In the 1850’s England was at odds with Russia in what was called the “Crimean War.” At the “Battle of Balaclava” (1854), a British cavalry unit, the Light Brigade, charged into a valley surrounded by Russian artillery. The charge was the result of a misinterpreted order, and the brigade suffered devastating losses. To the people of England, that disaster became much like America’s loss of the Battleship Maine in Havana harbor. In this country, “Remember the Maine” became a war cry – a rallying cry.
After Balaclava, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a powerful poem which moved the hearts of the British people. Sixty years ago, this Canadian learned the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Only parts of it are still in my memory, but I’d like to read it as an introduction to this morning’s message.
1.Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, (a mile and a half)
a.All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
b.”Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said:
c.Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
2.”Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismay’d?
a.Not tho’ the soldier knew Some one had blunder’d:
b.Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die:
c.Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
3.Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them
a.Volley’d and thunder’d; Storm’d at with shot and shell,
b.Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death,
c.Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.
4.Flash’d all their sabres bare, Flash’d as they turn’d in the air
a.Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while
b.All the world wonder’d: Plunged in the battery-smoke
c.Right thro’ the line they broke; Cossack and Russian
d.Reel’d from the sabre-stroke Shatter’d and sunder’d.
e.Then they rode back, but Not the six hundred.
5.Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them
a.Volley’d and thunder’d; Storm’d at with shot and shell,
b.While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well
c.Came thro’ the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of Hell,
d.All that was left of them, Left of six hundred.
6.When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!
a.All the world wonder’d. Honor the charge they made!
b.Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!
There is no reason to think that Alfred Tennyson was a Christian; he claimed to be spiritual but not Christian. And that may be why he never engaged his mind or pen to consider the Lord Jesus’ charge into the valley of death. But what if that poet had considered the death of the Son of God? What might that fertile mind have composed if he knew Christ as his Saviour and he understood what Jesus was saying in this phenomenal verse before us this morning?
The Lord Jesus had been preaching the nearness of the Kingdom of Heaven, while training His disciples to eventually pick up the banner and preach the gospel throughout the world. Up until this moment those disciples were not ready. They were not sufficient to hear, let alone bear, the good news of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. And thus far, everything Jesus had said about His death had been hidden in mystic or cryptic language. They were in the nature of riddles, whose meaning would eventually become clear. But at the time being they were only precursors to the bald facts.
For example, Jesus said that His temple would be destroyed but raised again in three days – John 2:19. From our perspective, we may know exactly what the Lord was saying, but the disciples didn’t at the time. And the Jews violently misinterpreted it, thinking that Jesus was talking about Herod’s temple. Christ said that the Son of Man would be lifted up like the brazen serpent in Israel’s history – John 3:14. He was speaking about His crucifixion, but there was no way of knowing that at the time. Jesus spoke of the separation of the Bridegroom from the children of the bride chamber – Matthew 9:15. And there was the lesson about Christ’s gift of His flesh for the life of the world – John 6. In fact, He spoke about “eating” His flesh and “drinking” His blood. Of course, this wasn’t cannibalism. He speaking about devouring and drinking through faith. And earlier in this chapter, He made the comparison between Himself and Jonah – three days and three nights in the belly of death.
We are told in verse 13 that Jesus took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, to get away from the Jewish mobs. In the seclusion of that foreign city, He asked “Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” The twelve offered some of the current public opinion. Then “He said unto them, But whom say YE that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That answer indicated that these twelve were BEGINNING to understand more about the Messiah. And they were BECOMING mature enough to know more details of the Messiah’s ultimate sacrifice. They still had a long way to go, but they were moving beyond the ideas that the mobs were holding.
