Seven Last Words of Christ Part 2

Transcription

1 Seven Last Words of Christ Part 2

2 The Fifth Word Caleb Vits Knowing I would be here as a Pittsburgh Fellow in the fall, after graduating from college, I took a summer job at my favorite restaurant: Chick-fil-A. On top of gaining wisdom and money, I also gained the prestigious award of being the employee who wore the cow costume for the longest one time. On a hot day in July, I spent three hours on the lawn in between our restaurant and the highway, dancing and waving to drivers, inviting them to come be refreshed. As you might have guessed, I quickly became very thirsty. And since I couldn t talk to anyone, I was alone, and I only noticed my thirst more. Every minutes a manager would come by and stick a straw through the neck of the cow, which was where my face was, and offer me a swig of Chickfil-A s infamous sweet iced tea. During the first hour, this was a pleasant interruption, but then the novelty of my job wore off. The costume became heavier and heavier, the fabric began to stick to me, The sweat dripped down my face and I couldn t wipe it off, so I could taste the salty sweat of my brow. I quickly became more thirsty. I anticipated, imagined, and yearned for those quick breaks and drinks of sweet tea. I became obsessed and seemed to only concentrate on when I could have my next drink. This was true thirst that consumed me. While of course, this was nothing as grueling as what our Savior experienced, I began then to understand when he said I thirst. This saying of Jesus is actually just one word in the Greek. While some of the sayings of the cross can only be uniquely said by Jesus, the God-Man, when Jesus said I thirst or I am thirsty, it is something universally understood and something anyone could say. We ve all heard the sound of a child, getting out of bed to say I m thirsty. We ve all at some point felt some kind of thirst and dehydration, otherwise we would not have a billion dollar beverage industry. This statement of Jesus exemplifies Him identifying with our humanity as he too thirsts. It is both a simple statement, and quite profound. No doubt there was a physical thirst. He had been awake the whole night, dragged around Jerusalem, then flogged and beaten. He then carried a heavy cross, and is now nailed to it, lifted high and exposed to the elements. There is also an emotional exhaustion, something we remedy with comfort food, yet Jesus had none, and so it only increased his physical exhaustion, making him more thirsty. This is the kind of thirst that most of us have the luxury of not experiencing - the thirst of heavy physical labor with no rest. It s interesting how John mentions that Jesus said this to fulfill all Scripture. Possibly, John is alluding to Psalm 22. Jesus quotes the first verse of the psalm, as Lauren beautifully spoke about. And now perhaps Jesus is fulfilling the fifteenth verse of that psalm, when David cries out:

3 my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. While David certainly wrote these words out of his own experience, he could not have realized their greater fulfillment in Jesus, the great Son of David. Perhaps Jesus foreknew the response of the Roman soldiers, and said I thirst so to then fulfill Psalm 69, which laments: I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. But perhaps more than than fulfilling Scripture by having physical thirst, maybe Jesus is fulfilling Scripture by having a spiritual thirst. He is recognizing the abandonment of Psalm 22, and He is thirsting for God His Father. He is yearning and pleading for the presence of the Holy One, only to find Himself alone. When alone, you only become more aware of your thirst. Have you felt that spiritual thirst? Have you longed for the presence of God? It is what the psalmist describes in Psalm 42: As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Brothers and sisters, my prayer is that throughout this day you would hear of a God who is good, loving, and holy, and that you would long for Him. That you would thirst for the living God. That it would become your only thought, your all-consuming passion, your one and only desire. It is then that God answers your cry and meets you. Because Jesus thirsted so you don t have to. He thirsted so that you could be filled. Our thirst is met, because Jesus thirst went unquenched. He cried out, and yet how cruelly it was answered for Him. He thirsted for his God, yet He was forsaken. To add insult, the Roman soldiers misunderstood this as mere physical thirst and gave Him sour wine. What a taunt to give this putrid vinegar wine to Jesus, who had created and tasted the most delicious wine at the wedding at Cana, which was only a preview of the even sweeter wine we look forward to at the marriage supper of the Lamb. But to drink that wine with us, he first had to drink the cup of God s wrath. When Christ is thirsty, his physical thirst is met only with sour wine, and his spiritual thirst is met only with God s judgement. He knew this cup was coming, as he pleaded let this cup be taken from me, but He willing accepts the drink of Isaiah 51:17: Awake, awake! Rise up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath,

