The Final Words of Jesus

Good evening. Today, on Good Friday, we set aside time to reflect on the profound sacrifice Jesus Christ made by dying on the cross as the ultimate atonement for the forgiveness of sin. We’ve been in a series over the last couple of months focused on the seven deadly sins, where we’ve come face to face with the lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, sloth and pride in our lives. And as we’ve come to our senses about our sin, we find that it is in these broken places, as we get in touch with the depth of our rebellion against God, where we see the need for the most beautiful and brutal sacrifice that was ever made. Tonight, we'll take a look at some of Jesus' final words to understand the depth of his love and the significance of his sacrifice.

Jesus was arrested, put on trial, found guilty and the punishment was crucifixion. In Philippians 2:8, the apostle Paul writes, “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” This was the most humiliating and torturous execution. Crucifixion was meant to inflict the maximum amount of shame and pain on someone. Before being hoisted on the cross, the criminal was first severely scourged or beaten, which was life-threatening in and of itself.

Next, he was forced to carry a huge wooden cross to the site of the crucifixion. Dragging this load was not only extremely painful after just being beaten, it was embarrassing to carry the instrument of his own death. It was like digging your own grave. Crucifixion was so horrible that it was reserved for the worst offenders. People would’ve seen someone hanging on a cross and known this person did something terrible. Crucifixions were a public event so that all who saw the horror would think twice about crossing the authorities.

So now that we can imagine what Jesus was going through, let’s take a look at what he said in these awful moments of pain. After being nailed to the cross and lifted into place, Jesus cries out to God in Matthew 27:45-46, "My God, my God, why have you deserted me?" The word used here for crying out means “scream.”

He’s screaming because it literally hurts like hell. He is experiencing hell. We sometimes think of hell in this stereotypical fire and brimstone kind of way, but hell is really full and complete separation from God. Jesus is experiencing the full weight of our sin, the weight of humanity’s brokenness and that results in his total separation from God. If we imagine the pain of losing someone who means the world to us, someone we love deeply, that can maybe give us a small taste of what Jesus was experiencing in this moment. Some of us have lost people who mean everything to us and feel as thought we’ve been ripped apart. We know extreme pain. And yet, in the mysterious way where God and Jesus are one, our deepest pain can only give us a small taste of Jesus’s suffering. Jesus, being one with God, is torn apart in this moment, descending into the depths of despair on our behalf.

Why did Jesus have to suffer like this? Was his death on the cross necessary? These are questions Jesus wrestled with the day before, as he’s in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus knew what was coming. In Mark 14, he says to his friends “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” And then he prays, in Mark 14:36 ““Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me.” If there is any other way, God, please don’t make me do this. But there was no other way. Our sin was a huge problem that had to be dealt with.

Sin, as described in numerous places in the Bible, means missing the mark, crossing boundaries, and falling short of God's standard. The religious leaders of Jesus' time taught that obeying the rules, obeying the law was the path to God's acceptance. Believe, obey the law and you’ll be saved. If that were true, if we could earn our salvation by following certain rules, the cross would be pointless.

After Jesus asks God for another way, he says this in the second part of Mark 14:36 “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Jesus was willing because there was no other way. This was the only way to pay the penalty for our sins. Our sins are so severe that only the death of God's Son could pay the price for our redemption. Justice demands payment for sin, and forgiveness requires someone to absorb that cost.

Maybe some of us wonder, “Are our sins really that bad?”. I’m not that bad, I do make mistakes, I feel terrible about them but why do we have to talk about the cost of them over and over again when I’m just trying to do my best. If we don’t get in touch with the depth of our sin, with the astronomical price of them, we ‘ll never really understand the radical good news of the cross. Our trying, our good works will never be enough. Again, if there was any other way, if us following the rules and doing good works could cut it, the cross would mean nothing.

Everything is possible for God. God spoke and creation came into being. But God couldn’t just speak forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is a profound problem for God. If we could earn forgiveness, God could’ve taken that cup from his son.

When we mess up, when we hurt someone, we are individual people making individual people mistakes. God is the creator of the heavens and the earth. He’s the one who made the laws, the rules we break. And in order to really forgive all of us from all of the things, he, as the ultimate judge, becomes the ultimate sacrifice.

What happens as Jesus is reacting to the agony of the cross? When we’re in pain, or under duress, we don’t act, we react. As Jesus dies, as he experiences darkness and separation from God, his character is revealed. He reacts with what’s in him and that is a heart filled with scripture. In the most painful, devastating moments of his life, as Jesus says “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?”, Jesus is quoting from the words of Psalm 22.

Throughout this Psalm there are prophetic words of what would happen in the events leading up to Jesus’ s crucifixion. And then the Psalm ends like this: Psalm 22:26–31 “The poor will eat and be satisfied; those 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, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!”

