By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett -Asbury Free Methodist
April 6, 2025 – Matthew 27:27-32
Today’s 5th Sunday of Lent. We are continuing our journey with Jesus to the cross. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. We will retreat from where we are in the story to look at the triumphal entry. But for this morning, we are going to walk beside Jesus as he moves from the governor’s mansion to the cross.
Last week, we looked at how Pilate bowed to political pressure and sentenced Jesus to death. The story we’re looking at today is the description of what happened after his sentencing and before he was crucified.
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I love a good movie. I especially love movies where good triumphs over evil and where bad people get their just reward. But the world doesn’t always work like this. We, as Christians, believe that God will make all things right. He is just. But we may have to wait until the next life to see that justice done. Sometimes, life on earth is not fair. Sometimes, evil triumphs over good.
That is what is going on in today’s story. Jesus is sentenced to death. This is a huge miscarriage of justice. His followers, for the most part, have deserted him. The one man who had lived a truly good life had this truly bad death imposed on him. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But it happened. The one who was on the side of right, lost.
Very few of us experience the depth of injustice that Jesus did. However, there is a time in all of our lives when we didn’t get the good that we deserved, or we got the bad that we didn’t deserve. There are times when life is unfair. When evil seems to win. When injustice is done.
There are times when politicians play their games and innocent people lose their jobs. There are times when the law is not on the side of justice but on the side of the person with the best lawyer. There are times when we are falsely accused. There are times when the wrong side seems to win.
There are times when life is just so unfair. You see people smoking and drinking to excess, and they live into their 90s. You see other people who choose to live a healthy lifestyle and die in their 40s. You see some couples who desperately want a child and can’t seem to have one and others who are aborting their child. Life is unfair.
Wherever you find injustice, you will find suffering. Whether it is people losing their job through no fault of their own or people being unjustly oppressed – there is suffering.
So, what do you do when life is unfair? What do you do when your circumstances cause you pain and suffering? You walk with Jesus to the cross.
Come with me to Matthew Chapter 27
Matthew 27:27–31 (NIV)
Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.
I have heard sermons on this scripture that would turn your stomach. The preacher went into what a Roman whip would do to the body. Then they went into what would happen when you put a robe on that body. They painted this graphic description of Jesus’ pain.
None of the gospels do that. They tell the story factually. This happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. They don’t go into what Jesus must be feeling or experiencing. Sometimes, all you can do is acknowledge the unfairness of what happened or what is happening.
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Here is what I have found. If you are going through a hard time and you are part of a loving community, there will be people there who will try to encourage you.
But you will also find people who will judge you. People who will revel in your misery. There will always be people in this life who pile onto those who are already hurting. It has been going on since the beginning of time. Listen to Psalm 10
Psalm 10:1–12 (NIV)
1 Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
2 In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.
3 He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
4 In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
5 His ways are always prosperous;
your laws are rejected by him;
he sneers at all his enemies.
6 He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.”
He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”
7 His mouth is full of lies and threats;
trouble and evil are under his tongue.
8 He lies in wait near the villages;
from ambush he murders the innocent.
His eyes watch in secret for his victims;
9 like a lion in cover he lies in wait.
He lies in wait to catch the helpless;
he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.
10 His victims are crushed, they collapse;
they fall under his strength.
11 He says to himself, “God will never notice;
he covers his face and never sees.”
12 Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
The Psalmist questions God in the face of unfairness.
Psalm 10:1 (NIV)
1 Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
There may be times in your life when you feel what the Psalmist felt. There may be times when you catch a glimpse of the unfairness that Jesus experienced.
What do you do with that? You do the same thing that Psalmist did. You lament. You cry out to God. “This is unfair.” “God, why?” “God, help.” You do that, and you do what Jesus did. Jesus did the only thing he could do. He kept on walking until he couldn’t walk anymore.
In the middle of suffering. In the middle of pain. In the middle of unfairness, the proper response is to cry out to God. To lament to God. To ask the Lord where he is in the middle of the trouble. You do that and keep walking.
Matthew 27:32 (NIV)
As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.
A way of humiliating the convicted criminals of Rome was to make them carry their cross to the place of execution. Jesus, because of the abuse his body had taken, could only carry the cross out of Pilate’s palace and onto the road. He could go that far and no farther. So, Simon of Cyrene is forced to carry the cross.
The gospel of Luke is a little more aggressive in how it describes what happened.
Luke 23:26 (NIV)
26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.
We don’t know much about Simon of Cyrene. Cyrene is a city in modern-day Libya, North Africa. The gospel of Luke tells us,
Simon of Cyrene was one of the bystanders along the road. Apparently, he was just coming into the city from the countryside. When the soldiers saw that Jesus couldn’t go any further, they seized Simon and made him carry the cross.
Mark 15:21 adds the extra tidbit of information that Simon was “the father of Alexander and Rufus.” Simon’s family was known to the early church. Roman 16:13 mentions Rufus. It is believed that Simon and his family became followers of Jesus.
Luke makes a point to tell us that Simon carried the cross behind Jesus. Simon literally followed Jesus to the place of the cross.
Jesus, earlier in his ministry, taught
Mark 8:34 (NRSV)
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
Simon took up Jesus’ cross and followed him.
I don’t know if you have ever had those days when it feels like you are just walking around life. You are just out taking a stroll, and then life seizes you. You get a phone call with really bad news, or you get a call from your kids, and something has gone drastically wrong. Or you are driving and getting into a significant accident. Maybe a relationship that is important to you implodes. When that happens, it feels like everything changes. You have to drop everything and head in a different direction.