4 you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes people stagger. What wrath He experienced to be forsaken by His father, leaving Jesus unanswered on the cross. Our Lord had this thirst, and pleaded, yet the answer He was given was empty. Oh, what mercy has been shown to us, that when we are thirsty, we are given a satisfying answer. To see this answer, we only need to look to another time when Jesus was thirsty - when he met the woman at the well. In the Bible, it seems that wells attract hot messes. Jacob is fleeing for his life from Esau and ends up at well. Moses is also fleeing for his life from the Egyptians, and he ends up at a well. And now this Samaritan woman is fleeing for her life from the reputation she s built, and she ends up at a well. All three of these persons were facing an identity crisis and running from something, running to a place of refreshment and refuge. Do you need a well? Do you need a place you can run to, admitting your brokenness, your messed up life, a place where you can go for redemption and restoration? Are you thirsty for renewal and a new identity? Come to Jesus, the wellspring of living water. You see, all three of these persons who ran to wells met someone who who would change their lives through love. Jacob meets Rachel, Moses meets Zipporah, and this Samaritan woman meets the Prophet who knows everything about her and still comes to her. And he comes to us still today. The woman is initially is appalled by his approach as he asks her for a drink. How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? Yet Jesus allusive response shows his provision for her heart s thirst. If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Jesus knows of her thirst before she even understands it or says it. He says to her: Everyone who drinks of this well s water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman has not even said that she s thirsty, but Jesus has responded to her implicit cry. He offers her living water. When we cry out to him, he offers us his life, which becomes a spring of water welling up to eternal life in us. Yet even before we cry out to Him with our thirst, He invites us to be refreshed. The Gospel writer reports in John 8 that a great crowd had been following Jesus during the Feast of Booths. John writes: On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone

5 thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Beloved, He is crying that still: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Jesus invites us to be filled with God s presence. To be fully satisfied. To taste and see that the Lord is good. This is the sweetest water ever that quenches our every thirst. But this water is not cheap. It came at the cost of His life. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10, Christ was the Rock that was struck to produce water for the Israelites, and He was struck with God s wrath, that we may now drink. We are reminded continually of this refreshment at the cost of Christ s life as we take the Eucharist. The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. Come, be refreshed by this cup of salvation, Christ s blood, poured out for you. In one of the most poignant scenes in Mel Gibson s The Passion of the Christ, the Roman soldier is thrown the spear to pierce Jesus side to confirm his death. As he pierces him, the movie continues in slow motion, as the blood and water spill out of Jesus side. Initially the soldier is in shock and disgust as the blood of this Jew splashes upon his face, but he is then miraculously moved, realizing this was no ordinary man, and he falls to his knee, both in worship and to be refreshed even more and washed in the blood. It is grotesque and gruesome, but truly moving. For in that moment, the soldier is thirsty no more for He has come to Him who offers living water. As we see the sacrifice of our Savior, may we be like the soldier, falling to our knees in adoration before Jesus and being truly refreshed. Let us confess how foolish we have been - to be so thirsty for God, to be thirsty for peace, love, and belonging, yet too often not looking to the cross; we have ignored the one who thirsted for us so that we could be filled. As Christ says, I thirst, we can also come to Him and say we thirst. Yet unlike our Savior on that day, we are given living water, which satisfies, the water that wells up to eternal life, for we are given Him. Come to Him, all who are thirsty. Come to him and thirst no more. Come to him and drink.

6 The Sixth Word Todd Murden Here is the question I want us to consider for the next few minutes: what did the centurion who was orchestrating Jesus s crucifixion see? Luke records that when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent! (And, actually, Mark and Matthew record this man saying, Truly this was the Son of God ). So, what did he see? What was it that this guy saw that caused him to praise God? What could a Roman centurion witness that would cause his heart to suddenly praise God? What could a pagan, battle-beaten, soldier see that would cause him to glory in God, and not only glory in God, but glory in his innocent Christ? This man saw something that changed his entire understanding of this moment (and perhaps his entire life). What did he see? What did his eyes behold that awakened his soul to the glory of God? There is something about this moment that breaks open this man s heart and opens his eyes and lips to divine truth and divine glory. So, what was the divine spectacle that caused him to break out into praise? I am sure this man had witnessed many executions. He was familiar with death. In some sense it was his profession. He was familiar with the bloody, suffocating, massacre of crucifixion. He was familiar and desensitized to the cries, pleas, screams, prayers, and religious jargon of dying men on a cross. He was familiar and desensitized to the cries, screams, and mockery of crowds surrounding crucifixions. But this one was different. This was no ordinary execution. This man witnessed unusual, abnormal, and, perhaps even, discomforting things throughout the crucifixion of Jesus. He had seen this man pray for those that hammered the nails into his hands. Perhaps Jesus had even prayed for him specifically as he himself drove those nails into his hands. Father, forgive them, because they do not understand what they are doing. And this prayer was not sappy or religious; it carried with it the weight and authority of one who had the power to forgive sins. Perhaps this was the first stroke of grace that began the change. He had seen Jesus s own people mock him, and challenge his authority and legitimacy as God s Chosen One. And he saw Jesus give no reply. This man may have even watched the various exchanges between Jesus and his disciples and the criminal beside him; overhearing this criminal say that Jesus had done nothing wrong; and then, again, hearing Jesus speak words of authority and grace, as if he had the power to do exactly what he was saying he would do, Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. And there is no way the centurion could have missed the darkness; the bizarre blackness in the middle of the day; the miraculous occasion of the sun s light [failing]. And he certainly saw and heard Jesus cry out with a loud voice, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And, perhaps, that was the most discomforting moment of all. The one who had so authoritatively and gracefully prayed for his

