Seven Last Words of Christ Part 1

Seven Last Words of Christ Part 1

The First Word Sam Jampetro a reading of the text. Luke 23:32-34 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they cast lots to divide his garments. This is a dark day. A day when, by all appearances, a spirit of demonic hatred and violence carried men along and won the day. And yet, with only a few words, that spirit was shown to be empty of any true power and, with unthinking hubris, working for its own defeat. Still, as we look around at our world today we might be forgiven for thinking it is yet filled with that same hatred and unreflective violence. In addition, we might be surprised at where it is found. A memory surfaced for me as I was reflecting on this passage that I d like to share with you this afternoon. Before I had the opportunity to come here to St Stephen s for a number of years I drove a school bus. One of those years, my route was the Mooncrest neighborhood. You may know of it. It is a housing project where, by the time they come to live there, many of its residents have resigned themselves to the idea that life is a trap, whose many difficulties cannot be overcome. They have ceased to hope, they have ceased to dream, and as Langston Hughes once observed a dream deferred may sag like a heavy load, or perhaps it may explode. For many of these parents at my bus stop, their inner lives had become an accumulation of explosions small and large. They were, to put it simply, miserable and angry people who yelled and swore at their children, threatening them to get in line, shut up, get on the bus. Who would loudly demean them if they didn t move fast enough or sit in the seat they told them to. Who would step into the doorway or stand at the window in order to yell at their kids. I was often struck by the thought of how quickly these young children would be formed and shaped by that environment into their parent s image, and I thought that I could try and offer a counterpoint. I learned every name and made a point to greet them, catch them doing something good, and encourage them to respect themselves, and one another. To believe in what was possible and in their own worth. But day by day, over the course of the school year, my own sense of possibility wore thin from the daily friction.

One spring morning, I decided it could not continue. As one particularly angry and, let me be honest if not gracious, obnoxious mom was yelling at her kid, I shut off the engine, got out of the bus and said to the parents there that I didn t want them swearing and yelling at their kids anymore while they were on my bus. The obnoxious mom starts in on me, swearing and telling me that she will talk to her kid any way that she chooses. I replied that when she spoke to me, she needed to watch her tone. I thought I said it nicely and in a measured respectful way. Perhaps not. She said she would use any tone that she wanted and that she would tell her man about this. I said that she could tell whomever she wanted but not to speak with me that way. That afternoon, I pull up to let the kids off and here comes her man. He walks up to the doorway, and pretty much filled it up. He begins the same sort of thing that his woman did that morning and I better never tell her t watch her tone. I said then she should be nicer and I didn t want him speaking to me that way either. He s talking over me, I m waiting to repeat my point, he talks over me some more. This goes on for a few minutes with some threats of physical harm to me throw in for good measure and then he walks away laughing and hand slapping his buddies. I pulled away and finished my route. Now, at that time I didn t have a car, so I used to walk to the bus depot every morning and I would pray morning prayer as I went. But that next morning I found myself saying Okay Lord, I know that I m supposed to let this go, but obviously haven t. I m supposed to forgive him but truth is, I don t want to forgive him. I don t even like him. He s a punk. Arguing for his right to be wrong. I have no empathy or compassion for him. And who does he think that he is, pushing up on me? Forgive him? I mean if you say so, and I guess that you do, then I should. But I don t want to, and I can t pretend otherwise. The next morning, same talk with God. And the morning after that. But during that third morning prayerful rant, I felt the Lord interrupt me right in the middle of a sentence. He said: He s not different from you. You re just like him No. I m nothing like him. Yes, you are. Listen to yourself. You have violence in your heart. Just like him. No different. The Lord was right. Whatever other reasons or circumstances were involved, he was right. Now the memory of that response by the Lord makes all the more poignant the words of the gospel today: Father forgive them, they don t know what they are doing Jesus was the only truly innocent human. The only one who could say They hated me without a cause. (John 15:25) They didn t know what they were doing. Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

