February 16, 2025

Our story has brought us from the glories of the upper room to the anguish of the garden to the degradation of the trials before Annas and Caiaphas, To the humiliation before Pilate, to just the dehumanizing before the soldiers, the walk to the place of the skull, and now verse 25, we find ourselves here at the place of the skull, and we find ourselves coming to the very core of the gospel. The very center, if you will. of the gospel message we find here beginning from verse 24. One of the elements of a good story oftentimes is just the element of something misunderstood and that finds its way into so many different stories. If you just think about the misunderstanding of something, the misapprehension, the confusion that takes place and that can just be the context in which so many stories are told, so many funny stories. You can think of just about any sitcom, or, any sort of funny type of show, and it's all, a lot of it is really just based on misunderstandings. I think of probably the classic show that was based on misunderstanding, the best one of all, The Beverly Hillbillies, was just I mean, from every single show was about some kind of a misunderstanding. I mean, the show itself was a misunderstanding. This whole, you know, this wealthy man, but he thought all along that this nasty old swampy pit of oil on his property he couldn't do anything with. And then every show after that was something about something that was misunderstood. I think about the, the one, the episode where Granny thought there was a, this, escaped kangaroo and she thought that the jackrabbits in Beverly Hills were giants and, or the one where um, they were going to go skeet shooting and they thought that skeets were some sort of animal native to Beverly Hills and they were buying all the guns, getting all the guns ready for that. So everything was based on a misunderstanding. But misunderstandings also can be the foundation for so many other types of stories. If you think of the greatest tragedies. Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Oedipus Rex. There's always the element of something that was misunderstood, miscommunicated, misapprehended. Our story today is the story of the greatest and the most tragic misunderstanding ever in the history of humanity. And of course I'm speaking of the misunderstanding of the cross. Of the meaning of the cross. Something so central and so foundational to the gospel. is yet also so misunderstood, even today. So many groups misunderstand what the cross was about. Everything from Muslims to cult groups, like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, to all sorts of those who would call themselves by Christian names, will regularly misunderstand what the cross is about. And these people that misunderstand the cross are not alone. They're joined by those who were at the cross itself as these events were unfolding. As we'll see in our passage today, the misunderstanding of what's happening was something that was prevalent right there. And not just with those at the cross who were the enemies of Jesus, but his followers as well. Lacked understanding of what was happening. So there's so much misunderstanding around the cross. We would ask ourself, how is it that we suppose that we now understand correctly when so many others misunderstand and have misunderstood? And the only answer to that is God Himself tells us. That's the only way that we understand. The epistles explain the cross. The preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts details the cross. And the Gospels explain the cross, but God does it in the Gospels by means of things that He does, actions that He takes. Of course, we would think of the resurrection and how that will explain the cross. But there are other things that we'll look at in our passage today, before the resurrection happens, that also we can see as God explaining to us, this is what the cross was about. So now verse 24, And they crucified Him. We've said this time again, and it's worth saying every time we come across this, is that we must be struck by the absolute paucity of words, the absolute scarcity of words that are used to describe such incredibly grotesque and horrific events. Our fascination, our interest in things grotesque that comes from our fallen natures has us to be interested in the crucifixion itself from the physical standpoint. And it is helpful for us to know some of the basics about it. But we just remind ourselves again that all four Gospels narrate the crucifixion and none of them have anything more than just a handful of words. To describe the most painful, the most excruciating, shameful human experience that we could possibly imagine. An experience of death that was intended to bring about the most anguish and the most humiliation possible. When we think about a person being denuded and nailed to a piece of wood. For everyone passing by the road to mock at them. And then left there to die because the means of execution itself wasn't intended to kill, but to just bring about a slow means of death by other means. It's horrific in itself. But we just remind ourselves that things such as this and the scourging of Jesus, the Scriptures always just narrate them to us in the most minimum use of words possible. I think that the reason for this is that the writers of Scripture are never interested in it. in the physical details of what the crucifixion was about. Instead, they are deeply interested in the spiritual meaning behind it, in the theological meaning of the cross. And so while we would make three hour long movies about the passion of the Christ that's completely and totally about the physical suffering, the writers of the Scripture bypass that altogether. And I think the reason for that That the spirit inspired reason for that is because we, as followers of Christ, are not to focus on the physical suffering of Jesus, and the reason is suffering. His physical suffering will induce in those who love him. Pity and pity, as we've talked about this before, but it's worth mentioning, mentioning again, pitying of Jesus is a dangerous thing. It is not a healthy thing at all. Pitying Jesus is a very dangerous thing to us spiritually because it is impossible to simultaneously pity and worship Him. You cannot worship that which you pity, and you cannot pity that which you worship. And Jesus himself, if we were studying Luke's gospel in chapter 23, there's the interaction with the ladies on the way to the cross, and they wish to express some, some form of pity to him, and he rebukes them sharply to