With the disciples’ spiritual growth, verse 21 says, “FROM THAT TIME FORTH began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” From that point, the Lord Jesus began to be much more direct about the reason for His incarnation. “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Even so, Peter tried to take Jesus aside and rebuke him, “Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall not be.” Christ was forced by this to point out how Peter was behaving just as Satan had at Jesus’ temptation. “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those of men.” And then in the next chapter we have the transfiguration, where Peter, James and John hear the conversation between the glorified Messiah and the deceased Moses and Elijah, about Jesus’ exodus. Not even the disciples were ready to hear about Christ’s upcoming sacrifice, but it must be done. It was time that they moved beyond their elementary spiritual education.
Of course, you and I are standing on the other side of cross, looking back on all of this. We may not understand why the nascent apostles – the baby evangelists – were so confused and resistant. But for the sake of our lesson this morning, let’s try to put ourselves in the disciples’ shoes. What did Jesus so plainly say in verse 21? He declared that He was charging into the valley of the shadow of death with cannon to the right of Him, cannon to the left of Him and cannon before Him. For our sakes – for the salvation of a few wretched souls – He galloped forward.
Christ told His disciples that HE MUST GO unto JERUSALEM.
Although Jesus had been to Jerusalem several times, particularly for the observance of the Passover, most of His ministry had been in Galilee. The Book of Matthew mentions “Jerusalem” only incidentally, usually only telling us that curious Jerusalemites had gone looking for Jesus. But things began to change in the first verse of chapter 15, “Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem saying, why do they disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” As I said last week, the tide of popularity was turning against Jesus, particularly in Jerusalem and Judea. The priests and religious leaders were now looking to pick a fight with the Lord Jesus. Mark 3:22 says, “And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.” And John 7:1 tells us that for a while “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.” The disciples knew first hand about their country’s political and religious hatred of Christ. And now they hear Jesus say, “I must go to Jerusalem.”
Christ must openly die in the unholy “holy city” – not in an obscure corner of Galilee in an obscure sort of way. Jerusalem was one place where God’s early prophets had been stoned for their preaching of repentance. Christ was to be lifted up, like the brazen serpent, in such a place and in such a way that all Israel could see. The “Lamb of God” must be slain in the place where all the legal sacrifices were supposed to be offered. He must needs go to Jerusalem.
And there he must SUFFER MANY THINGS of the elders and chief priests and scribes.
In His final hours, despite suffering acute physical pain dispensed by the Romans, the pain inflicted by His own countrymen must have been excruciating to the Saviour. Israel’s prophet Isaiah, spent several chapters describing and discussing the Saviour and His death. In Isaiah 52, speaking of Christ, he says that “many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” This prophecy declares that Christ Jesus would be beaten almost beyond recognition. This doesn’t necessarily speak exclusively about beatings inflicted by the Jews. But he next chapter does speak of Israel’s abuse of their Messiah, but in general terms. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised and we esteemed him not.” It was Israel and its leadership who “despised and rejected Christ.” They “despised and esteemed Him not.” He was wounded by the Romans for our transgressions, and it was by them that oozing, bloody stripes were laid across his back. He was “oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth,” during His beatings by the Romans. His abusers couldn’t believe that He was “like a sheep before her shearers is dumb” – silent. He was abused by the Romans, but he was also bruised by the Jews – “for our iniquities.” Two chapters earlier, in Isaiah 50:6 the prophet speaks the words of the Saviour – “I gave my back to smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting.”
How excruciating was the pain our Saviour suffered under the hand of the Priests, Pharisees and Sadducees of Israel? They turned one of His own disciples against him. They made false accusations against Him and accused Him of blasphemy. They insulted him; they mocked Him. Then they spit in his face. They covered his head, before punching and slapping Him, demanding that He name His abusers if He was really God. Oh, how surprised they would have been if He had done just that. He could have, because He IS God, but He refused to obey them.
Then the Jews handed their Messiah over to the Romans, to put Him to DEATH.
“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” Christ was not actually crucified by the Jews, but they were guilty of His death. They didn’t provide the materials. They didn’t drive in the nails. Nevertheless, as Luke 23:1 tells us, “the whole multitude of them arose, and let Him unto Pilate, and they began to accuse him.” Then the beatings continued, intensified by the professional soldiers. Matthew 27:27 – “The soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.”
