A Korean soldier whacked off his head, and threw it into the river. Failure—absolute failure—not a single soul saved, and now he is gone! As it turned out, however, that soldier picked up the Bible the missionary was holding and started to read it, later dedicating his life to Jesus. Wanting to preserve the Bible, he pasted its pages on the walls of his guesthouse. He often declared, "Many people have come from all over Korea to read my walls." Today, there are nearly 100 local families who secretly worship Jesus Christ. Absolute failure?
I guess, if anyone looked like a total failure it would have been Jesus Himself. He had been so popular, with thousands following His ministry for quite some time. Even on Palm Sunday, He was hailed as He rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey—"Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest." (Luke 19:38) Some of these same words were used by angels some 33 years earlier to declare His coming at the first Christmas. John, the fourth gospel, adds the word "Hosanna" to the people's description, emphatically declaring that He came to save them from their sin. And now He finds Himself being led to a cross at the place of the skull—utterfailure! But was it really failure, or did God have something else in mind? Oswald Chambers once wrote, "After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God."
You see, as it was for Jesus, so it will be for His true people. The death is not the only important thing—how we get there and the witness we leave along the way are so very crucial as well—the fellowship of the cross!
As we rapidly approach November 12th, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, I think it would be a very good idea to spend some time considering the people with whom Jesus had fellowship that day. While subsequent messages on this subject will be found at our web site, the focus for us right now will be the Roman soldiers. Under the direction of a Centurion, four men were chosen out of 100 soldiers for the crucifixion detail that day. It may have been those very same ones who scourged Him with the cat-of-nine-tails, even before they left the Praetorium for Calvary. What were these men thinking as they planted the shards of bone and metal on those leather straps into His back? Surely they had heard the stories of the miracles that had preceded this "criminal." And then, as they led Him through Jerusalem, with a sign hung around His neck and a beam balanced on His back—did they have any doubts, or were they just mindlessly doing their job?
Scripture tells us that early in the death march, Simon of Cyrene was forced to take up and carry the beam for Jesus. Once they reached the top of the hill, they stripped this once-admired Rabbi and pushed Him to the ground. Most pictures of the crucifixion show Jesus in a loin cloth, but the Roman form often strove to totally humiliate the victim, even to the point of displaying him absolutely naked—this may have been the case with Jesus! And then came His true fellowship with the cross. In the Greek, this "fellowship" refers to a partnership and place of communion and communication. This is gruesomely depicted as one of the four held down Jesus' hand, while another soldier drove the six-inch spike right through His wrist and into the beam. Once this was accomplished on His other wrist and also His feet, Jesus was truly the cross' partner—vitally connected together for whatever purpose the Father was planning to communicate to mankind. Even now, could it possibly be that God's plan to save people from their sin had any chance of succeeding?
John 19 tells us what the soldiers did next. Each received their own part of His clothing—possibly sandals, tunic, headdress, and loincloth—but His special robe would be nothing but rags if ripped and divided among them. So they gambled for it! Surely we could wonder what each was thinking as this went on, but what about the "lucky" one? God must have been screaming into his ear, as He does into ours, "I want you to have this garment of righteousness—the wholeness of it—not the filthy rags of your own self-righteousness! You nailed Him to that cross—now forsake your sin and enter into the spiritual partnership I have for you. He is on that cross for you!" With all of this ringing in their ears, and in an effort to get this whole thing over with, they proceeded to brake the criminals' legs so they would go into severe shock and suffocate. John tells us, "But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was already dead, they brake not His legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water." (19:33,34)—absolute proof that Jesus was dead! They had spent the whole day with Him—they had seen nothing but love emanating from this man. They were Roman soldiers—most likely pagan in their beliefs, so what was going through their minds at this time? They probably didn't know the Jewish Scriptures that they were helping to fulfill, but they had spent the day in fellowship with Him and His Cross. Though they were not submitted to Him, they were in partnership with Him and His Cross. They were trying to kill Him, but God was trying to communicate His love to all who were round about—even us!
Over and over again, whether Jew or Gentile, God was calling one and all to identify with Paul's passionate declaration—that he would "…know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." (Phil. 3:10) In other words, all who will die to their own rule over their own lives—in partnership with the sufferings of Christ—will also "partner" with him in having the resurrection life of Jesus within them on a minute by minute basis. This fellowship begins with a communication to the heart—heart conviction and change—and will also be seen in an ongoing rejection of sin. This is the love of God! Don't even begin the think or say that you love God if you are not in this fellowship with Him, which will be expressed in obedience to Him and His word. Jesus said clearly, "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:23)
I believe the spirit of this can be seen in the recent horror that rocked our nation from Pennsylvania's Amish country. As I write this, five little girls have been brutally murdered by a man who claimed in his own suicide note to hate God. And yet, the families of the victims have expressed nothing but love for God and for the family of the one who pulled the trigger. They have forgiven him!What a contrast! And with regard to these soldiers, what a contrast! Oh, we don't know whether any of the four actually turned to the Lord in true surrendered communion, even after all they went through with Jesus, but we do get a glimpse into the reaction of their commanding officer—the centurion. Luke 23:47 tells us, "Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man." Both Matthew and Mark record him as declaring that Jesus was the Son of God! So, did any of them truly surrender to the Lord—not just in that moment—but in an ongoing, life-changing sort of way? We don't know, but we do know this—that is what God tried to communicate, both then and still now. He is very powerfully calling you and me into a partnership with His Cross—to die to our own thinking, and be raised with the mind of Christ—and all through the power of the Holy Spirit. Anything less is absolute failure! Hannah Whitall Smith once wrote, "Love gives all, and must have all in return. For your sake, He completely surrendered all that He had, and for His sake, you must surrender all that you have, without limitation or measure." Are you willing to lose your head for Him—as Robert Thomas—and have, in its stead, the mind of Christ? Are you willing to glorify God with everything that is in you, even in the tough times? Will you let your life be plastered with every page of the Bible for all to read? Oh, praise God, this will be the result of true fellowship with the Cross!