paraphrase his words to say, Do not pity me, I am not the object of your pity. Jesus is going voluntarily to the cross and for us to pity him, which is a natural thing. It can feel right to pity Jesus in these moments because to us, pity towards Jesus and what he had to experience seems like the fulfillment of love. We love Jesus and we think of him suffering in this way. And those feelings of pity creep up. But we must remind ourselves. We do not pity what we worship, and we do not worship what we pity. And so with the most minimum of words, we're told of just this horrific human experience in which he is nailed to a piece of wood and hoisted up with a spike probably between his wrist bones. Another between each heel, or one going, through both heels, and probably something like the tiniest of little seats on which his backside could rest, and then left there. The idea was that death would come by asphyxiation brought about by sheer exhaustion, all the while denuded and shamed in every possible way. This is what it means. When Luke, when Mark writes, they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them. Imagine the shame of what little things that you possessed. You are there on this piece of wood. Experiencing death while the very few things that you possessed are just being gambled over. Who will get this and who will get the shame and the humiliation of this? They cast lots for his garments to decide who should take them. And it was the third hour, which puts it at 9 a. m. As the Roman way of reckoning time, the day began at 6 a. m. And so the third hour puts it at 9 a. m. So at 9 a. m. Was when they crucified him. We'll, remember that as we go along. Verse 26, in the inscription of the charge against him, read the King of the Jews. John tells us that this charge was written in three languages, Hebrew, Latin, and and, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. So that all could read this and could know this. Now we should not think that Jesus was somehow singled out as the only crucifixion victim who had the charge put above him. It was the Roman custom that not only when they were crucified, but when the victim was on the way to be crucified, there would be someone walking ahead of them with something like an ancient version of a. of a blackboard in which the charge was written and then once they were crucified, that charge was then hung on their cross so that everyone could see because remember the tremendous value of public execution to us. This seems like a very foreign idea, but just in very, very recent history. Societies have still understood the tremendous societal value of public execution. Not that I'm promoting such a thing, but I am saying that it is, it is inarguable that public executions went a tremendous distance to curbing Public crime when executions were carried about and those things were made public. That was a very, very strong deterrent against crime in a society. And so the Romans are going to make the most of this. They're not just going to crucify victims and then leave it unknown what they did. The charges will be known. So every crucifixion victim would have had the charge plastered above them or somewhere on their cross murderer or the two beside Jesus. Thief or,, insurrectionist, treasonous, whatever the charge was. But notice the charge against Jesus. The charge is the King of the Jews. That's not a charge. That's a description, the charge, the King of the Jews. We are reminded of one of the themes of Mark's gospel. We've noticed this from the beginning. One of the themes of Mark's gospel is who is this man? That's how Mark began. Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, verse 1, chapter 1 and verse 1. And from that point, we've noticed all the points with which Mark is bringing an answer to that question. The whole gospel begins with the beginning of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. And then we find the demon saying, we know who this man is, we know who you are, you are the You are the Most Holy One, the Most High God. And then we find the questions from the scribes. Who is this man? Who does he think he is to forgive sins? And then we find the disciples on the water saying, Who is this man that just spoke to the storm? And then, of course, there are the other occasions such as The Mount of Transfiguration, this is my son. Or the baptismal waters, this is my son, the voice from heaven. We also remember the declaration by Peter, Who do you say that I am? You are the Christ. So again and again and again, the question has been, Who is this man? And in answer to that, Mark has told us again and again who this man is. And so here is yet once again another answer to, Who is this man? It's placarded right above his head. It's placarded on His cross, the King of the Jews, which would have been a tremendous insult to those, of course, who put Him there, meaning the religious leaders. Who is this man? He's the King of the Jews. Now, verse 27, And with Him they crucified two robbers, one on His right and one on His left. Notice there is no verse 28. We should not be concerned about that. Verse 28. Holds virtually no attestation in, any of the better and older manuscripts. But, we haven't lost anything, because you might have a note there saying that verse 20, that some manuscripts, some later manuscripts read, so that the scriptures are fulfilled, that he was counted with the,, with the, right. , that verse in verbatim is found in Luke's gospel, so we've lost nothing, but verse 28 is almost certainly, no, I should say virtually certainly, not part of Mark's original. Gospel. So now go over to verse 29 and those who pass by derided him. Then that word derided is the word blasphemao. And you don't even need to know Greek to understand that word. That's the word that's usually often translated blaspheme. So they come and they blaspheme him. So we're not saying that the word is mistranslated. It does mean deride him. And in this context, that's what it means. But Mark uses the word that. Oftentimes, it's translated blaspheme. So they come by, and we could even think of it this way, they come by and they blaspheme him. And I think perhaps Mark is inviting the reader here to ask themself, who's really doing the blaspheming here? Because just a few verses earlier, we read, We have heard his blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? We've heard his blasphemy. Now they come by, the same ones who heard his blasphemy, and declared him to be a blasphemer. Now they're the ones whom Mark says they come by and blaspheme him. So