If you would open up your Bibles to Mark chapter 15, I'll be preaching from verses 33-39 and I'll read those in just a second.
! But leading up to this moment, Jesus has been betrayed.
Jesus has been abandoned.
His disciples abandoned Him.
In fact, in Mark 14, Jesus tells them that they would abandon Him.
Peter denies Him three times.
And then on 9 a.m. on that Good Friday, after being mocked, He was brought out to Golgotha and He was nailed to a cross.
And then there was these passerbys.
And they said this, wagging their heads and saying,
Aha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.
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.
Those who were crucified with Him also reviled Him.
Now, which brings us to 33 through 39.
Hear God's Word.
And when the sixth hour had come, that's noon,
there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 3 p.m.
And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice,
Eloi, Eloi, leme sednachthani.
Which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And some of the bystanders hearing it said,
Behold, He's calling Elijah.
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.
And 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 was facing Him saw that in this way He breathed His last,
He said, Truly, this man was the Son of God.
Multiple times leading up to Jesus' last breath,
we have people saying,
If only He would come down.
If only He would come down from the cross.
What if Jesus had come down from the cross?
What if Jesus said from the cross,
Enough is enough.
You all don't get to kill me.
It's time to show you who's boss,
and then He calls down legions of angels.
That would be quite a different end of this story.
It would be quite a show of force, wouldn't it?
This Good Friday service wouldn't be so much of a service with hints of sadness and hints of sobriety,
but it would be a Good Friday service where we would celebrate the power.
But He didn't come down from the cross.
Why not?
Verses 33 through 39 record the historic account of Jesus' last moments.
It's leading up to His death.
It records His very last breath.
He stayed on the cross until He breathed His last.
And Mark, who wrote this gospel, shows us why.
Tonight I'm going to walk you through this account,
and what I want to help you to see is why Jesus stayed on the cross.
Jesus' death accomplished something unexpected,
and Jesus' death revealed someone extraordinary.
So let me walk you through this account,
account starting with this darkness.
In verse 33,
And when the sixth hour had come,
there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
This was an untimely and all-encompassing darkness.
Now what makes it even more odd
is that this darkness rolled in at high noon,
where the sun would have been at its peak,
it would have been the brightest time of day,
so this is unusual, and it's ominous.
Untimely, all-encompassing darkness.
We know what this is like.
Summertime in southeastern Wisconsin,
July 3 or 4 p.m.,
and a big old thunderstorm starts rolling in.
You know what it's like.
It's been bright and sunny all day,
and then it gets dark,
and things get a little ominous,
and you start wondering where your kids are.
It's time to come in, kids.
Because we all know,
when a thunderstorm rolls in,
that there is something bigger and far more powerful
than any human being on the planet.
And it's making its presence known.
This untimely and all-encompassing darkness
that occurred here at the sixth hour
was not a thunderstorm rolling in,
but something bigger and more powerful than that.
But the thing is, we're not told what it is.
But what I just want you to see,
it is connected to this man
who has been nailed to the cross.
Which brings us to verse 34.
This man on the cross cries out in this darkness.
This darkness has enveloped the land.
It's enveloped Jesus on the cross.
And then he cries out,
Eloi, Eloi, lame sebechtani.
He's quoting from Psalm 22, verse 1.
And Mark keeps Jesus' words in the original Aramaic
for emphasis.
He translates it,
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And so what we have here is Jesus
quoting from a Psalm of David,
one of Israel's greatest kings.
And this quote is actually explaining
what is happening.
The darkness is the visible manifestation
of God his Father
forsaking him.
If you're familiar with the start
of the Gospel of Mark,
Jesus is baptized,
and that is baptism.
The heavens open up,
and God the Father speaks.
He says,
This is my beloved Son
with whom I am well pleased.
So why is he forsaking his Son now?
Why is God the Father,
who is pleased with his Son at his baptism,
forsaking Jesus,
God the Son,
here?
