The Good News of Jesus
04/25/2010 - The Death of Jesus
Isaiah 53:1, Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3He was despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8By oppression
and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation
protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the
transgression of my people he was punished. 9He was assigned a
grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he
had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10Yet it was the LORD'S will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will
see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD
will prosper in his hand. 11After he has suffered, he will see the
light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous
servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
12Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he
will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his
life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he
bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors.
Last week, I opened by reading Psalm 22 written by David 1,000 years before the death of Jesus. And just now I read Isaiah 53 written by the prophet Isaiah about 700 years before the death of Jesus. And I read those two chapters because I want them to be on our minds as we stand together at the foot of the cross. These poignant passages provide the sound track that's playing in the background throughout all the events that lead up to, include, and follow the crucifixion of Christ. These are the Scriptures, among others, that Jesus is clinging to as he struggles to fulfill his mission as the suffering servant of Jehovah God.
Do you have any pain in your life this morning? Is there anything that's causing you to suffer physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually? You name it. You have a Savior who knows what it feels like to be despised and rejected, oppressed and afflicted, a man of suffering and familiar with pain. Jesus understands your grief and knows how it feels to be cut off from the land of the living. And he stands ready to rescue all who call out to him for help. That's Jesus! He's amazing isn't he?
This morning we climb back to the summit of Golgotha, Skull Hill, to witness the death of Jesus. And if you have a Bible turn with me to Mark 15:33 and we'll look at this strange and sacred passage together.
I love the way Tom Wright introduces this passage when he writes these words, "There are times," he says, "when I envy musical composers, and this is one of them. If I were capable of putting this brief but shocking passage to music, I know how I'd start. Darkness at noon: low chords on the heavy brass, a brooding, twisting melody for the cellos and bassoons, a sense of growing foreboding, of apprehension and dread. From the start, and within that atmosphere, the varied themes of the rest of the passage could grow.
"You can do that quite easily in music, but most of the words we try to use, as T. S. Eliot once observed, slip and slide and just won't stay in place. We're too used to them as indeed Christians are too used to the story of Jesus' death. We need, regularly, to find ways of making the story strange again, so that we can hear it once more as though it were brand new to us. Because a strange story it is and nothing could have prepared us for the bizarre events that Mark relates in his short account of Jesus' final minutes. Every step is more curious than the last."
It is a strange story that has become way too familiar to us. Let's look at those bizarre events starting in Mark 15:33, At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.
Last week, we left Jesus hanging on a cross between two rebels being mocked and cursed and taunted. And we read in verse 25 that his crucifixion had begun at nine o'clock in the morning. And now its noon and Jesus has been hanging on the cross for three hours when something cosmic happens. Everything goes dark.
If you've ever been to Israel or any place in the Middle East you know how bright and blinding the sun can be at noon. But for three hours the sun went out and darkness descended over the whole land. Luke says in his gospel that the sun stopped shining.
Some have called this event the "crucifixion eclipse." But it couldn't have been an eclipse, at least not a solar eclipse where the moon comes between the earth and the sun and blocks out its light. Passover was a lunar festival which means it always occurred when the moon was bright and full and that happens when the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun not between them.
So it couldn't have been an eclipse. It may have been storm clouds that gathered and blocked out the sun for three hours or it could have been something supernatural. We don't know for sure, but we do know that for three hours Jesus hung between heaven and earth suspended in darkness. It must have been a frightening scene for those who stuck around and witnessed it. Those three hours must have seemed like an eternity.
Jesus didn't die under a blinding, bright sun. He died in thick darkness. In the Scriptures darkness is often associated with evil and during those three hours Jesus is taking on everything that evil can throw at him, politically and socially, morally and religiously, personally and spiritually. Israel's evil. The world's evil. Your evil. My evil. He's taking our sin and the sin of billions of others and dragging it into the darkness like a giant millstone hung around his neck.
Which reminds me of Isaiah 53:6, We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Darkness is a picture of evil. Darkness is a picture of judgment. This was Passover time and so the events of the Exodus were very much on everybody's mind. There was darkness that came over the whole land of Egypt just before the Exodus of Israel. It was the ninth out of the ten plagues and lasted for three days. It was a sign of God's judgment on that nation and now darkness is a sign of God's judgment on Jesus, the sinless one who was carrying our sin upon himself.
Isaiah 53:8,10, By oppression and judgment he was taken away ... 10Yet it was the LORD'S will to crush him and cause him to suffer.
Darkness is a picture of evil. Darkness is a picture of judgment. It's as if the sun turned its back on the cross so that all creation wouldn't have to watch what was happening to Jesus.
Yet it's out of darkness that light and life will finally come. Jesus' death is absolutely necessary for a new creation to be born.
Remember how the Bible opens in Genesis 1:1-2, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
Out of the darkness of chaos God created the earth and everything in it. And out of the darkness of the cross he will birth his new creation that begins with Jesus, the new Adam. Out of the darkness Jesus will see the light of life.
