Good Friday | Tim Henderson

So I'd like you to draw to mind the vast collection of art that's been produced throughout the world over all the centuries. If we could pile all of it up, I would guess that Jesus is probably the most represented person in human history. Buddha honestly might get the statues, but I think Jesus would definitely have the most paintings of him. And if you went through every painting of Jesus, every drawing, every mosaic from the present day backward through time, if you could stack them all up and just work through the pile one at a time, the very bottom of the stack, the earliest thing in existence that portrays Christ would be a thing called a leximenos graffito. It is the earliest depiction of Christ on his cross in existence.

It's probably a little bit difficult to make out what you're seeing exactly. So here it is in a little bit of a simplified form. I've stripped out all of the markings on the wall. That's it. That's the first, the earliest, the oldest picture of Jesus. It was discovered in the eighteen hundreds and it was scratched into the plaster of a building in Rome. It dates to either the first or the second century. And I want you to just take a minute and just make some observations about it. Like what are we looking at here?

So if you look here, what you see maybe the most obvious thing is that there's a man who is being crucified. And yet the most striking thing of course is that he has the head of a donkey. What looks like a y up in the top corner is actually the Greek letter tau, which you would think of as a t, but it's meant to be the symbol, the iconic representation of a cross. And there is, of course, a man who is observing all this, and he has one hand raised. And then the inscription there, it kind of breaks apart the line, says, Aleximenos sebite theon, which translates to Aleximenos worships his God. It is mockery. It is derision. It is ridiculing Christians. Or at least this particular Christian who worships a crucified man. Jesus is depicted with the head of a donkey to highlight the absurdity of Alexei Menon's faith.

I think we probably underestimate the disgrace and the shame of the crucifixion. How absolutely ludicrous it would be that anyone would worship someone so draped in failure and shame. But that is it. That is the earliest depiction of Christ on the cross, which I think is absolutely fascinating and right on brand.

Three Observations from the Earliest Depiction

And I wanna suggest three things that we can take from this, the earliest, the first portrait of our crucified Lord.

Number one, Jesus actually is worthy of worship. I love the fact that the earliest depiction of him on his cross portrays him as being worshiped. If you look in your bible at Revelation chapter five, John has seen a scroll on which is written the future of the world, but no one can open it. No one is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll, but then someone can. Here's what happens in Revelation five nine:

They sang a new song. You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain. And with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth. Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands, and 10,000 times 10,000. They encircled the throne, the living creatures, the elders, And in a loud voice they sang, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise. And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them singing, to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped. — Revelation 5:9-14

Friends, he is worthy of worship. And Alexeymanos is right.

Second thing, though Jesus is worthy of worship, he instead receives shame and mockery. And he accepts that shame to win his mockers. Listen to how much mockery figures into the crucifixion. Mark 15:

The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace, that is the praetorium, and called together a whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, hail king of the Jews. And again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and they spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off their purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they let him out to crucify him. A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus was passing by on his way in from the country and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull. — Mark 15

And then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the written notice of the charge against him read, "the king of the Jews." They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.

And those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So you who are gonna destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself." And in the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself. Let this Christ, this king of Israel come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." And then maybe most surprisingly, those crucified with him also heaped insults upon him.

Imagine you're doing something incredibly difficult. Let's just say you're running a marathon, which I think would be incredibly difficult. Can you imagine running a marathon while everyone is mocking you? "You're so fat and slow and stupid." And if mile after mile, the people running the race with you are mocking you because you're just so stupid and so ridiculous. The organizers of the race, the people that are supposed to be handing you water, are just ridiculing you the entire way. This was harder. And on top of it all, he was ridiculed constantly.

Now some of you may remember, twenty years ago or so, a man made a cartoon that mocked Mohammed. Do you remember this? And the Muslim world lost its mind. It was global news. In the throes of that, John Piper wrote an article commenting on it. And I'm going to read it to you—it's long, but I want you to bear with me because this is worth the read. It's so insightful.

