Sermon Tone Analysis
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Defining Moments
Luke 23:43
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
We begin the Lenten season by stationing ourselves beneath the cross and listening intently for the
words of Jesus as He breathes His last breaths.
Seven whispers come down to bended ears, at least a few, while
the gathered crowd watches the theater of death rising before them in three acts.
This day, these three hours,
give or take, were a defining moment in the life of Jesus and in the lives of all people then and now and to the
Eternal Day.
This Good Friday was to be a tragic victory.
For the next forty days we will sit here in this
moment, beneath the cross of Jesus, and hear the immortal words He gives to all generations.
Generations can be shaped by a defining moment – December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed, or
9/11, America was hit, for example.
Have we allowed ourselves to be shaped by Good Friday, a tragic death
that became a transforming victory?
Jesus died.
It was a small event in the day.
Just another execution, a
diversion for the people, entertainment for an afternoon.
He died and nothing changed.
It was a small victory
for the Jewish authorities and the Roman rulers; one suspected revolutionary was dead.
It was a sizable tragedy
for His followers.
At the time, His death was barely a blip, quite forgettable, quite unremarkable, quite
unexceptional, not what you might describe as a generational defining moment.
There have been numerous defining moments in our national history.
Each event had a personal impact.
Think of: the sinking of the Titanic, Hiroshima, the assassination of JFK, his brother Robert, the prophet Martin
Luther King, Jr. Do you remember where you were?
The Challenger explosion, Columbine, COVID, the
invasion of Ukraine… these are defining moments.
Tragedy always leaves scars that are profoundly personal.
The generation of WWII has been called the Greatest Generation.
Generations can be shaped by a defining
moment or event.
So what of Jesus' generation?
When Jesus died, except for some women at the foot of the cross, hardly one mourned.
No one knew
this death was exceptional.
There was no press report.
No news briefing.
No shocked nation.
Few took notice
of another Jew's execution.
He did change the course of history, that, we now realize.
But at the time, who
knew?
Who cared?
The disciples didn't know.
They had fled and returned to their former occupations: fishing,
2
collecting taxes, pounding nails, trying to forget, trying to blend in, trying to hide.
Religious leaders didn't
know time itself was changing.
Many rejoiced that an agitating rabble-rouser was eliminated.
They were
anxious to get on with Passover.
The political leaders didn't know.
They just wanted to get rid of the latest
troublemaker and keep peace in an unimportant Roman province.
"Keep the peace" equaled "keep their jobs."
The people didn't know Jesus was special.
They were thoroughly disillusioned.
The soldiers didn't know.
They gambled for His clothes.
One of the thieves beside Him didn't know.
He taunted Jesus as he hung dying
on the cross.
Do we know?
Do we understand that choosing the cross can be for us the defining moment of our
spiritual lives?
Have we encountered Christ in a way that affirms that Jesus was not just a good man, not just someone
who showed us how to love one another, but was the Savior who died on Good Friday, at a specific time and
place, and that He died for the sins of the world?
His death was a terrible tragedy, a defining moment, but it
was also a magnificent victory.
It was a Tragic Victory that, over the centuries, has become pivotal, formative
and earth changing.
So we start our Lenten season with the last moments of Jesus on the cross, the last words
He spoke in His life, His deathbed confession if you will, though He wasn’t favored with a bed, but a cross.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Question: who is “them?”
It could be quite a
list.
First, what about His countrymen?
Isaiah 53:3 reads, “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of
suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one, from whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we held
Him in low esteem.”
Luke 17:25 reads, “He must suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.”
Was
He forgiving them, the generation of His day who despised and rejected Him?
What about His family?
Mark 3:20-23 tells the story of His family thinking Jesus was out of His mind.
He had just appointed His twelve disciples and then we read, “Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd
gathered, so that He and His disciples were not even able to eat.
When His family heard about this, they went
to take charge of Him, for they said, ‘He is out of His mind.’
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