Untitled Sermon (14)

GF 2024 Sermonette

21-32

Now Jesus was led away to be crucified, to be our sacrifice. It is important to know and understand, that crucifixion is perhaps the most torturous execution that has ever been devised by man. To be crucified, typically the person to be punished would be charged with carrying the cross (which to the people at the time would have been a symbol of ultimate shame), for Jesus, he was so brutally hurt from His previous beatings, that a follower of His, Simon of Cyrene was made to carry it at least for a time for Him. They brought it to the field of execution and Jesus was offered wine with myrrh (a mixture to sedate His pain some) but He did not take it, once again fulfilling other prophecies of Himself. He was stripped nearly naked, huge nails were put on His wrist and His feet to nail Him to the cross, and He was raised up their……. What many don’t realize is that it’s not only the loss of blood that would kill you, but a sort of slow suffocation as your muscles tired out from keeping you there and not pulling on your nail spots. This was a terrible pain, but what’s worse even then that was the mockery he endured from man’s sinful hearts and disdain of God while He was on the cross.

33-41

Typically, dying on a cross took a very long time, perhaps even days. In fact, it was very common for the executioners to break the legs of the person suffering the cross so that they could not use their legs to push up and keep themselves from suffering less. Here we see, a shocking time of only 3 hours, 3 miserable hours. Jesus cries out, Eloi, Eloi, Leama sabach thani. This is a reference He is making to Psalm 22, revealing to the people another piece of scripture that was about Him. The first few verses of this Psalm reads: 1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

and by night, but I find no rest.

3 Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

4 In you our fathers trusted;

they trusted, and you delivered them.

5 To you they cried and were rescued;

in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

6 But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock me;

they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;

8 “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;

let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” [1]

For your homework, go home and read this entire Psalm, Psalm 22 and it will help you better understand what was going on here…

Jesus breathed His last after uttering the words and refusing more wine. And then the curtain, the vail in the great temple, a curtain that would have been 60ft high, 30ft wide, and as tick as your hand, was torn in two. Imagine something like that happening, God was clearly at work for that to happen in itself, but more important is the symbolism, that the vail had, that it separated mankind from God. Now, with Jesus’ death and sacrifice the man that turns towards Jesus will no longer be separated from God. Even the wicked Romans, in this moment, could see that clearly Jesus was the son of God when all this happened.

42-47

From this distance, Jesus’ close women followers, other gospel’s include Jesus’ very own mother as well were watching all of this transpire. After the crowds had died down, one of Jesus’ secret followers, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a prominent religious teacher and member the Sanhedrin (the ruling Jewish council) asked for Jesus’ body from Pilate. Pilate, being surprised that Jesus’ was dead already, asked if He was indeed dead, heard that He was, and allowed Jesus’ body to be taken by Joseph. Joseph, in a timely manner because very soon it would be the Sabbath day, a day where work and preparing the dead was strictly forbidden, took Jesus down and clothed Him and put in a new tomb while the Mary’s looked on.

Beloved, this was a day of bloodshed. This was a day of sadness, but for mankind, it was a day of gladness, as when Jesus gave up His breath, His life, He had the weight of everyone, the whole world’s sin on Him. Your sin was upon Him, your sin is one of the reason’s He had the nails driven in and the cross lifted up. Sin is a serious matter, and as the Bible tells us, the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

So, I want each of us to take a moment in quite prayer. Consider the sin that you have right now in your life, each and every one of us does, no exceptions. Consider that sin, and consider the sacrifice that it needed, a bloody yet loving death on a cruel Roman Cross. Then, take that sin, and remove it. Pray to God that would help you never do it again, confess it to Him, then take that sin, write it on a note card, and put it to Christ. Yes it is a painful image, it is painful because it is true. Every time you sin and continue in sin, you are one of those hammering a nail in Christ and mocking Him. So, as He wants us to put our sin on Him so that we can be forgiven, let us do so symbolically today. Take that sin on your note card, and nail it the cross. As you finish doing so, you are dismissed, but remain silent in honor of Jesus and recognition of our sin that led Him to Sacrifice His life for us.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, 2016, p. Ps 22:1–8.