Piper writes: "The work of Muhammad is based on being honored, and the work of Christ is based on being insulted. This produces two very different reactions to mockery. If Christ had not been insulted, there would be no salvation. This was his saving work. To be insulted and to die, to rescue sinners from the wrath of God."

Already in the Psalms, the path of mockery was promised:

All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He was despised and rejected by men, as one from whom men hide their faces, and we esteemed him not.

When it actually happened, it was worse than expected. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. And kneeling before him, they mocked him saying, "Hail, king of the Jews," and they spit on him. And his response to all this was patient endurance. Endurance. This was the work he came to do.

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

This was not true of Muhammad. And Muslims do not believe it is true of Jesus. Most Muslims have been taught that Jesus was not crucified. One Sunni Muslim writes, "Muslims believe that Allah saved the Messiah from the ignominy of the cross." Another adds, "We honor Jesus more than you Christians do. We refuse to believe that God would permit him to suffer death on the cross." An essential Muslim impulse is to avoid the ignominy of the cross.

And that is the most basic difference between Christ and Mohammed, and between a Muslim and a follower of Christ. For Christ, enduring the mockery of the cross was the essence of his mission. During his life on earth, Jesus was called a bastard, a drunkard, a blasphemer, a devil. And he promised his followers the same.

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?

How should his followers respond? Well, on the one hand, we are grieved and angered. And on the other hand, we identify with Christ and embrace his suffering and rejoice in our afflictions. And say with the apostle Paul that vengeance belongs to the Lord. Let us love our enemies and win them with the gospel. If Christ did his work by being insulted, we must do likewise.

What does this mean? Piper concludes like this: "It means that a religion with no insulted savior will not endure insults to win the scoffers. It means that this religion, Islam, is destined to bear the impossible load of upholding the honor of one who did not die and rise again to make that possible. It means that Jesus Christ is still the only hope of peace with God and peace with man. And it means that his followers must be willing to share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."

Friends, in Jesus' willingness to accept mockery, we see the glory of his love for sinners.

And so:

Number one, Jesus is worthy of worship.

Number two, he accepts derision to win his mockers.

Number three, we should enter his shame. We should join his disgrace, and we should worship him.

Friends, if the whole world mocks him, ridicules him, shames him, we who know his condescending love toward undeserving sinners should drown out their derision with our voices raised in praise.

Alexomenos Grafido does not just mock Jesus, it mocks Alex for being such an idiot that he would worship this crucified fool. But check this out. In the next chamber of that building where that image is scratched into the wall, there is another inscription made with a different hand. Archaeologists believe that it is a response to this portrait. It simply says, Aleximenos Fidelis. Can you translate that? Aleximenos is faithful. It is a way to say, you're darn right he does. He worships his God and he does so faithfully.

So mock away. Mock away. But we will be faithful to sing his praise and to worship him in front of a mocking world. We will be unashamed when we declare that he is our joy and that he is worthy of our lives. He is worthy of being sung to, and the hope that others would eventually come to see how great he is and join in his praise.

So tonight, when we sing again in a few minutes, join us. Let's sing to him for his surpassing worth. Surpassing worth. Drown out the mockery, for he is worthy of praise. And then let's do it again tomorrow, and do it again the next day, and do it again, that he would receive the praise and the honor and the glory that is his due, for he is worthy of it all.

Lord Jesus, tonight, this night, as we are reminded of the enormity of what you suffered—not just the physical agony, not just the separation from your Father, not just the bearing the weight of our sin, but mockery on top of it. And the very moment that you are giving your life away, the very ones for whom you died were ridiculing you.

Lord, would you let us instead of that give you praise in every situation when we have the opportunity to speak of your beauty, your excellence, your supremacy, your greatness. Would you let us do it? And if that means that we are mocked, so be it. But I pray that eventually, our praise of you, our delight in you would cause somebody to say, maybe I need to look at this again. And that you would once again redeem mocking, ridiculing sinners. You would take your enemies and you would make them your friends.

We bless your name. We love you. We exalt you. Amen.