Christ Jesus died on the Cross to redeem mankind, to save us from our sins, because He loves us.
As recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ was mocked, scorned, and tortured in the praetorium. He carried his cross up the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem to Calvary, nailed to the Cross, hung between two common criminals, and suffered an indescribable end, recalled by the Church on Good Friday of Holy Week.
One may meditate on the Passion of Christ by reflecting on his Seven Words on the Cross
or by a devotion known as the Way of the Cross.
When religious pilgrimages to the Holy Land ended with military occupation of Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, a popular devotion known as the Way of the Cross arose during Lent retracing the Passion, Crucifixion, and Death of Jesus. The fourteen stations of the Cross are (1) Pilate condemns Jesus to death; (2) Jesus takes up his Cross; (3) He falls the first time; (4) Jesus meets his sorrowful mother Mary; (5) Simon helps carry the cross; (6) Veronica cleans his face; (7) He falls the second time; (8) Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem; (9) He falls the third time; (10) Jesus is stripped of his garments; (11) Jesus is nailed to the cross; (12) Jesus Christ dies on the cross; (13) He is taken down from the cross; (14) Christ is laid in the tomb.
Here are his Seven Words, the last seven expressions of Jesus Christ on the Cross recorded in Scripture.
THE FIRST WORD
"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."
Gospel of Luke 23:34
Jesus says this first word only in the Gospel of Luke, just after he was crucified by the soldiers on Golgotha, with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. The timing of this suggests that Jesus asks his Father to primarily forgive his enemies - Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin; Pontius Pilate and Herod; and the soldiers who have scourged him, mocked him, tortured him, and who have just nailed him to the cross. But could this not also apply to his Apostles and companions who have deserted him, to Peter who has denied him three times, to the fickle crowd, who only days before praised him on his entrance to Jerusalem, and then days later chose him over Barabbas to be crucified? Could this not also apply to us, who daily forget him in our lives?
Does he react angrily? No, he asks his Father to forgive them, because they are ignorant! At the height of his physical suffering, his Divine love prevails and He asks His Father to forgive his enemies.
Right up to his final hours on earth, Jesus preaches forgiveness. He teaches forgiveness in the Lord's prayer: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" (Matthew 6:12). When asked by Peter, how many times should we forgive someone, Jesus answers seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21-22). At the Last Supper, Jesus explains his crucifixion to his Apostles when he tells them to drink of the cup: "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:27-28). He forgives the paralytic at Capernaum (Mark 2:5), and the adulteress caught in the act and about to be stoned (John 8:1-11). And even following his Resurrection, his first act is to commission his disciples to forgive: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:22-23).
THE SECOND WORD
"Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
Gospel of Luke 23:43
Now it is not just the religious leaders or the soldiers that mock Jesus, but even one of the criminals, a downward progression of mockery. But the criminal on the right speaks up for Jesus, explaining the two criminals are receiving their just due, and then pointing to Jesus, says, "this man has done nothing wrong." Then, turning to Jesus, he asks, "Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom" (Luke 23:42). What wonderful faith this repentant sinner had in Jesus - far more than the doubting Thomas, one of his own Apostles. Ignoring his own suffering, Jesus mercifully responds with His second word.
The second word again is about forgiveness, this time directed to a sinner. Just as the first word, this Biblical expression again is found only in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus shows his Divinity by opening heaven for a repentant sinner - such generosity to a man that only asked to be remembered!
THE THIRD WORD
"Jesus said to his mother: "Woman, this is your son".
Then he said to the disciple: "This is your mother."
Gospel of John 19:26-27
Jesus and Mary are together again, at the beginning of his ministry in Cana and now at the end of his public ministry at the foot of the Cross. What sorrow must fill her heart, to see her Son mocked, tortured, and now just crucified. Once again, a sword pierces Mary's soul, the sword predicted by Simeon at the Temple (Luke 2:35) . There are four at the foot of the cross, Mary his Mother, John, the disciple whom he loved, Mary of Cleopas, his mother's sister, and Mary Magdalene. His third word is addressed to Mary and John, the only eye-witness of the Gospel writers.
But again Jesus rises above the occasion, and his concerns are for the ones that love him. The good son that He is, Jesus is concerned about taking care of his mother. In fact, this passage offers proof that Jesus was the only child of Mary, because if he did have brothers or sisters, they would have provided for her. But Jesus looks to John to care for her.
St. Joseph is noticeably absent. The historic paintings, such as Tondo-doni by Michelangelo and The Holy Family by Raphael, suggest Joseph was a considerably older man. St. Joseph had probably died by the time of the crucifixion, or else he would have been the one to take care of Mary. Early Christian traditions and the second-century apocryphal Protoevangelium of James held that Joseph was a widower, and his children by his former wife were the "brothers and sisters of Jesus."
Another striking phrase indicating Jesus was an only child is Mark 6:3, referring to Jesus: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" Now if James, Joses and Judas and Simon were also natural sons of Mary, Jesus would not have been called the "son of Mary," but rather "one of the sons of Mary."
THE FOURTH WORD
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34
This is the only expression of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Both Gospels relate that it was in the ninth hour, after 3 hours of darkness, that Jesus cried out this fourth word. The ninth hour was three o'clock in Palestine. Just after He speaks, Mark relates with a horrible sense of finality, "And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last" (Mark 15:37).
One is struck by the anguished tone of this expression compared to the first three words of Jesus. This cry is from the painful heart of the human Jesus who must feel deserted by His Father and the Holy Spirit, not to mention his earthly companions the Apostles. As if to emphasize his loneliness, Mark even has his loved ones "looking from afar," not close to him as in the Gospel of John. Jesus feels separated from his Father. He is now all alone, and he must face death by himself.
But is not this exactly what happens to all of us when we die? We too will be all alone at the time of death! Jesus completely lives the human experience as we do, and by doing so, frees us from the clutches of sin.
His fourth Word is the opening line of Psalm 22, and thus his cry from the Cross recalls the cry of Israel, and of all innocent persons who suffer. Psalm 22 of David made a striking prophecy of the crucifixion of the Messiah, at a time when crucifixion did not exist: "They have pierced my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones" (22:16-17). The Psalm continued: "they divide my garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots" (22:18).
There can not be a more dreadful moment in the history of man as this moment. Jesus who came to save us is crucified, and He realizes the horror of what is happening and what He now is enduring. He is about to be engulfed in the raging sea of sin. Evil triumphs, as Jesus admits: "But this is your hour" (Luke 22:53). But it is only for a moment. The burden of all the sins of humanity for a moment overwhelm the humanity of our Jesus.
But does this not have to happen? Does this not have to occur if Jesus is to save us? It is in defeat of his humanity that the Divine plan of His Father and Himself will be completed. It is by His death that we are redeemed. "For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all" (l Timothy 2:5-6).
THE FIFTH WORD
"I thirst"
Gospel of John 19:28
The fifth word of Jesus is His only human expression of His physical suffering. Jesus is now in shock. The wounds inflicted upon him in the scourging, the crowning with thorns, and the nailing upon the cross are now taking their toll, especially after losing blood on the three-hour walk through the city of Jerusalem to Golgotha on the Way of the Cross. Systematic studies of the Shroud of Turin, as reported by Gerald O'Collins in Interpreting Jesus, indicate the passion of Jesus was far worse than one could imagine. The Shroud has been exhaustively studied by every possible scientific maneuver, and the scientific burden of proof is now on those who do not accept the Shroud as the burial cloth of Jesus.
"He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross,
so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness.
By his wounds you have been healed" (l Peter 2:24).
THE SIXTH WORD
When Jesus had received the wine, he said,
"It is finished";
and he bowed his head and handed over the spirit.
Gospel of John 19:30
It is now a fait accomplit. The sixth word is Jesus' recognition that his suffering is over and his task is completed. Jesus was obedient to the Father and gave his love for mankind by redeeming us with His death on the Cross.
The above painting is meant to capture the moment.
What was the darkest day of mankind became the brightest day for mankind.
When Jesus died, He "handed over" the Spirit.
Jesus remains in control to the end, and it is He who handed over his Spirit. One should not miss the double entendre here, for this may also be interpreted as His death brought forth the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of John gradually reveals the Holy Spirit. Jesus mentions living water in John 4:10-11 when he met the Samaritan woman at the well, and during the Feast of Tabernacles refers to living water as the Holy Spirit in 7:37-39. At the Last Supper, Christ announced he would ask the Father to send "another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth" (14:16-17). The word Advocate is also translated as Comforter, Helper, Paraclete, or Counselor. "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you" (14:26). The symbolism of water and the Holy Spirit become more evident in John 19:34: "But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water." The piercing of his side fulfilled the prophecy in Zechariah 12:10: "They will look on me whom they have pierced." The piercing of Jesus' side prefigures the Sacraments of Eucharist (blood) and Baptism (water), as well as the beginning of the Church.
THE SEVENTH WORD
Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit":
Gospel of Luke 23:46
The seventh word of Jesus is from the Gospel of Luke, and is directed to the Father in heaven, just before He dies. Jesus recalls Psalm 31:5 - "Into thy hands I commend my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God." Luke repeatedly pleads Jesus' innocence: with Pilate (Luke 23:4, 14-15, 22), through Dismas, the criminal (Luke 23:41), and immediately after His death with the centurion" "Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, "Certainly this man was innocent" (Luke 23:47).
John's Gospel relates that it was the Day of Preparation, the day before the actual Passover (Pesach in Hebrew, Pascha in Greek and Latin), that Jesus was sentenced to death (19:14) and sacrificed on the Cross (19:31). He died at the ninth hour (three o'clock in the afternoon), about the same time as the Passover lambs were slaughtered in the Temple. Christ became the Paschal or Passover Lamb, as noted by St. Paul: "For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7). The innocent Lamb was slain for our sins, so that we might be forgiven.
Jesus fulfilled His mission: "They are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (Romans 3:24-25). The relationship of Jesus to the Father is revealed in the Gospel of John, for He remarked, "The Father and I are one" (10:30), and again, at the Last Supper: "Do you not believe I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works" (14:10). And He can now return: "I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father" (16:28). Jesus practiced what He preached: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
REFERENCES
1 The Revised Standard Version of The Holy Bible. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2005.
2 Bishop Fulton J Sheen. The Seven Last Words - The Message from the Cross. Garden City Books, Garden City, New York, 1952.
3 Pope John Paul II. The Redeemer of Man - the encyclical Redemptor Hominis, Pauline Books and Media, Boston, March 4, 1979.
4 Ignace De La Potterie. The Hour of Jesus - The Passion and the Resurrection of Jesus. Alba House, Staten Island, New York, 1989.
5 St. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica, Third Part, On the Passion of Christ. Translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1920. Reprinted by Christian Classics of Allen, Texas, 1981.
6 St. Alphonsus Liguori. The Way of the Holy Cross. Mother of Our Savior Publishing, Pekin, Indiana, 2007.
7 O'Collins, Gerald. Interpreting Jesus. Geoffrey Chapman, London, and Paulist Press, Mahwah, New Jersey, 1983.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
The 7 Words of Jesus on the Cross licoc.org
The 7 Words of Jesus on the Cross
When you examine the words or thoughts of a person under great stress, scrutiny or suffering, you learn the substance of the person; their composition, their faith and their hope.
When we examine what our Savior exclaimed on the cross, we can learn about His true character and His integrity before the Father. We can see the love that pours out from His wounds, directed at us! Neither the heat, nor the sweat mixed with the blood, nor the agony and emotional distress distracted Him from having you and me on His mind that day. From these Seven Words of Jesus we can draw strength and courage for our own walk on this earth as we follow His call to be His disciples. He suffered the extreme penalty of death that we may live!
Are you living, or you a dead man walking?
Between the beatings, flogging and the pain from the crown of thorns on His head, Jesus, sees His mother and the disciple He loved the most:
1- John 19:26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” (27) and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
Jesus thinks of His family first. His dearly loved mother and what would become of her was Jesus first concern. He wanted her to be taken care of emotionally and physically, not to mention spiritually. Under great stress do you:
1- Think of yourself first?
2- Distance yourself from those you love?
3- Seek to blame those you love for not helping you?
Remember that stressful times show how close of a relationship you have developed with the Father in Heaven. Those who refresh others, under stressful moments, will themselves be refreshed (Prov 25:13; 2 Tim 1:16)
His face is wincing with the pain from the nails in His wrists and feet, His back is shredded and torn from the flogging, an almost unbearable pain. On top of this, people are wagging their heads at Him, cursing Him and hurling insults:
2- Luke 23:34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
Forgiveness is the center of the Gospel: forgiveness of our sins, the opportunity to be redeemed and restored to a relationship with God! Where there is no forgiveness there is bitterness and regret. Instead of allowing bitterness or antagonism to set in, Jesus thinks of them instead of Himself: He thinks about their ignorance and therefore lost state. Jesus’ view is set on eternity, not on what happens in the present moment: “For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame!” (Heb 12:2) Besides, he knows He is there for them; they have done nothing to Him, and He has willingly given Himself to them, even though they scorn Him.
When others insult you or curse you, or show you their distaste or lack of approval, how do you respond?
1- Do you allow them to offend you? If you do, then you are only thinking of yourself.
2- Are you able to see past their disapproval of you and into their ignorant state of mind?
3- Are you able to willingly suffer scorn for their sake, shaming their actions and words?
4- Have you forgotten about your forgiveness of sins?
If you forgot about your cleansing of your past sin, you are not able to surrender yourself perhaps you are still holding on to some vestige (trace) of your old self. Get rid of it! Therein lies the root of all bitterness! Where there is no forgiveness, there is restlessness and no peace!
Suffering from exposure, difficulty in breathing, dizziness, and nausea, Jesus promises paradise:
3- Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Up until the last moment, Jesus wants people to be with Him forever. That is His focus and the reason He came into the world! Not even the worst moments on earth He could experience would distract Him from loving you to the fullest extent. (Heb 5:7-9)
Do you ultimately want the best for those around you, especially those who may have, at one time, scorned you or shamed you? When you are stressed:
1- Are you words full of hope and encouragement, or is your selfishness evident by the piercing words you utter because you don’t have time for others?
2- Is your speech full of boasting of what you do and have, or is your speech full of grace and mercy?
Do you ultimately want to be alone, or do you want to have those you love around you? Bitterness and regret are reflections of a poor self-image. What you see in others is a reflection of what is in you. If you are full of the spirit and love, your being will radiate this love. If you are empty (full of bitterness and regret) then you will be a black hole of joy and peace.
Under the greatest distress yet, feeling abandoned and lonely, desperate even, Jesus cries out to His Father:
4- Matt 27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ”Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”-- which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
At this point, when Jesus is bearing the sin of the world, His cry of frustration is directed at the Father, who alone is able to bear all our burdens!
When you can’t take it anymore, do you:
1- React or act upon (keep your cool)?
2- Take it out on those around you or seek the face of the Father?
3- Try to blow off some steam or get on your knees and pray?
At the moment of your greatest pain and agony, you can choose to be a vehicle of blessing.
After enduring the reality of His separation from the Father, and being at the lowest point in His earthly life, we can testify to the humble humanity of Jesus:
5- John19:28 Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”
He was still human… Tempted with all our temptations and vulnerable to all that affects us; yet submitting to the Father to be perfected… even Jesus! (Heb 5:8-9) God choose us weak vessels to show His strength! When we are weak, and delight in our weakness, we can then let God be glorified through them! Don’t pretend that you are strong! God will humble you!
When you are at your lowest:
1- Are you ashamed of you weakness? Do you try to appear strong and independent?
2- Do you resist help or scorn advice because you “feel” patronized?
With a simple declaration: “I am thirsty”, Jesus unashamedly shows us His human side on that cross, and God gets the glory!
As Jesus’ life wanes before Him, He looks towards the Father and commits Himself unto death, knowing what awaits Him:
6- Luke 23:46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Jesus commits his eternal souls to the Father, which meant submitting and humbling Himself unto death, even death on a cross. Jesus saw His physical life on earth as a clear mission directed from Heaven. He used His life on earth and did not allow Himself to be used or manipulated by anything, including the fleshly temptations He faced. This is why in His death He entrusted Himself to the Father.
In whose hands have you committed yourself?
1- Your own? Someone else’s? Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)
2- Whose destiny have you chosen? Are you your own man, or are you going to join those whose destiny is eternity through Jesus Christ? Is your life being built on perishable things or on eternal things?
3- Which path are you walking on? Narrow or wide? Every effort needs to be made to enter the narrow path (Luke 13:24)
1 John 3:2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Jesus knows He has accomplished the work the Father sent Him to do, and voluntarily gives Himself up:
7- John 19:30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Jesus knew the exact moment of His death, and willingly volunteered Himself as the propitiation for our sins. God’s work of salvation is done and it is available for everyone who wishes to join Him at the great feast in the Kingdom of God.
Are you living your life, or have you lived your life in such a way that at this very moment, if Jesus were to present Himself here, you would be able to say: “It is finished! I’m going home!” Or are there some “loose ends” in your life you have yet to take care of?
When all is said and done, all that matters is where will you be in 200 years? Are you living your life in view of where you will be in 200 years? Or do you:
1- Live for the moment without regard of any promise for you?
2- Only care to satisfy your cravings of the present without regard for your reputation?
A good parent lives in such a way as to prepare their children for the future as they live fully each day. They instill vision in their children. In the same way, we want to live in such a way as to leave a legacy of holiness for those whom we leave behind on the earth, that our work for Jesus may continue on earth as we are in Paradise. We cannot only live for the moment, but in view of the promise of eternity.
When Jesus says “It is finished”, He reveals that all along He was living and accomplishing what His Father willed, a careful plan to bring you into Heaven, because of the joy that lays ahead for every individual that allows himself to be washed in His blood.
The following verses are provided for your meditation, following each of the seven instances Jesus spoke from the cross:
How can Jesus words from the cross transform me?
1- Philip 2:3-5 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. {4} Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. {5} Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…
2- Col 1:13-14 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, {14} in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And Heb 12:15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
3- John 12:27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.” And Heb 5:7-9 During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. {8} Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered {9} and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him…
4- Luke 22:42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
5- 1 Co 1:27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. And 2 Co 12:10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
6- Lu 13:24 "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.
7- Heb 4:11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
When you examine the words or thoughts of a person under great stress, scrutiny or suffering, you learn the substance of the person; their composition, their faith and their hope.
When we examine what our Savior exclaimed on the cross, we can learn about His true character and His integrity before the Father. We can see the love that pours out from His wounds, directed at us! Neither the heat, nor the sweat mixed with the blood, nor the agony and emotional distress distracted Him from having you and me on His mind that day. From these Seven Words of Jesus we can draw strength and courage for our own walk on this earth as we follow His call to be His disciples. He suffered the extreme penalty of death that we may live!
Are you living, or you a dead man walking?
Between the beatings, flogging and the pain from the crown of thorns on His head, Jesus, sees His mother and the disciple He loved the most:
1- John 19:26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” (27) and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
Jesus thinks of His family first. His dearly loved mother and what would become of her was Jesus first concern. He wanted her to be taken care of emotionally and physically, not to mention spiritually. Under great stress do you:
1- Think of yourself first?
2- Distance yourself from those you love?
3- Seek to blame those you love for not helping you?
Remember that stressful times show how close of a relationship you have developed with the Father in Heaven. Those who refresh others, under stressful moments, will themselves be refreshed (Prov 25:13; 2 Tim 1:16)
His face is wincing with the pain from the nails in His wrists and feet, His back is shredded and torn from the flogging, an almost unbearable pain. On top of this, people are wagging their heads at Him, cursing Him and hurling insults:
2- Luke 23:34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
Forgiveness is the center of the Gospel: forgiveness of our sins, the opportunity to be redeemed and restored to a relationship with God! Where there is no forgiveness there is bitterness and regret. Instead of allowing bitterness or antagonism to set in, Jesus thinks of them instead of Himself: He thinks about their ignorance and therefore lost state. Jesus’ view is set on eternity, not on what happens in the present moment: “For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame!” (Heb 12:2) Besides, he knows He is there for them; they have done nothing to Him, and He has willingly given Himself to them, even though they scorn Him.
When others insult you or curse you, or show you their distaste or lack of approval, how do you respond?
1- Do you allow them to offend you? If you do, then you are only thinking of yourself.
2- Are you able to see past their disapproval of you and into their ignorant state of mind?
3- Are you able to willingly suffer scorn for their sake, shaming their actions and words?
4- Have you forgotten about your forgiveness of sins?
