Nine Portraits One Cross

By LOUIS ADJEI DANSO

NINE PORTRAITS ONE CROSS I carefully retell the story of Jesus through the lenses of Nine people who played significant role in his death and resurrection. As Mary stood at the feet of the cross was she crying for her son of for her saviour? Did she fully comprehend what was happening? Where was the rest of the disciples? How did they perceive Jesus as he hang on the cross?  As you look back at the cross today how do you see Jesus, are you convinced that Jesus indeed resurrected? 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: LOUIS ADJEI DANSO
• Release date: Mar 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393799504

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Nine Portraits One Cross

LOUIS ADJEI DANSO

© Louis Adjei-Danso 2020

All rights Reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical method, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to blessed memory of my Father Mr. Samuel Agyei Danso

I also dedicate this book to my beloved Mrs Adelaide Adutwumwaah who have always been of great support to me.

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge my mentor, Carl Desmond, for his continuous encouragement and support in completing this work and for writing the foreword for this book.

I thank Dr. Isaac Mensah and Dr Sefa Churchill for writing the commendations for this book.

Ama Berkoh, thank you for designing the book cover.

I appreciate Joseph Lamptey who has been a tremendous support to me and my ministry over the years.

Lastly, I thank Esi Amoah, Minister Eric David, Sister Aba and everyone who contributed in any way to make this book a success.

Commendations

If you really want to understand the Cross – death, burial and resurrection of Christ – then this is the book for you. Through the writer's careful exploration, the reader is given a unique journey through the perception lenses of Nine (9) men and women who were close to Jesus.

If you need an exegesis about the Cross which is the pivot of the New Covenant, then this book is what you need to read. This book will help you get grounded in your faith. The writer, Pastor Louis Danso seeks to bring exposition on this tenet of our faith by exploring how those who were very close to Jesus saw, understood and spoke about what happened during the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The unique approach Pastor Louis Danso uses to explore the subject will help every reader have a holistic understanding of who Jesus is and what He signifies. I personally believe that this book will be a blessing to you, strengthen your faith and establish you in your walk with God.

Dr Isaac Joe Mensah

Few books uniquely combine biblical truths with real-life issues. The book places Christ at the centre and reminds believers that the death and the resurrection of Jesus are fundamental to the Christian faith. More importantly, it questions our perceptions as believers and urges us to think about what the life and finished work of Christ means to us. It does an informative job of taking its readers on a journey to understand the various perspectives of key people that were around Jesus before and after His death and resurrection. It represents conviction and wisdom that urges believers to go beyond the cross, and experience Christ as the risen One.

The book questions our way of life by likening different stances we take, as believers, to how several individuals in the Bible related to Christ. In doing this, it illuminates various issues we often relegate and challenges us to deepen our understanding of God and improve our relationship with Him. In bringing together several engaging perspectives, this book demonstrates the need for believers to recognise their responsibility of modelling after the reality and character of Christ, and ultimately becoming fully transformed into His image.

I believe each reader will close the last pages of this book with a greater sense of hope and inspiration to serve God more diligently, and live by the words of 2 Timothy 2:15, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

Rev. Dr Sefa Awaworyi Churchill,

Foreword

Cicero calls it the most horrendous torture, so hideous was the act of crucifixion upon a man that he writes, "The very word ‘cross' should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes and his ears". It is a known fact of Christian orthodoxy that the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is the bedrock of Christianity.

Pastor Louis A. Danso, carefully takes us through this very important bedrock of Christendom. I believe with the story of Mary Magdalene and others that prove the veracity and the authenticity of the resurrection, many who read it will come to the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Nine Portraits One Cross, the average person will come close to the evidence of the resurrection allowing them to come to a logical conclusion for themselves when all the evidence provided are carefully observed. I highly recommend this book for any And for the book as a whole I say, Soli Deo Gloria!

Aps. Carl Desmonds

Purpose

Growing up, the story of the birth and death of Jesus was so widely expressed that even unbelievers told it. During Easter in particular, almost every church that holds on to the orthodox and foundational beliefs of Christianity irrespective of denomination they belonged to reviews the story. We value and uphold the celebration of Easter because of the significance of what Jesus Christ did on the cross and how that can be appropriated to our lives as believers.