Isaiah 53:10-11, And though the LORD makes his life an
offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his
days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be
satisfied.
Look at verse 34, And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "EloiEloi, EloiEloi, lamalama sabachthanisabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
It's dark. It's quiet. It's weird. And then Jesus yells, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" He quotes Psalm 22:1 to express something he's never experienced before, ever, not just in his 33 years on this earth, but ever from eternity past, and that's separation from his Father. This is a cry of despair not of rebellion. This is the only time in Scripture when Jesus ever calls God, God, and not Abba Father. The eternal community between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is severed. Jesus in some mysterious way loses contact with God.
What must that have been like for the one who said in John 10:30, "I and my Father are one?" There is no way we can wrap our minds around that anguish. This, I believe, was the worst agony of the cross for Jesus, more than anything he went through physically was the torment of his spiritual separation from God. This is when, I believe, our sin and all the evil that Jesus was carrying got between him and his heavenly Father.
We know that sin separates us from God and that hell is a picture of that separation. And whatever hell is I believe Jesus was experiencing it during those dark hours on the cross. That's when he was drinking the cup of God's wrath to the dregs.
Have you ever felt forsaken by God, certainly not to this degree, but even just a little bit? Have you ever yelled, "God, why?" or at least wondered "God, why?" If you have, you're in good company. Jesus understands that pain too, the pain of feeling abandoned and forsaken and alone. We have a Savior who felt like his Father had deserted him when he needed him the most.
Verse 35, When some of those standing near heard this, they said, "Listen, he's calling Elijah." 36Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said.
When those standing near the cross heard Jesus say, "Eloi, Eloi," they thought he was calling Elijah. So they wet his lips to see what else he would say. The Jews believed that Elijah was going to come first before the Messiah came. In fact, at every Passover Seder a cup of wine is poured for Elijah and the door of the house is opened for Elijah to come.
But Jesus wasn't calling for Elijah. Elijah had already come personally with Moses and met with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and discussed the departure that Jesus was going to accomplish at Jerusalem. And Elijah had already come figuratively in the person of John the Baptist who had prepared the way for the Lord and then paid for it with his life. So Elijah wasn't going to come and take Jesus down from the cross.
Then, verse 37, with a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
John tells us in his gospel, that after he took the wine vinegar he said, "Tetelestai!" It is finished. Paid in full. And then Luke records his very last statement, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Notice what Jesus says, "Father," not "God." "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." His mission had been accomplished and his fellowship with the Father had been restored.
But there's more. The bizarre events continue. Look at verse 38, The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
The scene quickly shifts from Mount Calvary to Mount Zion and the Jewish Temple. Inside the Jewish Temple was a curtain that divided the Holy Place, where the priests functioned every day, from the Holy of Holies where the High Priest could only enter once a year on the Day of Atonement. The Holy of Holies was where God dwelled. It was the most sacred place on earth.
Inside that room was the Ark of the Covenant, a gold box that contained the Ten Commandments, a jar of manna, and Aaron's rod. It was ground zero for God's presence and only one man could enter that room only one day a year, Yom Kippur, with the blood of a sacrifice to cover the sins of the nation.
The Holy Place occupied the front two-thirds of the building and the Holy of Holies occupied the back one-third of the building and the two sections were separated by a large curtain that hung between them known as the veil of the Temple.
And according to Josephus, the Jewish historian, that curtain was 55 cubits high which is about 80 feet and was woven from blue, purple, and scarlet material eight inches thick. In fact, he writes that is was so thick that two teams of horses tied to each side couldn't pull the curtain apart.
But God did. When Jesus declares "It is finished" he tears the curtain apart from top to bottom as a symbolic gesture that access to the Father is now open to everyone through the blood of his Son Jesus Christ. Now people like you and me can approach God directly not through a priest or a mediator, not with a sacrifice one day a year, but in person, without a sacrifice, any day, anytime because of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. From now on, access into the presence of the living God is open to all of us through the death of his Son. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
Finally, the scene shifts back again to Mount Calvary and the words of a most unlikely character. Verse 39, And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!"
If darkness was creation's affirmation and the tearing of the Temple veil was God' affirmation, then these eight words spoken by a Roman centurion are intended to be our affirmation that Jesus was indeed the Son of God.
Finally, someone in the crowd recognizes Jesus for who he is and it's not a religious person, it's not even a Jewish person, it's a Roman pagan which takes us all the way back to Mark 1:1, The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God and ties Mark's whole gospel together. Remember his gospel was written to the Romans. And so at this climactic moment of Jesus' death it's a battle-hardened Roman centurion, who had seen countless men die in battle and on crosses, who declares this one is different, this man surely is the Son of God.
And with that declaration Mark is sending a message that the kingdom of God has arrived and a new age is being born and this good news needs to be spread throughout the whole world. And each one of us is invited to be part of it and to draw the same conclusion as the Roman centurion, "Surely this man was the Son of God." Do you believe that? I hope so.