If you forgot about your cleansing of your past sin, you are not able to surrender yourself perhaps you are still holding on to some vestige (trace) of your old self. Get rid of it! Therein lies the root of all bitterness! Where there is no forgiveness, there is restlessness and no peace!
Suffering from exposure, difficulty in breathing, dizziness, and nausea, Jesus promises paradise:
3- Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Up until the last moment, Jesus wants people to be with Him forever. That is His focus and the reason He came into the world! Not even the worst moments on earth He could experience would distract Him from loving you to the fullest extent. (Heb 5:7-9)
Do you ultimately want the best for those around you, especially those who may have, at one time, scorned you or shamed you? When you are stressed:
1- Are you words full of hope and encouragement, or is your selfishness evident by the piercing words you utter because you don’t have time for others?
2- Is your speech full of boasting of what you do and have, or is your speech full of grace and mercy?
Do you ultimately want to be alone, or do you want to have those you love around you? Bitterness and regret are reflections of a poor self-image. What you see in others is a reflection of what is in you. If you are full of the spirit and love, your being will radiate this love. If you are empty (full of bitterness and regret) then you will be a black hole of joy and peace.
Under the greatest distress yet, feeling abandoned and lonely, desperate even, Jesus cries out to His Father:
4- Matt 27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ”Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”-- which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
At this point, when Jesus is bearing the sin of the world, His cry of frustration is directed at the Father, who alone is able to bear all our burdens!
When you can’t take it anymore, do you:
1- React or act upon (keep your cool)?
2- Take it out on those around you or seek the face of the Father?
3- Try to blow off some steam or get on your knees and pray?
At the moment of your greatest pain and agony, you can choose to be a vehicle of blessing.
After enduring the reality of His separation from the Father, and being at the lowest point in His earthly life, we can testify to the humble humanity of Jesus:
5- John19:28 Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”
He was still human… Tempted with all our temptations and vulnerable to all that affects us; yet submitting to the Father to be perfected… even Jesus! (Heb 5:8-9) God choose us weak vessels to show His strength! When we are weak, and delight in our weakness, we can then let God be glorified through them! Don’t pretend that you are strong! God will humble you!
When you are at your lowest:
1- Are you ashamed of you weakness? Do you try to appear strong and independent?
2- Do you resist help or scorn advice because you “feel” patronized?
With a simple declaration: “I am thirsty”, Jesus unashamedly shows us His human side on that cross, and God gets the glory!
As Jesus’ life wanes before Him, He looks towards the Father and commits Himself unto death, knowing what awaits Him:
6- Luke 23:46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Jesus commits his eternal souls to the Father, which meant submitting and humbling Himself unto death, even death on a cross. Jesus saw His physical life on earth as a clear mission directed from Heaven. He used His life on earth and did not allow Himself to be used or manipulated by anything, including the fleshly temptations He faced. This is why in His death He entrusted Himself to the Father.
In whose hands have you committed yourself?
1- Your own? Someone else’s? Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)
2- Whose destiny have you chosen? Are you your own man, or are you going to join those whose destiny is eternity through Jesus Christ? Is your life being built on perishable things or on eternal things?
3- Which path are you walking on? Narrow or wide? Every effort needs to be made to enter the narrow path (Luke 13:24)
1 John 3:2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Jesus knows He has accomplished the work the Father sent Him to do, and voluntarily gives Himself up:
7- John 19:30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Jesus knew the exact moment of His death, and willingly volunteered Himself as the propitiation for our sins. God’s work of salvation is done and it is available for everyone who wishes to join Him at the great feast in the Kingdom of God.
Are you living your life, or have you lived your life in such a way that at this very moment, if Jesus were to present Himself here, you would be able to say: “It is finished! I’m going home!” Or are there some “loose ends” in your life you have yet to take care of?
When all is said and done, all that matters is where will you be in 200 years? Are you living your life in view of where you will be in 200 years? Or do you:
1- Live for the moment without regard of any promise for you?
2- Only care to satisfy your cravings of the present without regard for your reputation?
A good parent lives in such a way as to prepare their children for the future as they live fully each day. They instill vision in their children. In the same way, we want to live in such a way as to leave a legacy of holiness for those whom we leave behind on the earth, that our work for Jesus may continue on earth as we are in Paradise. We cannot only live for the moment, but in view of the promise of eternity.
When Jesus says “It is finished”, He reveals that all along He was living and accomplishing what His Father willed, a careful plan to bring you into Heaven, because of the joy that lays ahead for every individual that allows himself to be washed in His blood.
The following verses are provided for your meditation, following each of the seven instances Jesus spoke from the cross:
How can Jesus words from the cross transform me?
1- Philip 2:3-5 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. {4} Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. {5} Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…
2- Col 1:13-14 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, {14} in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And Heb 12:15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
3- John 12:27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.” And Heb 5:7-9 During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. {8} Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered {9} and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him…
4- Luke 22:42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
5- 1 Co 1:27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. And 2 Co 12:10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
6- Lu 13:24 "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.
7- Heb 4:11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
A Time to Die – Luke 23:46 keepbelieving.com
Sermon 7 of 7 from the Seven Last Words of Jesus series
August 1991 – 3 P.M. Friday afternoon. It’s another hot day in Jerusalem. Things are worse now. More blood. More screams. More gore. The insects swarm around the three naked bodies. There are shouts, restless words from the crowd. Several hundred people have gathered at Skull Hill to watch the end.
It hasn’t been an ordinary day. Not that you could ever call crucifixion ordinary. But the Romans did it all the time. It was their favored method for dealing with criminals and troublemakers. There were plenty of easier ways to kill people—and the Romans knew all about those ways, too—but crucifixion had its advantage. The primary one being that crucifixion was such a gruesome spectacle that it caught the public attention in a way that something mundane like poisoning could never do.
But this time the Romans had hit the Daily Double, so to speak. They were crucifying three men on the eve of the Jewish Passover. That meant the city would be clogged with religious pilgrims. The message would come through loud and clear—Don’t mess with us.
Things had started well enough. The three men were crucified at 9 A.M.—the normal starting time. The crowd was larger than usual, mostly because of the man in the middle, one Jesus of Nazareth. The hard part was nailing the men to the cross. At best it was a bloody ordeal. If the victims struggled (and most of them did), the thing could turn into a gory mess. But the man in the middle had not struggled at all. He looked half-dead before they laid him on the cross. The scourging must have taken a lot out of him.
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The first three hours were no problem. The three men spoke to one another briefly and people in the crowd shouted various things—mostly jeers and taunts. Jesus seemed to a have a following of people—friends and family—who came to watch the proceedings. They didn’t say much.
Three Hours of Darkness
Everything changed at 12 noon. Suddenly everything went dark. The sun disappeared—just like that—and thick darkness settled over the land. It was the darkness of a cave in the middle of the night, thick, ugly darkness that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
It lasted for three hours. At 3 P.M., the sun came out just as suddenly as it had disappeared. All eyes were drawn to the center cross. Something had happened to Jesus during those three hours, exactly what was hard to say. The other two looked awful, the way men always do when they are crucified, but Jesus was different. Something terrible had happened to him during that three hours of darkness, some awful burden that had descended on him and sucked out what little life was left in him. You didn’t have to be a doctor to know that he was about to die.
His chest heaved mightily with each breath, his eyes looked faraway, his voice was little more than a guttural groan, the death rattle was in his throat. Suddenly he shouted something and somebody shouted back to him. Then the soldiers moistened his lips with a sponge stuck on the end of a hyssop stalk. His head dropped, he took another breath, he shouted one word, “Tetelestai!,” and it seemed as if he had died. A moment passed, then he took one final breath, and shouted, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Then he bowed his head and his whole body seemed to slump forward.
Stunned silence. Followed by, “Surely, this was the Son of God.” Shock. “Who was that man?” Anger now, and fear on the faces of the crowd. Here and there, soft sobs and quiet tears. Much later came the spear in the side, but Jesus was long dead at that point.
Last Words
This is how Luke the physician tells the story of the last moments of Jesus’ life:
It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46)
Luke is the only writer to record the last words of the Son of God: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Every word tells us something important:
Father—This was Jesus’ favorite title for God. It spoke of the intimate family relationship that had existed from all eternity. His first word from the cross had been, “Father, forgive them.” His last word was, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” But in between he had cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He called him, “My God” and not “Father” because in that agonizing moment, the Father turned his back on the Son as Jesus bore the sin of the world. God forsaken by God! But no longer. Jesus dies with the knowledge that the price has been fully paid, the cup emptied, the burden borne, estrangement ended. Whatever happened in those three mysterious hours of darkness is now in the past. Jesus yields his life to the One he called “Father.”
Into your hands—O, the touch of a father’s hands. What son does not long for his father to reach out and embrace him? There is something wonderful about this expression. It speaks of safety—"I am safe in my father’s hands"—and of greeting—"Welcome home, Son"—and of love—"Daddy, it’s so good to see you again"—and of approval—"I’m so proud of you, Son.”
For 15 hours Jesus has been in the hands of wicked men. With their hands, they beat him. With their hands, they slapped him. With their hands, they abused him. With their hands, they crowned him with thorns. With their hands, they ripped out his beard. With their hands, they smashed him black and blue. With their hands, they whipped his back until it was torn to bits.
All that is behind him now. Wicked hands have done all they can do. Jesus now returns to his Father’s hands.
I commit—The word means to deposit something valuable in a safe place. It’s what you do when you take your will and your most valuable possessions and put them in a safe-deposit box at the bank.
My spirit—By this phrase, Jesus meant his very life, his personal existence. Now that his physical life was over, Jesus commits himself into his Father’s hands for safe keeping. “Father, I can no longer care for myself. I place myself in your good hands for safe-keeping.”
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
You may not know that these words are a quotation from Scripture. With his final words, Jesus recited Psalm 31:5 and simply added the word “Father” to the front of the quotation. Jewish mothers would teach their child-ren to recite that verse every night before they went to bed. For many children, it would be the first verse of Scripture they ever learned.
On the cross, as his life is ebbing away, Jesus reverts to the prayer of his childhood, the prayer his mother taught him in Nazareth, the prayer with which he ended each day. In the end, his strength gone, his body tor-tured almost beyond recognition, his mind recalls the words he learned as a little boy—"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” The prayer has the same meaning and effect as the prayer many of our children pray each night: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.”
Sometimes we wonder if our children pay any attention when we recite Scripture and sing to them at bedtime. Often it seems as if our words go in one ear and out the other. But those little ears hear more than we know, and the heart remembers far more than we realize. No one can overestimate the value of patiently teaching the truth of God to our children day in and day out. What seems to be wasted time may some day be the only thing they can remember.
The End of the Story
The moment has come. Jesus has only seconds to live. All that he came to do has been accomplished. It is time to die. Two things happened at the very end of his life that merit our attention.
1. His Physical Sufferings Reached Their Climax. The pain now is unbearable. Breathing is almost impossible. The crowd gathers round, like vultures circling their prey. The friends of Jesus watch in horror as his life ebbs away. Death rattles in his throat. From somewhere down below, a fiendish, evil howling. The angels look away. The Son of God is about to die.
What was it like to die by crucifixion? Several years ago two doctors on the staff of the Mayo Clinic enlisted the help of a Methodist pastor to answer that question. Their research was published in the most prestigious medical journal in America—The Journal of the American Medical Association. (March 21, 1986, pp. 1455-1463) The article was entitled “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ.” They surveyed the ancient literature on the subject of crucifixion along with the best modern historical research.
They begin by describing the Roman practice of flogging:
As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victim’s back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions, and the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Then, as the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh. (p. 1457)
They then describe the results of scourging:
The severe scourging, with its intense pain and appreciable blood loss, most probably left Jesus in a preshock state … The physical and mental abuse meted out by the Jews and the Romans, as well as the lack of food, water, and sleep, also contributed to his generally weakened state. Therefore, even before the actual crucifixion, Jesus’ physical condition was at least serious and possibly critical. (p. 1458)
The authors then give a detailed description of various crucifixion practices. They note that the crossbar Jesus was compelled to carry weighed 75-125 pounds. Iron spikes (approximately 5-7 inches long) were driven into his wrists and his feet just above the toes. Criminals were normally crucified naked, unless forbidden by local custom. Once crucified the victim was exposed to the elements, including insects which would burrow into the open wounds or the eyes, nose and ears.
Because of the scourging, the victim’s back became a virtual open sore.
When the victim was thrown to the ground on his back, in preparation for transfixion of his hands, his scourging wounds most likely would become torn open again and contaminated with dirt. Furthermore, with each respiration, the painful scourging wounds would be scraped against the rough wood of the stipes. As a result, blood loss from the back probably would continue throughout the crucifixion ordeal. (p. 1460)
But the worst was yet to come. Once the cross was raised, breathing became progressively more difficult until it finally became impossible.
The major pathophysiologic effect of crucifixion, beyond the excruciating pain, was a marked interference with normal respiration, particularly exhalation. The weight of the body, pulling down on the outstretched arms and shoulders, would tend to fix the intercostal muscles in an inhalation state and thereby hinder passive exhalation …
Adequate exhalation required lifting the body by pushing up on the feet and by flexing the elbows and adducting the shoulders. However, this maneuver would place the entire weight of the body on the tarsals and would produce searing pain. Furthermore, flexion of the elbows would cause rotation of the wrists about the iron nails and cause fiery pain along the damaged median nerves. Lifting of the body would also painfully scrape the scourged back against the rough wooden stipes. (p. 1461)
The authors then summarize the biblical material in a remarkably concise manner:
The soldiers and the civilian crowd taunted Jesus throughout the ordeal, and the soldiers cast lots for his clothing. Christ spoke seven times from the cross. Since speech occurs during exhalation, these short, terse utterances must have been particularly difficult and painful. About 3 P.M. that Friday, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, bowed his head, and died. The Roman soldiers and onlookers recognized his moment of death. (p. 1462)
Only one question is left unresolved. What was the ultimate cause of his death after only a few hours on the cross? Concerning this question, the authors offer two possible answers:
Jesus’ death after only three to six hours on the cross surprised even Pontius Pilate. The fact that Jesus cried out in a loud voice and then bowed his head and died suggests the possibility of a catastrophic terminal event. One popular explanation has been that Jesus died of cardiac rupture…
However, another explanation may be more likely. Jesus’ death may have been hastened simply by his state of exhaustion and by the severity of his scourging, with its resultant blood loss and preshock state. (p. 1463)
All of this leads to a very simple conclusion: “Death by crucifixion was, in every sense of the word, excruciating.” (p. 1461). It is a perfectly chosen word, because excruciating comes from the Latin excruciatus, which means “out of the cross.”
2. He Voluntarily Gave Up His Life. This may seem at odds with the gruesome account given above. Christ was arrested and tried like a common criminal. He was beaten within an inch of his life. He suffered the terrible ordeal of crucifixion and died an agonizing death. Surely his life was forcibly taken from him.
Not so. Jesus himself addressed this question in John 10:17-18.
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.
This perfectly harmonizes the gospel accounts of the death of Christ. Matthew 27:50 tells us that at the moment of his death, Jesus “dismissed his spirit.” That is, he voluntarily yielded it up to the Father. His life was not taken from him against his will; when the time came, he gave up his life voluntarily. To the very end, the Son of God remained sovereign over the affairs of men.
From all of this we may draw several lessons and applications:
1. He knew it was time to die.
2. He wasn’t afraid to die.
3. He died with his life complete.
4. He died without anger or bitterness.
5. He died in complete control of his senses and his circumstances.
6. He died knowing where he was going—back into the Father’s hands.
The death of Jesus is a model of how the faithful face death. They are not afraid. They are not filled with remorse over wasted opportunities. They endure their portion with grace, knowing that a better day awaits on the other side of the great divide. If they suffer, they hold fast to the promises of God as their only hope. They do nothing to hasten the moment, but when it finally comes, they have courage to face it for they have commit-ted themselves completely into their Father’s hands.
And so Jesus died like a child asleep in his father’s arms. Exhausted, weary, having suffered the worst that man could do, he finally yielded up his life and breathed his last. It was a quiet ending, a graceful exit, a peaceful passing from the brutality of this world.
Take Me Home
Max Lucado paints an unforgettable word picture of what Jesus’ death was like seen from the perspective of heaven:
(No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, pp. 65-75)
Were it a war—this would be the aftermath.
Were it a symphony—this would be the second between the final note and the first applause.
Were it a journey—this would be the sight of home.
Were it a storm—this would be the sun, piercing the clouds.
But it wasn’t. It was a Messiah. And this was a sigh of Joy.
“Father!” (The voice is hoarse.)
The voice that called forth the dead,
the voice that taught the willing,
the voice that screamed at God,
Now says, “Father!” “Father.”
The two are one again.
The abandoned is now found.
The schism is now bridged.
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED
Luke 23
* The Man Who Would Be King: Christ Speaks to the Problem of Frivolous Curiosity
* Last-Second Salvation
* Forgiving the Unforgivable
“Father.” He smiles weakly. “It’s over.”
Satan’s vulture have been scattered.
Hell’s demons have been jailed.
Death has been damned.
The sun is out. The Son is out.
It’s over.
An angel sighs. A star wipes away a tear.
“Take me home.”
Yes, take him home.
Take this prince to his king.
Take this son to his father.
Take this pilgrim to his home. (He deserves a rest.)
“Take me home.”
Come ten thousand angels!
Come and take this wounded troubador to the cradle of his Father’s arms!
Farewell manger’s infant
Bless You Holy Ambassador
Go home death slayer
Rest well sweet soldier
The battle is over.
Freed From the Fear of Death
Of all the fears that trouble the heart of man, perhaps none is greater than the fear of death. All of our fears can be rolled up into this greatest fear—we are afraid to die. We fear death because it is so final. We fear death because we are not sure what happens when we die. We fear death because it means leaving the world we know for another world we know nothing about.
Men will do anything to keep from thinking about death. They will drink themselves into a stupor rather than face the reality of their own mortality. They race through life going 1000 miles an hour, rushing from one thing to another in a desperate attempt to keep their mind off the inevitable.
We fear so many things—nuclear war, financial collapse, international intrigue, AIDS, the onset of old age—but behind them all lurks the great unspoken fear of death. It is unspoken because you cannot speak of the things you truly fear. They are too frightening for words.
Death is the final enemy. It is the end of one thing and the beginning of … What? Modern man does not know how to finish that sentence. Therefore he is afraid.
Into the breach steps Jesus Christ and said, “Fear not, for I have conquered death.” He was there. He died just like all men die. And he came back to tell the story. No one else has ever done that.
“Fear not.” You must be joking? Only a fool doesn’t fear death. Only a fool … or a follower of Jesus.
These are the words of Hebrews 2:14-15.
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Who holds the power of death? Satan does. Death belongs to him. Death is his. He owns it. Before Satan was, death was not. When Satan is no more, death will be no more. Between now and then, Satan still rules the realm of death. Men fear death with good reason. They are entering a realm Satan controls.
But the death of Jesus Christ has spoiled Satan’s power. As long as men stayed dead, death was Satan’s ultimate tool to keep men in chains. But one Man changed all that. He died, but he didn’t stay dead. He broke Satan’s power when he tore off the bars of death.
Now no one need fear death any longer. Death still comes to all men, but for those who know Jesus (and only for them), death has changed its character. It is no longer the entrance into the dim unknown. It is now the passageway into the presence of God.
A Little Boy Named Kenneth
In his great sermon “Go Down Death,” (found in A Man Called Peter, pp. 262-274) Peter Marshall tells the story about a little boy he knew who was suffering from a terminal illness. At first he didn’t understand what was happening to him, but as the months passed, and he had to stay inside while his friends went out to play, the truth dawned on him. The idea intrigued him and he wondered what death would be like.
One day his mother was reading to him the stirring tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. She told him of Lancelot and Guinevere and the beautiful maiden Elaine. She read to him of the final glorious battle when so many gallant knights met their death.
At length, she was finished and put the book down. The little boy was silent for a moment. Then he asked the question that had been playing upon his childish mind, the question his mother was dreading to answer. “Mother, what is it like to die? Mother, does it hurt?”
Quick tears sprang to her eyes, so she excused herself to go into the kitchen to compose herself. She knew it was a question of deep significance. She knew she must find a good answer. For a moment she leaned against the kitchen cabinet, her knuckles pressed white against the surface, praying to the Lord for an answer.
And the Lord gave her an answer. In that moment she knew what she should say.