When you ask people to tell you the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus, many would recount different aspects of the story, but the central message would remain the same. People explain or tell the story based on their understanding and their interpretation of what they have read or heard. There are many internal and external factors which are likely to influence the story being told by the individual.

During the Passover week, year after year, our hearts are joined with Christ through His suffering as we relive the crucifixion and His triumphant resurrection. We feel varying

levels of contempt towards Judas who betrays Him, Peter who denies Him, the chief priests who despise Him, Herod who mocks Him, the people who call for His crucifixion, Pilate who appeases the mob and washes his hands, the thief who gets saved and Barabbas who is guilty but gets to go free.

In this book, I want us to carefully observe the story from nine different perspectives, views and individuals who had different encounters with Jesus and how they related to His death and resurrection. It is my desire that as you read this book you are able to identify which group you belong to as well as yearn and strive to build an intimate relationship with God. Each perspective reveals or portrays something unique and distinct which when carefully analysed would greatly influence and deepen our understanding and relationship with God.

Introduction

It was the preparation for the Passover celebration and many people had travelled from far and near to be a part of it. However, as many people waited in anticipation for the events and the celebration, there was also a major event which was about to unfold that was going to significantly impact and change the relevance of the celebration from then on. As they prepared to celebrate, the priests had gotten Jesus arrested and taken Him to Pilate to pronounce judgement upon Him and declare His crucifixion just as it had been prophesied.

I had just returned to Sydney from Albury Wodonga where I studied during one of the semester breaks, my friends and I decided to go watch a movie which had piqued our interest after seeing the trailer. As we drove home after watching, we discussed the movie. We talked about it and some of us liked the concept and the idea behind it while others thought it was unnecessary to have showed all the other angles of the same event. I absolutely loved the movie and I hadn’t seen anything like it. Vantage Point is a movie directed by Pete Travis in 2008. The movie tells the story of

an attempted assassination of the American President; most interestingly, it was told and re-told from several different camera angles.

The story was told from different angles, each revealing something different and greatly influencing the decision one would make about the whole event that played out. In the movie, the President of the United States was in Salamanca, Spain, about to address the city in a public square. We saw a plain-cloth cop, his girlfriend with another man, a mother and child, an American tourist with a video camera, and a Secret Service agent newly returned from medical leave. Shots ring out and the President falls; a few minutes later, we heard a distant explosion, then a bomb goes off in the square. Those minutes are retold, several times, emphasising different characters' actions.

The director carefully and gradually builds up the story by telling and retelling the story from different camera angles and perspectives and collectively when they were all taken into perspective, the culprit was caught. Without first watching to understand all the different angles and clues as revealed in each perspective, one will be hindered from

coming to a decisive conclusion. Disregarding the other perspectives will hinder one from truly understanding the relevance and the significance of the event and the attempt to find the culprits.

Over the years, I have heard so many sermons, teaching or preaching about the death and resurrection of Jesus and I believe that you have too, but I want to present it this time from nine different perspectives so that we are able to grasp an in-depth insight which would enhance our understanding of the relevance of the death of Christ to us. Each perspective would offer something different and each character displays a different relationship they had with Jesus and how that ultimately influenced how they related with Jesus as He was led to be crucified.

There are nine key people who had the privilege and opportunity to be around and play a significant role in the events which led to the death of Jesus and I want to gradually build up their expressions of the death of Jesus, what they must have been thinking as Jesus hung on the cross, what lessons we can take away from them, and how

they help shape and increase our understanding and relationship with God.

There are many people who played a role or a part some way or the other in the events leading to the death of Jesus, however, I want to focus on nine people who I believe if carefully analysed would help us value what Jesus did on the cross for us and in turn significantly influence our fellowship with Him. These nine people include the disciples, Pilate, the soldiers, the crowd (both the Jews and gentiles), the priests (high priest, Pharisees, Sadducees, teachers and elders), Barabbas, the two thieves who were also hanged alongside Jesus, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene.

