Crucifixion sermon ideas
In the Roman Empire, a cross (Greek: stauros) was the favored instrument of execution for capital crimes. The criminal would usually be beaten or whipped nearly to death before being affixed to wooden beams with ropes and spikes. The cross would then be hoisted into the air. Most victims died slowly as a result of fluid loss and the caving in of the pulmonary system. Crucifixions took place in public spaces and served to warn citizens not to oppose Rome or Caesar. The cross was an instrument of terror to keep people in line. Only in the Christian telling of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth did a cross ever assume a positive significance — a meaning we mark in sermon, song, and liturgy.
What does the Bible say about crucifixion?
The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, or worship planning focused on Jesus' crucifixion.
Jesus' crucifixion
The main biblical references to the event of Jesus' crucifixion come near the end of each of the four gospels:
Take up a cross
Before the actual crucifixion, Jesus taught his disciples and the crowds that they would spiritually need to take up a cross as a symbol of following Jesus down paths of humble, sacrificial service:
Other references
In the balance of the New Testament — in addition to those times when the apostles recounted the story of Jesus' death at Golgotha — the cross not only symbolizes Jesus' supreme humility (Philippians 2:5-11) but also serves as the shining example of God's surprising way of getting things done (1 Corinthians1:17-18). Additionally, Paul used the fact that salvation could only be accomplished on a cross as a reminder that the cross spells an end to any schemes of humans trying to save themselves or contribute something to their salvation:
- 1 Corinthians 1:17-18, the cross, which is foolishness to those who are perishing, is God's power to those who are being saved
- Galatians 2, if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing
- Galatians 6:14, boast in nothing but the cross of Jesus
- Philippians 2:5-11, Christ humbled himself to the point of death on a cross
- Philippians 3, Christ will transform our humiliation to his glory
In Galatians 3:13, Paul quotes a key Old Testament text from Deuteronomy 21:22-23: "When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you must bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse." The New Testament uses the notion that there is something particularly accursed about dying by hanging or crucifixion to magnify the theological claim that Jesus bore the curse that rightly belongs only to sinful humanity.
God carried out every curse ever promised for sin and evil by placing the full weight of those curses on Jesus while on the accursed cross.
Sermon ideas about crucifixion
Theological significance of the cross
What can we focus on in sermons about Jesus' crucifixion? In the New Testament, there are three primary ways the cross of Christ is used beyond the literal instrument of execution on which Jesus died:
Jesus himself pointed to the cross — even well before he found himself nailed to one — to signify that his disciples needed to live under a symbol of death. To take up one's cross meant to live with the horizontal crossbeam symbolically across one's shoulders. Anyone in the Roman world who literally had such a crossbeam placed there was on his way to death. For Jesus, this spiritualizing of the crossbeam pointed to the need to lead lives of humble and sacrificial service, to lay down one's life for friends and enemies alike, to take on the role of a servant in all circumstances.
As developed primarily in 1 Corinthians 1 but echoed elsewhere, the cross became a symbol of the apparent folly and weakness of God's way of getting things done. No one in the ancient world saw anything positive — much less salvific — in that horribly grim thing called a cross. A cross was a literal dead end. Anyone on a cross was finished, soon to be buried and forgotten. It was the complete opposite of all things effectual and effective. No good came from a cross (unless you were a Roman authority who could wield the threat of a cross as a way to keep people under your thumb). Yet from the very beginning, Paul and others contend, God had a peculiar penchant for using apparently weak and foolish things to bring saving acts to this world. Nothing shows the upside-down nature of the gospel more clearly than the fact that an old, rugged cross became the gateway to life everlasting!
Our sermons about the crucifixion can also point out that, especially for Paul, the cross spelled the end of human striving. If a bloody cross is what it took for even God's own Son to pull off redemption, why would puny, sinful humans think for one moment they had anything to offer to the salvific operation of God? In Philippians 3 and Galatians 2, Paul used many dramatic rhetorical flourishes to demonstrate that, despite having had a lifetime of what he as a Pharisee was certain added up to a golden "entry to heaven" ticket, once he met the crucified Jesus Christ, he knew that his finest accomplishments were just a stinking pile of manure — skubla, to invoke the rather indelicate Greek word Paul used in Philippians 3:8. Whenever the apostles ran into false teachers who were seducing people into believing that they still had to obey the law to seal the salvation deal and so contribute to their own salvation, it was ever and always the cross to which the apostles pointed as God's resounding counter-argument to all such prideful claims. Only by being obedient even to the point of accepting a shameful death upon a cross did Jesus fulfill all righteousness, pay the penalty for sin, and accomplish salvation.
Fading scandal of the cross
Sermons about the crucifixion can trace the history of people's response to the cross. The New Testament shows that the earliest Christians displayed a greater appreciation than those in subsequent times for the shocking scandal that God somehow accomplished redemption through a cross. The apostles preached the cross as a stumbling block (Greek: skandalon) to many and a laugh-out-loud piece of foolishness to many others. In time, however, the meaning of the cross and the reactions that resulted from seeing the symbol of the cross changed, and not always for the better. Christians became used to seeing a cross, blunting its surprising nature.
By the Middle Ages, the cross on banners and flags even became a rallying cry for conquest in the post-Constantine Roman Empire and in the crusades to drive the Muslims from the Holy Land. In hoc signo vinces ("In this symbol you will conquer") became a common battle cry, combined with images of cross and crown. Although all Christians affirm that Christ's death and resurrection won the final victory over sin and death, the idea that the cross could be used to win victories in the forcible subjugation of peoples and nations works against how Jesus spoke of his own cross and what it meant for leading lives of humble service.
Today Christians are so comfortable with seeing a cross that it is a common form of jewelry, it adorns the steeples and worship spaces of many churches, and it is the subject of a host of songs and hymns. But imagine what we would think if we saw someone wearing a necklace with an electric chair pendant. Imagine earrings in the shape of a hangman's noose or a lapel pin depicting the padded gurney used during lethal injection executions. Were we to see such things, we would have to wonder about the person adorned with such grim symbols of death. Surely in the ancient world people would have thought similar thoughts about cross earrings and pendants.
Perhaps we in the church need to look for fresh ways to recall for ourselves how terrible the cross really was, how horribly Jesus suffered on it, and what it means for us today that this was the only way God could salvage a creation gone bad.
Excerpts about crucifixion
Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch.org sermon resources about the crucifixion:
"In the crucifixion we see the entire human race summed up in Jesus, who lived it for us. He suffered ultimate abandonment and condemnation and took it all into himself and brought it and us through into eternal life." Article about Theology by Fleming Rutledge from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
"They are taking away everything you have, even your dignity. You once said that, unlike the birds that have nests and animals that have dens, you didn't really have a place to lay your head." Children's Sermon by Bernard J. Haan, Jr. From Reformed Worship
"As is traditional, Leśko shows the transfigured Christ holding a scroll in his left hand (signifying that he is the Word of God) and making a blessing gesture with the other." Article about Artwork by Victoria Emily Jones from Art & Theology