Jesus had already experienced
a variety of different kinds
of forsakenness,
betrayed by Judas,
abandoned by his disciples,
denied by Peter,
and now God the Father?
Forsaking him,
abandoning him,
deserting him?
What did Jesus do
to deserve that?
I hope in your mind
you're saying he didn't do anything.
Jesus is the only human,
fully God,
fully human,
to live on this planet
without ever sinning.
Jesus did nothing.
He did nothing
to deserve this
dark God-forsakenness.
You know who did deserve it?
We deserve that.
For all of our sin,
God's just wrath.
You see,
this darkness
is not just abandonment.
It's God's just punishment
for all of our sin
poured out in full
on Jesus.
That's what this darkness is.
And it's unexpected.
If you heard that Jesus,
if you were in Jerusalem that day
and you heard that Jesus
was being crucified
and you wanted to see a spectacle,
you'd go and see it,
but you were not expecting
this darkness.
You were not expecting
this cry of forsakenness.
This cry in the darkness
is an explanation
of what this darkness is.
But there are some bystanders
watching this
and they hear Jesus
cry out,
Eloi, Eloi,
and they think
he's saying Elijah.
Elijah.
They think he's
saying something else.
And so in verses 35 and 36,
we have this spectacle.
These bystanders
in verses 35 and 36,
they're onlookers.
They see this crucifixion
as a kind of event,
as a kind of a spectacle
to come and watch.
And maybe something interesting
is going to happen.
And so this Eloi, Eloi,
Lame, Sebechtani,
they hear Elijah.
Elijah was an Old Testament prophet
and he was the one
who was taken up alive
by a chariot of fire
into heaven
and the Jews of the time
expected him to come back.
So one of the bystanders
who hears Jesus,
thinks he hears Jesus
crying for Elijah,
he goes and grabs something
for him to drink
and he says,
he's saying,
wait!
Let us see whether Elijah
will come take him down
or not!
He's not there to see Jesus.
He's hoping for a show.
Now, if Elijah comes
and takes Jesus down,
delivers him from the cross,
boy, that would say a lot
about Jesus with these folks.
And he's got some connections.
He's connected to Elijah.
If Jesus was delivered by Elijah,
man, that makes Jesus
into someone special.
But Elijah doesn't come.
And if you were there
looking for this spectacle,
what happens next
would have been very disappointing.
Because what happens next
in verse 37
is that Jesus breathes his last.
His last breath.
And Jesus uttered a loud cry
and breathed his last.
Boy, if you're hoping
for Jesus to come down
from the cross,
if you're hoping
for Elijah to come,
and he breathes his last
and he dies,
that would have been anticlimactic.
It would have been disappointing.
Elijah doesn't come.
Jesus doesn't come down
from the cross.
He doesn't save himself.
He dies.
Now, some would have been thinking
if he was the true Messiah,
the Christ,
the true King of Israel,
why would he allow himself
to die this way?
There were many in attendance
who were hoping
that he would come down
from the cross.
But he stayed on the cross
until his very last breath.
And here there's a pivot.
Because what happens next
in verses 38 and 39,
they happen immediately
after he breathes his last.
He dies,
and then two things happen.
Two results happen.
The first is in verse 38,
and at his death,
his death accomplished
something unexpected.
unexpected.
And the curtain of the temple
was torn in two
from top to bottom.
Now, if I were making
a movie out of this,
I would have had a close-up
on Jesus in verse 37,
breathing his last.
Ah!
And he dies.
But then,
the scene would completely change.
And all of a sudden,
my camera would be in
the temple,
the Jewish temple,
and it would be looking
at the curtain.
It would be moved
from the cross,
which would have had
a line of sight
on the temple,
and would have gone
right into the temple.
And so let me just
kind of explain
what's going on
in the temple.
There are two rooms
in the Jewish temple.
And if you were to walk
in the front door
of the Jewish temple,
you walk into
the holy place.
