Sermon Series The Gospel of John. Part 40 It Is Finished

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1 1 Rev. William J. Shields St. Mark Lutheran Church, Lindenhurst, Illinois Good Friday April 3, 2015 Sermon Series The Gospel of John Part 40 It Is Finished Gospel Lesson John 19: When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 24 so they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things, 25 but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Woman, behold, your son! 27 Then he said to the disciple, Behold, your mother! And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), I thirst. 29 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. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. 31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: Not one of his bones will be broken. 37 And again another Scripture says, They will look on him whom they have pierced. 38 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. 39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. 40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

2 2 Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Crucifixion. It was the most horrible death imaginable. It began with the ancient Persians and was brought to the west by the Carthaginians. The Romans eventually adopted it and they modified it into a slow and agonizing form of execution, which they used to deter slaves and foreigners from rebelling against their Roman rulers. It was considered to be so cruel that no Roman citizen, no matter how evil, could ever be sentenced to crucifixion. And this was the way that Jesus would die. In fact, this was the very reason that he came into the world. Jesus was born into the world to die a redemptive death. He was born to be a sacrifice for sin. He was born to bear the sins of the world in his own body, so that those who believed in him could be made righteous. And crucifixion was the way that the Father had chosen to carry out the plan of salvation. When Jesus said in John 17:1, Father, the hour has come, he knew exactly what he was facing. In the Garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in Luke 22:42, Jesus prayed, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. But then he quickly added, Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done. And now we have come to the cross. We have been building toward this moment for many months, as we preached through the Gospel of John. We lingered for several weeks, soaking in the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples at the Last Supper on the night before. We examined his trials before the religious leaders and the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. We watched as he was repeatedly whipped, and beaten, and mocked. Now it is 9:00 o clock on Friday morning. Jesus has just been nailed to the cross and the cross has been lifted up into its place. He will hang there for the next six hours, enduring physical pain and emotional suffering that you and I can only imagine. And then it will be over. More important than that, it will be finished. The title of my sermon is It Is Finished, because what happens to Jesus on this terrible day is absolutely and completely according to the plan of God. He was crucified by the hatred of men, but it was also by the will of God. Learn this lesson well and you will understand the Bible on a much deeper level. God accomplishes his will both through holy men and women and through sinful men and women. And on this day, it is the evil purposes of sinful men which God will use to accomplish his purposes. As Paul says in Romans 8:32, God the Father did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. Why? So that he could graciously give us all things. And at the moment he dies on the cross, Jesus has fulfilled this plan and completed this mission. It Is Finished. There are so many things that I could talk about as we walk through these verses from John 19. But there are three things in particular that I want to bring to your attention today. These are three things which show us that Jesus is God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, even as he hangs, beaten and bloody, on a Roman cross. The first thing that shows us the deity of Christ as he hangs on the cross is

3 3 I. The Fulfillment Of Scripture Any art expert will tell you that the difference between a real work of art and a good forgery is not in the big picture. It s in the details. You can look at a painting and it looks like the real thing. But only if you examine the brush strokes and the signature, and other little things about the painting, can you determine if it truly is what it claims to be. Well, we could say something similar about the crucifixion of Jesus. There are some big things going on in this scene. But it is the tiny details, the obscure prophecies, which show us the hand of God in the crucifixion. Here is Jesus, hanging from the cross. His body is ripped open from the beating that he endured. The pain of the nails in his wrists and feet is unbearable. His tendons are stretched out. His internal organs are pressed against his lungs. There is a throbbing in his head and a desperate thirst. And on top of all this, the sins of the world are heaped upon his innocent soul. Those are the big things. But in verses 23 and 24 we read this: When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. There were four soldiers, called a quadrant, who were overseeing the crucifixion of Jesus and the other two men. It was extra work for the men, but it came with a perk. They got to divide up the personal belongings of the prisoners. Jesus likely had five items of clothing: his shoes, his belt, his head covering, his outer cloak, and his inner tunic. Each soldier would have taken one of the first four. But how would they divide the fifth the tunic? Normally, they would divide it along the seams and each soldier would take a piece of the cloth. Cloth was valuable and it could be used or sold. But there were no seams on the tunic of Jesus. This would make it difficult to tear and would likely reduce its value. So what did they do? They decided to cast lots for it kind of like throwing dice. Why is this important? It was important because there is a certain psalm written by David, a psalm that the Jewish people considered to be a prophecy of the Messiah. It s Psalm 22. And in verse 18 it says, They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. That s two small prophecies they divide and they cast lots. But those two prophecies are fulfilled by four Roman soldiers who know nothing about the Jewish Scriptures and are acting according to their own wills and their own desires. These seemingly minor details tell a major story. The story is that God is in control of these events. Biblical scholars have identified 322 specific Old Testament prophecies which are fulfilled by Jesus. Some of those prophecies are fulfilled by Jesus himself, but many of them are not. Many of them are fulfilled by other people like these Roman soldiers. A mathematician once calculated the odds of all the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah being randomly fulfilled in the life of one person. The odds are 1 in 84 followed by 100 zeroes! It s a number so high that we don t even have a name for it. This is clearly an event that is in the hands of God. The man on the cross is clearly the Son of God. We know that because of The Fulfillment Of Scripture. And then, the second thing in this text which shows us the deity of Christ is

