We've come together this morning to remember a death.
And in occasions like that,
!
And if it's an older person, we ask, well, why now? Or why like this?
And often that question lingers, whether spoken or unspoken.
It lingers, it hangs around in our minds.
And we're really asking the question, why death?
Why does this exist?
The why question hangs over every death.
Please turn back in your Bibles to Mark 15.
Because there is something about this death that we're remembering this morning
that I think we have to ask the question, why about?
Because Good Friday is no different to any other death in one sense.
Because there are why questions hanging over the whole thing.
It is the most studied and the most talked about and the most sung about
and the most written about death in history.
And yet, Good Friday, no matter how familiar we are with this day,
it rolls around every year.
We may have been to one.
We may have been to none.
This may be your first Good Friday service that you've attended.
We may have been to many, many of those.
And yet, the story is familiar.
But there are why questions that hang over it all.
There are bits of the story that perhaps we haven't stopped to ask why about,
when in fact we really should.
Because there are a number of things in the story,
that narrative that was read for us,
that are unusual and that really need an explanation.
So, my goal in the time that we have this morning
is to walk through what we had read from Mark chapter 15,
the account of Jesus' death,
and ask why four times.
Here's the first one.
Why could the Jewish authorities not see their Messiah?
It is a striking thing when we read the account of the lead-up to
and the crucifixion of Jesus.
The story of history is that despite the rebellion of those whom He created,
God would send a Savior who would crush Satan
and who would push back the powers of evil
and who would bring in a new world.
That is the story of history.
And the story of the Old Testament,
the first big chunk of the Bible,
is in many ways a story of expectation.
We're expecting this promise.
We're expecting this story to unfold.
And it's an expectation
as the description of this sin-killing serpent crusher
that has been promised,
what he will be like.
And that story takes shape.
And it's a bit like pieces in a jigsaw
slotting into place.
We get a picture of what the Messiah would look like.
And we see that through the history books
and through the prophets of the Old Testament
that He will be a man,
but also God.
One who will heal the sick
and overturn evil
and even have the power over death itself.
And as the Old Testament has us on the lookout for this man,
when Jesus arrives onto the stage of history,
we should be ready.
And Mark, who wrote this gospel,
begins his gospel right back in chapter 1
with the words,
the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God.
Mark is telling us
that this is his account of the coming of God's Messiah,
the one that we've been waiting for.
And he records how Jesus opens his ministry.
Jesus' first words in his public ministry,
the time is fulfilled,
the kingdom of God is at hand,
repent and believe the gospel.
So with the very first words of his ministry,
Jesus is telling everyone
that he is the long-promised Messiah
they've been waiting for.
And particularly for the people of God,
the ones who have been looking for him
all the way through the Old Testament,
expecting God to come through in his promises,
Jesus says, here I am.
He's telling the world on his arrival
that God's King is here.
But we know that there are crackpots
in every era
who make high-blown claims about themselves.
Talk is, of course, cheap.
It's one thing saying these things,
it's quite another proving those claims to be true.
But we read on,
and that's exactly what Jesus does in his ministry.
The early chapters of all the gospel accounts
record him behaving exactly
how it was predicted that he would.
Teaching with unrivaled authority.
Healing the sick.
Even raising the dead.
He's showing himself to have all the power
and all the restoring compassion of God.
And yet here we are, verse 10.
Pilate perceived that it was out of envy
that the chief priests had delivered him up.
But the chief priests,
the religious authorities,
the leaders, the religious leaders,
who were the experts in God's Word,
who were waiting for his Messiah,
verse 11, chapter 15,
the chief priests stirred up the crowd
and have him release for them Barabbas,
a known criminal,
instead of this man.
And Pilate again said to them,
Then what shall I do with the man
you call the king of the Jews?
And they cried out again,
Crucify him.
We go to verse 31.
Jesus hangs on the cross.
So also the chief priests,
these religious authorities,
chief priests and the scribes,
mocked him to one another,
saying,
He saved others.
He can't save himself.
And they go on,
Let the Christ,
the King of the Jews.
They use his title with their very lips.
The religious leaders,
his own people,
these experts in God's Word,
who had been looking for God's long-expected Messiah,
here he is,
and they can't see him.
Why?
The reason is because by nature,
humanity,
we are suppressors of the truth.
That is our condition.
The world was created by God,
and it reveals his glory.
His Word is truth,
and it reveals his character,
and it describes our corruption.
And what we have done
is taken the glory,
and taken the truth about God,
and we have suppressed it.
Because our nature despises
being under his authority.
We instinctively want to be God
in our own worlds.
We want to be in control of our own lives.
We don't want to submit
to anybody's authority.
That is the essence of sin.
We are selfish.
We want life on our own terms.
So what we do is
we choose blindness.
Blindness to reality
rather than submission
to what is true
and beautiful and good.
And we'll do anything
to maintain that status quo.
We will deny what is obvious.
We will believe what is incredible.
All for the sake of self-preservation
and self-glory.
We want to be in control
of our own lives.
When you see a politician
say something one day,
and then say something
completely the opposite the next.