“Kenneth,” she said as she returned to the next room, “Do you remember when you were a little boy and you would play hard all day? When the evening came you would be so tired that when you came in, you would lie down on Mommy and Daddy’s bed and fall asleep.”
“That was not your bed. That was not where you belonged.”
“But you only stayed there a little while. In the morning, you were surprised to wake up and find yourself in your own bed.”
“You were there because someone you loved had come and taken care of you. During the night while you were sleeping, your father came—with big strong arms—and carried you to your own room.”
“Sweetheart, death is just like that. One night you are very tired and very sleepy. We fall asleep and the next morning we wake up to find ourselves in another room—our own room where we belong—because the Lord Jesus has come and with his big arms, he has carried us from our home in this world to our home in heaven.”
The light on the little boy’s face showed that he had understood. And a few days later he fell asleep just as his mother had said.
That is what death is like for the believer.
The Shining Mercy of God
How mistaken we are about death. We think that we are going from the land of the living to the land of the dying. Not so. We are going from the land of the dying to the land of the living. Jesus Christ has said it, and it is so.
As we pass beyond the curtain, we live on and on. But it will not be as it is today. In that day, we rise to new life:
—not with halting limp or wrinkled brow
—not with dimming eyes or faltering steps
—not with twisted spine or runaway tumors
—not with bitter memories or faded dreams
—not with amputated leg or injured heart
No, not with these do we rise. Not clothed with this mortal flesh do we rise. But we rise clothed in the shining mercy of God.
What Happens When We Die?
There is one great lesson we should take away from this story of the final words of the Lord Jesus. Death holds no fear for the Christian, for when we die, we pass from this life into the hands of our Heavenly Father, and he will take care of us.
What happens when we die?
1. Our body is buried and our spirit goes to God.
2. We pass into the personal presence of God.
3. We pass from this life into paradise.
4. We are in the Father’s hands.
These things are true for the followers of Jesus because what happened to him will one day happen to them. Where he leads, they will one day follow.
“Our People Die Well”
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, used to offer this comment as a final apologetic for the evangelical faith: “Our people die well.” Those words sound odd and out-of-place in the 20th century. But several centuries ago it was popular to read books about the art of dying—how to face it with strength and grace. Dying well is one mark of a robust Christian faith. There is such a thing as “dying grace” which the Lord is pleased to give to his children.
We die like the rest of mankind. But we have a hope that transcends the grave. For the followers of Jesus, death has lost its sting and the grave its victory.
What makes the difference? It is Jesus Christ and nothing else. In him and through him and because of him, death has lost its fear for us. Like all men, we prefer to live as long as possible. But when the time comes, we will not shrink back in unspeakable dread. We know One who has been there, and has come back to tell the story. He said, “Fear not. I will be with you.” For those who know Jesus death is not the end but the begin-ning of life.
Our Father, we thank you for a hope that transcends this dying world. We live, we die, and through Jesus Christ, we pass into your loving hands. Teach us to live each day as if it were our last because someday it will be true. In these quiet moments we recommit our lives to you believing that you will be faithful to us, in life and death and in the life to come. We pray these things in the name of Him who conquered death, Jesus our Lord, Amen.
August 1991 – 3 P.M. Friday afternoon. It’s another hot day in Jerusalem. Things are worse now. More blood. More screams. More gore. The insects swarm around the three naked bodies. There are shouts, restless words from the crowd. Several hundred people have gathered at Skull Hill to watch the end.
It hasn’t been an ordinary day. Not that you could ever call crucifixion ordinary. But the Romans did it all the time. It was their favored method for dealing with criminals and troublemakers. There were plenty of easier ways to kill people—and the Romans knew all about those ways, too—but crucifixion had its advantage. The primary one being that crucifixion was such a gruesome spectacle that it caught the public attention in a way that something mundane like poisoning could never do.
But this time the Romans had hit the Daily Double, so to speak. They were crucifying three men on the eve of the Jewish Passover. That meant the city would be clogged with religious pilgrims. The message would come through loud and clear—Don’t mess with us.
Things had started well enough. The three men were crucified at 9 A.M.—the normal starting time. The crowd was larger than usual, mostly because of the man in the middle, one Jesus of Nazareth. The hard part was nailing the men to the cross. At best it was a bloody ordeal. If the victims struggled (and most of them did), the thing could turn into a gory mess. But the man in the middle had not struggled at all. He looked half-dead before they laid him on the cross. The scourging must have taken a lot out of him.
book graphic fade
RELATED BOOK
Stealth Attack
Scorched earth tactics and cruel
hatred are the characteristics of your
spiritual enemy. Protect yourself
against Satan’s plan to
destroy your life.
Get more details
The first three hours were no problem. The three men spoke to one another briefly and people in the crowd shouted various things—mostly jeers and taunts. Jesus seemed to a have a following of people—friends and family—who came to watch the proceedings. They didn’t say much.
Three Hours of Darkness
Everything changed at 12 noon. Suddenly everything went dark. The sun disappeared—just like that—and thick darkness settled over the land. It was the darkness of a cave in the middle of the night, thick, ugly darkness that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
It lasted for three hours. At 3 P.M., the sun came out just as suddenly as it had disappeared. All eyes were drawn to the center cross. Something had happened to Jesus during those three hours, exactly what was hard to say. The other two looked awful, the way men always do when they are crucified, but Jesus was different. Something terrible had happened to him during that three hours of darkness, some awful burden that had descended on him and sucked out what little life was left in him. You didn’t have to be a doctor to know that he was about to die.
His chest heaved mightily with each breath, his eyes looked faraway, his voice was little more than a guttural groan, the death rattle was in his throat. Suddenly he shouted something and somebody shouted back to him. Then the soldiers moistened his lips with a sponge stuck on the end of a hyssop stalk. His head dropped, he took another breath, he shouted one word, “Tetelestai!,” and it seemed as if he had died. A moment passed, then he took one final breath, and shouted, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Then he bowed his head and his whole body seemed to slump forward.
Stunned silence. Followed by, “Surely, this was the Son of God.” Shock. “Who was that man?” Anger now, and fear on the faces of the crowd. Here and there, soft sobs and quiet tears. Much later came the spear in the side, but Jesus was long dead at that point.
Last Words
This is how Luke the physician tells the story of the last moments of Jesus’ life:
It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46)
Luke is the only writer to record the last words of the Son of God: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Every word tells us something important:
Father—This was Jesus’ favorite title for God. It spoke of the intimate family relationship that had existed from all eternity. His first word from the cross had been, “Father, forgive them.” His last word was, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” But in between he had cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He called him, “My God” and not “Father” because in that agonizing moment, the Father turned his back on the Son as Jesus bore the sin of the world. God forsaken by God! But no longer. Jesus dies with the knowledge that the price has been fully paid, the cup emptied, the burden borne, estrangement ended. Whatever happened in those three mysterious hours of darkness is now in the past. Jesus yields his life to the One he called “Father.”
Into your hands—O, the touch of a father’s hands. What son does not long for his father to reach out and embrace him? There is something wonderful about this expression. It speaks of safety—"I am safe in my father’s hands"—and of greeting—"Welcome home, Son"—and of love—"Daddy, it’s so good to see you again"—and of approval—"I’m so proud of you, Son.”
For 15 hours Jesus has been in the hands of wicked men. With their hands, they beat him. With their hands, they slapped him. With their hands, they abused him. With their hands, they crowned him with thorns. With their hands, they ripped out his beard. With their hands, they smashed him black and blue. With their hands, they whipped his back until it was torn to bits.
All that is behind him now. Wicked hands have done all they can do. Jesus now returns to his Father’s hands.
I commit—The word means to deposit something valuable in a safe place. It’s what you do when you take your will and your most valuable possessions and put them in a safe-deposit box at the bank.
My spirit—By this phrase, Jesus meant his very life, his personal existence. Now that his physical life was over, Jesus commits himself into his Father’s hands for safe keeping. “Father, I can no longer care for myself. I place myself in your good hands for safe-keeping.”
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
You may not know that these words are a quotation from Scripture. With his final words, Jesus recited Psalm 31:5 and simply added the word “Father” to the front of the quotation. Jewish mothers would teach their child-ren to recite that verse every night before they went to bed. For many children, it would be the first verse of Scripture they ever learned.
On the cross, as his life is ebbing away, Jesus reverts to the prayer of his childhood, the prayer his mother taught him in Nazareth, the prayer with which he ended each day. In the end, his strength gone, his body tor-tured almost beyond recognition, his mind recalls the words he learned as a little boy—"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” The prayer has the same meaning and effect as the prayer many of our children pray each night: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.”
Sometimes we wonder if our children pay any attention when we recite Scripture and sing to them at bedtime. Often it seems as if our words go in one ear and out the other. But those little ears hear more than we know, and the heart remembers far more than we realize. No one can overestimate the value of patiently teaching the truth of God to our children day in and day out. What seems to be wasted time may some day be the only thing they can remember.
The End of the Story
The moment has come. Jesus has only seconds to live. All that he came to do has been accomplished. It is time to die. Two things happened at the very end of his life that merit our attention.
1. His Physical Sufferings Reached Their Climax. The pain now is unbearable. Breathing is almost impossible. The crowd gathers round, like vultures circling their prey. The friends of Jesus watch in horror as his life ebbs away. Death rattles in his throat. From somewhere down below, a fiendish, evil howling. The angels look away. The Son of God is about to die.
What was it like to die by crucifixion? Several years ago two doctors on the staff of the Mayo Clinic enlisted the help of a Methodist pastor to answer that question. Their research was published in the most prestigious medical journal in America—The Journal of the American Medical Association. (March 21, 1986, pp. 1455-1463) The article was entitled “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ.” They surveyed the ancient literature on the subject of crucifixion along with the best modern historical research.
They begin by describing the Roman practice of flogging:
As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victim’s back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions, and the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Then, as the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh. (p. 1457)
They then describe the results of scourging:
The severe scourging, with its intense pain and appreciable blood loss, most probably left Jesus in a preshock state … The physical and mental abuse meted out by the Jews and the Romans, as well as the lack of food, water, and sleep, also contributed to his generally weakened state. Therefore, even before the actual crucifixion, Jesus’ physical condition was at least serious and possibly critical. (p. 1458)
The authors then give a detailed description of various crucifixion practices. They note that the crossbar Jesus was compelled to carry weighed 75-125 pounds. Iron spikes (approximately 5-7 inches long) were driven into his wrists and his feet just above the toes. Criminals were normally crucified naked, unless forbidden by local custom. Once crucified the victim was exposed to the elements, including insects which would burrow into the open wounds or the eyes, nose and ears.
Because of the scourging, the victim’s back became a virtual open sore.
When the victim was thrown to the ground on his back, in preparation for transfixion of his hands, his scourging wounds most likely would become torn open again and contaminated with dirt. Furthermore, with each respiration, the painful scourging wounds would be scraped against the rough wood of the stipes. As a result, blood loss from the back probably would continue throughout the crucifixion ordeal. (p. 1460)
But the worst was yet to come. Once the cross was raised, breathing became progressively more difficult until it finally became impossible.
The major pathophysiologic effect of crucifixion, beyond the excruciating pain, was a marked interference with normal respiration, particularly exhalation. The weight of the body, pulling down on the outstretched arms and shoulders, would tend to fix the intercostal muscles in an inhalation state and thereby hinder passive exhalation …
Adequate exhalation required lifting the body by pushing up on the feet and by flexing the elbows and adducting the shoulders. However, this maneuver would place the entire weight of the body on the tarsals and would produce searing pain. Furthermore, flexion of the elbows would cause rotation of the wrists about the iron nails and cause fiery pain along the damaged median nerves. Lifting of the body would also painfully scrape the scourged back against the rough wooden stipes. (p. 1461)
The authors then summarize the biblical material in a remarkably concise manner:
The soldiers and the civilian crowd taunted Jesus throughout the ordeal, and the soldiers cast lots for his clothing. Christ spoke seven times from the cross. Since speech occurs during exhalation, these short, terse utterances must have been particularly difficult and painful. About 3 P.M. that Friday, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, bowed his head, and died. The Roman soldiers and onlookers recognized his moment of death. (p. 1462)
Only one question is left unresolved. What was the ultimate cause of his death after only a few hours on the cross? Concerning this question, the authors offer two possible answers:
Jesus’ death after only three to six hours on the cross surprised even Pontius Pilate. The fact that Jesus cried out in a loud voice and then bowed his head and died suggests the possibility of a catastrophic terminal event. One popular explanation has been that Jesus died of cardiac rupture…
However, another explanation may be more likely. Jesus’ death may have been hastened simply by his state of exhaustion and by the severity of his scourging, with its resultant blood loss and preshock state. (p. 1463)
All of this leads to a very simple conclusion: “Death by crucifixion was, in every sense of the word, excruciating.” (p. 1461). It is a perfectly chosen word, because excruciating comes from the Latin excruciatus, which means “out of the cross.”
2. He Voluntarily Gave Up His Life. This may seem at odds with the gruesome account given above. Christ was arrested and tried like a common criminal. He was beaten within an inch of his life. He suffered the terrible ordeal of crucifixion and died an agonizing death. Surely his life was forcibly taken from him.
Not so. Jesus himself addressed this question in John 10:17-18.
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.
This perfectly harmonizes the gospel accounts of the death of Christ. Matthew 27:50 tells us that at the moment of his death, Jesus “dismissed his spirit.” That is, he voluntarily yielded it up to the Father. His life was not taken from him against his will; when the time came, he gave up his life voluntarily. To the very end, the Son of God remained sovereign over the affairs of men.
From all of this we may draw several lessons and applications:
1. He knew it was time to die.
2. He wasn’t afraid to die.
3. He died with his life complete.
4. He died without anger or bitterness.
5. He died in complete control of his senses and his circumstances.
6. He died knowing where he was going—back into the Father’s hands.
The death of Jesus is a model of how the faithful face death. They are not afraid. They are not filled with remorse over wasted opportunities. They endure their portion with grace, knowing that a better day awaits on the other side of the great divide. If they suffer, they hold fast to the promises of God as their only hope. They do nothing to hasten the moment, but when it finally comes, they have courage to face it for they have commit-ted themselves completely into their Father’s hands.
And so Jesus died like a child asleep in his father’s arms. Exhausted, weary, having suffered the worst that man could do, he finally yielded up his life and breathed his last. It was a quiet ending, a graceful exit, a peaceful passing from the brutality of this world.
Take Me Home
Max Lucado paints an unforgettable word picture of what Jesus’ death was like seen from the perspective of heaven:
(No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, pp. 65-75)
Were it a war—this would be the aftermath.
Were it a symphony—this would be the second between the final note and the first applause.
Were it a journey—this would be the sight of home.
Were it a storm—this would be the sun, piercing the clouds.
But it wasn’t. It was a Messiah. And this was a sigh of Joy.
“Father!” (The voice is hoarse.)
The voice that called forth the dead,
the voice that taught the willing,
the voice that screamed at God,
Now says, “Father!” “Father.”
The two are one again.
The abandoned is now found.
The schism is now bridged.
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED
Luke 23
* The Man Who Would Be King: Christ Speaks to the Problem of Frivolous Curiosity
* Last-Second Salvation
* Forgiving the Unforgivable
“Father.” He smiles weakly. “It’s over.”
Satan’s vulture have been scattered.
Hell’s demons have been jailed.
Death has been damned.
The sun is out. The Son is out.
It’s over.
An angel sighs. A star wipes away a tear.
“Take me home.”
Yes, take him home.
Take this prince to his king.
Take this son to his father.
Take this pilgrim to his home. (He deserves a rest.)
“Take me home.”
Come ten thousand angels!
Come and take this wounded troubador to the cradle of his Father’s arms!
Farewell manger’s infant
Bless You Holy Ambassador
Go home death slayer
Rest well sweet soldier
The battle is over.
Freed From the Fear of Death
Of all the fears that trouble the heart of man, perhaps none is greater than the fear of death. All of our fears can be rolled up into this greatest fear—we are afraid to die. We fear death because it is so final. We fear death because we are not sure what happens when we die. We fear death because it means leaving the world we know for another world we know nothing about.
Men will do anything to keep from thinking about death. They will drink themselves into a stupor rather than face the reality of their own mortality. They race through life going 1000 miles an hour, rushing from one thing to another in a desperate attempt to keep their mind off the inevitable.
We fear so many things—nuclear war, financial collapse, international intrigue, AIDS, the onset of old age—but behind them all lurks the great unspoken fear of death. It is unspoken because you cannot speak of the things you truly fear. They are too frightening for words.
Death is the final enemy. It is the end of one thing and the beginning of … What? Modern man does not know how to finish that sentence. Therefore he is afraid.
Into the breach steps Jesus Christ and said, “Fear not, for I have conquered death.” He was there. He died just like all men die. And he came back to tell the story. No one else has ever done that.
“Fear not.” You must be joking? Only a fool doesn’t fear death. Only a fool … or a follower of Jesus.
These are the words of Hebrews 2:14-15.
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Who holds the power of death? Satan does. Death belongs to him. Death is his. He owns it. Before Satan was, death was not. When Satan is no more, death will be no more. Between now and then, Satan still rules the realm of death. Men fear death with good reason. They are entering a realm Satan controls.
But the death of Jesus Christ has spoiled Satan’s power. As long as men stayed dead, death was Satan’s ultimate tool to keep men in chains. But one Man changed all that. He died, but he didn’t stay dead. He broke Satan’s power when he tore off the bars of death.
Now no one need fear death any longer. Death still comes to all men, but for those who know Jesus (and only for them), death has changed its character. It is no longer the entrance into the dim unknown. It is now the passageway into the presence of God.
A Little Boy Named Kenneth
In his great sermon “Go Down Death,” (found in A Man Called Peter, pp. 262-274) Peter Marshall tells the story about a little boy he knew who was suffering from a terminal illness. At first he didn’t understand what was happening to him, but as the months passed, and he had to stay inside while his friends went out to play, the truth dawned on him. The idea intrigued him and he wondered what death would be like.
One day his mother was reading to him the stirring tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. She told him of Lancelot and Guinevere and the beautiful maiden Elaine. She read to him of the final glorious battle when so many gallant knights met their death.
At length, she was finished and put the book down. The little boy was silent for a moment. Then he asked the question that had been playing upon his childish mind, the question his mother was dreading to answer. “Mother, what is it like to die? Mother, does it hurt?”
Quick tears sprang to her eyes, so she excused herself to go into the kitchen to compose herself. She knew it was a question of deep significance. She knew she must find a good answer. For a moment she leaned against the kitchen cabinet, her knuckles pressed white against the surface, praying to the Lord for an answer.
And the Lord gave her an answer. In that moment she knew what she should say.
“Kenneth,” she said as she returned to the next room, “Do you remember when you were a little boy and you would play hard all day? When the evening came you would be so tired that when you came in, you would lie down on Mommy and Daddy’s bed and fall asleep.”
“That was not your bed. That was not where you belonged.”
“But you only stayed there a little while. In the morning, you were surprised to wake up and find yourself in your own bed.”
“You were there because someone you loved had come and taken care of you. During the night while you were sleeping, your father came—with big strong arms—and carried you to your own room.”
“Sweetheart, death is just like that. One night you are very tired and very sleepy. We fall asleep and the next morning we wake up to find ourselves in another room—our own room where we belong—because the Lord Jesus has come and with his big arms, he has carried us from our home in this world to our home in heaven.”
The light on the little boy’s face showed that he had understood. And a few days later he fell asleep just as his mother had said.
That is what death is like for the believer.
The Shining Mercy of God
How mistaken we are about death. We think that we are going from the land of the living to the land of the dying. Not so. We are going from the land of the dying to the land of the living. Jesus Christ has said it, and it is so.
As we pass beyond the curtain, we live on and on. But it will not be as it is today. In that day, we rise to new life:
—not with halting limp or wrinkled brow
—not with dimming eyes or faltering steps
—not with twisted spine or runaway tumors
—not with bitter memories or faded dreams
—not with amputated leg or injured heart
No, not with these do we rise. Not clothed with this mortal flesh do we rise. But we rise clothed in the shining mercy of God.
What Happens When We Die?
There is one great lesson we should take away from this story of the final words of the Lord Jesus. Death holds no fear for the Christian, for when we die, we pass from this life into the hands of our Heavenly Father, and he will take care of us.
What happens when we die?
1. Our body is buried and our spirit goes to God.
2. We pass into the personal presence of God.
3. We pass from this life into paradise.
4. We are in the Father’s hands.
These things are true for the followers of Jesus because what happened to him will one day happen to them. Where he leads, they will one day follow.
