, a victor over death, Satan, and sin, to call men to a free salvation.
Jesus saw the need in man. Mankind needed a Savior. He is that Savior.
Why not accept Him today?
Today we celebrate the proof, if any were really needed, of His power and compassion. He arose. He came out of the tomb of death. He stands now, with His hands outstretched, calling you to salvation.
Do not turn Him away!