Table of Contents

Dedication....................................3

Acknowledgements............................4

Commendations...............................5

Foreword.....................................8

Purpose......................................9

Introduction..................................11

Table of Contents.............................15

POTRAIT 1: MARY............................16

PORTRAIT 2: THE DISCIPLES..................39

PORTRAIT 3: THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS........81

PORTRAIT 4: PONTIUS PILATE..................109

PORTRAIT 5: THE ROMAN GUARDS (SOLDIERS) 128

PORTRAIT 6: THE PEOPLE OR THE CROWD....171

PORTRAIT 7: BARABBAS.....................194

PORTRAIT 8: THE TWO THIEVES..............208

POTRAIT 9: MARY MAGDALENE..............224

THE PINNACLE OF OUR FAITH:...............248

THE RESURRECTION.......................248

FINAL REMARKS............................282

1

POTRAIT 1: MARY

Mary and Joseph had kept a tradition of attending the Passover celebration in Jerusalem each year. While it is widely believed that Joseph had passed away before the crucifixion of Jesus, Mary continued in the tradition of going to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover, is the way Luke 2:41 puts it.

While in Jerusalem for the Passover, Mary watched on as her son was stripped naked, scourged until He could barely stand, beaten until he was nearly unrecognisable. She didn’t go to Jerusalem to watch until His lifeless body was finally removed from the stakes of torture. I strongly believe that leaving her home for the Passover was not with the intent of going to watch her son being crucified, rather it was her love and dedication towards God that led her to Jerusalem. Mary went to Jerusalem simply because she loved God.

Mary loved God and was devoted to Him. It was the result of this love and devotion towards God that earned her the favour of being chosen among all women to birth the Messiah in the first place. It was this same love that led her to Jerusalem this time. As we see Mary’s love and dedication towards God, we are forced to ask some uncomfortable questions; is this how God treats those who love Him with all their hearts, souls and minds? Is this how God rewards those who’ve been most faithful? Is this what you might have to expect if you commit your own life to a ‘Mary-level’ of faith in God?

From the Gospel narratives, only John’s Gospel tells us that Mary was at the cross when Jesus was crucified. The other narratives indicate that the women followed closely but only John’s Gospel gives us more details and even emphasise that Jesus spoke to His mother while on the cross.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw   his   mother there,   and   the   disciple   whom   he loved standing nearby, he said to her, "Woman, here is your

son, and to the disciple, Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. John 19: 25-27

I cannot begin to imagine how Mary felt standing by the cross of Jesus, the Messiah, the Saviour and most importantly, her son, hanging on a cross like a criminal. Can you imagine as a mother what it would have been like for Mary to have witnessed the terrible ordeals of her own son being humiliated before the religious elders, dragged before Pilate for judgment, scourged nearly unto death, and finally nailed to a cross to die?

We may never truly understand how Mary felt and what she imagined, but for us to truly begin to understand what she must have been thinking and what she was going through, it is essential that we begin from the conception of Jesus. As a young woman who was betrothed to be married, she was visited by the angel of the Lord and was told that she would become pregnant without any human activity because she had been favoured by God Luke 1:26-38.

My question is, while the angel told Mary what was going to happen, did she really understand what it meant or did she fully grasp the depth of what the angel had just told her?

Sometimes, it is easier to believe the possibility of something if you have heard of it or seen it happen before, so I wonder if she truly believed and understood what the angel told her. Though she got a confirmation from her relative, Elizabeth, who had also become pregnant at her old age, the question still remains, did she fully understand the consequences of what was going to happen? Did she know fully well the kind of seed she was carrying and the purpose of the child she was to bare?

When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: a pair of doves or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law

required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel. The child’s father and mother marvelled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too. Luke 2:22-39

I believe that after this encounter Mary may have had a better understanding or gotten more clarification on some of her thoughts and the questions she had in her mind when she took the baby Jesus to be presented in the temple and dedicated as required by the law. The priest during the dedication said things that would raise some concerns for her. She would have taken careful notice of the words that were said about her son. But the question still remains, did she fully understand what the baby Jesus was going to go through to fulfil the promise?

While nothing else is known about the childhood and early adulthood of Jesus, the memory of Him engaging religious authorities in Jerusalem must have influenced Mary’s impression of His mission and