“Our People Die Well”
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, used to offer this comment as a final apologetic for the evangelical faith: “Our people die well.” Those words sound odd and out-of-place in the 20th century. But several centuries ago it was popular to read books about the art of dying—how to face it with strength and grace. Dying well is one mark of a robust Christian faith. There is such a thing as “dying grace” which the Lord is pleased to give to his children.
We die like the rest of mankind. But we have a hope that transcends the grave. For the followers of Jesus, death has lost its sting and the grave its victory.
What makes the difference? It is Jesus Christ and nothing else. In him and through him and because of him, death has lost its fear for us. Like all men, we prefer to live as long as possible. But when the time comes, we will not shrink back in unspeakable dread. We know One who has been there, and has come back to tell the story. He said, “Fear not. I will be with you.” For those who know Jesus death is not the end but the begin-ning of life.
Our Father, we thank you for a hope that transcends this dying world. We live, we die, and through Jesus Christ, we pass into your loving hands. Teach us to live each day as if it were our last because someday it will be true. In these quiet moments we recommit our lives to you believing that you will be faithful to us, in life and death and in the life to come. We pray these things in the name of Him who conquered death, Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Tetelestai! – John 19:30 keepbelieving.com
Sermon 6 of 7 from the Seven Last Words of Jesus series
July 1991 – Unfinished Business … We were reminded of several good examples this week.
—On Wednesday, President Bush flew to Mt. Rushmore for a special 50th Anniversary celebration. It’s a little-known fact that the sculptor, a man named Gutzon Borglum, never finished his work. If you study the faces carefully, it’s clear that he spent more time on George Washington than he did on the other three presidents. That’s because he originally planned to extend the figures of each president down into the chest area. But he never lived long enough to see his dream through to completion. His son continued his work for a few months after his death, but he ran out of money. It’s been 50 years—and millions of tourists since then, but Mt. Rushmore for all its grandeur remains an unfinished work of art.
—On Thursday night Sandi Patti sang with the Boston Pops Orchestra at a great 4th of July celebra-tion. The audience numbered in the tens of thousands. I caught her closing number—a song I hadn’t heard in 20 years—"Let There be Peace on Earth.” The crowd held hands and swayed back and forth as she sang—"Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” It was a moving sight to see so many earnest voices singing what is essentially a prayer for peace. But just a flick of the channel showed how far we are from “the peace that was meant to be.” The screen transported us to some faraway land called Slovenia where tanks were blasting away at farmhouses and men were marching off to war. It was a solemn reminder that the quest for peace is just that—a quest and not a finished journey. With so much killing in the world, the voice of Sandi Patti was like a midsummer night’s dream. The search for lasting peace on earth is another bit of unfinished business.
—But the most poignant reminder came last Monday. He was only 54 and in many ways, still rising in his profession. Several months ago, while vacationing in Arizona and Utah, he noticed a nagging pain in his chest. When he returned home, he had the doctors run some tests. The news was bad, as bad as it gets. Michael Landon had pancreatic cancer—inoperable and basically untreatable. His life was measured in days and weeks, not months and years. He died last Monday, leaving behind a wife, 9 children and millions of fans. Unfinished business? Plenty. No one plans to die at age 54.
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That may be our worst fear … that we will die before our time. But it happens all the time.
We die too young … .
Or we die too soon …
Or we die with our work unfinished …
Or we die with our dreams unfulfilled.
Living an Unfinished Life
We all know what it’s like, don’t we? All of us have unfinished things cluttering up the highway of life.
—the half-mowed lawn
—the half-read book
—the letter started but never sent
—the abandoned diet
—the degree we never finished
—the phone calls never returned
But it can be much more serious than that.
—the abandoned child
—the job we quit in a fit of anger
—the wrecked marriage
—the bills never paid
—the promises never kept
All of us go through life leaving behind a trail of unfinished projects and unfulfilled dreams. How few there are who can come to the end of life and say, “I finished exactly what I set out to do.”
A Dying Man’s Final Words
Only one person in history never left behind any unfinished business. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the only person who could come to the end of his life and say—with absolute and total truthfulness—"I have finished everything I set out to do.”
It is Friday in Jerusalem and a huge crowd has gathered at the place called Skull Hill. It was on the north side of the city, just outside the Damascus Gate, and located by the side of a well-traveled road. The Romans liked to hold their crucifixions in public places. Killing people in public had a salutary effect on the masses.
This particular crucifixion started at 9 A.M. For three hours everything proceeded normally. Then at exactly 12 noon, the sky went black. Not overcast, but pitch black, so black that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It wasn’t anything normal like an eclipse. The darkness seemed to pulse and throb, almost like the darkness was a living thing, an evil mutant creature escaped from some science fiction movie.
Only this was no movie. What happened was real. For three hours darkness fell across the city of Jerusalem. There were screams, hideous cries, moans, and other unidentifiable sounds. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the darkness lifted, disappeared, vanished, and sanity returned to the earth.
One glance at the middle cross made it clear that this man Jesus would not last much longer. He looked dead already. His body quivered uncontrollably, his chest heaving with every tortured breath. The soldiers knew from long experience that he wouldn’t make it to sundown.
Then it happened. He shouted something—"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Someone in the crowd shouted back to him. Moments passed, death drew near, then a hoarse whisper, “I thirst.” The soldiers put some sour vinegar on a sponge and lifted it to his lips with a stalk of hyssop. He moistened his lips and took a deep breath. If you listened you could hear the death rattle in his throat. He had less than a minute to live.
Then he spoke again. It was a quick shout. Just one word. If you weren’t paying attention, you missed it in all the confusion. Then he breathed out another sentence. Then he was dead.
What was that shout? In Greek it is only one word … Tetelestai … “It is finished.”
Was, Is And Always Will Be
Tetelestai comes from the verb teleo, which means “to bring to an end, to complete, to accomplish.” It’s a crucial word because it signifies the successful end to a particular course of action. It’s the word you would use when you climb to the peak of Mt. Everest; it’s the word you would use when you turn in the final copy of your dissertation; it’s the word you would use when you make the final payment on your new car; it’s the word you use when you cross the finish line of your first 10K run. The word means more than just “I survived.” It means “I did exactly what I set out to do.”
But there’s more here than the verb itself. Tetelestai is in the perfect tense in Greek. That’s significant because the perfect tense speaks of an action which has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present. It’s different from the past tense which looks back to an event and says, “This happened.” The perfect tense adds the idea that “This happened and it is still in effect today.”
When Jesus cried out “It is finished,” he meant “It was finished in the past, it is still finished in the present and it will remain finished in the future.”
Note one other fact. He did not say, “I am finished,” for that would imply that he died defeated and exhausted. Rather, he cried out “It is finished,” meaning “I successfully completed the work I came to do.”
Tetelestai, then, is the Savior’s final cry of victory. When he died, he left no unfinished business behind. When he said, “It is finished,” he was speaking the truth.
What Was Finished?
When you read these words of Jesus, only one question grips the mind—What was finished? As you survey the commentators, you find that each writer has his idea of the answer to that question. In fact, the answers are as varied as the writers themselves.
This week as I prepared for this message, I pulled my green commentary by Matthew Henry, who lived and wrote over 300 years ago. Although many have surpassed him in details of exegesis, his work endures as one of the greatest devotional commentaries ever written. In his remarks on this saying of Jesus (volume 5, p. 1201), he lists 8 things that were finished or completed when Jesus cried out “It is finished.”
1. The malice of his enemies was finished. By nailing him to the cross, they had done their worst. There was nothing more they could do to the Son of God.
2. The sufferings ordained by God were finished. Many times during his ministry, Jesus spoke of “the work” he was sent to do and of the “hour” of trouble that was coming. He once spoke of a “baptism” of suffering he must undergo. All those things were ordained by God. None of them happened by chance. Even the evil plans of the Jews fit somehow into God’s greater plan to save the world through the death of his Son (Acts 2:23). But those sufferings were now at an end.
3. All the Old Testament types and prophecies were fulfilled. Matthew Henry lists a number of examples—He had been given vinegar to drink (Psalm 69:21), he had been sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12), his hands and feet had been pierced (Psalm 22:16), his garments had been divided (Psalm 22:18), and his side was pierced (Zechariah 12:10). There are many other prophesies surrounding his death. All those had been or very soon would be fulfilled.
4. The ceremonial law was abolished. As Romans 10:4 puts it, Christ is “the end of the law.” It finds its completion and fulfillment in him. Therefore, all the Old Testament rules concerning animal sacrifices are set aside. And the rules and regulations concerning the priesthood are out of date since the Greater Priest has now laid down his life for his people. Those laws pointed to the cross. But once Jesus died, they were no longer needed. “The Mosaic economy is dissolved, to make way for a better hope.”
5. The price of sin was paid in full. Do you remember the words of John the Baptist when he saw Jesus? He called him “The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) That “taking away” of sin was accomplishment by the death of our Lord.
6. His physical sufferings were at an end. “The storm is over, the worst is past; all his pains and agonies are at an end, and he is just going to paradise, entering upon the joy set before him.”
7. His life was now finished. When Jesus cried out “It is finished,” he had only a few seconds to live. All that he had come to do had been fully accomplished. His life and his mission came to an end at exactly the same moment.
8. The work of redemption was now complete. This is undoubtedly the major meaning. Matthew Henry expands on what Christ’s death accomplished in four statements, each one beginning with the letter F. The death of Christ provided a …
A. Full satisfaction for sin
B. Fatal blow to Satan
C. Fountain of grace opened that will flow forever
D. Foundation of peace laid that will last forever
Paid In Full
But there is more to the meaning of tetelestai. It means all of the above, but it especially applies to the price paid for the sins of the world. Merrill Tenney (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, IX, 185) notes that the verb
was used in the first and second centuries in the sense of “fulfilling” or “paying” a debt and often appeared in receipts. “It is finished” (Tetelestai) could be interpreted as “Paid in full.”
“Paid in full” means that once a thing is paid for, you never have to pay for it again. In fact, “paid in full” means that once a thing is paid for, it is foolish to try to pay for it again. That point came home to me several weeks ago when we visited our good friends Grant and Fern Brown who live in Norwood, Colorado. Grant is the distinguished pastor of the San Miquel Basin Christian Fellowship. We knew each other in Texas because he served as my song leader at Northeast Bible Church while he was a student in seminary. For the last five years he has had a very fruitful ministry in the remote West End of Colorado.
Because we are good friends, whenever he and Fern and the girls come through Chicago, they stay with us. And several years ago we stayed with them in Colorado. So he was delighted when I phoned to say that we would be passing through Norwood on our way back from Arizona. He said fine, they would be glad to put us up. I assumed that we would be camping on sofas or whatever for the night—which was fine with us—but when I called him from southern Utah to let him know we would arrive in 3 or 4 hours, he said that he had a room for us at the local hotel—the Back Narrows Inn. I thought he was kidding. First of all, I didn’t think Norwood was big enough to have a hotel. Second, I just thought it was a joke. But he was serious. “Our house isn’t big enough (they had moved since we came through a few years ago), so we’ll put you up in the hotel.” When I protested, he said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve worked it out with the owner and I’ve already taken care of the bill.” That was that. We were staying at the hotel and he was paying. And nothing I could say would make the slightest difference.
We got to the Back Narrows Inn about 10 P.M. and found it to be a small, turn-of-the-century building that had been converted into a 15 or 20 room hotel. When we arrived, the owner greeted us, handed us our keys, and said, “Your friend has taken care of everything.” Indeed he had. We didn’t even have to formally check in. No credit cards, no filling out forms, no “How will you be paying for this, sir?” It wasn’t necessary because my friend Grant Brown had personally paid the price in full. All that was left to us was to enjoy our rooms, provided free of charge to us by virtue of a friend’s hospitality.
Name Your Sin
So let me ask you a personal question. What sin is keeping you from God today? Is it anger? Is it lust? Is it a hard heart of unbelief? Is it alcohol abuse? Is it an uncontrollable temper? Is it cheating? Is it stealing? Is it adultery? Is it abortion? Is it pride? Is it greed?
Let me tell you the best news you’ve ever heard. It doesn’t matter what “your” sin is. It doesn’t matter how many sins you’ve piled up in your life. It doesn’t matter how guilty you think you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been doing this week. It doesn’t matter how bad you’ve been. It doesn’t matter how many skeletons rattle around in your closet.
All of your sins have been stamped by God with one word—Tetelestai—Paid in full.
Anger … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Uncontrolled ambition … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED
John 19
* I Thirst
* Final Words of a Family Man
* Paid in Full
Psalms 22
* What Angels Wish They Knew
* The Forsaken Christ
* Who is Jesus Christ?
Gossip … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Drunkenness … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Fornication … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Embezzlement … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Lying … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Disobedience … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Slothfulness … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Pride … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Murder … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Bribery … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Those are just examples. Just fill in the blank with whatever sins plague your life. Then write over those sins the word Tetelestai because through the blood of Jesus Christ the price for “your” sins has been Paid in Full.
Three Abiding Principles
1. Since Jesus Christ paid in full, the work of salvation is now complete. That is what “It is finished” means. The debt was paid, the work was accomplished, the sacrifice was completed. And since the verb is in the perfect tense, it means that when Jesus died, he died once for all time. The sacrifice was suffi-cient to pay for the sins of every person who has ever lived—past, present or future.
And that explains what theologians mean when they talk about the “finished work” of Jesus Christ. That’s not just a slogan; it’s a profound spiritual truth. What Jesus accomplished in his death was so awesome, so total, so complete that it could never be repeated. Not even by Jesus himself. His work is “finished.” There is nothing more God could do to save the human race. There is no Plan B. Plan A (the death of Christ) was good enough.
2. Since Jesus Christ paid in full, all efforts to add anything to what Christ did on the cross are doomed to failure. A few years I found a great passage tucked away in the Doctrinal Statement of Dallas Theological Seminary. In Article VII, “Salvation Only Through Christ,” I found three rather long and involved sentences. I quote them here because they speak directly to the point at hand.
We believe that, owing to universal death through sin, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless born again; and that no degree of reformation however great, no attainments in morality however high, no culture however attractive, no baptism or other ordinance however admini-stered can help the sinner take even one step toward heaven; but a new nature imparted from above, a new life implanted by the Holy Spirit through the Word is essential to salvation, and only those thus saved are the sons of God.
We believe, also, that our redemption has been accomplished solely by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made to be sin and was made a curse for us, dying in our place and stead; and that no repentance, no feeling, no faith, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts, no submission to the rules and regulations of any church, nor all the churches that have existed since the days of the Apostles can add in the very least degree to the value of the blood, or to the merit of the finished work of Jesus Christ. (italics added)
I submit to you that that statement is absolutely correct. It says it all. You can’t add anything to the value of what Jesus did on the cross. You are doomed to failure if you try.
Let me put it very simply. If Jesus paid it all, you don’t have to. If you try to pay for your salvation, it means you don’t think he paid it all. There is no middle ground between those two propositions.
God is not trying to sell you salvation. He’s not offering salvation at half-price. He’s not offering to go “Dutch Treat” with you. He’s not offering salvation on an installment plan.
God is offering you salvation free of charge. That’s what Tetelestai means. Jesus paid in full so you wouldn’t have to pay anything.
3. Since Jesus Christ paid in full, the only thing you can do is accept it or reject it. A few years ago a Nigerian pastor gave me a hymnbook entitled “Sacred Songs and Solos.” When you open to the title page, you find that it was compiled by Ira Sankey (D. L. Moody’s songleader) almost a hundred years ago. This hymnbook—though very old—is still used by the churches of Nigeria and contains many hymns we in America would consider out-of-date. But some of them are gems. These are the words to number 142:
Nothing either great or small—
Nothing, sinner no.
Jesus did it, did it all,
Long, long ago.
“It is finished!” yes, indeed.
Finished every jot:
Sinner, this is all you need—
Tell me, is it not?
When He, from His lofty throne,
Stooped to do and die,
Everything was fully done:
Hearken to His cry.
Weary, working, burdened one,
Wherefore toil you so?
Cease your doing; all was done
Long, long ago.
Till to Jesus’ work you cling
By a simple faith,
“Doing” is a deadly thing—
“Doing” leads to death.
Cast your deadly “doing” down—
Down at Jesus’ feet;
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
Gloriously complete.
They don’t write hymns like that nowadays. There’s enough good theology in those six stanzas to save the entire world. Just consider these two lines—"Cease your doing; all was done long, long ago.” It’s true. “All was done” when Jesus cried “It is finished.” It was finished then, it is finished now, and to the glory of God, after a million times a million years have passed, it will still be finished.
Thanks be to God that Jesus left no unfinished business behind. He finished what he came to do, and in finish-ing his work he paid in full the price for your sins. As the hymn says, “Sinner, this is all you need. Tell me, is it not?”
July 1991 – Unfinished Business … We were reminded of several good examples this week.
—On Wednesday, President Bush flew to Mt. Rushmore for a special 50th Anniversary celebration. It’s a little-known fact that the sculptor, a man named Gutzon Borglum, never finished his work. If you study the faces carefully, it’s clear that he spent more time on George Washington than he did on the other three presidents. That’s because he originally planned to extend the figures of each president down into the chest area. But he never lived long enough to see his dream through to completion. His son continued his work for a few months after his death, but he ran out of money. It’s been 50 years—and millions of tourists since then, but Mt. Rushmore for all its grandeur remains an unfinished work of art.
—On Thursday night Sandi Patti sang with the Boston Pops Orchestra at a great 4th of July celebra-tion. The audience numbered in the tens of thousands. I caught her closing number—a song I hadn’t heard in 20 years—"Let There be Peace on Earth.” The crowd held hands and swayed back and forth as she sang—"Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” It was a moving sight to see so many earnest voices singing what is essentially a prayer for peace. But just a flick of the channel showed how far we are from “the peace that was meant to be.” The screen transported us to some faraway land called Slovenia where tanks were blasting away at farmhouses and men were marching off to war. It was a solemn reminder that the quest for peace is just that—a quest and not a finished journey. With so much killing in the world, the voice of Sandi Patti was like a midsummer night’s dream. The search for lasting peace on earth is another bit of unfinished business.
—But the most poignant reminder came last Monday. He was only 54 and in many ways, still rising in his profession. Several months ago, while vacationing in Arizona and Utah, he noticed a nagging pain in his chest. When he returned home, he had the doctors run some tests. The news was bad, as bad as it gets. Michael Landon had pancreatic cancer—inoperable and basically untreatable. His life was measured in days and weeks, not months and years. He died last Monday, leaving behind a wife, 9 children and millions of fans. Unfinished business? Plenty. No one plans to die at age 54.
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That may be our worst fear … that we will die before our time. But it happens all the time.
We die too young … .
Or we die too soon …
Or we die with our work unfinished …
Or we die with our dreams unfulfilled.
Living an Unfinished Life
We all know what it’s like, don’t we? All of us have unfinished things cluttering up the highway of life.
—the half-mowed lawn
—the half-read book
—the letter started but never sent
—the abandoned diet
—the degree we never finished
—the phone calls never returned
But it can be much more serious than that.
—the abandoned child
—the job we quit in a fit of anger
—the wrecked marriage
—the bills never paid
—the promises never kept
All of us go through life leaving behind a trail of unfinished projects and unfulfilled dreams. How few there are who can come to the end of life and say, “I finished exactly what I set out to do.”
A Dying Man’s Final Words
Only one person in history never left behind any unfinished business. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the only person who could come to the end of his life and say—with absolute and total truthfulness—"I have finished everything I set out to do.”
It is Friday in Jerusalem and a huge crowd has gathered at the place called Skull Hill. It was on the north side of the city, just outside the Damascus Gate, and located by the side of a well-traveled road. The Romans liked to hold their crucifixions in public places. Killing people in public had a salutary effect on the masses.
This particular crucifixion started at 9 A.M. For three hours everything proceeded normally. Then at exactly 12 noon, the sky went black. Not overcast, but pitch black, so black that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It wasn’t anything normal like an eclipse. The darkness seemed to pulse and throb, almost like the darkness was a living thing, an evil mutant creature escaped from some science fiction movie.
Only this was no movie. What happened was real. For three hours darkness fell across the city of Jerusalem. There were screams, hideous cries, moans, and other unidentifiable sounds. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the darkness lifted, disappeared, vanished, and sanity returned to the earth.
One glance at the middle cross made it clear that this man Jesus would not last much longer. He looked dead already. His body quivered uncontrollably, his chest heaving with every tortured breath. The soldiers knew from long experience that he wouldn’t make it to sundown.