They didn t know what they were doing he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. They didn t know what they were doing None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. They didn t know what they were doing. And I cannot deny that I often don t know what I am doing, surprising wellsprings of anger driven by a sense of helplessness, cares and anxieties, by limited vision, by good desires in impossible situations, by pain that is out of my hands to alleviate, by an inability to grasp in faith the possibilities that lay far outside of my own abilities to care for the weak. And often lacking the clarity and humility to believe that I really am not so far removed from the ones who cause those I love so much pain and suffering. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God for Jesus who comes to me and stands for me again and again saying Forgive him Father, for he doesn't know what he is doing. Those words! They are terrifying in their purity. Crushing in their demand to us. Magnificent in their consequence for us. And they are for us aren t they? For me and for you. For each of us. Even as believers our path is to become more and more aware of the currents running through us that still await the final redemption. Those places where we still do not know what we are doing that we might give them to the Lord and receive his forgiveness. As the poet Mary Oliver has written: Lord God, mercy is in your hands, pour me a little. And tenderness too. My need is great...... When I first found you I was filled with light, now the darkness grows

and it is filled with crooked things, bitter and weak, each one bearing my name. Forgive them Lord, they don t know what they are doing. Those words should burn like fire. Hear them today beloved. And come to him. And live every day in the gift they are to you. Final Prayer Lord, I am so often given to self-justification that leaves me not knowing what I am truly doing. Thank you for your spirit that intervenes, calling me to the truth, and for your words that come even before any clarity forgive them, they don t know what they are doing May I, and each of us gathered here, live in daily gratitude for that grace.

The Second Word Rev. Steve Noll No Notes and Message not recorded due to technical difficulty

The Third Word Rev. Steve Palmer No Notes

The Fourth Word Rev. Lauren Scharf my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Mark 15:33-36 33 And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi (el-o-i), Eloi (el-o-i), lema (llama) sabachthani (sa-bach-tan-ie)? which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 35 And some of the bystanders hearing it said, Behold, he is calling Elijah. 36 And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. Our fourth word this afternoon comes in the final few minutes of Jesus' life. He is now nearing the end of final hour of the 3-hour ordeal. Matthew, Luke and Mark, from whose gospel we just read, all record a darkening of the sky during these terrible few hours. Commentators have long speculated about what caused that darkness. Was it an eclipse? A sandstorm? We do not actually know. What we do know is that somehow, in some way creation is speaking up and bearing witness to the darkest moment in our history. On this afternoon, true and utter darkness fell on the son of man, a darkness so deep, so real, so unbearable that it causes Jesus, the silent sufferer to ask one of the most heartbreaking questions to ever be exclaimed: My God, my god, why have you forsaken me? I imagine that this cry would have startled his disciples had they been there to hear it. There was a group there though of those who knew him, loved him- this group apparently drawing near enough to speak with him. These people had walked with Jesus, the group was comprised of his own mother and the disciple who he loved- John. This group knew him as well as anyone could. Which is why his cry would have been all the more startling and gut wrenching for them to hear. They had seen Jesus' life lived in complete connection, trust and love between him and his heavenly father. To hear those words out of this son s mouth would have been startling- so unbelievably contrary to anything that had ever crossed his lips regarding his father. Pastor and author Thabiti (pronounced: tah-bee-tee) Anyabwile (pronounced: ann-yah-bwee-lay) helpfully writes about this connection: this love between the father and son exists not just in Jesus' earthly life, but has been from eternity past. "The opening words of the apostle John s Gospel tell us. John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. For all eternity, Jesus lived with the Father. And not just with the Father. The Greek word pros, translated