I think perhaps he's inviting the reader to ask himself or herself, who is really doing the blaspheming here? Was it Jesus or was it these? And of course the reader knows the answer to that. They come by and they blaspheme him or they deride him. They mock him, which, by the way, in my reading of this this week, as I was reading through some other accounts of crucifixion victims, I found that it was quite a common thing for the Jews to deride or mock crucifixion victims, even other Jews. Again, this goes back to the fact that it's difficult for us to grasp, but we must strive to grasp this, that once the person was hung onto a tree, In the mind of the Jew, they were then cursed. God had abandoned them. And it didn't matter what happened before that. It didn't matter if they were believed to be innocent or not. Once they were on that tree, God said in His word, they're cursed. He's abandoned them, he's left them. And so the Jew would often mock the fellow Jew who was on the cross, because they were then the object of ridicule. There's a story that's found in rabbinic literature of a man who actually mocked his uncle who was on the cross. And the story goes that this man was riding on a horse he rode by the road, his uncle was on a cross right beside that road, and he mocked his uncle by saying, Look! At a look at this horse and the master that sits on this and look at yours and the master who puts you there, meaning God has put you on this cursed cross, and I'm here to mock you for this. So such a, such a tremendously powerful thing in the mind of the Jew, once he was put onto the cross, that was it. He was cursed of God. There was no questions to be, he was certainly cursed at that point. So he's, they're coming by deriding him, wagging their heads. So here's the, the body language, you know, you can just imagine what the body language is like, just sort of a. You know, just sort of shaking the head. And what that means is, when somebody does that, it's just this outward sign of such disappointment and such disapproval. And then comes the vocal, ah ha, sort of like this, just this outward, just this vocal body language disapproval. Clearly, you weren't who you said you were. Clearly, God has put you onto this cross. Clearly, you are cursed of God. How could you attempt to make us believe that you were something else? So the grunts, the wagging of the head, and here comes the mockery. You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself and come down from the cross. So here comes, remember the two charges that stuck or the, the two charges that at least got traction with the religious leaders in the religious trial was the charge that he declared. He would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. And so in the other charge was that you are declaring yourself to be the son of the blessed one. So both of those show up once again. Now they're mocking him for this. You said you destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Now, come down from the cross. The irony of all ironies is, of course, as John tells us, he was speaking of the temple of his body. But even further than that, even deeper than this, we must see that Jesus is doing just that. He is destroying this temple. This is why it's been so important to see from the moment Jesus entered into Jerusalem for the Passion Week, He was there to declare The temple and all of its system gone, done. He's here to contradict the system. He's here to cleanse it. He is not here to reform it. He is here to declare it dead works. And so He is on the cross destroying this system of animal sacrifice and dead works. And He will do just that. He will raise it again on the third day. Only it will now be It will be a new temple. It will be the temple of His people. The temple in which God dwells with His people. So as they mock Him for this, He is literally doing the very thing that they're mocking Him for. Save yourself and come down from the cross, they say. So, verse 31, And so also the chief priests with the scribes mocked Him to one another, saying, He saved others, He cannot save Himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Ironically, Had He come down from the cross in that moment, and they saw Him and believed, then their belief would do nothing. For if He came down from the cross, belief in Him would then not have any saving effect to it. So irony of all ironies. They even recognize His miraculous work. They say He saved others. They use the word there that, sozo, that Mark has used all along to describe Jesus healing works, His healing ministries. And so, ironically, they are acknowledging His miraculous works. Which, by the way, no one ever Contradicted his miracles. In none of his trials, there's no evidence of anyone ever saying, you know, he was a fraud all along. He really didn't do all those miracles that people said he did. Nobody ever said that. His worst enemies didn't say that of him. And in fact, here his enemies say, you did in fact do these other, these other works. Why can't you save yourself? You see their way of thinking. And their way of thinking, power is all about what I can do for myself. If I have power, then certainly I will save myself. They have no concept of power that gives itself. And that's the thing to see about the cross. Jesus is dying in power. He's dying in strength. He's dying from a place of supreme power. But all they can understand about power is self serving power. If he really has power, he'll save himself, won't he? When Jesus all along never said anything about coming down off of crosses, He said lots about picking up and carrying crosses. And so if He were to demonstrate this self serving power in this moment, He would be a superhuman kind of person. But He wouldn't be the Messiah. The Messiah who dies from a place of great, profound strength. That says, my power is not here to save myself. My power is here to save my people through my death and through my suffering. And so here we just begin to see just this misinterpretation of what's going on. This misunderstanding of what's going on. And their minds, they are now convinced. Clearly, this man was not who he said he was. Or he wouldn't be here. He would be coming down off of this cross. And by virtue of the fact that he's not doing that, It's proof that He was a fraud all along. You see how deep is their misinterpretation, their misunderstanding of the cross. But as we said earlier, they are not alone. They are joined by an entire host of people who misunderstand what Jesus is here to do. In fact, Isaiah, the prophet, spoke of this and wrote of this a thousand years before Jesus would go to the cross. In your notes. Chapter 53 and verse 4 of the prophet Isaiah, listen closely to what he says. Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. In Isaiah's words here, we made the judgment. Now Isaiah is writing in, of a future event, but he writes it even in past tense. He's prophesying and saying on that day, we will Reckon him, or we will regard him, or we will think him. Smitten by God. That's clearly what the people are thinking. He's on a tree. He's cursed. God has abandoned him. And we will esteem him to be afflicted and smitten by God and stricken by God. And so you see, even the prophet Isaiah writes a thousand years prior to Christ, he writes of the deep and profound misunderstanding that is the cross. As Paul will say in his first letter to the Corinthians. To the Gentiles, this is absolute foolishness. And to the Jews, it's a stumbling block. You see the almost universal misunderstanding of what the cross is here to do, of what it is here to accomplish. Even His followers from Luke chapter 9. But they did not understand this saying. And it was a saying about how He must die. They did not understand this saying. It was concealed from them so that they may not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask Him about it. And so the misperception The misunderstanding has always been, as we look to this suffering Savior, we misunderstand what He's there to do. We misunderstand the purpose of His suffering. So again, if we misunderstand this, if there's so much misapprehension, how are we confident that we now have the right, or the correct, or the biblical understanding of what the cross is accomplishing? God shows us, and He shows us in the very next verse. Look at verse 33. And when the sixth hour had come, so now this puts it at noon. The day starts at 6:00 AM the sixth. The sixth hour would put it at noon and when the sixth hour had come. So Jesus has been on the cross now for three hours. When the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. Ninth hour puts it at 3:00 PM. So Jesus will spend about three hours, or I'm sorry, about six hours on the cross in total. The first three hours of that will be prior to this darkness, and then the final three hours will be during this period of darkness. And the darkness is explaining to us what is happening at the cross and why Jesus is on this cross. So first of all, let's just answer some basic questions. First of all, How extensive was this darkness, Marx says, the whole land. What does that mean? We don't know. Because this is a phrase that's used both in Old Testament and New Testament to sometimes describe a very wide reaching area. And sometimes described, just a very regional type of an area. So it's got a great amount of flexibility. When we speak of the land in Scripture, there's a great amount of flexibility. So we can't really say just how far reaching it was, except until we look into some extra biblical accounts. Because if there was this darkness that came upon the land, then we would expect, wouldn't we, There to be some sort of record outside the Bible of such a strange and such a odd period of darkness. And we find just that when we turn, for example, to a Greek writer by the name of Flagon Flagon wrote in the year 1 37 ad, he wrote a report that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, and we're all familiar with that, right? Not hardly, but that works out to about 32 or 33 AD. So it works out through his Roman way of accounting time, it works out to about 32 or 33 AD. Phlegon wrote that there was, and I'm quoting here, the greatest eclipse of the sun, so it became right in the sixth hour of the day. So that even the stars even appeared in the heavens. And then the 2nd century chronicle of Phlegon continues, recording that during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, there was a complete solar eclipse at full moon from the 6th hour to the 9th hour. And so that corresponds not only with the right year, but that corresponds with even the right time of the day. So it occurred from the 6th hour to the 9th hour. Then we read from Eusebius of Caesarea. He is a historian that's chronicling, he also quotes from Phlagon as well, but the two of them together. We read this quote, A great eclipse of the sun occurred at the sixth hour, and that excelled every other before it, turning the day into such darkness of night that the stars even could be seen in the heavens. And the earth moved in Bithynia, toppling many buildings in the city of Nicaea. So he also references the earthquakes that Matthew speaks of. And so that's a pretty solid extra biblical account. of what would be a very unusual period of darkness. Phlegon Carl calls it a, an eclipse. And Phlegon even mentions it's a solar eclipse that lasts for three hours. And he also mentions that it occurs in a full moon. Because this is the Passover, right? And the Passover always occurs at a full moon. Because it's tied to the Jewish calendar, which is a lunar calendar. So Passover is always a full moon. Folks, it is impossible for there to be a solar eclipse during a full moon. It's, it's impossible. You understand how a solar eclipse works. There can be a lunar eclipse, but there cannot be a solar eclipse during a full moon, which is the Passover, even confirmed by Phlegon. So an eclipse, if this were some, some type of solar eclipse that's somehow occurring at a full moon, eclipses of the sun only last just a few minutes, don't they? You may have seen one, at least a partial one. I remember, I think it was about two seven, 2017. Was it when there was the full eclipse that came through near here? We drove to South Carolina to see it. And I mean, it lasted four minutes. I mean, it was done really quickly. The other thing about a solar eclipse is, even if you're in the center of it, it's not that dark. It's darker, and you can even see a few stars, but it's not pitch black dark. So none of that seems to line up. In other words, This is not a natural occurrence. We sometimes read accounts of how ancient people were frightened by solar eclipses because they didn't understand what's going on in the heavens. But this could not have been some sort of naturally occurring solar eclipse that just happened to happen at just the right moment. It's physically impossible. This is instead a supernatural darkness. And so being a supernatural darkness, we must ask ourself, what is God saying by way of this supernatural darkness? And what God is saying by the supernatural darkness is our