And it's clear to you
that they're simply doing that
to try and hold on
to their own power
and their own fame
and their own recognition.
When you see that,
you see Pilate
and you see the chief priests
because you see the human heart.
That is all of us.
Why could the Jewish authorities
not see their long-promised Messiah?
Because they had the same condition
we all have.
And that is a truth-suppressing heart.
A heart that wants oneself
to be an authority
rather than God.
And that is a reminder
why we need Good Friday.
Why we need the cross.
Left to ourselves,
we would have been there
nailing Jesus to the cross.
As Martin Luther says,
we carry His nails
around in our pockets.
John Stott says,
before we can see the cross
as something done for us,
we have to see it
as something done by us.
Why could they not see?
Because like all of humanity,
they rejected the truth.
Well, let's keep going.
Second question,
second head-scratching moment,
why did everything go dark?
Verse 33,
when the sixth hour had come,
there was darkness
over the whole land
until the ninth hour.
Between noon and 3 p.m.,
the brightest part of the day,
the sky goes completely black.
It's a really unusual darkness.
I remember about 25 years ago,
there was an eclipse in the UK.
I remember where I was in Belfast.
At the time,
it wasn't that significant actually,
but there was no mistaking
what was going on.
All of a sudden,
everything felt very strange.
It was dark and it was cold
in the middle of the day.
It got my attention.
So why has this happened
when Jesus is on the cross?
Well, because the darkness
is a visual aid
to what is happening.
Look at verse 34.
At the ninth hour,
Jesus cried out with a loud voice,
Eloi, Eloi,
lemma sabachthani,
which means,
my God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?
Jesus is quoting
the first line of Psalm 22
in the Old Testament.
And what He's doing there
is identifying Himself
with the King who suffers
and who feels abandoned by God.
This is the darkness,
the supernatural darkness
of divine judgment.
It's like the ninth plague
on Egypt
in Exodus chapter 10.
It's like the prophet Amos
had announced in Amos chapter 8,
I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth
in broad daylight.
As Jesus
hung on that cross,
He wasn't just experiencing
the verdict
of a crazed crowd
and a rigged court.
He was being judged
by His Father.
He didn't deserve it.
But this is what it took
to deal with our suppression
of the truth.
This is what it took
to deal with our sin.
Because of His love
for His people,
the triune God,
Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit
forged this plan
to judge the Son
in our place.
Jesus experienced
this agony.
He cried this cry
so that we need never go there.
That's why it went dark.
William Cooper,
the hymn writer,
scholar,
he was a friend
of John Newton.
He also suffered
with chronic depression
and had real bouts
of deep darkness
in his own life.
About a century
after Cooper,
in the mid-1800s,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
wrote a poem
called Cooper's Grave.
And in that poem,
she discusses
his influence,
which was vast,
and his scholarship,
similarly vast,
and alludes to his faith.
And then she writes this,
Yea, once Emmanuel's
orphaned cry,
His universe hath shaken.
It went up single,
echo-less,
My God,
I am forsaken.
It went up
from the holy's lips,
amidst his lost creation.
that of the lost,
no son should use
those words
of desolation.
Jesus Christ
experienced the darkness
and cried out
on the cross,
My God,
why have you forsaken me?
So that for all eternity,
William Cooper,
wrecked with torment
and darkness,
wouldn't have to.
He cried out
on the cross,
My God,
why have you forsaken me?
So that for all eternity,
anyone who will trust Him
wouldn't have to.
I love this quote
from the Puritan
John Flavel.
He says this,
My God,
why have you forsaken me?
If Jesus had not said
these words,
we must have
howled out
this hideous complaint
in the lowest hell
forever.
Jesus Christ
cried out
these words
on the cross
in the darkness
so that for all eternity
you wouldn't have to.
Left to ourselves,
we deserve to be
completely forsaken
by God.
Our sin,
our rebellion,
our self-government
deserves nothing less,
but because Christ
went there
in our place,
we need never
utter
those words.
And that's true
even when our
day-to-day experience
leads us to doubt.
So when the darkness
in our lives
closes in,
when we feel
like we're forsaken
by God,
when we feel forgotten
or alone,
or when we feel
that there isn't
any hope,
well,
while we might
feel that way,
we can trust,
as John Calvin says,
quote,
the grace of God
which is hidden
from the eye
of sense
and reason.
What he's saying
is that when the darkness
threatens to overwhelm us,
we go to the cross
and we go to the cry
from Jesus' lips
because those remind us
that He took
every drop
of divine judgment.
And that means,
quite simply,
that there cannot be
any of that left for us.
So whatever we are experiencing,
it isn't,
it can't be
God's judgment
because that all fell
on Jesus
on Good Friday.
It must be something else.
It must be something
that as yet
is hidden
from the eye
of sense
and reason.
So if that's you
this morning,
as you sit
in the pain,
can I say,
remember that
because Christ
went into the darkness,
that pain
will one day lift.
And our next question
actually helps us
understand this more.
Jesus' cry
has ripped
through the darkness.
people are confused.
Look at verse 36.
Is it Elijah?
I don't know.
