Jesus' Last Days on the Cross

Earl was gone, and Helen was gone, and Gary was gone. So we had all the people there, with the exception of Mark Bitter and myself, were from Hoisington. We had two whole families there. Probably between those were more than 10 people. And so we had a good group of people all from Hoisington this morning. So good to see that. Nine children came. I think there were several of them that were there, though, for church, the kids, children, too. We had a good group and some guests with them that we had. So I appreciate Roz doing this for us. And Carol was, our grandson had a piano concert, I think he's like five or something like that. So he played his whole concert, I think, at our house. Lasted three minutes or four. But some reason, though, she was overwhelmed to be able to see this and hear it. So she was really distressed about what to do. And Roz went over, did her work here, and then went over to Hoisington and took care of the children there for us, so that we had a teacher in both places. And I really appreciate that. And she hadn't come back yet, so I don't know. Carol hadn't come back yet, so you're here, I know. But she hadn't come back. Another one, Steven Richter is just so faithful. I mean, I couldn't have done it if Steven hadn't been up there and just willing to. He didn't have the literature until 9.20 this morning because it was a new set, and I had forgotten to give it to him. And I talked to him a couple of nights ago and said, I'll get it set up. You know, it's just one lesson, blah, blah, blah. And so he came in, and I handed it to him, and he went and looked at it for 10 minutes. And I said, I think he's really faithful to be there and willing to do the right thing. That's good, yeah. We've got our next big job at Hoisington is to get some of the people and begin to train them to do the work. And I don't know if some of the new families I don't really know their commitment to Christ yet. So I'm not sure about that level. But we're thankful for all the people that give of their time and energy and effort not only to decorate the buildings, but to teach and all the other things that we do. So tonight I want to talk about, we're going to focus our attention on Jesus' last days on the cross. His death is sacrifice for us. The ultimate gift is given in the life of a person for another one. And certainly, in any kind of circumstance, whenever a person gives their life on behalf of others, it's an overwhelming thing to take place. But here we see Jesus giving His life in a way that's unique. No one else in the world has had this same kind of situation. And when Jesus is on the cross, He finds His great comfort in Psalm 22. That's why I want to read this psalm. What do you do when you're in great trouble? And whenever people are mad at you and when they're treating you badly, you know what our first reaction is? Is get angry at the people who are hurting us. Our first reaction is to think about what others are doing and how angry we get and how it's unjust for us to be treated this way and how we start feeling sorry for ourselves. And we start feeling sorry for the things that have happened to us. And we start being angry at the people who are causing it to take place. If there's ever a place in the world where we can find a perfect way to go through suffering, pain, anger, and anguish, it's the story of Jesus on the cross. And one of the things we found was that as Jesus was on the cross, His great comfort came from the scriptures. And Psalm 22 was a big part of what we see. And so I want to read this before we turn to the New Testament to read about what Jesus did. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You remember that, of course, from Jesus' own words. When He was on the cross, He remembered this passage. He wasn't the first person in the world to feel abandoned by God. And I would imagine that some of you have felt abandoned by God at some time. One thing happens after another. One thing takes place after another. It seems like no end to it until you cannot see the healing and guiding hand of God. Because at every turn, it just seems like one disaster after another. I can remember when Roy was going through the trouble with his strokes. You guys went everywhere in the world to try to find somebody to help. And you can just see how hard it is for people when they find no relief. And the next point, you think something's going to happen. Another change is going to take place. But there seems to be no end to it all. And in that kind of desperation, what do you do? Jesus voiced the very words of the psalm. The psalmist was writing them, feeling that, indeed, he was alone in the presence of God. Jesus was feeling no presence from the Father himself. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? Oh, my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. By night, and I'm not silent. Yet you're enthroned as the Holy One. You are the praise of Israel. In you, our fathers put their trust. They trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved. In you, they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm, not a man. Scorned by men and despised by people, all who see me will mock me. They hurl insults, shaking their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him. That sounds like the mocking crowd. Yet you brought me out of the womb. You made me trust in you, even at my mother's breast. From birth, I was cast upon you. From my mother's womb, you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me. Strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey. Open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all of my bones are out of joint." People use that in the Bible to talk about a person who's so weak that they can't stand, or their arms are so weak that they can't operate, like they're out of joint. They don't work like a normal body should be. My heart is turned to wax. It has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of the death. A potsherd is a broken piece of pottery that you'd find out on the dump where somebody has thrown away their pottery, that they were using dishes, or pots, or different kinds of things. And it would be just laying in the dust. We would call it the junkyard, where dishes are thrown away. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. A potsherd is thrown out and left in the sun until it's worthless. And my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me. A band of evil men has encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. But you, O Lord, be not far off. O my strength, come quickly to help me. Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life and the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions. Save me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my brothers. And the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob, honor him. Revere him. All you descendants of Israel. For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes my praise in the great assembly. Before those who fear you, I will fill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied. They who seek the Lord will praise him. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations will bow down before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord. And he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship. All who go down to the dust will kneel before him. Those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him. Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to people yet unborn. For he has done it. The psalm starts out with a deep cry of pain like God has forgiven him. Then he talks about all the suffering that he has all the way through it. And it ends in a victorious note that God is going to win the victory. And his greatness will be declared and proclaimed all over the earth. There are a couple of times in Jesus' time on the cross whenever this psalm shows itself. I think we can assume from that that it was not simply a phrase or two that came to Jesus in the last times or days of his life. But that he was remembering something very important to him. This psalm apparently was a part of something Jesus had known. People in the Old Testament, people in the New Testament were very familiar with scriptures. You see Paul and all the other people who are writing in the New Testament are constantly quoting the Old Testament because it was something that they learned. They read it over and over again and heard it read in every service in their synagogues. So the scriptures were familiar with them. In chapter 27, verse 45, from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, darkness came over the land. And whenever the Bible uses the language the sixth and the ninth hour, it's talking about the way the Jews would keep track of time. Both the Jews and the Romans keep track of time in a different way. So when you read all of the Gospels, Mark, I think it is, uses a different time schedule. He uses the Roman style of counting time. The Jewish style of counting time was from six o'clock in the morning and they started with that hour as number one. So when it says it was the sixth hour, it would mean that it was a noon time. And when it says it's the ninth hour, it means it was three in the afternoon. So what he's saying is from the noon until the ninth hour, darkness came over the land. There's not any explanation in the Bible about what the darkness was. Of course, when that happens, all kinds of speculation is given to us and all kinds of reasons for it. Some people say it was an eclipse of the sun, but there was no eclipse scheduled at this time. Some people say it was a rolling death storm that came in. I don't know if you've seen those things or not. I saw, where was it, Phoenix not long ago on the television, where they were showing a death storm coming into Phoenix. And I mean, you could see it black in the back and they had this camera sitting there. There's a highway in front of it. And when it rolled in, you couldn't even see the highway and the cars in front of it. It was so dark and black. So if one of those... Have you? Yeah. Well, it may not have been the storm that came right at the place where Jesus was being crucified, but the storm that blocked the sun may be passing in a distant direction. There's not any indication that there was a storm right where Jesus was, but something happened that caused the darkness. There's a lot of speculation about it. And when you have something in the Bible that is this, especially in the place of the crucifixion, people have a great tendency to try to build into the Bible something that not as specifically stated what it was. So people have, in these circumstances, a lot of speculation about what the black was. But since the Bible does not tell us what it was, that's our key to interpreting the scripture. All the things that people do to speculate what this was and what it means ought to be set aside unless there is some reason in the scripture to assume or connect with the speculation. Obviously, there was a reason for the darkness to come between noon and three o'clock. Obviously, the darkness had something to do with the crucifixion of Jesus since he mentions this in connection to it. But the author does not in any way try to tell us what it was. He doesn't indicate it was miraculous. He doesn't indicate it has any kind of worldly connection. But we see in this that there's the beginning of some action in the natural order in the response to the crucifixion of Jesus. It's like God has decided now to step into this picture, and he's doing something that only God could do. You cannot manufacture a way in which you can cause the sun in a location, particularly, to be covered. And so, some natural action has to take place for this to occur. I mean natural in terms of the natural order, unnatural in the sense that it was something God did in an extraordinary way. He was covering this scene as a way of intruding into this event, his own presence, to make known that this was something extraordinary by the unusual things that are to take place at the time Jesus is on the cross. The darkness could stand for evil, evil overcoming or overwhelming. The darkness could stand for simply the fact that death is coming to Jesus. We don't know, and the Bible doesn't say what it is, so it's sort of fruitless to speculate until there is some hint from the Scriptures about what all this means. I think the Bible is clear in saying this part, that God the Father is acting in some response to Christ on the cross. He is showing his own activity, that this is not simply another event taking place in the world. And so, the natural order is brought into play. Here the sky becomes dark, all over the land, everywhere around. It would have been a very frightening experience for anyone. You've already said, a couple of you, if you've been in a storm like that, that it's scary because