Then it happened. He shouted something—"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Someone in the crowd shouted back to him. Moments passed, death drew near, then a hoarse whisper, “I thirst.” The soldiers put some sour vinegar on a sponge and lifted it to his lips with a stalk of hyssop. He moistened his lips and took a deep breath. If you listened you could hear the death rattle in his throat. He had less than a minute to live.
Then he spoke again. It was a quick shout. Just one word. If you weren’t paying attention, you missed it in all the confusion. Then he breathed out another sentence. Then he was dead.
What was that shout? In Greek it is only one word … Tetelestai … “It is finished.”
Was, Is And Always Will Be
Tetelestai comes from the verb teleo, which means “to bring to an end, to complete, to accomplish.” It’s a crucial word because it signifies the successful end to a particular course of action. It’s the word you would use when you climb to the peak of Mt. Everest; it’s the word you would use when you turn in the final copy of your dissertation; it’s the word you would use when you make the final payment on your new car; it’s the word you use when you cross the finish line of your first 10K run. The word means more than just “I survived.” It means “I did exactly what I set out to do.”
But there’s more here than the verb itself. Tetelestai is in the perfect tense in Greek. That’s significant because the perfect tense speaks of an action which has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present. It’s different from the past tense which looks back to an event and says, “This happened.” The perfect tense adds the idea that “This happened and it is still in effect today.”
When Jesus cried out “It is finished,” he meant “It was finished in the past, it is still finished in the present and it will remain finished in the future.”
Note one other fact. He did not say, “I am finished,” for that would imply that he died defeated and exhausted. Rather, he cried out “It is finished,” meaning “I successfully completed the work I came to do.”
Tetelestai, then, is the Savior’s final cry of victory. When he died, he left no unfinished business behind. When he said, “It is finished,” he was speaking the truth.
What Was Finished?
When you read these words of Jesus, only one question grips the mind—What was finished? As you survey the commentators, you find that each writer has his idea of the answer to that question. In fact, the answers are as varied as the writers themselves.
This week as I prepared for this message, I pulled my green commentary by Matthew Henry, who lived and wrote over 300 years ago. Although many have surpassed him in details of exegesis, his work endures as one of the greatest devotional commentaries ever written. In his remarks on this saying of Jesus (volume 5, p. 1201), he lists 8 things that were finished or completed when Jesus cried out “It is finished.”
1. The malice of his enemies was finished. By nailing him to the cross, they had done their worst. There was nothing more they could do to the Son of God.
2. The sufferings ordained by God were finished. Many times during his ministry, Jesus spoke of “the work” he was sent to do and of the “hour” of trouble that was coming. He once spoke of a “baptism” of suffering he must undergo. All those things were ordained by God. None of them happened by chance. Even the evil plans of the Jews fit somehow into God’s greater plan to save the world through the death of his Son (Acts 2:23). But those sufferings were now at an end.
3. All the Old Testament types and prophecies were fulfilled. Matthew Henry lists a number of examples—He had been given vinegar to drink (Psalm 69:21), he had been sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12), his hands and feet had been pierced (Psalm 22:16), his garments had been divided (Psalm 22:18), and his side was pierced (Zechariah 12:10). There are many other prophesies surrounding his death. All those had been or very soon would be fulfilled.
4. The ceremonial law was abolished. As Romans 10:4 puts it, Christ is “the end of the law.” It finds its completion and fulfillment in him. Therefore, all the Old Testament rules concerning animal sacrifices are set aside. And the rules and regulations concerning the priesthood are out of date since the Greater Priest has now laid down his life for his people. Those laws pointed to the cross. But once Jesus died, they were no longer needed. “The Mosaic economy is dissolved, to make way for a better hope.”
5. The price of sin was paid in full. Do you remember the words of John the Baptist when he saw Jesus? He called him “The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) That “taking away” of sin was accomplishment by the death of our Lord.
6. His physical sufferings were at an end. “The storm is over, the worst is past; all his pains and agonies are at an end, and he is just going to paradise, entering upon the joy set before him.”
7. His life was now finished. When Jesus cried out “It is finished,” he had only a few seconds to live. All that he had come to do had been fully accomplished. His life and his mission came to an end at exactly the same moment.
8. The work of redemption was now complete. This is undoubtedly the major meaning. Matthew Henry expands on what Christ’s death accomplished in four statements, each one beginning with the letter F. The death of Christ provided a …
A. Full satisfaction for sin
B. Fatal blow to Satan
C. Fountain of grace opened that will flow forever
D. Foundation of peace laid that will last forever
Paid In Full
But there is more to the meaning of tetelestai. It means all of the above, but it especially applies to the price paid for the sins of the world. Merrill Tenney (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, IX, 185) notes that the verb
was used in the first and second centuries in the sense of “fulfilling” or “paying” a debt and often appeared in receipts. “It is finished” (Tetelestai) could be interpreted as “Paid in full.”
“Paid in full” means that once a thing is paid for, you never have to pay for it again. In fact, “paid in full” means that once a thing is paid for, it is foolish to try to pay for it again. That point came home to me several weeks ago when we visited our good friends Grant and Fern Brown who live in Norwood, Colorado. Grant is the distinguished pastor of the San Miquel Basin Christian Fellowship. We knew each other in Texas because he served as my song leader at Northeast Bible Church while he was a student in seminary. For the last five years he has had a very fruitful ministry in the remote West End of Colorado.
Because we are good friends, whenever he and Fern and the girls come through Chicago, they stay with us. And several years ago we stayed with them in Colorado. So he was delighted when I phoned to say that we would be passing through Norwood on our way back from Arizona. He said fine, they would be glad to put us up. I assumed that we would be camping on sofas or whatever for the night—which was fine with us—but when I called him from southern Utah to let him know we would arrive in 3 or 4 hours, he said that he had a room for us at the local hotel—the Back Narrows Inn. I thought he was kidding. First of all, I didn’t think Norwood was big enough to have a hotel. Second, I just thought it was a joke. But he was serious. “Our house isn’t big enough (they had moved since we came through a few years ago), so we’ll put you up in the hotel.” When I protested, he said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve worked it out with the owner and I’ve already taken care of the bill.” That was that. We were staying at the hotel and he was paying. And nothing I could say would make the slightest difference.
We got to the Back Narrows Inn about 10 P.M. and found it to be a small, turn-of-the-century building that had been converted into a 15 or 20 room hotel. When we arrived, the owner greeted us, handed us our keys, and said, “Your friend has taken care of everything.” Indeed he had. We didn’t even have to formally check in. No credit cards, no filling out forms, no “How will you be paying for this, sir?” It wasn’t necessary because my friend Grant Brown had personally paid the price in full. All that was left to us was to enjoy our rooms, provided free of charge to us by virtue of a friend’s hospitality.
Name Your Sin
So let me ask you a personal question. What sin is keeping you from God today? Is it anger? Is it lust? Is it a hard heart of unbelief? Is it alcohol abuse? Is it an uncontrollable temper? Is it cheating? Is it stealing? Is it adultery? Is it abortion? Is it pride? Is it greed?
Let me tell you the best news you’ve ever heard. It doesn’t matter what “your” sin is. It doesn’t matter how many sins you’ve piled up in your life. It doesn’t matter how guilty you think you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been doing this week. It doesn’t matter how bad you’ve been. It doesn’t matter how many skeletons rattle around in your closet.
All of your sins have been stamped by God with one word—Tetelestai—Paid in full.
Anger … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Uncontrolled ambition … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED
John 19
* I Thirst
* Final Words of a Family Man
* Paid in Full
Psalms 22
* What Angels Wish They Knew
* The Forsaken Christ
* Who is Jesus Christ?
Gossip … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Drunkenness … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Fornication … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Embezzlement … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Lying … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Disobedience … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Slothfulness … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Pride … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Murder … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Bribery … Tetelestai … Paid in Full
Those are just examples. Just fill in the blank with whatever sins plague your life. Then write over those sins the word Tetelestai because through the blood of Jesus Christ the price for “your” sins has been Paid in Full.
Three Abiding Principles
1. Since Jesus Christ paid in full, the work of salvation is now complete. That is what “It is finished” means. The debt was paid, the work was accomplished, the sacrifice was completed. And since the verb is in the perfect tense, it means that when Jesus died, he died once for all time. The sacrifice was suffi-cient to pay for the sins of every person who has ever lived—past, present or future.
And that explains what theologians mean when they talk about the “finished work” of Jesus Christ. That’s not just a slogan; it’s a profound spiritual truth. What Jesus accomplished in his death was so awesome, so total, so complete that it could never be repeated. Not even by Jesus himself. His work is “finished.” There is nothing more God could do to save the human race. There is no Plan B. Plan A (the death of Christ) was good enough.
2. Since Jesus Christ paid in full, all efforts to add anything to what Christ did on the cross are doomed to failure. A few years I found a great passage tucked away in the Doctrinal Statement of Dallas Theological Seminary. In Article VII, “Salvation Only Through Christ,” I found three rather long and involved sentences. I quote them here because they speak directly to the point at hand.
We believe that, owing to universal death through sin, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless born again; and that no degree of reformation however great, no attainments in morality however high, no culture however attractive, no baptism or other ordinance however admini-stered can help the sinner take even one step toward heaven; but a new nature imparted from above, a new life implanted by the Holy Spirit through the Word is essential to salvation, and only those thus saved are the sons of God.
We believe, also, that our redemption has been accomplished solely by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made to be sin and was made a curse for us, dying in our place and stead; and that no repentance, no feeling, no faith, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts, no submission to the rules and regulations of any church, nor all the churches that have existed since the days of the Apostles can add in the very least degree to the value of the blood, or to the merit of the finished work of Jesus Christ. (italics added)
I submit to you that that statement is absolutely correct. It says it all. You can’t add anything to the value of what Jesus did on the cross. You are doomed to failure if you try.
Let me put it very simply. If Jesus paid it all, you don’t have to. If you try to pay for your salvation, it means you don’t think he paid it all. There is no middle ground between those two propositions.
God is not trying to sell you salvation. He’s not offering salvation at half-price. He’s not offering to go “Dutch Treat” with you. He’s not offering salvation on an installment plan.
God is offering you salvation free of charge. That’s what Tetelestai means. Jesus paid in full so you wouldn’t have to pay anything.
3. Since Jesus Christ paid in full, the only thing you can do is accept it or reject it. A few years ago a Nigerian pastor gave me a hymnbook entitled “Sacred Songs and Solos.” When you open to the title page, you find that it was compiled by Ira Sankey (D. L. Moody’s songleader) almost a hundred years ago. This hymnbook—though very old—is still used by the churches of Nigeria and contains many hymns we in America would consider out-of-date. But some of them are gems. These are the words to number 142:
Nothing either great or small—
Nothing, sinner no.
Jesus did it, did it all,
Long, long ago.
“It is finished!” yes, indeed.
Finished every jot:
Sinner, this is all you need—
Tell me, is it not?
When He, from His lofty throne,
Stooped to do and die,
Everything was fully done:
Hearken to His cry.
Weary, working, burdened one,
Wherefore toil you so?
Cease your doing; all was done
Long, long ago.
Till to Jesus’ work you cling
By a simple faith,
“Doing” is a deadly thing—
“Doing” leads to death.
Cast your deadly “doing” down—
Down at Jesus’ feet;
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
Gloriously complete.
They don’t write hymns like that nowadays. There’s enough good theology in those six stanzas to save the entire world. Just consider these two lines—"Cease your doing; all was done long, long ago.” It’s true. “All was done” when Jesus cried “It is finished.” It was finished then, it is finished now, and to the glory of God, after a million times a million years have passed, it will still be finished.
Thanks be to God that Jesus left no unfinished business behind. He finished what he came to do, and in finish-ing his work he paid in full the price for your sins. As the hymn says, “Sinner, this is all you need. Tell me, is it not?”
I Thirst – John 19:28-30 keepbelieving.com
Sermon 5 of 7 from the Seven Last Words of Jesus series
June 1991 – “Later, knowing that all was now completed and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on the stalk of a hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
It was going to be another hot day. You could tell it early in the morning. It was not yet nine o’clock and already the temperature was pushing 80 degrees. Here and there the city merchants were stirring and rushing around and opening their stalls to make ready for another busy day. This was the beginning of Passover. Lots of things going on. Lots of talk in the city. Outside the city walls they were making ready for another round of crucifixions. Three this time. Two criminals and some fellow named Jesus of Nazareth. The sun was beating down on their heads as the soldiers dug the holes in the ground and made ready with the stakes, with the ham-mer, with the nails. Made ready with the ropes.
At length out came the crowd from the city. The two criminals and this man Jesus. Nine o’clock came. Cruci-fixion time. Hammers and nails. Screams of pain. Gasps. Men stripped naked. Bugs and flies everywhere. The heat beating down. Sweat rolling off the bodies. Blood everywhere. The stench and smell of death. And talking, laughing. “Here he is. King of the Jews.” Twelve o’clock. Darkness. Confusion. The sound of panic. People shouting. Then silence. Thick oppressive silence upon the land. Three hours pass, an eternity of darkness.
Suddenly the light shines. There on the center cross was Jesus. Clearly about to die. Every breath now is huge effort. Heaving, gasping, fighting for oxygen. Resting upon the nail holes while he inhales. Sweat pouring off of him. Making some strange guttural noises. The experienced soldiers had heard it before—the death rattle. With one last gasp a sound comes out. You can barely hear it more than two or three feet away. More like a moan. It is one word in Greek—dipso—"I Thirst.” The soldiers got the bowl, a pail that they always carried with them. It had in it sour vinegar. It was a kind of vinegar wine mixed with water. It was the cheapest drink of that day. It was the drink of the common man. It was the drink of the Roman soldier. Whenever the soldiers went out to do their work they carried it with them in what would be their version of the canteen.
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Almost Dead
So the soldiers got the wine, took a sponge, dipped it into the sour vinegar wine, and put it on a stalk of the hyssop—Oh, you’ve heard of the hyssop before. You remember, don’t you, that in the book of Exodus, it was the hyssop plant that was dipped in blood and the blood of the lamb was put on the doorpost. Now the hyssop is used again in a biblical story. The sponge dipped in the sour wine is put on it. The soldier stretches it out. In those days they didn’t crucify people very far off the ground. And so with the stalk, which would be about 18 - 24 inches long, a tall soldier could reach Jesus’ lips. As Jesus licked the sponge, a few drops of sour vinegar wine would come into his mouth. Taken in quantity, it was really an astringent that would constrict the throat. But if you drank just a little it would moisten the lips. Moisten the tongue. Moisten the throat. Just enough so you could say one or two more words.
Now Jesus is almost dead. Moments will pass and he will be gone. Having moistened his lips he cries out “It is finished.” Another second passes and then “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” He bowed his head and died. In so doing, he fulfilled two prophecies of the Old Testament: Psalm 22:15, “My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.” and Psalm 69:21, “They gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
As Jesus hung on the cross he made seven different statements. But only one of those statements deals with his personal, physical suffering. It is one word in Greek, two in English: “I thirst”.
Terrible Pain
It is not often appreciated that our Lord Jesus died in terrible, terrible pain. If you run the clock back from 3 o’clock in the afternoon—the moment of his death—back to about 3 o’clock in the morning and just see what had happened to Jesus as he moves through those hours—what you discover is that our Lord Jesus Christ has just been through 12 hours of torture. Arrested in the middle of the night. Slapped around. Pushed around. Mocked. Slapped again. Crowned with thorns that went into his scalp. Scourged with the cat o’ nine tails again and again and again with those sharp pieces of leather studded with bits of bone and stone and metal. Hitting him again and again and again until the back was shredded. Until you could see right through to the rib cage. They took his beard and ripped it out. They beat him and they beat him again. They made him carry the cross. They nailed the nails into his hands and into his feet. Not for one second did he have a moment’s rest. Not for one moment had anybody offered him anything.
It is not too much to say that when Jesus hung on the cross he was not the beautiful, manicured Savior we often see in the artists’ renditions. It is not too much to say that when Jesus hung on the cross, he was a bloody, maimed, disfigured version of a human being.
No wonder he was thirsty. Loss of blood. Exposure. Heat. Exhaustion. Dehydration. He’s been on the cross now for 6 hours. The sweat rolls off him like buckets. It’s hot. And the flies are buzzing around him. The crowds taunting him. The blood mixes with the sweat as it pours off his body. In the end dehydration sets in. You know what dehydration is like? First it gives you a fever. Then it gives you a terrible throbbing pain in your head. And then cramps in your abdomen. And then nausea sets in. Then your eyeballs begin to dry up in the sockets. And then your lips begin to go dry. Then your tongue gets swollen and thick. And then your throat feels like sand paper. Your vocal cords swell up. In the end you can barely whisper. It doesn’t sound like human words; it sounds like an animal croaking. No wonder Jesus was thirsty.
The Water of Life Now Dies of Thirst
I suppose it is one of the ultimate ironies of the biblical story that Jesus cried out “I thirst.” He who is the water of life now dies of thirst. And I call to your attention this fact. Jesus has not complained at all about his physical condition through all the hours of suffering. When they put the crown on his head he didn’t say “O, my head.” When they ripped the beard from his face he didn’t say “O, my face.” When they scourged him he didn’t say “O, my back.” As the old spiritual has it, through all that they did “He never said a mumblin’ word.”
Now at last Jesus cries out in the last moments of his life, “I thirst.” This is the only reference he ever made to all the sufferings he underwent. Why is that? The Bible says that when Jesus hung on the cross he knew that his work had been completed. He knew that he had borne the sins of the human race. He knew that he had done everything he could for you and for me. And having done what God sent him to do—having cared for the needs of others—only then does he make a comment about his own intense suffering.
Was Jesus a Failure?
That does raise a question this morning, doesn’t it? Was Jesus a failure? You could make a good case for the answer to that question as yes. In fact I think you could make a decent case that Jesus was the greatest failure that the world has ever seen. Just look at his life. He was born into an unimportant family in an unimportant little village. He was ignored, he was taken for granted, he was laughed at. When he talks and when he speaks, the powers that be want nothing to do with him. He faces nothing but ridicule and opposition and misunder-standing all his life. And in the end he is crucified like a criminal. His sufferings in those last few hours are unspeakable. When he dies he appears to be yet another forgotten footnote in history. Yes, I think you could make the case that our Lord was a failure.
Is it not true, however, that you can do everything you know to be right and still end up suffering tremen-dously? Isn’t it true that you can walk the path of righteous integrity and still end up having nothing to show for it? You can pray and pray and pray and your prayers sometimes will not be answered. You can go to work and you can live by the rules. You can do a good job and still the day comes when you are fired without any warning. You may save your money for the dream of your life and suddenly have your money taken away from you. You may work and work and work to make a marriage hold together and in the end it may fall apart though you have done everything humanly possible to save it. You may have dear friends whom you love who will turn against you in the moment of crisis even though you know you have walked in integrity and told the truth. There’s no guarantee, is there? You could do everything right and it could turn out all wrong.
No Guarantees
Suffering and hard times are no sign that you are out of the will of God. They’re no sign that you are doing something wrong. Oh, you may be doing something wrong and it is possible that you may have done some-thing wrong back here and that’s why you’re suffering now. We all suffer for our mistakes. But far more often when we face difficulties, they do not come because we have done something wrong. Far more often they come because we have done something right and it just has not worked out. Case in point—the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at him on the cross. Look at that bloody mess on the cross. Look at the Son of God reviled and hated and mocked. Look at him begging for water. What has he done wrong? What sin has he committed? What terrible crime has he done? He has done nothing but obey the Father’s will perfectly. And what he got for it was the cross.
Are you so sure that the same thing won’t happen to you? Or do you buy into that other philosophy that says if you do right everything is going to come up roses for you? It didn’t happen that way for Jesus. Why should it happen that way for you?
Do you understand what this means? I’m saying your loneliness does not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. Your poverty does not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. Your pain does not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. The broken relationships you’ve experienced do not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. Your sickness does not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. Why? Because our Lord Jesus Christ did the will of God and he ended up on the cross.
So, I ask the question again. Was our Lord Jesus a failure? No, he was not. He was the greatest success this world has ever seen. Nobody ever accomplished more than Jesus Christ did. But for him success came through suffering, hardship, loss and an agonizing death. Are you so sure the same things won’t happen to you?
