A Time to Speak

1. A Time to Be Silent: the crucifixion is a time to be silent as we witness God’s just judgment upon human sin.

Into That Silence, One Voice Does Speak.

2. A Time to Speak: the crucifixion is a time to speak as Jesus proclaims that his work is finished and our salvation is complete.

Sermon

And he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’ ” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (, )

So, this is your Jesus. Your King. The one about whom you sing “Hosanna to the Son of David. Hosanna in the highest.” This bloodied, beaten, crucified man.

This is the one you come to in your lonely hours of prayer, when you hold the hand of your father who is dying—this Jesus, unable to raise his head?

During the time between the separation and the divorce, between the wake and the burial, this is the one you come to for strength? This one who cannot reach out his hand?

So this is your Jesus. Beaten and limp. Worthy to receive all blessing and honor and glory and might, you say. Worthy of power and riches and wisdom and strength. This one who cannot take off his crown of thorns so that you can lay your feeble crown upon his head? To him you come for deliverance and guidance? This Jesus?

What a poor, pitiful, miserable dying Savior have you. But on this night, we bow before him, for this is the only Savior that the world is given.

1.

Isaiah prophesied that it would be like this. A time of silence. Not because there was no one around to speak but because no one would know what to say. “Many were astonished at you,” Isaiah says. “His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance” (52:14). The suffering of Jesus was something that took your breath away. The lashing, the mockery, the spitting, that made him seem less than human.

“Kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand” (). What is it that God would have us understand? What is it that God would have us see? Jesus comes tonight not in power but in weakness, not in glory but in suffering, not in majesty but in disgrace. In this crucifixion, what would God have us see?

Listen while I tell you a mystery. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, he created man and woman, the crown of all of his glorious creation. To do this, he took the dust of the earth and molded it into shape and breathed into it the breath of life. We were made in the image of God. That’s what Moses tells us in Genesis. In the beginning of the world, God made Adam and Eve in his image.

Now, at the end of the ministry of Jesus, God is creating once again. Only this time, he is not making us in the image of God. No. This time, God the Father is making Jesus, his Son, in the image of us. He doesn’t look like us with our clothing and our cleanliness and our concern for appearances. “His appearance was so marred, beyond human resemblance.” But he does look like us in our sin. As the apostle Paul tells us, God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf (). Jesus willingly endures God’s punishment for all human sin. From the first sin in the Garden of Eden to the last sin that occurs before he comes again. For all sin for all time, Jesus offers his life. And that is what, in shocking silence, we see suspended on the tree.

He hangs there, on the cross, between two worlds. He hangs above a world that does not want him and below the heavens that now reject him as he endures the Father’s eternal punishment for all sin for all people for all time. And he does this for you. For every thoughtless word, for every broken promise, for every greedy grasp and selfish action, placing yourself before others and placing other things before God. For all of this, Jesus places himself here, tonight, before you. He dies for you. Look and see. Here is God’s last and final judgment upon sin, upon your sin.

Isaiah was right. The world is struck silent at the horror of sin and the justice of God, God’s divine punishment poured out upon his Suffering Servant, Jesus, the only begotten Son of God.

Yet,

Into That Silence, One Voice Does Speak.

2.

It’s a human voice. But it is also more than human. It is divine. Before he dies, Jesus, the Son of God, opens his mouth to speak.

Think about creation. When God created Adam and Eve, he used his living breath. We are told that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and he “became a living creature” (). In the beginning, God was the source of a life-giving breath. Now, at the end of the life of Jesus, watch as God uses his dying breath. With his last breaths, Jesus breaks the silence and says one word: “Tetelestai.” A merchant’s word. The word of a tax collector. A word that one would write at the bottom of an account that had been paid in full. “Tetelestai.” Into the silence, Jesus says one word. It is finished. The debt has been paid. He wants us to know that we have come to the end. Everything has been accomplished according to God’s good and gracious will. Jesus wants you to know that he has willingly given his life for you. Your debt before God has been paid. God forgives your sin on account of Jesus. With this dying breath, Jesus brings life, eternal life to you.

Not only does Jesus bring life, but he also brings about the certain hope of a new creation. A young man some time ago bought a DVD of a movie he knew he would never watch again. The movie was Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. For him, it was much too violent and too graphic in its depiction of the Passion, so much so that he knew he would never watch it all again. But he bought the movie for one small scene. After he had seen the movie, it was a scene that played over and over in his head.

It’s that moment when Jesus speaks to his mother, Mary, on the way to the crucifixion. Jesus is bloodied and beaten. He is carrying his cross through the crowded streets of Jerusalem. He falls for the third time, and Mary, his mother, reaches out as if to catch him. Her mind is filled with images of the past. She remembers him running to her as a child in the streets of Nazareth. These images of the past only make the present more painful. She realizes that this time she cannot catch him. She cannot save him. This day, her Son is going to die.

But when Mary reaches out to Jesus, Jesus stops and reaches out to her. He catches her heart with a word. For a moment, in the movie, we see Jesus. His face bruised and bloodied. Behind his head is the cross. But his eyes are looking at us with wonder. He turns to his mother, Mary, and he says, “Behold, I make all things new.” When Mary’s mind is filled with images of the past, Jesus offers her a promise of the future. When Mary’s heart is breaking over the end, Jesus comforts her with the new beginning. When Mary sees death, Jesus reveals to her life. Jesus teaches Mary to see this horrible destruction as God’s most creative act. His promise of a new heaven and a new earth for his people.

This scene, of course, never took place in Scripture. We don’t have a record of Jesus saying these words on the way to his crucifixion. (The apostle John later records them as part of his final vision from the Lord in .) So, on the one hand, Mel Gibson is wrong in terms of depicting the reality of the crucifixion. But, on the other hand, he is absolutely right in terms of its spiritual meaning. This death of Jesus is indeed the beginning of a new creation.

Tonight, God gathers his people together in a world that is falling apart, and he offers them hope. Hope of a new thing that is slowly coming together, a promise that is being brought to fruition. Hope of that day, when Jesus will return, to judge the living and the dead. This crucified one is King not just of the Jews but also of the Gentiles and of all creation. He is Lord of all. And we, who trust in him, who hold on tonight to this bruised and beaten Jesus, will be brought one day into a glorious new creation. For Jesus has paid for our sins. In Jesus, God has fulfilled his saving work for you.

John begins his Gospel by saying, “In the beginning was the Word.” And then John speaks to us about God’s work at creation. How God spoke and brought life into being.

Now, at the end of John’s Gospel, he records a time when there was silence. No human words could express the suffering of Jesus. No human prayers or pleas could get him down from that cross. He hangs there. Dying. But in his dying breath, Jesus speaks one word into the silence: “Tetelestai.” And with that word, God begins creating once again. With that word, Jesus reveals what he is doing. Not only is he giving up his life, but he is also giving us life. Eternal life. In him.

In the silence of his death, Jesus speaks a saving word, the word that gives eternal life. It is finished. God’s work for your salvation is complete. Jesus is truly the Word of God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

Tonight, this Jesus, this bloodied, beaten, crucified man, is the beginning of life everlasting and your hope of a new creation. He is the Lord of all, and so we gather, tonight, to worship him, and we live in hope of that day when he will return and we will be raised to serve God in everlasting righteous, innocence, and blessedness. This is most certainly true. Amen.