Words Matter

Words matter.

Words were spoken when God spoke His creation into existence.

Words were spoken when God’s Son, Jesus, was baptized. A voice came from heaven and God said, “You are my beloved Son, with You I am well pleased.”

Words were spoken on the Mountain of Transfiguration when a voice came from heaven and God said, “This is my beloved Son, listen to Him.”

Words mattered what Jesus said throughout His ministry. The parables He told. The wisdom He imparted. The words of life He offered.

Fast forward to the Friday we now call Good. It’s late morning…

Jesus is on the cross. He’s been arrested, Peter’s denied him three times, He went through two illegal trials of the Sanhedrin.

He’s been to Pilate, Herod, and then Pilate again.

He is physically and emotionally exhausted, bruised and bleeding, carrying His own cross to the place of execution.

His hands and feet have been nailed to the cross, hoisted up in the air with a jolt and surge of pain throughout His body.

Words again were spoken.

There hanging upon the cross, Jesus hears not the words of being beloved. Jesus hears not so good words.

From the onlookers Jesus heard, “Come down from the cross if You really are the Son of God!”

From the religious leaders, “He saved others, but He can’t save Himself!”

From the soldiers, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!”

Bitter words…Hateful words...Irreverent words...

Wasn’t it enough that He was being crucified? Wasn’t it enough that He was being shamed as a criminal? Weren’t the nails sufficient enough? Was the crown of thorns too soft? Had the flogging not been severe enough? Apparently not.

If ever a person deserved a shot of revenge, Jesus did…But there He hangs — silent.

And then, his pain-lined lips begin to move. On the Friday we now call Good, the beloved Son hung from the cross and spoke. The words that Jesus—the Son of God—spoke do matter and we should listen to Him and listen well to His words.

As Jesus hung on the cross as the penalty for our sins, He speaks His first words during His time of execution. These first words are not just spoken. They are prayed. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In the midst of pain and suffering, Jesus pleads to the Father to forgive us. The ultimate love and care for us on display. The first words spoken from the cross were words of forgiveness.

As Jesus hung on the cross, He is flanked by two criminals who are also being executed. One of the criminals with a hardened heart mocks Jesus. The other sees Jesus—the Giver of Salvation—being punished unjustly. And, he comes to Jesus with nothing to offer but a repentant heart and pleads with mercy: “Jesus, remember me when you come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus, the one who asked the Father to forgive us, says to the repentant thief, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise.” The second words spoken from the cross pardoned the thief who never could do enough. These were the words of salvation.

As the pain increased and the suffocation by His own fluid filling His lungs with what we know as congestive heart failure, Jesus looks down from the cross—the device of His death—and sees His loved ones paralyzed in their helplessness. And, Jesus says to Mary, “Woman, behold your son!” And, He says to the disciple John, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. The third words spoken from the cross were the words of provision.

As Jesus hung on the cross, He hung there with the weight of the whole world’s sins upon His shoulders. What was supposed to be our punishment, He took upon Himself. The wrath of God focused on Him instead of us. The Father who once said, “This is my beloved Son, listen to Him,” now hears the crucified Jesus—His Son—in agony as Jesus cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” There upon the cross, Jesus experienced hell—the abandonment of God—so that we would not have to. The Fourth words spoken from the cross were the words of abandonment.

As Jesus hung on the cross, His full humanity was on display. Pain. Agony. Death drawing nearer and nearer. The fifth words from the cross are uttered. Words of Jesus’ humanity. “I thirst.”

Jesus had most likely been without anything to drink since Thursday evening when He celebrated the Passover with His disciples. From that upper room, He went to Gethsemane, where He prayed fervently and sweat drops of blood. He had nothing to drink there, for while He agonized in prayer, the soldiers came and roughly apprehended Him and rushed Him off to trial. He was pushed and shoved from place to place...from the hands of the chief priests and Sanhedrin to Pilate’s judgment hall to Herod and back again. And then, He made that horrendous journey, with the cross on His back, up a mountain, to Calvary.

Jesus has been on the cross now for almost 6 hours. The pain of the crucifixion is taking its toil on His body. He’s losing blood and bodily fluids. His strength is dissipating. The weight of His body and the pull of gravity keeps putting pressure on His lungs. His breathing is labored and becoming increasingly difficult. Fever is raging in every cell of His body and is actually consuming His tissues. Every cell of His body cries out for water. His body is shutting down. He is dying on the cross.

Sometimes there is the tendency to forget that Jesus was not only the Son of God in all His divinity, but that He was also born of flesh and blood and true Man in all of humanity.

Jesus hungered, He wept, He got sleepy,

He prayed to His Father for strength and wisdom,

He rejoiced,

He struggled with temptation,

He needed time to get away and rejuvenate.

As He approached Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, in all glory and majesty, tears of sorrow filled His face.

By the side of Lazarus, in His humanity, He wept as a poor, helpless, grieving friend, but in His divinity, He raises Lazarus from the dead.

During Christ’s ministry, He said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” Can this now be the same man who cries from the cross in mortal pain, “I thirst?”

Surely this cannot be the Man who said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “Whoever drinks the water I give, will never thirst.” And added, “the water I give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Is this the same one who created the world, flung the planets into space, and holds the seas in His hands is now dying and His last request is, “I thirst?”

Yes, it is. It is this same Jesus.

This is the same Jesus, refusing to use His mighty power on His own behalf and submitting to such humiliation and shame voluntarily out of His great love for us that we might have life.

And, in His thirst, there is no sympathy for Jesus. None from His executioners. They took a sponge full of sour wine and held it up with a stick to His lips. Not to relieve Jesus of His thirst and anguish. No, not that, but rather a gesture of pure mockery. A sponge to clean oneself after going to the bathroom is used to wet His lips with sour wine.

Abandoned by God the Father. Rejected by man. Jesus speaks His sixth words. “It is finished.”

Did He give up? Did He throw in the towel? No! Quite the opposite!

You see, Jesus’ sixth words from the cross are words of victory. Before He dies, He proclaims the words, “It is finished.” Mission accomplished. Victory won! Jesus won the war against sin and won our salvation before He died. Victory was won on the cross and not in the tomb.

With the victory won, and the mission having been accomplished, Jesus prepares Himself to die. Jesus greets death’s door, with God’s word on His lips and in His heart. With His final words from the cross, Jesus calls out in a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit!”

Words matter. What Jesus says matters. Here He says, “Father.” No longer abandoned by God, the relationship with His Father is restored. Jesus tells His Father that all that I have and all that I do is for You, and then He welcomes God bringing Him home. Here Jesus models the assurance of dying in the faith.

And so, as His body was cared for by His friends, so also was His spirit committed to the safekeeping of His Father. This is the way to die.

“Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit!”

The seventh words spoken from the cross are the words of comfort.

Words matter. These are the words of Jesus...

Words of Forgiveness.

Words of Salvation.

Words of Provision.

Words of Abandonment.

Words of Humanity.

Words of Victory.

Words of Comfort.

These are the words spoken from Jesus upon the cross. Words that make this Friday of death a Friday we call Good.

Good because of what He said. Good because of what He did.

Good because the penalty has been paid.

Good because the mission of saving man was accomplished.

Good because our salvation is complete.

Good because we can trust what God has said, what God has done, and what God continues to do.

Good because we can now grieve death in the hope and promise and assurance of the Resurrection. Amen.