first indication to the meaning of what's happening on the cross. So we ask ourselves, what does darkness mean in the scripture? And darkness can mean many things in the scriptures. It can mean, well, it can be a metaphor for evil. We think of the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, and oftentimes it's a metaphor for evil. But also, very frequently, you may not be aware of this, but darkness is very, very frequently associated with the presence of God in judgment. When God is present and He is judging sin, it is often described in the scriptures as a supernatural darkness. Let's look to our notes and we will see, I've gathered some, some of the biblical accounts of this. And I think that once we look at this, we'll find this overwhelming, that perhaps we did not realize just how closely spiritual, I'm sorry, supernatural darkness is associated with the judgment of God against sin. Exodus 10, the next to the last plague, we read of the ninth plague. As a plague of darkness for three days. Notice the continuity there. Three days, three hours, and it's a supernatural darkness. We're told in the passage there. You can see it. It's a darkness that is felt. Furthermore, it's a darkness that existed where the Egyptians were, but did not exist where the Israelites were. So this is a very supernatural darkness. And clearly this is a type of a plague that is intended as judgment against the Egyptians who will not let God's people go. So we see that. We also see Isaiah 13. Now we're going to see this theme. The theme is the Day of the Lord. And darkness. And we know what the day of the Lord indicates for us in scripture. It is a phrase that we find from, nearly from Genesis, but from the Old Testament all the way through Revelation, we find this phrase, the day of the Lord. And it refers to that day in which God will judge sin finally and for good. So we begin to see the association here, Isaiah 13, the day of the Lord comes with cruel and with wrath and fierce anger to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. Jeremiah 13, verse 16. Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings darkness. Or in other words, before He brings the day of judgment and the darkness of that. Joel 2, verse 10. We see that the sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shinings. Joel 3, the,, multitudes in the valley of decision. So there's this decision to make. Why do you, must you make this decision? Because the day of the Lord is coming. The day of the Lord is near. The valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining. We continue on Amos chapter 5. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light. Amos 5, in verse 20, two verses later. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light? Now we transition over, there's more prophetic instances, but we transitioned over to the New Testament, and we find, oftentimes in the Gospels, Jesus will use this phrase, cast into outer darkness. Speaking of the day of his, the tribulation, just prior to the return. But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light. And then we see Matthew 8, Matthew 25, Jesus will speak of those who are beyond redemption, have not repented, are not redeemed, and He will speak of them as being cast into outer darkness. And then we see the picture continue on into the revelation as we see once again. The outer darkness, the lake of fire associated with outer darkness, the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. And we see overwhelmingly that the scriptures have this picture of supernatural darkness to mean or to communicate to us God is judging sin. And this is what's happening on the cross. God has come in a metaphorical way, in a spiritual way, God has come to judge sin on the cross. We could even say it this way. This is like the day of the Lord for Jesus. It is like Jesus is facing the day of the Lord and he's facing it as a sinner. And not just a sinner. He's facing it as the sinner who has had placed upon him all of the sin of all of his people. And he now enters into or faces the day of the Lord when God is now here to pour his righteous wrath onto all of the sin that his son has been made to become. And that's what this darkness is showing us. This is God saying to us, this is what I'm doing on the cross. He shows up in judgment. We talked about this this past Wednesday. It just what an incredibly frightful thing this would have been to have been present when this darkness came over the land. I don't think there are words to describe the spiritual oppressiveness, the heaviness. The frightfulness, the horrible thing that was happening with this supernatural darkness. And here is the Son of God on the cross being made to be our sin, and God is pouring His wrath upon Him. It is this somehow, in some way, that we cannot fully understand or explain. It is this mysterious, this mysterious transfer of guilt. In which the innocent is made to be guilty so that the guilty can go free. We saw that with Barabbas. As the guilty was let free, the innocent took on the punishment that the guilty should have received. And here we see it even further, the transfer of guilt somehow in the mind of God with the full cooperation of the son, the son, the perfect man, Jesus, the sinless Jesus, the sinless human Jesus has placed upon him the sin of all of God's people, and he is now being the The focus of the wrath of God, of all the intense, incredible wrath of God. How can we make sense of this? We can't fully understand this, but we must remind ourself. The only way that we can even begin to sort through this is to remind ourself that Jesus Christ is the only being ever to exist with two natures. The perfect human Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal. Never beginning, never ending Son of God who will not die on the cross. We oftentimes get really lazy with our language and with our words. God doesn't die on the cross. Jesus of Nazareth, the perfect man, is made to be the sin of all God's people. He dies on the cross. God cannot die. If God were to die, Then all of the universe would immediately cease to exist. So Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, Jesus Christ, perfect God, perfect man, the God man. Is now the focus of the wrath of God poured out upon him. As we read earlier, 2nd Corinthians 5 and verse 21, For our sake he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Or Isaiah 53 again, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 1 Peter 24, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. Galatians 3 and verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. And on and on we could go. So there's this somehow this darkening is showing to us God is now here and he's here to judge the sin. That's the only way that the sin of God's people is forgiven is because it is fully judged and punished at the cross. But now we continue. Verse 34. And at the ninth hour, so this is now 3 p. m. At the ninth hour, which by the way. Does anybody else happen to know what else the ninth hour is? It's the Jewish hour of prayer. Remember from Acts chapter 3 and verse 1, we read that, Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. So here is the traditional Jewish hour of prayer, the time when Jews would typically gather to pray, and here is the Jew. Here is Israel himself on the cross praying at the ninth hour. Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, Lema sabachthani, which means my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is a short verse that will require a great deal of unpacking and a great deal of thought on our part. How is God forsaken by God? What does Jesus mean when he cries out, Why have you forsaken me? Many have struggled with this, and understandably so. And this is not to say that we can fully understand what is happening here, but God is showing us what He is doing. And so I think the first thing for us to do is recognize, first of all, what is not happening. What is not happening. Jesus is not crying out from the cross in some sort of a surprise, thinking that God was going to last minute deliver him. And now he's finally coming to realize, as he's right at the end of his life, that he's not going to be delivered. And he cries out, Why did you leave me? Why didn't you show up for me? That can't be what's happening. We know that that's not what's happening, because Jesus died. Jesus chose to be here. That's what Gethsemane was all about. Gethsemane was all about the Father showing the Son, this is what you must do. Will you now do this? So Jesus goes to the cross. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, He goes to the cross. He's fully aware. That's what the whole, the wine and the myrrh, as He refused it last Sunday that we talked about. He goes fully open eyed, clear minded. He knows He's, He is volunteering for this. Jesus isn't surprised that the Father didn't deliver Him because He goes to the cross knowing that that's not why He came. Mark 10 and verse 45, He came to die. He came to give His life a ransom for many. And so he's known this all along. Jesus can't be saying, why are you disappointing me, Father, by not rescuing me? Because he knew all along this was what he was here to do. So that's one thing that can't be happening. The other thing that cannot be happening, Jesus cannot be forsaken by the Father in the sense that the Father withdraws his love. Jesus can't be crying out. to a father who no longer loves him because he's now been made to be the curse of the sin of his people. We know that because of Jesus words in John chapter 10 verse 17. He says, For this reason the father loves me, because I lay down my life for my people, for my sheep. So Jesus himself said this is the reason. Now that's not to say that that's the totality of God's love for us or the Father's love for his Son. But it is to say that Jesus is saying the reason that I am the object of the Father's love, the reason he has such abundant love for me, at least one of them is And so in the process of doing this, Jesus can't be acknowledging the fact that the Father's love is now withdrawn from him because he's now been made to be sin. In a real sense, the Father's love for the Son is strongest at this point. So somehow in the mind of God, beyond our understanding, God is judging sin, which He loathes, which He despises, which is detestable and abominable to Him. Yet His love for His Son, who has been made to be that sin, burns stronger and brighter than ever. So somehow the Father's love for the Son is strong and vibrant. Yet, his hatred for the sin which he is judging is also a consuming fire. So we know it's not because of the love that's withdrawn from him. So we look again. Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, Lema sabachthani, which means my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Notice with me here, first of all, Jesus does not appeal to the Father by the name Father. In the garden he did. Abba, you can take this cup. Abba, if you will. But now that Jesus has been made to be sin, He doesn't address Him as Father. He addresses Him as God. There is a certain sense here in which even the way Jesus is addressing Him tells us that there is now this great chasm. Between the father and the son in such a way that the son doesn't call him father in this moment. He calls him God because in this moment he's not father to him. What are the scriptures teach us about our great shepherd? Yea, that we walked to the valley of the shadow of death. You are with me. He wasn't with Jesus. He wasn't walking with Jesus through the valley of the shadow of death. If one thing Mark wants us to see crystal clear is that Jesus is all alone. Some of the other gospel accounts will speak of Jesus's interaction with his mother, and the disciple whom he loved, John, and other instances in which Jesus will cry out from the cross, that he's finished, and different things. But Mark's account is very stilted and very straightforward. Nobody's close. In the next passage that we look at next Sunday, there are some women, but Mark is careful to say, at a distance. Mark is showing us Jesus all alone, in the darkness, in the supernatural darkness of God's judgment upon sin, all by himself. And he cries out, My God. My God, why have you forsaken me? Notice the uniqueness of that statement. Do you know that in a true sense, no other creature will ever say that statement rightly? There will never be another creature who has ever lived, who ever will live, who can rightly say, My God, I recognize you as God. And yet I also confess that you have forsaken me. No, no one else will ever say such a thing. Only Jesus Christ will say, you are still my God, yet you have forsaken me. Because there is no one in existence who regards him truly and rightly as their God who is forsaken by him. Only Jesus can say, my God has forsaken me. Because this is what must happen for his people to be delivered. The uniqueness. Why have you forsaken me? Now that word, why Jesus is not articulating some sort of perplexing to say like, Oh, I'm just perplexed as to why you forsaken me father. Instead, the word here means literally to