Andrey Gorban preaches on John 19:17-27, walking us through the crucifixion scene with reverence and unflinching honesty about what the cross cost Jesus. From the physical horror of Roman crucifixion to the shame of hanging naked before the world, John's account reveals a Savior who bore suffering, humiliation, and abandonment — and yet still turned in compassion to care for his mother. Gorban draws out the stunning biblical thread that the naked One on the tree is the very One who clothes his people in garments of salvation, connecting Eden's shame to Calvary's grace. This sermon invites you to marvel again at the Lamb who took the cross meant for Barabbas — and meant for us.
Transcript
Opening
Good morning, saints. If I haven’t met you, my name is Andre. I’m a member here at Trinity Church of Portland, and I have the immense privilege of serving as one of the pastors here. And so if I haven’t met you, I’d love to meet you, I’d love to get to know you, hear a little bit of your story, hear what brought you here, and see how we as a church and I can serve you.
Friends, we find ourselves back in the Gospel of John as we continue our study of this glorious, glorious book. It’s John 19, verses 17 through 27. As we begin to study this text, I want to invite you to stand for the reading of Scripture, but I want to read the whole section of the crucifixion and the death of our Lord.
Scripture Reading
So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is Golgotha. There they crucified him and with him two others, one on either side and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and it was written in Aramaic and Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews, rather this man said, I am the king of the Jews. Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written.
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one place from top to bottom. So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture, which says they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things.
But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
John 19
This is the word of the Lord, Saints. Thanks be to God.
The Cross of Christ
Christian, when you think about the cross of Christ, what generally comes to mind? Is it the way that he suffered? Is it his physical pain? Is it the abandonment by those he considered his friends? Do you think about his anguish in a variety of different ways, his emotional anguish, the physical toll, the spiritual toll? Maybe when you think of the cross of Christ, you dig a little bit deeper into the theological side of things and you consider him bearing the wrath of God in the place of sinners. Maybe you think of this scene as Jesus being the propitiation for our sins. Perhaps when you think of the cross, you think of his love for you. The fact that he did this to save you from your sins.
We often speak about the gospel here at Trinity. If you’ve been with us, even just today, you see that every aspect of our worship service, every aspect of our liturgy is soaked with the gospel, saturated with the good news of Jesus Christ. How sinners might be forgiven of their sins and how those sinners might be reconciled to a holy and a righteous God who cannot stand for sin. But do we often stop to think and look head on at that time when Jesus completed that work which made that possible? The very thing that we celebrate every single Sunday.
Here we see just what it took for salvation to be made available for all those who would believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and as Savior. Here we see how we come to be made right in God’s eyes. Here we see that only by way of a perfect, spotless lamb being slain in our place do we have any hope.
If you’ve read through the other gospels, you’ll notice that John’s account of the crucifixion really doesn’t include quite as many details as Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Or at least the details that John chooses to include, they differ in emphasis or in specifics. John omits, for example, certain details about the thieves on Jesus’ right and left side, his conversation with them. John omits Jesus crying out to the Father in agony. John omits the curtain in the temple being torn in two.
When you see the differences in these stories, when you see different sides of this story, different details being added on from various sides, what you get is actually something that adds to the veracity of Scripture. Because it shows that they’re not just copying each other, these gospel writers. They’re actually adding different details. They’re actually adding different pieces of the puzzle. John, standing at the foot of the cross, watching this whole scene unfold, listening to everything, he adds his account of his friend, his rabbi being murdered.
The title of this sermon is The Lamb Slain, Part One. We’ll look at the crucifixion of Jesus in two separate parts, coming back next week to see his final moments on the cross and ultimately his burial.
As we look at the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world, who was slain for sinners, we see in our text the suffering that he endured in verses 17 and 18, followed by his humiliation in verses 19 through 24. And lastly, we’ll see that despite what he was going through, Jesus managed even on the cross to extend care and compassion to his mother.
1. The Suffering (vv. 17-18)
Jesus’ suffering before and during his crucifixion was horrific, by any account. But it began really before he was even propped up on that cross, nailed to that tree. It begins from him being betrayed by a friend. Betrayal by a friend is a certain kind of pain, a certain kind of suffering. Not only that, but as he looks around at his other friends, they abandon him. They run away. And so he’s all alone, betrayed, abandoned, which leads to the incredibly unjust treatment that he receives during his arrest, to him being yelled at, spit on, hit, flogged. And then it leads to this.
This place, Golgotha, or the skull, or in Latin, Calvaria, from which we get the word Calvary is where it all unfolds, this awful public spectacle. He goes to the place of the skull to do what? To defeat death by willingly giving himself over to be killed.
On his way there, our text begins with John telling us that Jesus bore his own cross on the way to where he would be crucified. After being mercilessly flogged and beaten, it’s not an easy task to then take up a heavy, wooden cross and carry it. The people taking our Lord’s life, what they wanted to ensure was maximal suffering, maximal pain. Roman crucifixion was really a torturous, horrific way to die.