Lubyanka Prison
Thank God, there’s another part to this story. Thank God, the cross isn’t the end. Thank God, the story doesn’t end at six o’clock on Friday evening. On Friday evening Jesus is dead and buried and He looks like the world’s greatest failure. But early on Easter Sunday morning, the stone was rolled away and Jesus Christ came walking out. Dead on Friday. Raised victorious on Sunday.
That’s the other side of the story, isn’t it? Your sufferings may be used by God in a way greater than anything you ever dreamed of. God may redeem the hard times you are going through right now to bring something beautiful into your life far beyond your imagination.
Most of you know that last Monday I returned from an 18-day trip to Russia with John and Helen Sergey. As we drove to our hotel in Moscow, John pointed to a big building about fifteen stories tall. I would suppose it was 60 or 70 years old—gray on the bottom and then brown on the upper floors. I said, “What is that?” He said, “Lubyanka.” Do you know what Lubyanka is? Lubyanka is the headquarters of the KGB, the secret police of the Soviet Union. Just say the name Lubyanka and it strikes fear into the hearts of the Russian people. In that building, right in the heart of Moscow, hundreds and thousands of political prisoners have been kept. Held without bail. Held without trial. Sometimes held without any formal charges. Held for weeks and months and years. Some of them drugged. Some of them beaten. Some of them terribly persecuted. Some of them who suddenly disappeared never to be heard from again. Some of them held and then shipped off to the concentration camps in Siberia.
As we passed by John said, “Many of the brethren have spent time in Lubyanka during the dark days of repres-sion.” And I thought about what the Russian church has been through. For seventy years they lived under a strict communist system. A system that tried to stamp out the knowledge of God. A system that was avowedly atheist. A system that was built on the teachings of Marx and Lenin. A system that deified Lenin. Do you know what the communists did in the early days of the revolution? They took over the orthodox churches. Some of them were turned into factories and schools. Many of the rest were turned into museums of atheism. Think about that. Orthodox churches and cathedrals transformed into anti-religious museums of atheism. The worst of it happened in the 1930’s under Stalin.
The Pastor’s Story
John introduced me to Michael Jidkov. He is 63 years old. For many years he was the pastor of the Moscow Baptist Church. Back in the 30’s, his father was also a pastor. Michael said that when he was growing up, the authorities would only permit them to have three religious books—The Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, and a child-ren’s story book. He said, “We’d be in terrible trouble if we were caught with anything else. That was all the Christian literature we could have.”
Then he told me this story. “I’ll never forget the day when I was ten years old and my father was arrested and taken away. His crime was called Political Activity—that means preaching the gospel. We watched him go away not knowing if he’d ever return. Four years passed without a word from him. We had no idea where he was. One day as I was standing in the yard with my mother, we saw him coming down the road. The commun-ists had let him go.” Then he said, “I’ve never forgotten what that day was like. My father came back but he didn’t stop preaching the gospel. He went right back and kept on doing what he was doing before. And after the Second World War, he became the president of the Union of Evangelical Christians and Baptists in the USSR. He was one of the great evangelical leaders of the last generation.”
But that’s how it was for so many of the Russian Christians. They paid a terrible price for their faith.
I want to tell you something. Fifty years ago it looked like the communists had won. Fifty years ago it looked like they had closed everything down. Fifty years ago the gospel was almost destroyed in the Soviet Union. Fifty years ago it looked like the church of Jesus Christ was done for.
John Sergey’s Story
Let me tell you about a man you’ve never heard of—a man you might call the Martin Luther of Russia. I had never heard about him until I traveled to Russia. In the late 1800s and the first part of this century a man called Brother Prochonoff began preaching the gospel establishing the churches that we are helping to support today. More than anyone else, he is the man who wrote the articles that established the church and the evangelical faith. When you go to Russia and pick up a hymnal, you’ll find that about half the hymns are written by Brother Prochonoff. He was a man of giant faith who stood for Jesus Christ during the last days of the Czars and the first decades of communism.
Toward the end of his life, in the mid-1930’s he came to Chicago to visit a Russian-speaking evangelical church. Those days were dark in Russia. The situation seemed so hopeless. But here in Chicago he met a young man who was 15 or 16. The young man had a deep bass voice and heart that burned for God. When old Brother Prochonoff talked to the teenager, he put his hands on his shoulders and said, “Young man, I believe someday God is going to call you to be a missionary to Russia.” The young man was shocked to hear those words because he was planning a career in music, opera preferably. God had given him this mighty voice.
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED
John 19
* Final Words of a Family Man
* Tetelestai!
* Paid in Full
But the words of Brother Prochonoff were to change the direction of his life. Things in Russia were bad fifty years ago, and after the war, they were bad again. They were bad into the early 1960’s. Christians were thrown in jail for witnessing, for preaching. Some awful things happened. By the mid-1950’s that boy had grown up and started a radio ministry. And with that deep bass voice he began broadcasting from HCJB in Quito and from Trans World Radio in Monte Carlo and from Far East Broadcasting in Saipan and Seoul, Korea, broadcasting all the way into the Soviet Union from Siberia over to Russia. That young man now grown up with the deep bass voice would read the Bible slowly, verse by verse by verse. Why? So the Russian believers would have time to write it down in Russian and that would be their Bible. On the weekends he had another program that broadcast a message in Russian to establish them in the Christian faith.
For so many years it looked so hopeless. But seeds were sown that have now come to bear fruit thirty years later. That young man who was going to be a singer and turned into a radio broadcaster is John Sergey. And everywhere we went and every church we visited, people came up to him. Old ladies. Old men with tears streaming down their faces. Saying, “When we couldn’t come to church we would turn on the short-wave radio and we would listen to you.” One lady said, “My family and another family always got together to hear your broadcast.” Another man said, “All the Bible I learned, I learned from you, because we couldn’t go to church in those days.” That man said to John, “I think you’re responsible for a whole generation of Russian Christians.”
Things looked hopeless fifty years ago. They looked so bad. Communism appeared to have won the day. The church of Jesus Christ seemed a ragtag band of losers. For awhile it appeared that maybe Marx was right—that religion would fade away when communism came to power.
How different things are today. After seventy years of communism, the people are awakening as if from a bad dream. Suddenly in great numbers the Russian people are turning to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Suddenly Christians are free to preach the gospel publicly. Today anyone who wants a Bible can get one. In the last weeks the believers in Leningrad have given away 1 million copies of the story of Jesus—most of them either on the streets of the city or in the public schools. The door that was locked tight has swung wide open!
No one could have predicted this 50 years ago or 40 years ago or even 20 years ago. But it is happening. I saw it with my own eyes less than 10 days ago.
Hungry Hearts
I will tell you one more story and then be done. Last Sunday—just 7 days ago—I had preached my final sermon at a small church in Moscow. As we were driving back to the main church, my interpreter, Alexei Bichkov, pointed to a building. “Do you see that? It’s the political headquarters for the Communist Party in Moscow. That’s where all the propaganda comes out for the whole country. I preached there not long ago.” You did what? “I preached there.” I thought he meant he preached on the steps of the building—an act in itself incon-ceivable even one year ago. “When the authorities heard about what we were doing, they invited me to come and present my message. So I met with several hundred of the top Communist officials and preached the gospel to them—at their invitation—in their own headquarters.” What was the response? “Oh, I tell you they were so happy to hear me. They listened so well, and when I was through, I gave out several hundred New Testaments and answered many questions.”
If you ask me what is happening in Russia, I will tell you that everything you have heard is true, and then some. We are living on the verge of perhaps the greatest revival the 20th century has yet seen. After so much darkness, the light has come flooding in.
Who could have believed it?
From Friday to Sunday
Now we are back in Jerusalem. Moments from now Jesus will be dead. A more hopeless scene you could never imagine. He died in terrible pain. But his death is not the end of the story. On Sunday he rose in glorious victory. The same Jesus who cried, “I thirst,” rose from the dead, victorious over the grave.
Let us learn the lesson well. Your sufferings do not necessarily mean you are out of the will of God. It is entirely possible that you may do everything God wants you to do … and still suffer terribly. Even so, your suffering may yet be redeemed into something much greater than you can imagine! Jesus pointed the way when he cried, “I thirst.” That was Friday. On Sunday he rose from the dead to become a gushing spring of Living Water.
Are you suffering right now? Do you live in darkness? Is the way unclear, the light dim, do you feel the pain
of those you love turning against you? Fear not. And do not lose heart.
What is happening to you happened first to Jesus. And what happened to him may yet happen to you. Your suffering has a purpose, your pain has a reason, your darkness leads on to a brighter, better morning.
Run to the cross. Cling to it. Embrace the sufferings of Christ. Though this cannot lessen your pain, it may give you strength to carry on. Jesus suffered before you; he also suffered for you. Child of God, remember this: As Friday comes before Sunday, so the cross leads on to the empty tomb. And there is no resurrection unless there is first a crucifixion.
June 1991 – “Later, knowing that all was now completed and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on the stalk of a hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
It was going to be another hot day. You could tell it early in the morning. It was not yet nine o’clock and already the temperature was pushing 80 degrees. Here and there the city merchants were stirring and rushing around and opening their stalls to make ready for another busy day. This was the beginning of Passover. Lots of things going on. Lots of talk in the city. Outside the city walls they were making ready for another round of crucifixions. Three this time. Two criminals and some fellow named Jesus of Nazareth. The sun was beating down on their heads as the soldiers dug the holes in the ground and made ready with the stakes, with the ham-mer, with the nails. Made ready with the ropes.
At length out came the crowd from the city. The two criminals and this man Jesus. Nine o’clock came. Cruci-fixion time. Hammers and nails. Screams of pain. Gasps. Men stripped naked. Bugs and flies everywhere. The heat beating down. Sweat rolling off the bodies. Blood everywhere. The stench and smell of death. And talking, laughing. “Here he is. King of the Jews.” Twelve o’clock. Darkness. Confusion. The sound of panic. People shouting. Then silence. Thick oppressive silence upon the land. Three hours pass, an eternity of darkness.
Suddenly the light shines. There on the center cross was Jesus. Clearly about to die. Every breath now is huge effort. Heaving, gasping, fighting for oxygen. Resting upon the nail holes while he inhales. Sweat pouring off of him. Making some strange guttural noises. The experienced soldiers had heard it before—the death rattle. With one last gasp a sound comes out. You can barely hear it more than two or three feet away. More like a moan. It is one word in Greek—dipso—"I Thirst.” The soldiers got the bowl, a pail that they always carried with them. It had in it sour vinegar. It was a kind of vinegar wine mixed with water. It was the cheapest drink of that day. It was the drink of the common man. It was the drink of the Roman soldier. Whenever the soldiers went out to do their work they carried it with them in what would be their version of the canteen.
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Almost Dead
So the soldiers got the wine, took a sponge, dipped it into the sour vinegar wine, and put it on a stalk of the hyssop—Oh, you’ve heard of the hyssop before. You remember, don’t you, that in the book of Exodus, it was the hyssop plant that was dipped in blood and the blood of the lamb was put on the doorpost. Now the hyssop is used again in a biblical story. The sponge dipped in the sour wine is put on it. The soldier stretches it out. In those days they didn’t crucify people very far off the ground. And so with the stalk, which would be about 18 - 24 inches long, a tall soldier could reach Jesus’ lips. As Jesus licked the sponge, a few drops of sour vinegar wine would come into his mouth. Taken in quantity, it was really an astringent that would constrict the throat. But if you drank just a little it would moisten the lips. Moisten the tongue. Moisten the throat. Just enough so you could say one or two more words.
Now Jesus is almost dead. Moments will pass and he will be gone. Having moistened his lips he cries out “It is finished.” Another second passes and then “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” He bowed his head and died. In so doing, he fulfilled two prophecies of the Old Testament: Psalm 22:15, “My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.” and Psalm 69:21, “They gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
As Jesus hung on the cross he made seven different statements. But only one of those statements deals with his personal, physical suffering. It is one word in Greek, two in English: “I thirst”.
Terrible Pain
It is not often appreciated that our Lord Jesus died in terrible, terrible pain. If you run the clock back from 3 o’clock in the afternoon—the moment of his death—back to about 3 o’clock in the morning and just see what had happened to Jesus as he moves through those hours—what you discover is that our Lord Jesus Christ has just been through 12 hours of torture. Arrested in the middle of the night. Slapped around. Pushed around. Mocked. Slapped again. Crowned with thorns that went into his scalp. Scourged with the cat o’ nine tails again and again and again with those sharp pieces of leather studded with bits of bone and stone and metal. Hitting him again and again and again until the back was shredded. Until you could see right through to the rib cage. They took his beard and ripped it out. They beat him and they beat him again. They made him carry the cross. They nailed the nails into his hands and into his feet. Not for one second did he have a moment’s rest. Not for one moment had anybody offered him anything.
It is not too much to say that when Jesus hung on the cross he was not the beautiful, manicured Savior we often see in the artists’ renditions. It is not too much to say that when Jesus hung on the cross, he was a bloody, maimed, disfigured version of a human being.
No wonder he was thirsty. Loss of blood. Exposure. Heat. Exhaustion. Dehydration. He’s been on the cross now for 6 hours. The sweat rolls off him like buckets. It’s hot. And the flies are buzzing around him. The crowds taunting him. The blood mixes with the sweat as it pours off his body. In the end dehydration sets in. You know what dehydration is like? First it gives you a fever. Then it gives you a terrible throbbing pain in your head. And then cramps in your abdomen. And then nausea sets in. Then your eyeballs begin to dry up in the sockets. And then your lips begin to go dry. Then your tongue gets swollen and thick. And then your throat feels like sand paper. Your vocal cords swell up. In the end you can barely whisper. It doesn’t sound like human words; it sounds like an animal croaking. No wonder Jesus was thirsty.
The Water of Life Now Dies of Thirst
I suppose it is one of the ultimate ironies of the biblical story that Jesus cried out “I thirst.” He who is the water of life now dies of thirst. And I call to your attention this fact. Jesus has not complained at all about his physical condition through all the hours of suffering. When they put the crown on his head he didn’t say “O, my head.” When they ripped the beard from his face he didn’t say “O, my face.” When they scourged him he didn’t say “O, my back.” As the old spiritual has it, through all that they did “He never said a mumblin’ word.”
Now at last Jesus cries out in the last moments of his life, “I thirst.” This is the only reference he ever made to all the sufferings he underwent. Why is that? The Bible says that when Jesus hung on the cross he knew that his work had been completed. He knew that he had borne the sins of the human race. He knew that he had done everything he could for you and for me. And having done what God sent him to do—having cared for the needs of others—only then does he make a comment about his own intense suffering.
Was Jesus a Failure?
That does raise a question this morning, doesn’t it? Was Jesus a failure? You could make a good case for the answer to that question as yes. In fact I think you could make a decent case that Jesus was the greatest failure that the world has ever seen. Just look at his life. He was born into an unimportant family in an unimportant little village. He was ignored, he was taken for granted, he was laughed at. When he talks and when he speaks, the powers that be want nothing to do with him. He faces nothing but ridicule and opposition and misunder-standing all his life. And in the end he is crucified like a criminal. His sufferings in those last few hours are unspeakable. When he dies he appears to be yet another forgotten footnote in history. Yes, I think you could make the case that our Lord was a failure.
Is it not true, however, that you can do everything you know to be right and still end up suffering tremen-dously? Isn’t it true that you can walk the path of righteous integrity and still end up having nothing to show for it? You can pray and pray and pray and your prayers sometimes will not be answered. You can go to work and you can live by the rules. You can do a good job and still the day comes when you are fired without any warning. You may save your money for the dream of your life and suddenly have your money taken away from you. You may work and work and work to make a marriage hold together and in the end it may fall apart though you have done everything humanly possible to save it. You may have dear friends whom you love who will turn against you in the moment of crisis even though you know you have walked in integrity and told the truth. There’s no guarantee, is there? You could do everything right and it could turn out all wrong.
No Guarantees
Suffering and hard times are no sign that you are out of the will of God. They’re no sign that you are doing something wrong. Oh, you may be doing something wrong and it is possible that you may have done some-thing wrong back here and that’s why you’re suffering now. We all suffer for our mistakes. But far more often when we face difficulties, they do not come because we have done something wrong. Far more often they come because we have done something right and it just has not worked out. Case in point—the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at him on the cross. Look at that bloody mess on the cross. Look at the Son of God reviled and hated and mocked. Look at him begging for water. What has he done wrong? What sin has he committed? What terrible crime has he done? He has done nothing but obey the Father’s will perfectly. And what he got for it was the cross.
Are you so sure that the same thing won’t happen to you? Or do you buy into that other philosophy that says if you do right everything is going to come up roses for you? It didn’t happen that way for Jesus. Why should it happen that way for you?
Do you understand what this means? I’m saying your loneliness does not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. Your poverty does not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. Your pain does not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. The broken relationships you’ve experienced do not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. Your sickness does not necessarily mean you are outside the will of God. Why? Because our Lord Jesus Christ did the will of God and he ended up on the cross.
So, I ask the question again. Was our Lord Jesus a failure? No, he was not. He was the greatest success this world has ever seen. Nobody ever accomplished more than Jesus Christ did. But for him success came through suffering, hardship, loss and an agonizing death. Are you so sure the same things won’t happen to you?
Lubyanka Prison
Thank God, there’s another part to this story. Thank God, the cross isn’t the end. Thank God, the story doesn’t end at six o’clock on Friday evening. On Friday evening Jesus is dead and buried and He looks like the world’s greatest failure. But early on Easter Sunday morning, the stone was rolled away and Jesus Christ came walking out. Dead on Friday. Raised victorious on Sunday.
That’s the other side of the story, isn’t it? Your sufferings may be used by God in a way greater than anything you ever dreamed of. God may redeem the hard times you are going through right now to bring something beautiful into your life far beyond your imagination.
Most of you know that last Monday I returned from an 18-day trip to Russia with John and Helen Sergey. As we drove to our hotel in Moscow, John pointed to a big building about fifteen stories tall. I would suppose it was 60 or 70 years old—gray on the bottom and then brown on the upper floors. I said, “What is that?” He said, “Lubyanka.” Do you know what Lubyanka is? Lubyanka is the headquarters of the KGB, the secret police of the Soviet Union. Just say the name Lubyanka and it strikes fear into the hearts of the Russian people. In that building, right in the heart of Moscow, hundreds and thousands of political prisoners have been kept. Held without bail. Held without trial. Sometimes held without any formal charges. Held for weeks and months and years. Some of them drugged. Some of them beaten. Some of them terribly persecuted. Some of them who suddenly disappeared never to be heard from again. Some of them held and then shipped off to the concentration camps in Siberia.
As we passed by John said, “Many of the brethren have spent time in Lubyanka during the dark days of repres-sion.” And I thought about what the Russian church has been through. For seventy years they lived under a strict communist system. A system that tried to stamp out the knowledge of God. A system that was avowedly atheist. A system that was built on the teachings of Marx and Lenin. A system that deified Lenin. Do you know what the communists did in the early days of the revolution? They took over the orthodox churches. Some of them were turned into factories and schools. Many of the rest were turned into museums of atheism. Think about that. Orthodox churches and cathedrals transformed into anti-religious museums of atheism. The worst of it happened in the 1930’s under Stalin.
The Pastor’s Story
John introduced me to Michael Jidkov. He is 63 years old. For many years he was the pastor of the Moscow Baptist Church. Back in the 30’s, his father was also a pastor. Michael said that when he was growing up, the authorities would only permit them to have three religious books—The Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, and a child-ren’s story book. He said, “We’d be in terrible trouble if we were caught with anything else. That was all the Christian literature we could have.”
Then he told me this story. “I’ll never forget the day when I was ten years old and my father was arrested and taken away. His crime was called Political Activity—that means preaching the gospel. We watched him go away not knowing if he’d ever return. Four years passed without a word from him. We had no idea where he was. One day as I was standing in the yard with my mother, we saw him coming down the road. The commun-ists had let him go.” Then he said, “I’ve never forgotten what that day was like. My father came back but he didn’t stop preaching the gospel. He went right back and kept on doing what he was doing before. And after the Second World War, he became the president of the Union of Evangelical Christians and Baptists in the USSR. He was one of the great evangelical leaders of the last generation.”
But that’s how it was for so many of the Russian Christians. They paid a terrible price for their faith.
I want to tell you something. Fifty years ago it looked like the communists had won. Fifty years ago it looked like they had closed everything down. Fifty years ago the gospel was almost destroyed in the Soviet Union. Fifty years ago it looked like the church of Jesus Christ was done for.