with, can have the sense of to or toward. In other words, the Word, Jesus, was with God, turned toward Him in face-to-face fellowship. That s all the Jesus had ever known the loving, approving, shining face of His Father. And now as indescribable darkness falls on his soul in this startling moment when it becomes clear that for the first time the father has turned his face from the son. The eternal, loving relationship is breeched. For the first time Jesus knew disconnect from the father. And the darkness and pain are so intense, so real they cause him to cry out. Jesus knew his Old Testament. So much of what he has taught throughout his ministry has been quotes or references from the Bible- his Bible- the Words of God he knew so well. Now as he hangs dying on this dark afternoon he once again quotes scripture. His cry of abandonment is a quote from the twenty-second psalm. The writer of the psalm is King David who obviously writes this Psalm out of a very dark moment in his own life. He had plenty to choose from. As we survey King David s life we see him fleeing a king intent upon killing him- hiding in the mountains with his enemies surrounding him. He fights terrifying battles and later his own son would seek his life and his throne. In a moment of darkness King David pens, my god, my god, why have you forsaken me? King David is writing of his own experience, but in God s providence these words are prophetic- speaking to how another king would come an even greater king who would suffer much more darkness than David could possibly imagine. King Jesus. Let s take just a minute and look at the similarities- look at how Jesus' experience mirrors David s and how the words of this psalm are fulfilled in Jesus' suffering and death: The psalm opens with Jesus' cry of forsakenness and then continues: "Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. We think of the evening before in the darkness of the garden of gethsemane- no rest for him that night either. Jesus had cried out to his father asking that this cup of suffering be taken away from him if possible- if there was any other way. But the answer was no- no other way. Jesus, like so many of us, feels the darkness, the fear that comes with receiving answers to our prayers that are far different than we wished. That come from hearing no- there is no other way. When my toddler hears the word no often the immediate and fierce reaction is to throw himself on the ground in a tantrum-screaming. Not trusting that I may know what s best for him. It s not unlike what I do when I hear a no from my heavenly father. But that is not Jesus response. He accepts his father s answer because he and the father are one- he trusts him completely and accepts even the cup of suffering out of his hand. And so he takes the cup and walks bravely forward into the darkness Later in Psalm 22 David writes: Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me;

they pierce my hands and my feet. 17 All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. 18 They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. 1,000 years before crucifixion would even be invented and yet here it is. Jesus endures the darkness of physical suffering. Pierced and bloodied, physical agony that is hard- no, impossible for us to comprehend. Naked. The humiliation of being totally exposed. The onlookers have no mercy. They gloat over him, callously casting lots to see who gets to keep his clothes that he has been stripped of. 6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. 7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. 8 He trusts in the Lord, they say, let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him. Jesus endures the darkness of social isolation/ abandonment. For his entire ministry, his entire life he has been misunderstood, mocked, misquoted and slandered. Even his family thought him crazy- tried to reign him in. He has been the victim of the fickle passions of a people who in one moment hail him as a prophet and the next nail him to a cross. And now he is cut off from even his nearest friends. The small band of women and John draw near, but he is ultimately alone there on the cross. Just as the crowds (AND the disciples for that matter) have been doing his entire ministry, they misunderstand him one final time. As he cries out, my god, my god why have you forsaken me? They think he is calling Elijah. His lips are parched, his breathing labored. He is crying out in his mother tongue- Aramaic- He does not use the word he typically does for his father- Abba- Even then he uses the relational word, the intimate word Abba, father, the word he most often used. Here though he uses the word el (ale): god almighty, the holy god of Israel. The Jews believed that before the Messiah would come, Elijah would return. It is possible that the sour wine offered him is not finally, a bit of compassion, humanity from the mocking crowd, but rather a way for them to prolong his suffering a bit longer- give him a drink, he ll last a bit longer while we see if Elijah really does come! The darkness of physical suffering, social scorn and now a cry- the cry of one who now senses that even his father- who has been here with him the entire time- who walked up, no led him up this hill- has now

turned the light of his face from him. Psalm 22 a prophetic look into the suffering that was coming for the true king. We ve seen the similarities. But here is the major difference. King David was crying out on his behalf. King Jesus is crying out on ours. The cry on his lips- this devastating cry of abandonment- was meant for our lips. Paul tells us in his second letter to the Corinthians: he knew no sin. If he knew no sin, then it must be my sin that he knew. Your sin- our sin. God made him who had no sin to be sin[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. If hell is ultimately separation from God then in this moment on the cross we are seeing a picture of hell. Hell that was meant for us. Because of the sin that he took on for us. Became for us. He endures a darkness we cannot understand- Darkness that we choose by our sin, darkness that ought to have consumed us had God not intervened. Even in our darkest moments of suffering, in the times when we cry out to God and the answer is no or wait or deafening silence. When we are tempted to believe that we have been forsaken by God we must remember Jesus' cry from the cross. A cry that signals to us that though our father may allow pain into our lives, may not answer prayer in the way we would want, may even temporarily remove signs of his presence- allow us to feel parched for a season with us in order that we may learn to thirst for the living water- to walk in darkness in order that we may learn to see the light. Even during all of this we must, MUST not be tempted to despair. We will never be forsaken, the father will never turn his face from us so long as we have set our eyes on him. PRAY