You are like Simon of Cyrene. You are just walking along, and life seizes you. Suddenly, you have this heavy cross dropped on your shoulders. Simon wasn’t given much choice. Sometimes, we are not given much choice. What do you do? You follow Jesus. You carry your cross. You carry your burden. You carry it because the one you are following has been through suffering. You carry it because sometimes all you can do is persevere until you can lay your burden down.
Luke goes on to tell us more about this processional to the cross.
Luke 23:27–31 (NIV)
27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then
“ ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”
and to the hills, “Cover us!” ’
31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
It fascinates me that when Jesus entered the city a week ago, he wept over Jerusalem. Now, as he exits the city, there is again weeping. Jesus tells the women who were weeping not to weep for him but for themselves. When Jesus came into Jerusalem, Jesus had already wept for them. He says weep for what is coming.
There will come a time when things are going to be so bad that you will wish that you didn’t have children. Most bible scholars believe that he is referring to 70 AD when Jerusalem and the temple were flattened to the ground by the Romans. It was a horrible time. Jesus said as he was entering Jerusalem that this could have been avoided if they understood that God had come to the city. But the city rejected him.
Jesus is saying to the women things are not going to go well for this city in the future. Then, he makes this cryptic statement.
Luke 23:31 (NIV)
31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
If people do these things. When Jesus is talking about “these things,” I believe that he is talking about what has just occurred. He has been unfairly tried and convicted. He was innocent and yet whipped. He was incredibly demeaned and mocked. A crown of thorns was set on his head, a staff was put in his right hand, and the soldiers bowed before him in mock honour. They then took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.
If people do these things when the tree is green… When the tree is green is a reference to life. Jesus has demonstrated what real life is in his ministry. There was a display of the power of God. People were healed. People were delivered. The crowds were fed. Storms were calmed. The people heard the word of God. They heard the good news about the Kingdom of God. The country was full of life because the power of God was on display.
If people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry? What will happen when the power of God seems muted. What will happen when the supernatural seems far away? What will happen when the tree is dry?
If you have all these great things happening, and yet Jesus is mocked, ridiculed, tortured, and sentenced to death. What will happen when great things are no longer happening?
The obvious answer is worse things will happen. That is why Jesus tells the women to weep for themselves. Suffering is coming.
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Things have changed a lot over the years. When the town of Perth was formed in 1812, there was no such thing as chloroform. If you needed an operation, or more likely in those times, an amputation, they could not easily knock you out. Chloroform was invented in the mid-1800s and came into broad usage around 1900. Penicillin wasn’t invented until 1928. Before then, if you had an infection, it could quickly turn into sepsis, and you could die.
I don’t mean to give you a history lesson, but I want you to imagine what the world was like before chloroform and penicillin. Suffering was the norm rather than the exception. Death was a part of life. The fragility of life was self-evident.
Fast forward to our time. The world is somewhat less harsh. Infections like pneumonia usually don’t kill us. When we need an operation, we can be rendered unconscious. There is far less suffering than there used to be, at least in our part of the world. That is something to celebrate and be thankful for.
But I think what has happened is that we have developed a warped view of suffering. When suffering happens to us, it feels completely unfair. Because we suffer less, we feel like it is our right to not suffer at all.
There are two problems with that. The first is, we try to create heaven on earth. But the reality is that we are not in heaven yet. Sickness, pain, suffering and death will not be done away with until Jesus comes back and heaven is revealed. The second problem is that we have underdeveloped means of coping with suffering.
We get surprised when suffering comes into our life. We are caught off guard when people treat us unfairly. We are not sure what to do when we encounter physical pain, emotional pain, or spiritual pain.
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But in this story, we see Jesus encounter pain and experience suffering. If anyone deserved to live a life without suffering, it was him. Yet, evil people tortured him and led him to the cross.
What that means is that when you encounter suffering and hard times, you have a saviour who has been there before you. He continues to promise to be with you. His promises that he will never leave you nor forsake you. He walks with you through the middle of your challenges and pain and says I’ve been there, and I will help you to get through this.
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There are times in all of our lives when it feels like life comes up and seizes us, just like the Roman soldiers seized Simon of Cyrene. Life has a way of bringing suffering to all of us. It doesn’t bring it in equal measure. Some of you will suffer more than others of you. Life isn’t fair.
So, what do you do when life seizes you in this way? You pour out your heart to God in lament. Remember Psalm 10. “Why do you stand a far off, Lord? You call out to God. You cry out to God. You tell God all about what is in your heart. You call out about the unfairness and injustice that you see.
Then you remember. You remember the one who has gone on before you. You remember the one who has suffered more than you ever had. You remember that he continued to live out God’s will in the middle of his suffering. He continued to live out God’s will when he was abandoned by people and when he felt like he had been abandoned by God. Sometimes, the best you can do in the middle of the suffering is to persevere.
When life seizes you, you take up your cross and follow Jesus. You take the burden that was foisted upon you, and you follow Jesus. Jesus told us that if anyone would come after him, he must take up their cross and follow him.
What do you do in the middle of suffering? You follow Jesus.
On Good Friday, we will play a video that we often play on Good Friday. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. Sometimes, it feels like it is a long time between Friday and Sunday. Sometimes, it feels like there is a long time between when you were seized by suffering and when you find resurrection. But my call to you is to follow Jesus. Take up your cross and follow Jesus. In the middle of the pain follows Jesus. Sunday’s coming.