And the holy place
is where the Jewish priests
would enter and gather
and go about
their ministry responsibilities.
But then,
there was the inner sanctum,
the holy of holies,
where the ark was.
And that was believed
to be where God himself dwelt.
God's present dwelt.
And separating the holy place
from the holy of holies
was this massive,
thick,
ornate
curtain.
God required it
to separate
him and his holiness
from sinners,
even the priests.
And so when we read here
that Jesus breathed his last,
he dies,
and then the curtain
in the temple
is torn in two,
that is cause and effect.
The death of Jesus
opened the way
for sinners
to come into the presence
of a holy God.
And do you notice
it was a rending
from top to bottom?
What that means is
it's not man accomplished.
This is God wrought.
God rending.
God making a way
into his presence
through the death
of God the Son.
If this was the first time
we were reading
the Gospel of Mark,
and maybe this is the first time
you've heard this,
this would have been
totally unexpected.
Through this man's death,
God has opened a way
into his presence.
But that's just
the first result.
The second result
is that Christ's death
revealed someone extraordinary.
In verse 39,
standing opposite Jesus
on the cross,
watching this whole thing
unfold,
was a Roman centurion.
centurion.
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.
What you need to understand
is that
this Roman centurion,
he's a non-Jew.
He's a Gentile.
And he's in charge
of 100 men.
That's what a centurion is.
And apparently,
he had responsibility
for execution duty
that day.
Which means
he would have been
no stranger to death.
Likely,
he had executed many.
He had seen
many a person die.
And he sees the way
that Jesus dies
and he confesses,
truly,
this man was
the Son of God.
You see,
the death
of Jesus
reveals
someone extraordinary
that he is
the Son of God.
It's not by
bringing himself
down from the cross
that shows
he's the Son of God.
It was
remaining on the cross
until his death
that revealed
that he's
the Son of God.
what's surprising
in the Gospel
of Mark
is that
this centurion
is the only
human being,
the only
human being
who saw
and confessed
Jesus
as
the Son of God.
The only one.
And he had a role
in putting Jesus
to death.
For him to say
that Jesus
is the Son of God
is to say
that Jesus
is God.
And that is why
the curtain
was torn in two.
Only God the Son
could bear the wrath
of God the Father
in order to
reconcile
sinners
to himself.
Only God
could do that.
This is God
in the flesh.
Because Jesus
is God,
he alone
was able
to open
the way.
His
substitutionary
death
removes
the penalty
of our sin
and his
sinless
life
grants us
acceptance
in God's
sight.
He is
extraordinary.
His death
reveals him
to be
someone
who is
one of a kind,
God himself.
himself.
So when he
breathes his
last,
the curtain
is torn
in two.
This is
something
unexpected,
our salvation.
And
the centurion
confesses,
truly this is
the Son of God.
This is
someone
extraordinary.
So what if
there was no
darkness?
What if
Jesus never
cried out,
Eloi,
leme
sebectani?
What happens
if Jesus did
come down
from the cross?
He didn't
die.
He lived to
an old age
of 80
and enjoyed
retirement.
What happens
if he didn't
breathe his
last on
the cross?
There would
be no
salvation
for us.
There would
be no
payment made.
There would
be no
opening,
rending of
the curtain.
Why didn't
Jesus just
say enough
is enough
and come
down from
his cross
to display
his power?
Because it
wasn't loving.
that would
not have
been loving.
Our
loving
king
stayed on
the cross
to bear
the full
venting of
God the
Father's wrath
to remove
the obstacle
of sin
so that we
could enter
into
an eternal
and life-giving
relationship
with God.
It's only
because he
stayed on
the cross.
He had
two.
He is
the Isaiah
53
suffering
servant.
This was
God's will
from before
the foundation
of the
world.
And why
would he
do it?
How deep,
how vast,
how great
is his
love.
How deep
is his love.
How deep
is his love.
How deep