what effect. Or for what reason have you forsaken me? What is the result? To what end have you forsaken me? In other words, he's pointing to the reason he's there. To what effect have you forsaken me? With this loud voice. And some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he is calling Elijah. Now why would they say that? Have you ever thought how do they get the two of those confused? My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? Oh, he's calling to Elijah. Well, mark helps us here because he gives us the Aramaic, L-O-I-L-O-I, lema ak Matthew gives us the Hebrew, which is Eli, Eli Lema, Akana. But you know, the Arabic and Hebrew are very close, very, very close cousins. Here's the Aramaic, L-O-I-L-O-I-L. The word for God, the ending I means my LOI, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? Now, you may remember when we studied the life of Elijah, we indicated that we have always mispronounced his name. It's not Elijah. There's no juh in the Hebrew language. Instead, it was Eli yah. El, God. I, my God. Eli yah, my God is Yahweh. That was Elijah's name. Eli yah. So now you can hear the closeness. Eloi, Eli yah. And so it was just a mistaken sound there. He's calling to Elijah. Now, why would they think he's calling to Elijah? Well, all throughout history, people have fantasized about those who have gone on to the next life, being able to help them in this life, being able to rescue them and help them out in this life, which the Bible knows nothing of that. And so there was a Jewish tradition that Elijah could help those in distress because he himself was delivered from physical death, as we know. So it was a tradition to call upon Elijah if you needed some sort of help from some sort of tight situation. So they're thinking, he's calling Elijah to help him, to come and help him. Not knowing, Elijah not only is not coming, Elijah has already come. In chapter 9 we were shown Elijah has come. And what he came to do was to make straight the path of this one. to go to the cross that he's on. So he has come, and he has fulfilled his role, which is to say, repent, because Messiah is right behind me. And I'm here to make his path straight, straight to the cross, which he has done. Elijah. They think he's calling for Elijah to come and rescue him. But look at verse 39. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. Why would, why would they do that? Perhaps to refresh him? To give him enough strength to last until Elijah gets here? We don't know. It's doubtful that he could have ingested liquid anyway, hanging in the position that he's hanging, he can barely breathe. But nevertheless, they give it to them. Mark doesn't tell us that Jesus received it, so we assume that he refused it. And they say, wait, let's see whether Elijah will come and take him down. And verse 37, and Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. You must connect that together with John 10 and verse 18. No one takes my life from me. No one. The cross did not take his life from me. It is the strength of Jesus that causes him to die for he gives his life. He cries with a loud voice. Medical experts are in complete agreement. Did it that hanging in the position that he's hanging in to speak with a loud voice would not have been possible to expand the diaphragm in order to force out a loud sound simply was not possible in that position. It was hard enough to even gasp a breath. But to show to us, to illustrate to us that Jesus's death is entirely voluntary and entirely done out of his strength. He cries out with a loud cry. Mark doesn't tell us the words. John will tell us that he cries out, It is finished, into your hands I commit my spirit. Mark leaves those words out. He utters with this loud cry and he breathes his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. How did they know that? When you see a curtain torn, how do you know that it was torn from top to bottom? We don't know. Either the Holy Spirit tells this to Peter, who tells it to Mark, and Mark writes it down. Or maybe Jesus tells this to Peter in the 40 days after his resurrection, before his ascension. And then Peter tells it to Mark, and Mark writes it down. Or, a priest saw it. We know from the book of Acts that we're told that many priests came to believe in the gospel. So maybe some priests were there and actually saw, wouldn't that be a thing? To actually see this temple torn. Something akin to the writing on the wall that was seen back in Daniel's time. So what does this mean? Well, this curtain here, of course, we are told that this was some, don't think of a curtain like you would think of a shower curtain. This thing was massive, 60 feet wide by 30 feet high, some four inches thick, made up of 72 squares. We're told that it took 300 priests to lift it into place. It was the curtain that separated the holy place from the most holy place. And being torn in two is the second thing that God is now doing to tell us this is what the cross is about. The tearing of the curtain from top to bottom illustrates this for us. This tearing, this opening of the curtain is what illustrates this for us. Now we'll come back to that after verse 39. And when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last. So in other words, the centurion, something about the way he died. Which is to say, not like all the other crucifixion victims. Struggling for his life. Struggling for breath. Weak to the point that he can barely even breathe. But instead, strong. Self composed. Self possessed. Giving his life. Can you just imagine the scene? Can you just imagine? We know how we're told in John's Gospel that they came to break the legs. But they didn't break his legs because he was already dead. And that's how they sort of wrapped everything up. They would bring the suffering to an end, bring the show to a close by going and using an iron rod to break the legs of the crucifixion victims, which meant that, as gruesome as it is, which now means that they're trying to push themselves up on legs that are broken in half. The ghastliness of the sight just is beyond words to even imagine just the horrific nature of what that is. So that's what the centurion is accustomed to seeing. Instead, he sees a man that embraces what God has given to him with power and with strength. And somehow this centurion sees through all the mocking. If he, if he's really who he said he is, he would come down. Somehow this centurion says, no, that's not what that means. There's something else here. This man is staying on the cross by his power. It's not that he has no power to