7 victimizers and who had so authoritatively and gracefully offered Paradise in his kingdom to the criminal at his side, confessed to experiencing the abandonment and absence of God. And then to add to the disorienting nature of this execution Jesus proclaims, it is finished! This was no ordinary crucifixion, and Jesus was no ordinary man. This pagan, battle-beaten, soldier s whole view of the situation had been shaken; what started out as a familiar scene of snuffing out a disquieting religious uprising had turned into a discomforting and disorienting spectacle. But it is not until the final prayer and last breath of Jesus that the centurion praises God and proclaims his innocence and identity as the Son of God; so, what was it that this man witnessed in the final suffocating moments of Jesus s earthly ministry that solidified his identity in this man s mind as the innocent Son of God? What did he see? What did he get a glimpse of that changed everything for him? Because you and I need to see what he saw. It is seeing what he saw that changed his unbelieving heart, and it is through seeing what he saw that God is redeeming the lives of all his lost children. What did he see? This pagan, battle-beaten, centurion glimpsed the glory of God in the face of Christ. Through the last prayer and final breath of Jesus, he beheld the beauty of the Son of God and it melted his heart and changed everything. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. These eight words were not the empty prayer of a hopeless criminal. They were not the last thoughts of a powerless victim at a loss for words to make sense of his suffering. They were the words of a man who, in his own strength and with his last breath, was laying down his life for someone else. This prayer on the lips of Jesus, quoted from Psalm 31, was the closing prayer of a life lived in perfect, unbroken obedience to all the will of God. This was God s True Servant, giving himself as a fragrant, pleasing, and beautiful offering to God. The centurion saw God the Son doing all the will of God the Father with all the authority and power of God the Spirit; and it changed everything. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, were the words of the Son of God as he died in the assurance of having voluntarily done everything his Father asked him to do; even becoming obedient to the point of dying on a cross. He glimpsed the glory of God the Son doing all the saving-will of God the Father with all the authority of God the Spirit. It is this glory that changed everything for the centurion, and it is this glory that will change everything for us. This is the peculiar glory we see in the first coming of the Son of God. It is a glory not of soaring but of stooping, not of the sword but of sacrifice, not of slaying but of saving. And it is this glory that God has ordained to lift sinners out of the dust of death and seat them at his table forever. This is the glory we see in eternal Son of God descending from heaven to earth, though he was rich in all ways he became poor, empty, and nothing. This is the glory of God the Son permanently binding himself to human-likeness, growing, learning, serving and obeying. This is the glory in the earthly ministry of God the Son to live with, serve, care for, teach, heal, and identify with sinners. This glory finds its culminating descent here on the cross, through Jesus s

8 final prayer and in his last breath. And it is for this stooping, sacrificing, saving glory that God has exalted his Son, and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is the glory that the centurion glimpsed when he watched Jesus pray to his Father and breath his last. This is the glory that caused him to suddenly praise God and declare that this suffering man was Certainly the innocent Son of God! And this is the glory that the Spirit means for us to see and glimpse and rejoice in because it is the only medicine that can heal our unbelieving hearts, and it is the one thing God means for us to be captivated by forever. Amen.