4 4 II. The Selfless Love Verse 25 of our text tells us that there are four women at the foot of the cross. The first is Mary, the mother of Jesus. The second one is identified as Mary s sister. If we harmonize John s account with those of Matthew and Mark, Matthew tells us that she was the wife of Zebedee and the mother of the disciples James and John. And Mark tells us that her name was Salome. The third woman is identified as Mary the wife of Clopas. This Mary was the mother of one of Jesus other disciples, the one known as James the Younger or James the Less. The fourth woman at the cross was another Mary Mary Magdalene. She was the one who had become a follower of Jesus after he had cast seven demons out of her. And, of course, Mary Magdalene will figure prominently in the Easter story this Sunday. So Jesus sees these four women at the foot of the cross and he sees only one man there. The man is John, the writer of the Gospel, and he identifies himself with the phrase, The disciple whom he loved. I probably would have called myself, The pastor who drank Mountain Dew. But with John, when he thought about his relationship with Jesus, the first thing that came to his mind was how much Jesus loved him. That explains why he was the only disciple who was courageous enough to show his face at the cross. The others were in hiding, afraid that they, too, might be arrested and crucified. Now, at this moment, any normal human being would have been very focused on himself. But Jesus was no normal human being. Jesus was the Son of God. And he was focused on those people who were suffering at the foot of the cross. One person, especially, was on his mind. That person was his mother, Mary. I can t even imagine the agony that Mary must have been experiencing as she watched her son the one she had rocked in her arms as a baby suffering this horrible torture of the cross. Mary s suffering had been predicted some 30 years earlier. When Jesus was just six weeks old, Mary and Joseph took him to the Temple in Jerusalem, to offer the necessary sacrifice for a firstborn son. They were met in the Temple courtyard by a man named Simeon. Simeon took the child from Mary s arms and predicted for all who would listen that this child would grow up to be the Messiah, the one that Israel had been waiting for. After that prediction, Simeon went on to say in Luke 2:34, Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that will be opposed. And then he looked right at Mary and said, And a sword will pierce through your own soul also. And now the day of that prophecy had come true. Mary s soul was being pierced, and the heart of Jesus ached for her. Jesus had to make sure that Mary would be cared for after he was gone. So he said to her in verse 26 of our text, Woman, behold, your son! And he nodded toward John. Then, looking at John, he said in verse 27, Behold, your mother! He was handing over the care of his mother to his closest disciple, John. Now you might ask, Why didn t Jesus turn Mary over to the care of his brothers? We know from the Scriptures that Jesus had at least three brothers. Their names were James, Jude, and Joseph. They were born to Joseph and Mary after the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus. But Jesus could not hand Mary over into their care, because they were not there. We know from the Gospels that the brothers of Jesus did not believe in him during the years of his ministry. It

5 5 was only later, after the resurrection, that we learn from the book of Acts that his brothers came to believe in him as the Son of God. So Jesus handed Mary over to the care of the disciple who was there John. And I am reminded at this point that, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, Jesus was concerned about the suffering of his friends and the care of his mother. And I am also reminded that, no matter what Jesus is dealing with as he rules the universe from the right hand of the Father, he never stops loving us. He is always concerned about the needs of his people. He is always with us in the midst of our struggles. We are never alone. Jesus was no mere man as he was dying on that cross. He was God. And one of the things that reminds me of his deity is The Selfless Love. And then there is a third thing in this story that shows me the deity of Jesus as he dies on the cross. That is III. The Supernatural Control I was reading an article the other day about what kind of seat people choose on an airplane and what that says about their personality. I always want an aisle seat when I fly, and the article said that means that I want to have some control of my situation. I want to be able to get up and walk around without having to crawl over other people. And I guess that s true. But any feeling of control when I m on an airplane is really just an illusion. When I m flying, I am hurtling through the air in a metal tube at 600 miles per hour. I am not in control. The terrible crash of that plane in Europe last week is a stark reminder that, when we fly, our fate is truly in someone else s hands. And we hope that that someone else is trustworthy. But look at the phrase at the beginning of verse 28 in our text. It says, After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished How did he know that??? He knew it because he was God. Again, we see his deity as he hangs on the cross. All of this is going according to the plan of the Father, a plan that Jesus was completely aware of. And now, as the clock nears 3:00 p.m. on that Friday, Jesus knows that there is one more little thing that he must take care of. So he says to the soldiers who are standing near the cross, I thirst. Now, if Jesus were an ordinary man, there would have been no way that he could have controlled what would happen next. Verse 29 says, 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. Why is that important? Because there is a tiny little prophecy about the Messiah in Psalm 69:21. It says, For my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. It was one more little reminder that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. And it was one more little reminder that he was in complete control of the situation. He even controlled the actions of the soldiers who crucified him. And by the way, a sponge on the end of a hyssop stick was a perfect symbol of what was happening at that moment. Because it was a hyssop that the Israelite families used to spread the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, when they were saved from the angel of death in Egypt on the night of the Passover. The blood of a lamb saved them from the temporal curse of slavery on that night, more than a thousand years earlier. But on this day, the blood of the Lamb of God would save them from the eternal curse of sin and death and the power of the Devil. And when Jesus knew that all of the requirements of the Law had been met, when he knew that all of the prophecies had been fulfilled, when he