As Jesus quotes this Psalm, he is reminding us that he will stick with God’s rescue plan. Despite his agony, despite bearing the weight of the cost of our sin, Jesus remains steadfast, knowing that this suffering is God's plan for our salvation. Through the cross, God's justice and mercy meet, and he reconciles us to Himself. Because as we read at the end of this Psalm, in his death, in his last breath, our separation from God is reversed: he has done it!

Theologian John Stott said “At the cross, in holy love, God through Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience himself. He bore the judgment we deserve in order to bring us the forgiveness we do not deserve. On the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled. God’s holy love was “satisfied.””

We’re going to spend some more time in worship. And as we do, I’d like to invite you to imagine the scene of Jesus dying on the cross. Consider his agony as he experiences physical, mental, emotional and spiritual separation from God. I think God may have something for each of us as we consider this awful scene, this scene that’s really tough for us to sit with, this place we maybe want to rush past to get to the goodness of Easter. Sorrow and love flow together in the most beautiful way at the cross. What does God want to show us as we consider that this evening?

(pray)

(worship)

Jesus says one more thing on the cross before he dies.

John 19:28–30 “Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that 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 a stalk of the 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.” What’s finished, what does this mean?

To understand, we need some context. Churches weren’t invented yet, there were temples. People would come to the temple to hear the scriptures read and to offer sacrifices as payment for their sins. The temple was structured in such a way that based on who you were, that determined how far you could move into its inner rooms. The more you moved into the temple, the closer you were to the presence of God. And there were tons of barriers along the way. Patriarchy meant women could only go so far in the outer areas. Next, Gentile men (non-Jewish people) could go a little farther, and Jewish men could go farther. Then there were the priests would could go a bit farther but the very center, separated from the rest of the temple by a huge heavy, thick 60 foot high curtain was God’s presence. No one could go in there, except the high priest once a year, because even as humans tried to paid for their sins, they could never pay enough. All of us, even the priests, even those whose jobs it was to follow the rules all of the time still couldn’t do it. And since God is holy, no one can be in his presence without a price being paid for our sins. And remember the price of our forgiveness is so high that there is nothing we can do to fully absorb it and be in God’s presence. God’s justice means the cost of forgiveness is impossibly high for us humans to ever be able to pay.

This temple architecture helps us understand what Jesus means when he says it is finished. Matthew 27:50–51 “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”

That was the 60 foot high curtain that kept us humans from God’s presence. The second Jesus died, it was destroyed, ripped from top to bottom in a way that no human could ever do on their own. This curtain was thick and heavy and it was ripped from the top down. In Hebrews 9:12, Paul writes “he (Jesus) entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” “It is finished” means that’s it, this was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. The curtain isn’t needed anymore. The price has finally been paid and we no longer have to be separated from God.

Jesus came to turn the religious systems of the day upside down to offer a radical freedom. The Cross was supposed to put an end to the hopes of the those who looked for Jesus to bring in a new kingdom. The religious leaders taught that our good works led to salvation and acceptance by God. Jesus came to show us that he paid the price for our salvation and that we simply need to believe and live out of that salvation. Don’t obey to make up for your mistakes. Don’t obey to earn forgiveness. Don’t obey to pay your own price. No matter how hard we try to make up for what we’ve done, we can’t. An the best news ever is that you don’t have to. We’re invited into intimacy with God because of Jesus’s sacrifice. Our debts are paid, we’ve been bought. We’ve been washed clean. This is God laying down his own human life on our behalf and for our good.

Jesus was treated as the worst of the worst criminals. He died an awful, embarrassing death to settle our debt on our behalf.

Do we trust that on the cross, when Jesus said it is finished, when the curtain was impossibly ripped from top to bottom, that we in that moment we have been forever washed clean? When we try to clean up our own messes and earn forgiveness or goodness, we miss the mark. We always will. We need to come to our senses. Because we’re already clean. We’re already paid for. And when we actually understand this, that is where our hearts experience change. That’s where we find meaning in the cross. When we function out of what has already been done, there is freedom to follow Jesus because all of the debts for all of the things have been paid in this act of incredible sacrificial love.

Ephesians 2:8–9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Because Jesus did the work, we don’t have to. There’s nothing we can earn. The curtain has been ripped to shreds, we have been saved.

Romans 8:38–39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Jesus died a criminal death, with a sign hung over him saying “king of the jews” showing that he was willing to experience torture, humiliation and injustice on our behalf. This is love. This is acceptance. This is sacrifice. This is the gift we receive on Good Friday.

The good news of the cross is something we remember not just on Good Friday but all the time. And one way we do that is through taking communion. The bread and the juice represents Jesus’s body and blood that suffered and died so that justice was served and all of our debts could be reconciled. God deserted Jesus and yet Jesus stuck with the plan. And in his final words, as he died a criminal’s death in the most painful and humiliating way… his redeeming love conquered death. I’d like to invite you to take communion as we worship together a bit more. We have stations throughout the room and as you’d like to, take the bread and juice and remember the beautiful and brutal gift of the cross.

(pray)