something happens that is outside the ordinary. I think God probably did this to show that very same thing. Here is something taking place that is extraordinary, and erasing the sun or blocking the sun is an extraordinary event that is very frightening to us because of the regularity of the sun. So here God enters the picture. Something is taking place. About the ninth hour, that would be three o'clock, Jesus cries out in a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now you'll see in some of the other Gospels readings that the different words are given for Jesus' saying. The difference is between the Hebrew words that Jesus would have, that were spoken, and the Aramaic words that were spoken. If Jesus was on the cross, the normal language for him to use would have been the Aramaic language. It was the ordinary language that people used to talk about regularly. But the Hebrew language was the traditional language, Aramaic was sort of a branch of the Hebrew language. But the Hebrew language was the fundamental language that was written in the Old Testament. So here, what Matthew uses, one of those kind of translations of what Jesus said are quotes of what Jesus said. And in others of the Gospel, it is a little bit different. And the difference is there's no O on the others when they're calling out Eloi, Eloi. It's a cry to God. And here, Jesus makes a most heart-rending appeal. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now you remember that was the start of the 22nd Psalm. Jesus introduces that here. He had not said anything before. Since the time at the trial, nothing had been spoken. He'd gone through all the whippings, all the walking to the cross, all the being nailed to the cross without one single utterance. His mind had to be racing about what was taking place, like any of us would under those terrible crucial circumstances. And now he expresses the feeling of abandonment. Now, some people speculate about why Jesus felt that way, and you'll hear sometimes teachers, preachers about it in books read, say that it was because that he had taken the sins of the world on himself, and therefore God had to turn his face away from him. The Scripture doesn't say that that's the truth. What we find here is Jesus expressing his own emotional and psychological awareness. I feel here in this situation alone. I'm sure that all of us have at some time or other suffered in different kind of ways, maybe suffered because of the loss of someone we cared about or loved, or suffered because circumstances in our life became so difficult and tragic, or maybe it was because of pain or maybe it was because of death. But whenever you go through something that is unique to you and it's very difficult and painful for you, you look out at the world. I remember coming back when Carol's mother died and we were in a hearse coming back from the burial, and you drive down the street, and here you're sitting in a carload of people who are in mourning and grief and sorrow, and you look out at the rest of the world and life is perfectly normal, and you feel so isolated. I am here with these people whose hearts are broken and grieving, and all the rest of the world is going on as if nothing in the world happened. Jesus was on the cross, suffering all the pain from the beatings, the pain of the nails, hanging on the cross, and the world was going by him as if there was nothing going on. We know that his disciples ran from him. They were afraid they'd be next. So his disciples had all left. His mother and John were the only ones who were there. And there he was, alone. I don't think that he was talking so much about the people who weren't there, his disciples, as that he didn't feel the normal, comforting presence of the Father with him. I don't know what he was feeling through that, but I can tell you that at times when I've had extreme physical pain, I don't feel very close to God. In fact, you feel like God has abandoned you because there's nothing you can do to get it stopped. I've only had a couple of times when I had that. I couldn't lay down. I couldn't get any place that I was comfortable. Nothing that I took would help me. And you just feel like there is no hope in the world for you. And because of your own circumstance, and no one else can understand it, no one else can participate in it, no one else can help you, you feel so isolated and alone. I think that's something that Jesus went through. And he went to search in the psalm. This made sense to him. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We don't know about that psalm and the circumstances exactly in it, but it may have been one of David's psalms, the time in his life when he was chased around by Saul trying to kill him at every stop that he could find, run off from his own family, run off from his being the king, run off from the circumstances that would have been normal for him, and he felt abandoned and alone. It doesn't hurt to cry out to God what you feel. If you feel alone, if you feel pain, if you feel anguish, if you feel like God's not paying attention to you, the feelings that you have inside of yourself, God does not hold us accountable for those being bad if we express the reality of what's taking place for us. But Jesus, here on the cross, identified with the psalmist who was writing from a point of desperation, everything in the world has fallen down on me. I am here alone. You can see the tragedy in what Jesus was going through. When some of those standing there heard him, they said, he's calling Elijah. If you'll see, the Eloi doesn't look very much like Elijah, but if you take out the O, it looks more like Elijah and sounds more like Elijah when you say it. Now, what the Jewish people thought was in times of catastrophe, there was kind of an idea that went around among them that Elijah would come back to help the Jewish people. And so they expected that in times of great tragedy, that Elijah would come back. And maybe the Roman soldiers there knew enough about the Jewish culture to be able to understand that. And so they thought that Jesus was asking for Elijah because he was in such desperate conditions. They of course didn't accept the fact that Jesus was the Son of God. They didn't accept the fact he was the Messiah. There was simply a rebel Jew who was nailed to the cross for his treason and he was dying. And now he's calling out for the dead Elijah to return back to earth to rescue him. They had the thing above the