John Sergey’s Story
Let me tell you about a man you’ve never heard of—a man you might call the Martin Luther of Russia. I had never heard about him until I traveled to Russia. In the late 1800s and the first part of this century a man called Brother Prochonoff began preaching the gospel establishing the churches that we are helping to support today. More than anyone else, he is the man who wrote the articles that established the church and the evangelical faith. When you go to Russia and pick up a hymnal, you’ll find that about half the hymns are written by Brother Prochonoff. He was a man of giant faith who stood for Jesus Christ during the last days of the Czars and the first decades of communism.
Toward the end of his life, in the mid-1930’s he came to Chicago to visit a Russian-speaking evangelical church. Those days were dark in Russia. The situation seemed so hopeless. But here in Chicago he met a young man who was 15 or 16. The young man had a deep bass voice and heart that burned for God. When old Brother Prochonoff talked to the teenager, he put his hands on his shoulders and said, “Young man, I believe someday God is going to call you to be a missionary to Russia.” The young man was shocked to hear those words because he was planning a career in music, opera preferably. God had given him this mighty voice.
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED
John 19
* Final Words of a Family Man
* Tetelestai!
* Paid in Full
But the words of Brother Prochonoff were to change the direction of his life. Things in Russia were bad fifty years ago, and after the war, they were bad again. They were bad into the early 1960’s. Christians were thrown in jail for witnessing, for preaching. Some awful things happened. By the mid-1950’s that boy had grown up and started a radio ministry. And with that deep bass voice he began broadcasting from HCJB in Quito and from Trans World Radio in Monte Carlo and from Far East Broadcasting in Saipan and Seoul, Korea, broadcasting all the way into the Soviet Union from Siberia over to Russia. That young man now grown up with the deep bass voice would read the Bible slowly, verse by verse by verse. Why? So the Russian believers would have time to write it down in Russian and that would be their Bible. On the weekends he had another program that broadcast a message in Russian to establish them in the Christian faith.
For so many years it looked so hopeless. But seeds were sown that have now come to bear fruit thirty years later. That young man who was going to be a singer and turned into a radio broadcaster is John Sergey. And everywhere we went and every church we visited, people came up to him. Old ladies. Old men with tears streaming down their faces. Saying, “When we couldn’t come to church we would turn on the short-wave radio and we would listen to you.” One lady said, “My family and another family always got together to hear your broadcast.” Another man said, “All the Bible I learned, I learned from you, because we couldn’t go to church in those days.” That man said to John, “I think you’re responsible for a whole generation of Russian Christians.”
Things looked hopeless fifty years ago. They looked so bad. Communism appeared to have won the day. The church of Jesus Christ seemed a ragtag band of losers. For awhile it appeared that maybe Marx was right—that religion would fade away when communism came to power.
How different things are today. After seventy years of communism, the people are awakening as if from a bad dream. Suddenly in great numbers the Russian people are turning to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Suddenly Christians are free to preach the gospel publicly. Today anyone who wants a Bible can get one. In the last weeks the believers in Leningrad have given away 1 million copies of the story of Jesus—most of them either on the streets of the city or in the public schools. The door that was locked tight has swung wide open!
No one could have predicted this 50 years ago or 40 years ago or even 20 years ago. But it is happening. I saw it with my own eyes less than 10 days ago.
Hungry Hearts
I will tell you one more story and then be done. Last Sunday—just 7 days ago—I had preached my final sermon at a small church in Moscow. As we were driving back to the main church, my interpreter, Alexei Bichkov, pointed to a building. “Do you see that? It’s the political headquarters for the Communist Party in Moscow. That’s where all the propaganda comes out for the whole country. I preached there not long ago.” You did what? “I preached there.” I thought he meant he preached on the steps of the building—an act in itself incon-ceivable even one year ago. “When the authorities heard about what we were doing, they invited me to come and present my message. So I met with several hundred of the top Communist officials and preached the gospel to them—at their invitation—in their own headquarters.” What was the response? “Oh, I tell you they were so happy to hear me. They listened so well, and when I was through, I gave out several hundred New Testaments and answered many questions.”
If you ask me what is happening in Russia, I will tell you that everything you have heard is true, and then some. We are living on the verge of perhaps the greatest revival the 20th century has yet seen. After so much darkness, the light has come flooding in.
Who could have believed it?
From Friday to Sunday
Now we are back in Jerusalem. Moments from now Jesus will be dead. A more hopeless scene you could never imagine. He died in terrible pain. But his death is not the end of the story. On Sunday he rose in glorious victory. The same Jesus who cried, “I thirst,” rose from the dead, victorious over the grave.
Let us learn the lesson well. Your sufferings do not necessarily mean you are out of the will of God. It is entirely possible that you may do everything God wants you to do … and still suffer terribly. Even so, your suffering may yet be redeemed into something much greater than you can imagine! Jesus pointed the way when he cried, “I thirst.” That was Friday. On Sunday he rose from the dead to become a gushing spring of Living Water.
Are you suffering right now? Do you live in darkness? Is the way unclear, the light dim, do you feel the pain
of those you love turning against you? Fear not. And do not lose heart.
What is happening to you happened first to Jesus. And what happened to him may yet happen to you. Your suffering has a purpose, your pain has a reason, your darkness leads on to a brighter, better morning.
Run to the cross. Cling to it. Embrace the sufferings of Christ. Though this cannot lessen your pain, it may give you strength to carry on. Jesus suffered before you; he also suffered for you. Child of God, remember this: As Friday comes before Sunday, so the cross leads on to the empty tomb. And there is no resurrection unless there is first a crucifixion.
The Forsaken Christ – Matthew 27:45-46 keepbelieving.com
Sermon 4 of 7 from the Seven Last Words of Jesus series
May 1991 – Until a few days ago most of us had never given any serious thought to a place called Bangladesh. We knew it was somewhere on the other side of the world, but that’s all we knew. Then a typhoon hit the Bay of Bengal and suddenly Bangladesh was front page news. The latest reports suggest that 125,000 people are dead and millions more were left homeless. Many people simply vanished beneath the rising water, their bodies swept out to sea. As the waters abate, rescuers are finding devastation that is almost beyond belief. Bangladesh was already one of the poorest countries in the world. Now amid the death, disease and starvation, the anguished cry rises from the survivors, “Why has God forsaken us?
In a hospital room in a major city a little girl lies quietly. She has a strange form of cancer, a strain so virulent that it has her doctors baffled. No one knows how a girl so young could become so sick so quickly. Although they do not say it, the doctors doubt she will ever see her tenth birthday. The little girl’s mother tries to be brave, but it isn’t easy. In her heart, in words she dares not utter aloud, she wonders, “Why has God forsaken us?”
In the same big city a mother stirs when the alarm clock rings, 5:30 A.M. Another day is beginning. She slips out of the sheets and tiptoes to the bathroom. Quickly she showers, dresses and gets breakfast ready. Mean-while three children sleep quietly in the next room. Before 7:00 A.M., all four of them will be on their way—the children to a day-care center, the mother to her job. The hours rush by and the sun has almost set when she picks her children up again. Then home, and suppertime, and “Read-me-a-story” time, and bath time and finally, bedtime. The children safely asleep, the mother relaxes in front of the TV. After a few minutes, she goes to bed. 5:30 comes all too soon. She sleeps alone. Her husband left her 2 1/2 years ago. Alone with her thoughts she considers her life and asks, “Why has God forsaken me?”
Not many miles away a middle-aged man sits with his head in his hands. Today had started like any other day. Get up, go to work, do your job. Then at 2:45 P.M. his boss called him into his office. “Charlie, I’ve got bad news.” Just like that it was all over. Over after 16 years, 4 months and 3 days. Over with nothing left to show for it except a pink slip. How will he explain it to his family? What will he say to the guys on his bowling team? Here he is with a family, a big mortgage, two kids who need braces, and no job. In anger—Yes! in anger—he cries out to God, “Why have you forsaken me?”
book graphic fade
RELATED BOOK
The Leadership Lessons of Jesus
Bob Briner and Ray Pritchard unearth
important leadership lessons from the life
of Christ, based on the book of Mark.
Applicable to anyone who wants
to become a better leader.
Get more details
Killing Time
It is Friday morning in Jerusalem. Another hot April day. It’s killing time. Death is in the air. The word has spread to every corner of the city. The Romans plan to crucify somebody today.
A crowd gathers on the north end of town. Just outside the Damascus Gate is a place called Skull Hill. The Romans like it because the hill is beside a main road. That way lots of people can watch the crucifixion.
On this day more people than usual have gathered. They come out of the macabre human fascination with the bizarre. The very horror of crucifixion draws people to Skull Hill.
This day seems like any other, but it is not. A man named Jesus is being crucified. The word spreads like wildfire. His reputation has preceded him. No one is neutral. Some believe, many doubt, a few hate.
Three Hours of Darkness
The crucifixion begins at nine o’clock sharp. The Romans were punctual about things like that. At first the crowd is rowdy, loud, raucous, boisterous, as if this were some kind of athletic event. They cheer, they laugh, they shout, they place wagers on how long the men being crucified will last.
It appears that the man in the middle will not last long. He has already been severely beaten. In fact, it looks like four or five soldiers have taken turns working him over. His skin hangs from his back in tatters, his face is bruised and swollen, his eyes nearly shut. Blood trickles from a dozen open wounds. He is an awful sight to behold.
There are voices from all three crosses, a kind of hoarse conversation shouted above the din. Little pieces float through the air. Something that sounds like “Father, forgive them” something else about “If you are the Son of God,” then a promise of paradise. Finally Jesus spots his mother and speaks to her.
Then it happened. At noon “darkness fell upon all the land.” It happened so suddenly that no one expected it. One moment the sun was right overhead; the next moment it had disappeared.
It was not an eclipse nor was it a dark cloud cover. It was darkness itself, thick, inky-black darkness that fell like a shroud over the land. It was darkness without any hint of light to come. It was chilling blackness that curdled the blood and froze the skin.
No one moved. No one spoke. For once even the profane soldiers stopped their swearing. Not a sound broke the dark silence over Skull Hill. Something eerie was going on. It was as if some evil force had taken over the earth and was somehow breathing out the darkness. You could almost reach out and feel the evil all around. From somewhere deep in the earth there was a sound like some dark subterranean chuckle. It was the laughter of hell.
It lasted for three long hours. 12:30—still dark. 1:15—still dark. 2:05—still dark. 2:55—still dark.
3:00 P.M. And just as suddenly as the darkness had descended, it disappeared. Voices now, and shouting. Rubbing the eyes to adjust once again to the bright sunlight. Panic on many faces, confusion on others. A man leans over to his friend and cries out, “What in God’s name is going on here?”
Mortally Wounded
All eyes focus on the center cross. It is clear the end is near. Jesus is at the point of death. Whatever happened in those three hours of darkness has brought him to death’s door. His strength is nearly gone, the struggle almost over. His chest heaves with every breath, his moans now are only whispers. Instinctively the crowd pushes closely to watch his last moments.
Suddenly he screams. Only four words, but they come out in a guttural roar. “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” The words are Aramaic, the common language of the day. The words form a question that screams across Skull Hill and drifts across the road. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Take Off Your Shoes
In his book, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, F.F. Bruce discusses 70 of the hard-to-understand sayings of our Lord. The last one he discusses is this statement. Of these words of Jesus, Bruce comments, “This is the hardest of all the hard statements.” (p. 248) All the commentators agree with him. No statement of Jesus is more mysterious than this one. The problem is not with the words. The words (in Aramaic or Greek or English) are simple. The words we can understand. But what do they mean?
The story is told that the great Martin Luther was studying this text one day. For hours he sat and stared at the text. He said nothing, he wrote nothing, but silently pondered these words of Jesus. Suddenly he stood up and exclaimed, “God forsaken by God. How can it be?”
Indeed, how can it be? How can God be forsaken by God? How can the Father forsake his own Son?
To read these words is to walk on holy ground. And like Moses before the burning bush, we ought to take off our shoes and tread carefully.
What Do These Words Mean?
Let me say frankly that it is far beyond my meager ability to fully explain this saying of Jesus. My problem is not that I do not have enough time; I have plenty of time. And in the time I have, I will tell you what I know. But what I know is only a fraction of the story. There are mysteries here which no man can explain.
Let us begin by surveying some of the inadequate explanations that have been given to the question, What do these words mean? To say the following ideas are “inadequate” is not to say they are necessarily wrong. It is only to say that they do not tell the whole story.
1. It has been suggested that this is a cry stemming from Jesus’ physical suffering. Without a doubt, those sufferings were enormous. By the time he uttered these words, he had hung on the cross for six hours—exposed to the hot Palestinian sun and exposed to the taunts of the crowd. He was nearly dead when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Perhaps (it has been suggested) he said that in view of all that had happened to him.
There are two problems with that view. For one thing, the consistent emphasis of the New Testament is that Jesus died for our sins. Although the gospels speak of Jesus’ physical suffering, they do not emphasize it. The central issue of the cross was not the physical suffering of our Lord (as terrible as it must have been); the central issue was our Lord bearing the sins of the world. This suggestion tends to weaken the truth that Jesus died for our sins and at the same time it tends to overemphasize his physical sufferings.
2. It has been suggested that this is a cry of faith. A surprising number of commentators take this view. They note that “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is actually a quotation from Psalm 22:1. In that particular Psalm, David speaks of his own sufferings at the hands of his enemies in a way that ultimately pictures the death of our Lord. Although Psalm 22 begins with a description of intense suffering, it ends on a note of confident trust in God. For that reason, some believe that Christ quoted verse 1 (a cry of desolation) as a way of expressing his trust in God even while he was on the cross.
Unfortunately, that view seems to turn the words of Jesus upside down. It virtually makes the words mean something like this: “Although it appears that God has forsaken me, in truth he has not, and in the end I will be vindicated.” As true as that might be (he was ultimately vindicated in the resurrection), that does not seem to be the meaning here. The words of Jesus ought to be taken at their face value—as a cry of utter desolation.
3. It has been suggested that this is a cry of disillusionment. Skeptics read this as proof that Jesus ultimately failed in his mission. To them these words mean something like “God, you have forsaken me and all is lost. I came to be the Messiah but my mission is a failure.” To those who hold such a cynical view, we can only say, Read the whole story! Keep reading and you will discover what happens to your “failed” Messiah. Whatever else these words might mean, they are not the words of a defeated man.
The God-Forsaken Man
What, then, do these words mean? I suggest that we will never grasp their full meaning until we see that Jesus was truly forsaken by God. In that black moment on the cross, God the Father turned his back on God the Son. It was, as Martin Luther said, God forsaking God. True, we will never plumb the depths of that statement, but anything less does not do justice to Jesus’ words.
The word “forsaken” in very strong. It means to abandon, to desert, to disown, to turn away from, to utterly forsake. Please understand. When Jesus said, “Why have you forsaken me?” it was not simply because he felt forsaken; he said it because he was forsaken. Literally, truly and actually God the Father abandoned his own Son.
In English the phrase “God-forsaken” usually refers to some deserted, barren locale. We mean that such a place seems unfit for human habitation. But we do not literally mean “God-forsaken” even though that’s what we say. But it was true of Jesus. He was the first and only God-forsaken person in all history.
A Father’s Chief Duty
As many people have pointed out, this is the only time Jesus addressed God as “My God.” Everywhere else he called him “Father.” But here he said, “My God,” because the Father-Son relationship was broken at that moment.
Is it not the chief duty of a parent to take care of his children? Is it not our job to ensure that our children do not suffer needlessly? Will we not do anything in our power to spare them pain? And is that not what makes child abuse such a heinous crime?
I ask you, then, what would cause a father to forsake his own son? Can you explain it? Is that not a breach of a father’s chief duty? I ask myself, what would cause me to abandon my sons? As I ponder the question, I cannot even imagine the answer.
But that is what God did when Jesus died on the cross. He abandoned his own Son. He turned his back, he disowned him, he rejected the One who was called his “only begotten Son.”
We may not understand that. Indeed, it is certain that we do not. But that is what these words mean.
In Time and Eternity
That brings us to the great question: Why would God do such a thing? One observation will help us find an answer. Something must have happened that day that caused a fundamental change in the Father’s relationship with the Son. Something must have happened when Jesus hung on the cross which had never happened before.
At that precise moment Jesus was bearing the sin of the world. During those three hours of blackness, and in the moments immediately afterward, Jesus felt the full weight of sin rolled onto his shoulders. All of it became his. It happened at that moment of space-time history.
(Someone may ask, “Does not the Bible teach that Jesus was the ‘lamb slain from the foundation of the world?’” The answer is yes. But the slaying itself happened at a particular moment in time—specifically a Friday afternoon in April, A. D. 33. But since Jesus Christ had a divine nature, what happened to him in history has eternal implications. I admit that I don’t fully understand that last sentence, but I am sure it is true. The death of Christ was a historical event in every sense of the word, but it is historical with eternal implications.)
The Trinity Disjointed
Let’s go one step farther. We know from Habakkuk 1:13 that God cannot look with favor upon wickedness. His eyes are too pure to approve the evil in the world. The key phrase is “with favor.” God’s holiness demands that he turn away from sin. God will have no part of it. His holiness recoils from the tiniest tinge of wickedness.
Therefore (and this is a big “therefore"), when God looked down and saw his Son bearing the sin of the world, he didn’t see his Son, he saw instead the sin that he was bearing. And in that awful moment, the Father turned away. Not in anger at his Son. No, he loved his Son as much at that moment as he ever had. He turned away in anger over all the sin of the world that sent his Son to the cross. He turned away in sorrow and deepest pain when he saw what sin had done. He turned away in complete revulsion at the ugliness of sin.
When he did that, Jesus was alone. Completely forsaken. God-forsaken. Abandoned. Deserted. Disowned.
There’s an old Southern gospel song called “Ten Thousand Angels.” It speaks of the fact that Jesus, by virtue of being the Son of God, could have called 10,000 angels to rescue him from the cross. He didn’t do that, and the chorus ends with these words, “But he died alone for you and me.”
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED
Matthew 27
* Barabbas or Jesus?
* How God Uses Bad People to Do His Will: Another Look at God's Providence
* What Happened to Judas? The Man Who Kissed the Door of Heaven But Went to Hell
Psalms 22
* What Angels Wish They Knew
* Who is Jesus Christ?
* Paid in Full
It is true. When Jesus bore the sins of the world, he bore them all alone. Christ is now abandoned, the Trinity disjointed, the Godhead broken. The fact that I do not know what those words mean does not stop them from being true. Let it be said over and over again: When Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” he was really and truly forsaken by God.
He Became Sin for Us
To say that is to say nothing more than the Bible itself says:
1. II Corinthians 5:21. “God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Think of it. The sinless One was “made sin” for us. When God looked down that day, he saw—not his sinless Son—but sin itself.
2. Galatians 3:13. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” Think of it. When Jesus was baptized, the voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” No longer would the voice say that. At the cross, the beloved Son became “a curse for us.”
3. Isaiah 53:6 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Think of it. All the iniquity, all the evil, all the crime and hatred of this world—all of it was “laid on him.”
Thus did the Son of God make complete identification with sinners. Jesus become a curse for us. He died in our place. And all our sins were laid on him. It was for that reason—and only for that reason—that God the Father forsook his beloved Son.
Emptying the Sewer
Imagine that somewhere in the universe there is a cesspool containing all the sins that have ever been commit-ted. The cesspool is deep, dark and indescribably foul. All the evil deeds that men and women have ever done are floating there. Imagine that a river of filth constantly flows into that cesspool, replenishing the vile mixture with all the evil done every day.
Now imagine that while Jesus was on the cross, that cesspool is emptied onto him. See the flow of filth as it settles upon him. The flow never seems to stop. It is vile, toxic, deadly, filled with disease, pain and suffering.
When God looked down at his Son, he saw the cesspool of sin emptied on his head. No wonder he turned away from the sight. Who could bear to watch it?
Think of it. All the lust in the world was there. All the broken promises were there. All the murder, all the killing, all the hatred between people. All the theft was there, all the adultery, all the pornography, all the drunkenness, all the bitterness, all the greed, all the gluttony, all the drug abuse, all the crime, all the cursing. Every vile deed, every wicked thought, every vain imagination—all of it was laid upon Jesus when he hung on the cross.
Two Great Implications
I take from this solemn truth two great implications. It reveals to us two things we must never minimize:
1. We must never minimize the horror of human sin. Sometimes we laugh at sin and say, “The Devil made me do it,” as if sin were something to joke about. But it was our sin that Jesus bore that day. It was our sin that caused the Father to turn away from the Son. It was our sin floating in that cesspool of iniquity. He became a curse and we were part of the reason. Let us never joke about sin. It is no laughing matter.