What do you think?
Well, let's,
I don't know.
Let's see.
And then he breathes
his last,
verse 37.
And then,
we're told
what the centurion
who's standing
in front of him says.
See that?
Well, no,
that's not exactly
what happens,
is it?
Have a look.
Despite being out
on Golgotha Hill,
verse 38
tells us about something
that's going on
back in the temple.
So here's our third question.
Why the curtain?
And why did it tear?
37,
Jesus uttered
a loud cry
and breathed his last,
and the curtain
of the temple
was torn in two
from top to bottom.
And when the centurion
who stood facing him
saw that in this way
he breathed his last,
he said,
truly this man
was the Son of God.
God was said
to dwell
in the heart
of the temple.
And this building
had levels of access
for people
and the Holy of Holies
was only accessed
once a year
by the high priest
after he had made
all kinds of ritual cleansing.
Unclean people
cannot enter
the presence
of a holy God.
Sinful people
have no business
in the presence
of a holy God.
And so there was
a massive curtain
that served as a barrier
cutting off
sinful people
from God.
It was a huge
no entry sign
in the temple.
Now Mark
doesn't tell us
what Jesus said
when he breathed
his last
but we know
from John's account
exactly what he said.
His last words were
it is finished.
He's crying out
from the cross
I've done the work
that I came to do.
The Messiah
has come
to earth
to deal with
our sin problem
to take our judgment
in our place
and that work
has been accomplished.
And just as the darkness
was symbolic
arresting people's attention
to the judgment
of God.
So the curtain
in the temple
is torn
in a symbolic depiction
of what has been achieved
through the death
of Jesus.
Because he
was forsaken
on the cross
atonement for sin
has been made
and full
and free
access
to God
has been achieved.
That is why
Good Friday
is good.
In the end
that is why
Good Friday
is good.
The cross
is the doorway
to our reconciliation
with God.
And we're being restored
in that relationship
restored to the humanity
that was supposed
to be ours
in the beginning
that we forfeited
through our sin.
Jesus recovered it all
for all who turn
in repentance
and faith
to him.
That is the offer
of Good Friday.
Forgiveness
for every sin
every single one
and reconciliation
with the God
who made you
for himself.
Don't miss
the Roman centurion
verse 39
look at him.
When the centurion
who stood facing him
saw that in this way
he breathed his last
he said
truly this man
was the son of God.
He sees who Jesus is
and he puts his faith
in him.
The man has just
been involved
in Christ's murder
and yet Mark
records for us
how even he
can receive
this salvation.
The grace
of God
that is held out
to us in the cross
is for all people.
It is for everyone
no matter what
you've done
no matter what
your past
involves.
This offer
is for you.
We want to ask
ourselves
well is this
even possible?
Sounds too good
to be true.
Well one last question.
Question four.
Why does he mention
the women?
Verse 40
It seems so out of place
with all of the emotion
of the crucifixion
the declaration
of the centurion
it's a chaotic scene
and then Mark
insists on telling us
about who it was
that witnessed
all that went on.
Verse 40
There were also women
looking on from a distance
among whom were
Mary Magdalene
and Mary the mother
of James the younger
and of Joseph
and Salome.
When he was in Galilee
they followed him
and ministered to him
and there was also
many other women
who came up
with him
to Jerusalem.
Seems a bit random.
Why do we need
those details?
But the reason Mark
includes this detail
is so that we know
that these events
actually really happen.
When you hear
all of this
when you recognize
that there is
there is this
kind of
grand picture
of our sinfulness
in the hard-hearted
rejection
of the chief priests
when you recognize
that there is
a divine judgment
that is depicted
in the darkness
as the wrath of God
falls on Jesus
and we realize
that it's falling on him
not for his sake
but for our sake.
And when we recognize
that this picture
in the temple
shows us
that there is a way
into God
and that all are invited
we think
it can't possibly be true
this must have been made up
and yet Mark gives us
this detail
so that we know
that it's not.
These women
were among
the first eyewitnesses
of these earth-shattering events.
They are named
so that the first readers
of this document
could check with them.
But the important thing
is that at the time
women's opinions
weren't considered credible.
A woman's testimony
was not admissible in law.
So the only reason
that you would record
this detail
was if these women
were actually there.
There have always been people
who argue
that the gospel accounts
are made up
to suit the story
that these Christians
wanted to promote.
But if you were
making this up
you would not have said
that women
were the first eyewitnesses
because no rabbi
would take it seriously.
It is hard to believe
that God would come
to earth in His Son.
It's hard to believe
that He would take
our sin upon Himself
and step into death
for us.
If we're honest
with ourselves
we know that's incredibly
difficult to believe
because if we're honest
with ourselves
we know that our hearts
do not deserve it.
We know that the way
we've lived our lives
in God's world
does not deserve
someone else
to rescue us
from that.
But Mark tells us
that this is exactly
what God has done.
And when we consider
why things happen
the way they did
on that first Good Friday
these ladies
give us confidence
that it's real
and it's reliable
and we can trust it
and we can stake
our lives on it.
Let's pray together.
Amen.