When heading to Golgotha, Jesus would have been given the horizontal beam to carry. Often when we picture this scene, he’s carrying the whole cross. That’s not what happens. He’s given the horizontal beam, and he would have had to carry it on his shoulders. Just imagine, they just ripped parts of his back out, tore his flesh, messed up his arms, his shoulders, his head, everything, and then they give him a heavy plank of wood to carry. Because of the severe beating, we’re told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that Jesus wasn’t actually physically able to carry the beam all the way. He was collapsing, and so Simon of Cyrene was commanded to help him.
Once he arrives at the execution site, Jesus would have been laid down and nailed to the cross. Our Lord was nailed to the cross, normally done right through the hand, but sometimes that wouldn’t be able to contain the weight of the man, and so they would go in between the wrist bones. A giant iron nail through his wrists.
A small platform would be added just below his feet, and then his feet, one on top of the other, would have been nailed to the cross with just his toes propping up on that small platform. The platform would be there so that the crucified prisoner could push himself up to breathe a little bit. This may seem like it was a mercy, but in reality it was actually done to prolong the suffering of the criminal, because if he can’t breathe, he dies faster, and they want to make sure that he suffers as long as possible.
That plank where his feet would have been resting is roughly a foot and a half to two feet off the ground. So this was all very up close and personal. This is very intimate. This is very painful.
The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius called crucifixion a most pitiable death. The Roman philosopher Cicero called it the most cruel and terrifying penalty. Roman citizens couldn’t actually be crucified unless the emperor himself approved it. The Roman government said this is way too cruel even for our own criminals, but not for Jesus.
The author and the sustainer of life, the only one who doesn’t deserve this. He hangs on the cross and he takes on this awful punishment reserved for who? Why were there three crosses? This was Barabbas’ cross, the prisoner who was just released. He was supposed to be hanging there, but really, it’s my cross. It’s your cross. I deserve this. He doesn’t deserve it.
And then you consider what Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 53
, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.In our world, the question is often posed, how could a good God allow innocent people to suffer? This question is on full display before us in this text, which shows us that the brutal crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, he’s the only innocent person. Nobody’s truly innocent in the comprehensive sense. Other than him.
The thing is, beloved, there is no other way for us to obtain righteousness. There is no other way for us to be in communion with God, to be forgiven of our sins. It had to be a perfect sacrifice. The whole law pointed to this.
Consider 2 Corinthians 5
, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Consider 1 Peter 2, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.Why do good things happen to bad people? Because our Lord, the spotless Lamb of God, the only righteous one suffered and died in our place so that in him we might have life and life abundant.
Friend, are you still amazed at how you came to be a child of God? When you read this text, is it just part of the rhythm that we move through scripture? Or do you stop and think about the fact that if not this, there is no hope for me. No hope. Do you still marvel at this grace?
2. The Humiliation (vv. 19-24)
Not only was crucifixion supposed to be painful and agonizing, it was also meant to be humiliating. It was meant to degrade the crucified criminal and make an example of him. Jesus’ crime was written in three different languages so that all people all around could understand. This was done to serve as a warning, as a deterrent.
Pilate wrote out Jesus’ charge for all to see: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Was this his way, once again, of washing his hands of the situation? Maybe his way of sticking it to the religious Jews who’ve pestered him until now? Was it God’s providence to have this very sign? When the Jews protested this, Pilate was done talking about it. The plaque stays as is, he says. And the irony of this is that the plaque actually told the truth. He was the King of the Jews, the Messiah they’d been waiting for, praying for. They not only refused to believe in him, but they had him killed.
Beyond the plaque that was meant to humiliate him, we see soldiers dividing up Jesus’ clothing. The soldiers would have wanted anything that a prisoner owned that was of any value. They would cut and tear pieces of cloth and share them. The tunic, however, if cut or torn, would lose its value. It was a single, woven piece, so they gambled for it.
The tunic would have actually been the underwear underneath the top layer of clothing. So as the soldiers are taking his clothing and dividing it up themselves, gambling for the most valuable piece, what is John telling us? Jesus is naked. We imagine this scene in a sanitized, picture-perfect scene, something from maybe Italy in the 1500s, a beautiful painting with a loincloth, and Jesus is very dignified. He’s hanging on the cross naked, bleeding and naked. This was done as the final humiliation to degrade this criminal, completely exposed, shameful, utterly and completely stripped of everything.
Christian, when Jesus was stripped, when he was hung up on that cross, that was for you. He was fixing what happened in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve, after they sinned, became ashamed. They became aware of the fact that they’re naked. They’re embarrassed. They’re trying to cover up. They’re trying to hide. Shame is the result of our sin. And what does Jesus do on the cross? He takes our shame. He takes our nakedness. He bears our nakedness. He’s restoring things to how they were supposed to be.