9 The Seventh Word Associate Pastor Bill Henry It is Finished. The last of the seven words from the Cross. For those of you who have been here since noon maybe part of you is thinking, It is almost finished! This service IS almost finished! One more word! It is finished. I want to begin with a question, What did Jesus mean when he said those words? Better yet, what is IT that is finished? What has been completed, or fulfilled? What is DONE? The more we dig into that question, we realize, no one answer. No single thing that you can point to that was finished. In the bible I used in seminary, 20 years ago. Notes from a class with Allen Ross. He pointed to 8 things that are finished on the cross. (Prophecy fulfilled, Atonement accomplished, End of the power of sin). William Temple suggests 4 things that were finished All that prophets had foretold, All the Father had sent Jesus to do; The power of sin broken; The world overcome. Frederick Bruner four more things that are finished The revelation of God;Tthe mission of the Messiah, Reconciliation of the world, The rout of the devil, We see: many things are finished thru the cross. Trans: Most translations, three words in English: It is Finished. In the Greek, one word tetelestai. That Greek word is in the perfect tense. Here is how to understand the perfect tense: A past act (something that has happened), that continues to have impact right now, in the present. So we could say: An event took place the Cross. That s finished. PAST. But that finished event the cross, has many continuing implications in being finished. Impacts the PRESENT. So, for us today, we can ask: What are some of those implications? What impact does that past, completed event have for us? As believers in Jesus, on Good Friday, in 2017? What is finished?

10 Text: I want to point to two things. Both begin with the letter R. Redemption and Reconciliation. The finished event the cross has two ongoing implications for us today. Redemption and Reconciliation. Consider both. First implication of the Cross for us: Redemption What is redemption? How can we understand redemption? Start with a scenario. Put yourself in this scenario: Suppose you own something very valuable. A piece of Jewelry, a watch. Handed down, generations family heirloom. Your watch is stolen. Many years pass by. To the point where you lose hope of ever recovering your watch. Out of nowhere, you get some really good news. You get word, your watch has been found. But there is bad news, too. Your watch has turned up at a local pawn shop. For sale. Bad news: Way more that you can afford. More good news. There is a person who knows you well, loves you, hears about your watch. Your dilemma. That person purchases your watch back for you. Returns you watch to you. A gift. No cost to you. You have your watch again. Reunited. That is a material picture of redemption. A bad situation is redeemed. Your stolen watch is returned to you by the graceful act of someone who loves you. Translate this from material to spiritual. We are God s possession. Valuable to Him. Because of sin we are lost stolen. Can also say; we re in bondage to sin. No escape. We can t afford the price of our release. That s where the Cross comes in. The beauty of the Cross. God, who loves us, pays the price. God sent Jesus to die on the cross. Jesus paid the price. To free us from the bondage of sin. He redeems us. Redemption. Paul, Romans 3, describes redemption like this, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Peter, 1 st letter, describes redemption like this, For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed but with the precious blood of Christ...

11 The finished event the cross, has many continuing implications in being finished. One implication is redemption. Jesus paid the price. The cross redeems us from the bondage of sin. Thru the cross our redemption is completed. It is finished. There is also a Second implication, today, of the Cross for us: Reconciliation. What is reconciliation? How can we understand reconciliation? Reconciliation is a relational word. The need to be reconciled implies a broken relationship. The cross reconciles the relationship between God and people. Between God and all of us. This broken relationship has a long history. All the way back to the beginning of human history. Adam and Eve. The first sin. Our heritage as sinners. We are all born into sin, born with sin. Our sin is what divides us from God. Chasm. Broken relationship. We don t possess the power to fix it. Only God has the power to fix it. Here, again, is where the Cross comes in. The beauty of the Cross. God came to us in Jesus. He initiated the repair of the relationship. God, in Jesus, brings reconciliation. Paul writing to Timothy, For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ Jesus mediates the repair of the relationship. Jesus works between the two parties. Between God and all of us. Jesus mediates reconciliation. Thru the Cross. Paul to the Corinthians, All this is from God, who reconciled himself to us through Christ God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men s sins against them. The finished event the cross, has many continuing implications in being finished. A second implication is reconciliation. Jesus mediated reconciliation. The cross reconciled us with God, repaired our relationship with him. Thru the cross reconciliation is completed. It is finished. Redemption and Reconciliation. Two implication for us through the finished event the Cross. In closing, a couple of questions to consider on this Good Friday, Do you see yourself as Redeemed by God? Have you embraced the truth: God loves you. He has paid the price to win you, claim you back. God sent Jesus to die on the cross. Jesus paid the price. To free you from the bondage of sin. You are redeemed!

12 Do you consider yourself Reconciled with God? Have you embraced the truth that God has come to you in Jesus. He initiated the repair of your relationship with him. God, in Jesus, initiates reconciliation with you. You are reconciled! It is finished. The event took place the Cross of Jesus Christ. That s finished. PAST event. But that finished event the cross, has two very important implications in being finished. Impacts your PRESENT. Today. Redeemed and Reconciled! Let us pray