6 6 knew that all of the work that the Father had asked him to do was done, then he said in verse 30, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Jesus had said, back in John 10:17-18, For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. It is finished was not a statement of defeat. It was a statement of victory. It was a statement by Jesus that he had done everything that needed to be done to save us from our sins. Do you see why there is nothing that you can do to earn your salvation? Do you see why you cannot get to Heaven by your own good works? It s because Jesus has done it all! All you need to do is to believe in him, and believe in what he did for you on the cross, and you are saved. If you think that you can get to Heaven simply by being a pretty good person, then you are insulting Jesus. When he said, It is finished, he meant that you and I are not in control of our own destinies. Jesus is God. And we see that at the moment of his death on the cross. We see The Supernatural Control. Jesus died at 3:00 o clock in the afternoon, after six hours on the cross and many hours of torture before that. The other Gospel writers tell us that the sky was unnaturally dark from 12:00 noon until the moment of his death at 3:00 p.m. And then there was a brief, but violent earthquake. And the curtain in the Temple was torn from top to bottom. And then it was over. And I suppose that the sun came out again, just as it would normally do at 3:00 o clock in the afternoon. The Jewish leaders wanted to make sure that the bodies would be off of the crosses before sundown. You see, the Jewish Sabbath starts at sundown on Friday. And there is a law in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 that says, If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. That Law was especially important when the coming evening was the beginning of the Sabbath, in the week of the Passover! So the Romans soldiers began to break the legs of the prisoners on the crosses. Breaking the legs would put all of the weight on the arms, further compressing the heart and lungs and bringing death much more quickly, probably in less than thirty minutes. But when they came to Jesus they were surprised to see that he was already dead. Jesus had not waited for them. He had chosen the moment of his death. So they didn t break his legs. This, too, was a fulfillment of Scripture, even after Jesus was dead. Psalm 34:20 says about the Messiah, He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. Instead of breaking the legs of Jesus, one of the soldiers jabbed a spear into his side. He pierced a lung, and blood and water poured out, a sure indication that Jesus was dead. And John says this about himself in verse 35, He who saw it has borne witness his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth that you also may believe. There were people who would come along later and say, Jesus could not have risen from the dead. He was probably still alive when they took him down from the cross. But John says here, He was dead. I know that, because I was there.

7 7 No one had thought about what to do with the body of Jesus, because things had happened so fast that morning. So two men stepped up and went to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus. One was Joseph of Arimathea. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. He had come to believe in Jesus, but he had kept it quiet, because he was afraid of the religious leaders. The other man who came forward was a man named Nicodemus. He was a Pharisee who was also a member of the Sanhedrin. He had come to Jesus in secret a couple of years ago, to question him about his teachings. During that visit, Jesus had said to Nicodemus, You must be born again. And he also told him, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Now Nicodemus was ready to come forward publicly, with Joseph of Arimathea, to claim the body of Jesus. Joseph had a new tomb, which had just recently been carved out of a rock wall in the middle of a garden. No dead body had ever been laid in it. And it was close to the hill where Jesus was crucified. So they wrapped up Jesus body and carried it to the tomb. There was no time to properly prepare the body, because the sun was going down and the Sabbath was about to begin. So they did the best that they could. The women would have to come back on Sunday morning, after the Sabbath, to finish the job. They rolled a large stone in front of the entrance of the tomb and walked away with heavy hearts. But in just a few days, their sorrow would turn to joy. They would see Jesus alive again. Easter Sunday, the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, is the big day on the Church calendar. And we will have a joyful Easter in just a couple of days. But the real work was done on this day Good Friday. The real work was done on the cross. If you will believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then your sins are completely forgiven. They are washed away by the blood of Jesus, shed on the cross. He has done all the work for you. All you have to do is accept it and you will live forever in Heaven. Jesus is God. And your God did this for you. That s what Jesus meant when he said, It is finished. Amen and Amen.