cross talking about Jesus being the King of the Jews. And they put that there in a mocking way. And they'd been making fun of him. They didn't believe that he was any person special. He was simply a criminal who was being killed. And now here is a criminal who's being killed. Now if you think of someone in our own culture who maybe has betrayed his country and is being put to death, and everybody doesn't like him and hates him for being this criminal traitor who's committed treason, which is what the Roman people would have thought about Jesus, and now he's getting exactly what he deserves, and people hear him cry out, maybe in our culture, Jesus come and save me quickly. And you don't believe this person is even a follower of Christ and you see his wicked life, you would say that's a stupid thing for the guy to think, a criminal who's done the terrible things he's done, and now he's getting his just desserts, calling on Jesus to come and help him. They simply thought Jesus was being foolish. They didn't expect that anything in his life that they'd heard was necessarily true, except that he was a traitor and was being killed for the fact that he was a treasonous traitor. So when they heard Jesus saying these words, they mocked him again, leave him alone. He's calling on Elijah. Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. Now I've read before, and I don't know anything about this except what I've read, that sometimes the soldiers would carry sponges in their packs because if they came to a well or some place where there was water, they would take a stick and they'd put the sponge on it and stick it in the water to be able to get water where they didn't have something to draw it out of the ditch or the well with. So one of them took a stick and put a sponge on it to give Jesus some wine and vinegar. Wine and vinegar was used oftentimes for people who were thirsty, very thirsty, because it would quench their thirst and provide benefit for them. He filled it with wine and vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. We don't know anything about the person that did this. It would be interesting to know why he did it. Was there someone there who watched him, who suddenly saw that this man was in anguish and had compassion on him? Now the people who tried to give him vinegar when he came may have been people who wanted to sell him vinegar or to get his family to pay for the wine to soften the blow of the crucifixion that he was going to go through. But there was no benefit to this. It would be interesting to know what the person who did it was thinking. Was it God who prompted someone to say, give him help in this moment of his great thirst and pain? But someone was compassionate enough to try to help him. He filled the sponge, filled it with wine and vinegar, and put it on a stick and offered it to Jesus. But the other soldiers who were there, the rest said, let him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him. Don't give him anything that will allow him to go to sleep because he has consumed alcohol, but let's wait and see what takes place. It was not a matter of compassion for the rest of them. Jesus was here in the front of people who had no concern for him. I can imagine through all of this that the words of Psalm 22 were going over and over in Jesus' mind. Without the plea of someone who's surrounded by enemies like they're dogs, surrounded with enemies who want to consume him, there was no one there who had compassion on Jesus. There's no one there who felt the pain that he was going through or appreciated what was happening to him. And here in the moment, even when someone tries to help, others stop it and simply make fun of Jesus. As if he thinks God is going to do something miraculous and powerful for him. When Jesus had cried out again with a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. Now sometimes people think that Jesus cried out in pain because of the crucifixion. But with a crucifixion, a person would not die by shouting. Usually it was by asphyxiation because of their body, the way it reacted to the crucifixion, the hanging with the nails on your hands and your arms and your ankles. So Jesus' cry out loud was an unusual thing for someone in this kind of circumstance. But he cried out, the scripture says, and gave up his spirit. It's as if Jesus decided to die. As if it were under his control in some way. So Jesus now has fulfilled the responsibility that he had. His life was given. At that moment, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. This is the second of God's powerful, unusual acts to be able to show his presence in what was taking place. The symbolic issue of the temple curtain being torn represents exposing the Holy of Holies to all people, simply than those who are sitting. Did you have a question you wanted to ask? To me, it seems like they didn't kill him, he gave it up. I think the scripture is trying to say that he did give up his life. Yeah. Of course they killed him because of the crucifixion they gave him, but he no longer wanted to live and so he died. Do you think, perhaps, that this was maybe God's even response to, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Crucifixions didn't usually last a short period of time, but they lasted a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if in the loneliness of Jesus that God did not respond to hasten his death over the process of what normally would take place. The temple curtain was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The scripture makes it clear that it wasn't something two people grabbed a hold at the bottom and did, but it was torn from the top to the bottom, as if God was unfolding himself, the barrier between the people who came to worship and the very presence of God at the Ark of the Covenant. Another miraculous event in which God puts his stamp on something that's taking place. The barrier between you and me has been torn down by the very death of Christ himself. The earth shook and rocks split. This is another of the miraculous things that took place when this event happened. The ground had an earthquake. It was so strong that rocks were actually split apart. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs and after Jesus' resurrection they went to the holy city and appeared to many people. Tombs were opened. The dead were raised to life. All of these events surrounding Jesus' death was a way outside of any human understanding.