come off the cross, it's that his power is keeping him on the cross. So he declares, truly, this man was the Son of God. That is the climax of Mark. That is the climax. Remember the whole theme? Who is this man? And it begins, the gospel, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. And then it ends with the Roman of Romans, the Roman centurion. Remember the gospel is written to the Roman Christians. The Roman of Romans saying, truly this man was the son of God. This is the climax of the whole thing. This is what the entire gospel has been building up to. The Gentile nations saying, behold, this man is God. We, for lack of time, we can't look into Psalm 22, which is what Jesus quotes from when he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But if we were, if we did have the time for Psalm 22, we would find that the end of that Psalm verse 27 and on of Psalm 22 is all about the nation's praising Messiah. And this is what happens. The Gentile, the Roman, the Roman centurion. This is the Son of God. And so this, this declaration, this bookends the whole gospel for us. There's still more to come, but this is the whole bookend. Remember how much Mark likes to bookend things? Well, he's bookended the whole gospel. He's bookended it at the beginning and now at the end. So let's think about the parallels. At the beginning, we have the word cry that only shows up two times in the whole gospel. Chapter 1 in verse 3, John the Baptist was the one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the path of God. We find the same word used only twice shows up at the end as Jesus cries from the cross. We find also further parallels from the beginning to the end. We find, we find that the, tearing of the curtain. Another word only used two times. Used in chapter one. Remember how we talked about the baptism of Jesus? Jesus comes up out of the water and he sees the heavens torn open. And now we find the end of the gospel. The curtain is torn open. It's torn open as though it's the heavens being torn open. You know what? We even read that historians tell us that the curtain of the temple was decorated, get this, decorated with the signs of the Zodiac. That's rather pagan for you, isn't it? But that was the truth, that the curtain of the temple was decorated with the signs of the Zodiac. The signs of the Zodiac are the constellations. And the tearing of the curtain is almost like the tearing of the sky, which Jesus saw coming up out of the waters, the tearing of the sky and the spirit coming down. Now we see the tearing of the curtain and the new temple coming forth. We see Elijah at the beginning, only he's called John. He's dressed just like Elijah. He talks just like Elijah. Later 9, we're going to find out he is Elijah in a spiritual metaphorical way. But we see him in the beginning declaring the way for the one who is to come. We see him at the end as they say, is Elijah not coming for him? We see at the beginning, who is this man? He is the son of God. We see at the end, who is this man? He is the son of God. All these parallels, they cannot be, they cannot be just by random chance. This has to be Marx putting all this together in such a way to climax it for us. Now, so let's now return to the curtain. And let's now focus our thoughts in just for the last few remaining minutes on the curtain of the temple being torn in two from top to bottom. It's significant that we're told that it's torn from the top to the bottom because what that is indicating to us is the source of the tearing is God Himself. Now let's just be careful to remind ourselves God is not up there. God's not in the sky. God is, we're told, everywhere. Solomon, in his prayers, he dedicates the temple, says, Even the heavens cannot contain you. You are everywhere. But nevertheless, we are encouraged to think of God in an upwardly sort of way. Jesus himself looks up as he blesses the food and prays. So we're encouraged to think of God in an upwardly sort of way. And so in that same upwardly sort of way, we see normally a tear is Torn from you and away from you and in the same way. It's almost like the the hands of God reaching down to tear the curtain Now, what is the curtain all about? The curtain is all about the separation of the Old Covenant the barriers of the Old Covenant Because the Old Covenant is all about Stay away. We see this from the earliest pages of the Old Covenant. In Exodus chapter 3, Moses comes to the bush that burns. The first thing the angel of the Lord says to him, stay away. We see it in Exodus 19, the fence that's built around Mount Sinai. Stay away. If you touch the mountain, you'll die. We see the tent of meeting. Stay away. We see Uzzah who touches the ark. Stay away. Over and over and over again we see, stay far away because God is holy. You cannot approach him. You cannot come near him. And now the new covenant comes along, and God initiates this new covenant by a tearing of that which is the barrier between the holy and the holy's people. It's almost like God is just accentuating this with this dramatic display of this tearing of a curtain. You know, if you had something that was, I don't know, something represented by something on paper like, you know, these sermon notes right here? And you were to say, you know, we're just done with this. Let's just say, imagine this piece of paper is some sort of contract. That you made this contract with somebody. And now you want to walk away, you would say, this is done. How could you do this? You could say, done. And that's this dramatic statement to say, over. And that's like what God is saying to the curtain, done. We are done with you being far. And now is the time for you to come near. Because that's what the New Covenant is about, is nearness. This is in the Old Testament's premier passage about the New Covenant, Jeremiah 32. It is a God who desires to be with His people. Ezekiel 36, it is a God who desires to dwell in His people's hearts. Or we could see from, On the back page, we can see from Hebrews 4 and verse 16, Let us within confidence draw near to the throne of grace. Ephesians 2 and verse 13, But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. This is what Christ is doing. This is what the cross is. This is why the sin of God's people must be judged and punished. Because unless that sin is judged and punished, his people cannot come near. And so the moment of his death, the rending of the curtain, the barriers are over. God has done it. As he cries in John's gospel, it is finished. I have completed it. Our people, Father, now, they can come near.