2. We must never minimize the awful cost of our salvation. Is it possible that some Christians become tired of hearing about the cross? Is it possible that we would rather hear about happy things? Without the awful pain of the cross, there would be no happy things to talk about. Without the cross there would be no forgiveness. Without the cross there would be no salvation. Without the cross we would be lost forever. Without the cross our sins would still be upon us. It cost Christ everything to redeem us. Let us never make light of what cost him so dearly.
“Where Was God When My Son Died?”
Somewhere I read the story of a father whose son was killed in a tragic accident. In grief and enormous anger, he visited his pastor and poured out his heart. He said, “Where was God when my son died?” The pastor paused for a moment, and with great wisdom replied, “The same place he was when his Son died.”
This cry from the cross is for all the lonely people of the world. It is for the abandoned child … the widow… the divorcee struggling to make ends meet … the mother standing over the bed of her suffering daughter … the father out of work … the parents left alone … the prisoner in his cell … the aged who languish in convalescent homes … wives abandoned by their husbands … singles who celebrate their birthdays alone.
This is the word from the cross for you. No one has ever been as alone as Jesus was. You will never be forsaken as he was. No cry of your pain can exceed the cry of his pain when God turned his back and looked the other way.
Thank God it is true.
—He was forsaken that you might never be forsaken.
—He was abandoned that you might never be abandoned.
—He was deserted that you might never be deserted.
—He was forgotten that you might never be forgotten.
You Don’t Have to Go to Hell
And most importantly …
—He went to hell for you so you wouldn’t have to go.
If you go to hell, it will be in spite of what Jesus did for you. He’s already been there. He took the blow. He took the pain. He endured the suffering. He took the weight of all your sins. So if you do go to hell, don’t blame Jesus. It’s not his fault. He went to hell for you so you wouldn’t have to go.
What is the worst thing about hell? It’s not the fire (though the fire is real). It’s not the memory of your past (though the memory is real). It’s not the darkness (though the darkness is real). The worst thing about hell is that it is the one place in the universe where people are utterly and forever for-saken by God. Hell is truly a God-forsaken place. That’s the hell of hell. To be in a place where God has abandoned you for all eternity.
That’s the bad news. The good news is this. You don’t have to go there. Jesus has already been there for you. He went to hell 2,000 years ago so you wouldn’t have to go. He died a sinner’s death and took a sinner’s punishment so that guilty sinners like you and me could be eternally forgiven.
If after everything I have said, you still don’t understand these words of Jesus, be of good cheer. No one on earth fully understands them. Rest in this simple truth: He was forsaken that you might never be forsaken. Those who trust him will never be disappointed, in this life or in the life to come. Amen.
May 1991 – Until a few days ago most of us had never given any serious thought to a place called Bangladesh. We knew it was somewhere on the other side of the world, but that’s all we knew. Then a typhoon hit the Bay of Bengal and suddenly Bangladesh was front page news. The latest reports suggest that 125,000 people are dead and millions more were left homeless. Many people simply vanished beneath the rising water, their bodies swept out to sea. As the waters abate, rescuers are finding devastation that is almost beyond belief. Bangladesh was already one of the poorest countries in the world. Now amid the death, disease and starvation, the anguished cry rises from the survivors, “Why has God forsaken us?
In a hospital room in a major city a little girl lies quietly. She has a strange form of cancer, a strain so virulent that it has her doctors baffled. No one knows how a girl so young could become so sick so quickly. Although they do not say it, the doctors doubt she will ever see her tenth birthday. The little girl’s mother tries to be brave, but it isn’t easy. In her heart, in words she dares not utter aloud, she wonders, “Why has God forsaken us?”
In the same big city a mother stirs when the alarm clock rings, 5:30 A.M. Another day is beginning. She slips out of the sheets and tiptoes to the bathroom. Quickly she showers, dresses and gets breakfast ready. Mean-while three children sleep quietly in the next room. Before 7:00 A.M., all four of them will be on their way—the children to a day-care center, the mother to her job. The hours rush by and the sun has almost set when she picks her children up again. Then home, and suppertime, and “Read-me-a-story” time, and bath time and finally, bedtime. The children safely asleep, the mother relaxes in front of the TV. After a few minutes, she goes to bed. 5:30 comes all too soon. She sleeps alone. Her husband left her 2 1/2 years ago. Alone with her thoughts she considers her life and asks, “Why has God forsaken me?”
Not many miles away a middle-aged man sits with his head in his hands. Today had started like any other day. Get up, go to work, do your job. Then at 2:45 P.M. his boss called him into his office. “Charlie, I’ve got bad news.” Just like that it was all over. Over after 16 years, 4 months and 3 days. Over with nothing left to show for it except a pink slip. How will he explain it to his family? What will he say to the guys on his bowling team? Here he is with a family, a big mortgage, two kids who need braces, and no job. In anger—Yes! in anger—he cries out to God, “Why have you forsaken me?”
book graphic fade
RELATED BOOK
The Leadership Lessons of Jesus
Bob Briner and Ray Pritchard unearth
important leadership lessons from the life
of Christ, based on the book of Mark.
Applicable to anyone who wants
to become a better leader.
Get more details
Killing Time
It is Friday morning in Jerusalem. Another hot April day. It’s killing time. Death is in the air. The word has spread to every corner of the city. The Romans plan to crucify somebody today.
A crowd gathers on the north end of town. Just outside the Damascus Gate is a place called Skull Hill. The Romans like it because the hill is beside a main road. That way lots of people can watch the crucifixion.
On this day more people than usual have gathered. They come out of the macabre human fascination with the bizarre. The very horror of crucifixion draws people to Skull Hill.
This day seems like any other, but it is not. A man named Jesus is being crucified. The word spreads like wildfire. His reputation has preceded him. No one is neutral. Some believe, many doubt, a few hate.
Three Hours of Darkness
The crucifixion begins at nine o’clock sharp. The Romans were punctual about things like that. At first the crowd is rowdy, loud, raucous, boisterous, as if this were some kind of athletic event. They cheer, they laugh, they shout, they place wagers on how long the men being crucified will last.
It appears that the man in the middle will not last long. He has already been severely beaten. In fact, it looks like four or five soldiers have taken turns working him over. His skin hangs from his back in tatters, his face is bruised and swollen, his eyes nearly shut. Blood trickles from a dozen open wounds. He is an awful sight to behold.
There are voices from all three crosses, a kind of hoarse conversation shouted above the din. Little pieces float through the air. Something that sounds like “Father, forgive them” something else about “If you are the Son of God,” then a promise of paradise. Finally Jesus spots his mother and speaks to her.
Then it happened. At noon “darkness fell upon all the land.” It happened so suddenly that no one expected it. One moment the sun was right overhead; the next moment it had disappeared.
It was not an eclipse nor was it a dark cloud cover. It was darkness itself, thick, inky-black darkness that fell like a shroud over the land. It was darkness without any hint of light to come. It was chilling blackness that curdled the blood and froze the skin.
No one moved. No one spoke. For once even the profane soldiers stopped their swearing. Not a sound broke the dark silence over Skull Hill. Something eerie was going on. It was as if some evil force had taken over the earth and was somehow breathing out the darkness. You could almost reach out and feel the evil all around. From somewhere deep in the earth there was a sound like some dark subterranean chuckle. It was the laughter of hell.
It lasted for three long hours. 12:30—still dark. 1:15—still dark. 2:05—still dark. 2:55—still dark.
3:00 P.M. And just as suddenly as the darkness had descended, it disappeared. Voices now, and shouting. Rubbing the eyes to adjust once again to the bright sunlight. Panic on many faces, confusion on others. A man leans over to his friend and cries out, “What in God’s name is going on here?”
Mortally Wounded
All eyes focus on the center cross. It is clear the end is near. Jesus is at the point of death. Whatever happened in those three hours of darkness has brought him to death’s door. His strength is nearly gone, the struggle almost over. His chest heaves with every breath, his moans now are only whispers. Instinctively the crowd pushes closely to watch his last moments.
Suddenly he screams. Only four words, but they come out in a guttural roar. “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” The words are Aramaic, the common language of the day. The words form a question that screams across Skull Hill and drifts across the road. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Take Off Your Shoes
In his book, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, F.F. Bruce discusses 70 of the hard-to-understand sayings of our Lord. The last one he discusses is this statement. Of these words of Jesus, Bruce comments, “This is the hardest of all the hard statements.” (p. 248) All the commentators agree with him. No statement of Jesus is more mysterious than this one. The problem is not with the words. The words (in Aramaic or Greek or English) are simple. The words we can understand. But what do they mean?
The story is told that the great Martin Luther was studying this text one day. For hours he sat and stared at the text. He said nothing, he wrote nothing, but silently pondered these words of Jesus. Suddenly he stood up and exclaimed, “God forsaken by God. How can it be?”
Indeed, how can it be? How can God be forsaken by God? How can the Father forsake his own Son?
To read these words is to walk on holy ground. And like Moses before the burning bush, we ought to take off our shoes and tread carefully.
What Do These Words Mean?
Let me say frankly that it is far beyond my meager ability to fully explain this saying of Jesus. My problem is not that I do not have enough time; I have plenty of time. And in the time I have, I will tell you what I know. But what I know is only a fraction of the story. There are mysteries here which no man can explain.
Let us begin by surveying some of the inadequate explanations that have been given to the question, What do these words mean? To say the following ideas are “inadequate” is not to say they are necessarily wrong. It is only to say that they do not tell the whole story.
1. It has been suggested that this is a cry stemming from Jesus’ physical suffering. Without a doubt, those sufferings were enormous. By the time he uttered these words, he had hung on the cross for six hours—exposed to the hot Palestinian sun and exposed to the taunts of the crowd. He was nearly dead when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Perhaps (it has been suggested) he said that in view of all that had happened to him.
There are two problems with that view. For one thing, the consistent emphasis of the New Testament is that Jesus died for our sins. Although the gospels speak of Jesus’ physical suffering, they do not emphasize it. The central issue of the cross was not the physical suffering of our Lord (as terrible as it must have been); the central issue was our Lord bearing the sins of the world. This suggestion tends to weaken the truth that Jesus died for our sins and at the same time it tends to overemphasize his physical sufferings.
2. It has been suggested that this is a cry of faith. A surprising number of commentators take this view. They note that “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is actually a quotation from Psalm 22:1. In that particular Psalm, David speaks of his own sufferings at the hands of his enemies in a way that ultimately pictures the death of our Lord. Although Psalm 22 begins with a description of intense suffering, it ends on a note of confident trust in God. For that reason, some believe that Christ quoted verse 1 (a cry of desolation) as a way of expressing his trust in God even while he was on the cross.
Unfortunately, that view seems to turn the words of Jesus upside down. It virtually makes the words mean something like this: “Although it appears that God has forsaken me, in truth he has not, and in the end I will be vindicated.” As true as that might be (he was ultimately vindicated in the resurrection), that does not seem to be the meaning here. The words of Jesus ought to be taken at their face value—as a cry of utter desolation.
3. It has been suggested that this is a cry of disillusionment. Skeptics read this as proof that Jesus ultimately failed in his mission. To them these words mean something like “God, you have forsaken me and all is lost. I came to be the Messiah but my mission is a failure.” To those who hold such a cynical view, we can only say, Read the whole story! Keep reading and you will discover what happens to your “failed” Messiah. Whatever else these words might mean, they are not the words of a defeated man.
The God-Forsaken Man
What, then, do these words mean? I suggest that we will never grasp their full meaning until we see that Jesus was truly forsaken by God. In that black moment on the cross, God the Father turned his back on God the Son. It was, as Martin Luther said, God forsaking God. True, we will never plumb the depths of that statement, but anything less does not do justice to Jesus’ words.
The word “forsaken” in very strong. It means to abandon, to desert, to disown, to turn away from, to utterly forsake. Please understand. When Jesus said, “Why have you forsaken me?” it was not simply because he felt forsaken; he said it because he was forsaken. Literally, truly and actually God the Father abandoned his own Son.
In English the phrase “God-forsaken” usually refers to some deserted, barren locale. We mean that such a place seems unfit for human habitation. But we do not literally mean “God-forsaken” even though that’s what we say. But it was true of Jesus. He was the first and only God-forsaken person in all history.
A Father’s Chief Duty
As many people have pointed out, this is the only time Jesus addressed God as “My God.” Everywhere else he called him “Father.” But here he said, “My God,” because the Father-Son relationship was broken at that moment.
Is it not the chief duty of a parent to take care of his children? Is it not our job to ensure that our children do not suffer needlessly? Will we not do anything in our power to spare them pain? And is that not what makes child abuse such a heinous crime?
I ask you, then, what would cause a father to forsake his own son? Can you explain it? Is that not a breach of a father’s chief duty? I ask myself, what would cause me to abandon my sons? As I ponder the question, I cannot even imagine the answer.
But that is what God did when Jesus died on the cross. He abandoned his own Son. He turned his back, he disowned him, he rejected the One who was called his “only begotten Son.”
We may not understand that. Indeed, it is certain that we do not. But that is what these words mean.
In Time and Eternity
That brings us to the great question: Why would God do such a thing? One observation will help us find an answer. Something must have happened that day that caused a fundamental change in the Father’s relationship with the Son. Something must have happened when Jesus hung on the cross which had never happened before.
At that precise moment Jesus was bearing the sin of the world. During those three hours of blackness, and in the moments immediately afterward, Jesus felt the full weight of sin rolled onto his shoulders. All of it became his. It happened at that moment of space-time history.
(Someone may ask, “Does not the Bible teach that Jesus was the ‘lamb slain from the foundation of the world?’” The answer is yes. But the slaying itself happened at a particular moment in time—specifically a Friday afternoon in April, A. D. 33. But since Jesus Christ had a divine nature, what happened to him in history has eternal implications. I admit that I don’t fully understand that last sentence, but I am sure it is true. The death of Christ was a historical event in every sense of the word, but it is historical with eternal implications.)
The Trinity Disjointed
Let’s go one step farther. We know from Habakkuk 1:13 that God cannot look with favor upon wickedness. His eyes are too pure to approve the evil in the world. The key phrase is “with favor.” God’s holiness demands that he turn away from sin. God will have no part of it. His holiness recoils from the tiniest tinge of wickedness.
Therefore (and this is a big “therefore"), when God looked down and saw his Son bearing the sin of the world, he didn’t see his Son, he saw instead the sin that he was bearing. And in that awful moment, the Father turned away. Not in anger at his Son. No, he loved his Son as much at that moment as he ever had. He turned away in anger over all the sin of the world that sent his Son to the cross. He turned away in sorrow and deepest pain when he saw what sin had done. He turned away in complete revulsion at the ugliness of sin.
When he did that, Jesus was alone. Completely forsaken. God-forsaken. Abandoned. Deserted. Disowned.
There’s an old Southern gospel song called “Ten Thousand Angels.” It speaks of the fact that Jesus, by virtue of being the Son of God, could have called 10,000 angels to rescue him from the cross. He didn’t do that, and the chorus ends with these words, “But he died alone for you and me.”
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED
Matthew 27
* Barabbas or Jesus?
* How God Uses Bad People to Do His Will: Another Look at God's Providence
* What Happened to Judas? The Man Who Kissed the Door of Heaven But Went to Hell
Psalms 22
* What Angels Wish They Knew
* Who is Jesus Christ?
* Paid in Full
It is true. When Jesus bore the sins of the world, he bore them all alone. Christ is now abandoned, the Trinity disjointed, the Godhead broken. The fact that I do not know what those words mean does not stop them from being true. Let it be said over and over again: When Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” he was really and truly forsaken by God.
He Became Sin for Us
To say that is to say nothing more than the Bible itself says:
1. II Corinthians 5:21. “God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Think of it. The sinless One was “made sin” for us. When God looked down that day, he saw—not his sinless Son—but sin itself.
2. Galatians 3:13. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” Think of it. When Jesus was baptized, the voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” No longer would the voice say that. At the cross, the beloved Son became “a curse for us.”
3. Isaiah 53:6 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Think of it. All the iniquity, all the evil, all the crime and hatred of this world—all of it was “laid on him.”
Thus did the Son of God make complete identification with sinners. Jesus become a curse for us. He died in our place. And all our sins were laid on him. It was for that reason—and only for that reason—that God the Father forsook his beloved Son.
Emptying the Sewer
Imagine that somewhere in the universe there is a cesspool containing all the sins that have ever been commit-ted. The cesspool is deep, dark and indescribably foul. All the evil deeds that men and women have ever done are floating there. Imagine that a river of filth constantly flows into that cesspool, replenishing the vile mixture with all the evil done every day.
Now imagine that while Jesus was on the cross, that cesspool is emptied onto him. See the flow of filth as it settles upon him. The flow never seems to stop. It is vile, toxic, deadly, filled with disease, pain and suffering.
When God looked down at his Son, he saw the cesspool of sin emptied on his head. No wonder he turned away from the sight. Who could bear to watch it?
Think of it. All the lust in the world was there. All the broken promises were there. All the murder, all the killing, all the hatred between people. All the theft was there, all the adultery, all the pornography, all the drunkenness, all the bitterness, all the greed, all the gluttony, all the drug abuse, all the crime, all the cursing. Every vile deed, every wicked thought, every vain imagination—all of it was laid upon Jesus when he hung on the cross.
Two Great Implications
I take from this solemn truth two great implications. It reveals to us two things we must never minimize:
1. We must never minimize the horror of human sin. Sometimes we laugh at sin and say, “The Devil made me do it,” as if sin were something to joke about. But it was our sin that Jesus bore that day. It was our sin that caused the Father to turn away from the Son. It was our sin floating in that cesspool of iniquity. He became a curse and we were part of the reason. Let us never joke about sin. It is no laughing matter.
2. We must never minimize the awful cost of our salvation. Is it possible that some Christians become tired of hearing about the cross? Is it possible that we would rather hear about happy things? Without the awful pain of the cross, there would be no happy things to talk about. Without the cross there would be no forgiveness. Without the cross there would be no salvation. Without the cross we would be lost forever. Without the cross our sins would still be upon us. It cost Christ everything to redeem us. Let us never make light of what cost him so dearly.
“Where Was God When My Son Died?”
Somewhere I read the story of a father whose son was killed in a tragic accident. In grief and enormous anger, he visited his pastor and poured out his heart. He said, “Where was God when my son died?” The pastor paused for a moment, and with great wisdom replied, “The same place he was when his Son died.”
This cry from the cross is for all the lonely people of the world. It is for the abandoned child … the widow… the divorcee struggling to make ends meet … the mother standing over the bed of her suffering daughter … the father out of work … the parents left alone … the prisoner in his cell … the aged who languish in convalescent homes … wives abandoned by their husbands … singles who celebrate their birthdays alone.
This is the word from the cross for you. No one has ever been as alone as Jesus was. You will never be forsaken as he was. No cry of your pain can exceed the cry of his pain when God turned his back and looked the other way.
Thank God it is true.
—He was forsaken that you might never be forsaken.
—He was abandoned that you might never be abandoned.
—He was deserted that you might never be deserted.
—He was forgotten that you might never be forgotten.
You Don’t Have to Go to Hell
And most importantly …
—He went to hell for you so you wouldn’t have to go.
If you go to hell, it will be in spite of what Jesus did for you. He’s already been there. He took the blow. He took the pain. He endured the suffering. He took the weight of all your sins. So if you do go to hell, don’t blame Jesus. It’s not his fault. He went to hell for you so you wouldn’t have to go.
What is the worst thing about hell? It’s not the fire (though the fire is real). It’s not the memory of your past (though the memory is real). It’s not the darkness (though the darkness is real). The worst thing about hell is that it is the one place in the universe where people are utterly and forever for-saken by God. Hell is truly a God-forsaken place. That’s the hell of hell. To be in a place where God has abandoned you for all eternity.
That’s the bad news. The good news is this. You don’t have to go there. Jesus has already been there for you. He went to hell 2,000 years ago so you wouldn’t have to go. He died a sinner’s death and took a sinner’s punishment so that guilty sinners like you and me could be eternally forgiven.
If after everything I have said, you still don’t understand these words of Jesus, be of good cheer. No one on earth fully understands them. Rest in this simple truth: He was forsaken that you might never be forsaken. Those who trust him will never be disappointed, in this life or in the life to come. Amen.
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