Isaiah 61
says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with garments of salvation. The naked one on the tree clothes you with garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. God says to Israel in Ezekiel 16, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness.All this my Jesus did for me while hanging there bloody and naked on that tree. How much he had to suffer enduring humiliation for me because I wanted to live in the way I want to live. When we’re told by Jesus that he loves us, you see here clear as day he means it. What didn’t he do to save you?
The fulfillment of all these prophecies, the actions of the Jews, Pilate, the soldiers dividing up his clothing, this all points to God’s sovereignty over this whole scene. Nothing here is happening that’s out of his control. Nothing is accidental.
Acts 2
, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.Friends, the hell that we deserve is right there on that cross and he bore it all. Suffering, shame for me. He took my place.
3. The Compassion (vv. 25-27)
In the thick of this horrible scene, in the thick of his horrible suffering, while utterly humiliated, what does Jesus do? He looks to his mother and he extends care for her. I would argue, though, it’s not just his mother that he’s extending care to. This text is him showing how he cares for all Christians, how he looks to all of us and he extends this care to all of us.
It’s important to note here that Jesus is completely and totally in control of this whole situation, although it may not look like it at first glance. He also said in John 10
, I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord. He speaks calmly all throughout this whole ordeal and even thinks of others while he’s on the cross, despite his agony.When Jesus looks down from the cross, he sees four women and a man standing there watching this horrible scene unfold, which, by the way, where are all the men? Where are all his friends? All the guys that promised that no matter what, we’re here, we’ll stick it out with you, Jesus. Where are the men at the foot of the cross? This is just John and four women.
God uses the strength of these women, and they will actually be the first ones to see the empty tomb when Jesus rises from the dead. Saints, we are convictionally and firmly and biblically complementarian. Yes and amen. But we also need to recognize that God gives us the gift of men and women to complement one another. And sisters, you are a gift to all of us. The strength that you have is put on display here, where the men all ran to hide and the women went right to Jesus, looking the suffering and the pain and the death right in the face.
Among these four women is his mother, Mary. Moms, can you imagine seeing your son in this way? In Luke 2
, Simeon, when blessing Jesus in the temple, looks at Mary and he says, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also. Here as she watches her beloved son, her boy, brutally being murdered, surely she’s pierced to her very soul.But Jesus is still looking at her and compassionately thinking of her well-being. Mom, behold your son. John, take care of her. Treat her as if she’s your own mother.
What often happens when people are suffering or when people are scared? People cry out for their mom. And what happens in the midst of Jesus’ suffering? He looks out for his mom. He seeks to care for her. He didn’t want his mom to be alone and afraid. He didn’t want for her to suffer.
Mary was most likely a widow by this point, and widows had a very, very hard time during this part of human history. There was no social safety net, there was no government assistance. As her only son who likely cared for her because his other brothers didn’t believe in him, Jesus wants to make sure his mom is going to be taken care of.
But Jesus is also doing something else here. He’s not just looking immediately at his mom. He’s also looking at all of you, at all of us. He’s pointing all of us to the reality that in him, as his people, in light of what he does on the cross, we’re brought into a family. We have brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers that are given to us as a gift in this new family. We are united by him to this new family. We are brought in, cared for, never to be alone, never to be abandoned.
And those of you who don’t have families, those of you who maybe have fractured relationships with immediate family, guess what? The Lord cared enough for you to give you all of us and to give all of us to you as well, to care for us. There’s this phenomenal gift that Jesus gives to his people in giving all of us a home and a family and a place to belong.
In Jesus, we have what goes beyond even an earthly family, beyond what they might even mean to us, because this is eternal family.
Conclusion
In the midst of his agony, he continues to think of how he might care for us. This is our Jesus, beloved. His suffering brings us peace. His humiliation takes away our shame. His compassionate care provides abundantly for us.
When we look at what happened that fateful day at Golgotha, the place of the skull, we look at a scene that changed the entirety of human history. Nothing in this world was the same after the death of Jesus. And us as Christians, when we look at this scene, we gaze upon the one whose being pierced made us whole, whose death gave us life, whose suffering and anguish brought us peace, comfort, eternal security.
In Psalm 22, we need to consider what the psalmist writes in verse 16: they’ve pierced my hands and feet. Or in verse 18: they divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. Friends, this wasn’t written five years before Jesus. This wasn’t written during his lifetime. This is King David writing this. And as a result of the one who’s spoken of and what he goes through, we’re told in verse 27 of Psalm 22, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.
This, my dear friends, the cross is the way that people like you and me have access to the free gift of salvation, beloved, because Jesus entered into this in our place.
How do we explain a love and a mercy and a grace this great? You marvel at this one, the one who gave himself for us while we were still sinners, the one who suffered and took on God’s wrath in my place, the one who cares for me still, even though I regularly and repeatedly fall so very short in virtually every sphere of my life. Even while writing this sermon, even while reading of him on the cross, I was sinning. While driving here to preach to you, I sinned and he looks at me and he loves me.
How do we make sense of this one who gave me a home and a family and a future? What can I possibly say in response to that?
Jesus, thank you. All glory belongs to you. Amen.