And crucify them they did. They laid our Saviour (naked) on His back on top of a great beam of rough-cut lumber, forcing splinters into His earlier wounds. They stretched His arms out to either side. And they made sure that his knees were bent so that the balls of His feet were flat against the wood. Then they took three if not four spikes and drove them with hammers through His hands and feet. They somehow pushed and pulled, lifting that heavy cross over the hole which was dug to hold it upright, and they dropped it into place. Then after a few other prophesied and fulfilled aspects to the crucifixion, they watched while Jesus died. From his head to His feet, blood was trickling and sometimes pouring toward the ground from His wounds. His breathing became progressively harder as the heat of the day, then the cold dampness of darkness over came Him. Finally, Jesus released His spirit, and His body died. “Truly this was the Son of God” was the testimony of one of the witnesses.
The Romans pulled the trigger, but it was Israel who created the weapon that took the life of the Messiah. And Jesus had spelled out all of this ahead of time. His disciples heard the words of Lord’s prophecy. They hated it and initially rejected it, but when it became history, they remembered, and they knew. “Christ died for our sins according to the scripture.”
But there was one more aspect of the crucifixion that the disciples needed to grasp.
Ye, Christ would be killed, but He would be RAISED AGAIN.
“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” The temple of the Lord’s body would be rebuilt on the third day. The fulfilment of the prophet Jonah would come out of the belly of this whale on the third day. After nightfall on Saturday night, Christ emerged from His grave alive and well.
The Psalmist David speaking the words of Christ in Psalm 16 prophesied, “Thou wit not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” And so Christ was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God was taken by wicked hands and was crucified and slain.” “But God hath raised him up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should beholden of it.” They crucified the Prince of life. But God hath raised Him from the dead, whereof there were hundreds of witnesses. Jesus Christ was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” He was crucified, and he was buried, but he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Conclusion:
At the battle of Balaclava, 600 cavalry soldiers were sent into a valley which ultimately meant their deaths. The whole fiasco was a mess; a misunderstanding of orders; a disaster. “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.”
But when Christ Jesus went into His valley of death, there was no misunderstanding; there was no mistake. The battle plan had been made in eternity past. It was devised before the fall of man and before the creation of man. Salvation is not God’s reaction to the introduction of sin. And the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, was not only involved in the plan, but He volunteered for the charge. Throughout His earthly life, He knew that He was born to die this particular death. And from the outset of his ministry, He inferred to His disciples and to others, that He must needs go through Samaria into Jerusalem. When His disciples had been sufficiently prepared to start to learn Christ’s purpose, He flatly told them – “how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.”
As I just said, it was for a purpose that Jesus died. “He was wounded for our TRANSGRESSIONS, he was bruised for our INIQUITIES; the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us…” “For Christ also hath once suffered for SINS, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness – by whose stripes ye were healed.” “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” He “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people…” “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.”
The question is: Are you going to join Peter and argue against this divine sacrifice? Are you going to deny all of this? All the prophecies? All the scriptural declarations? As Peter later tells us, “We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Perhaps you are thinking that you aren’t sinful enough to need the sacrifice of Christ. Oh yes, you are. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” And “the wages of sin is death.” Are you going to watch Christ die on the cross and then turn away like the Centurion in charge that day and merely say, “Surely this was the Son of God.” Sinners, like us, don’t need Christ – as the Son of God. The Son of God will be our Judge. We need Him as the Saviour – the Lamb of God who shed His blood to cover our sins. His whole purpose; the reason for His incarnation was fully outlined here in our text.
Won’t you surrender to His love and His purpose this morning? Please, won’t you repent before God and put your faith in Christ the Saviour? Today, may be your last opportunity, because there is a sense in which you are one of the six hundred, and you are right now, charging into the valley of death. You will not return from your charge into death, except by riding on the wings of the Saviour.