SPEAKER_00: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight we gather for a teaching on the seven last words.
SPEAKER_00: Meditation.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is not an accusation, it is an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: Good Friday is not the day God withdraws from the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's the day he enters into it completely.
SPEAKER_00: Not from a distance, not as an observer, but from the inside of our suffering, our sins, our confusion.
SPEAKER_00: He steps into all of that.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is God revealing his love to us.
SPEAKER_00: Not in words, not in theory, but in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Stretched out, nailed down, poured out.
SPEAKER_00: This is what God is willing to do to reach us.
SPEAKER_00: And the man hanging there is not distant.
SPEAKER_00: He is not indifferent.
SPEAKER_00: He is already come all the way to Calvary, all the way into betrayal, all the way into abandonment, all the way into suffering and death.
SPEAKER_00: So that is where we are.
SPEAKER_00: God is here.
SPEAKER_00: Archbishop Fulton J.
SPEAKER_00: Sheen once said that Calvary is not just a place where Christ suffers, it is a place where he draws us near.
SPEAKER_00: Not by force, but by love.
SPEAKER_00: Almost as if the cross itself is reaching out and asking a question.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe I did this for you?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the tension of Good Friday.
SPEAKER_00: Not whether he loves, that's already been settled.
SPEAKER_00: But the question is whether we will stop running from it.
SPEAKER_00: So tonight we're invited to pay attention, to focus, to listen to these seven words.
SPEAKER_00: They're actually seven statements of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We're here to stand beneath the cross and to listen.
SPEAKER_00: Because before he died, Jesus spoke seven times.
SPEAKER_00: Seven short statements.
SPEAKER_00: But each one cuts through the noise, through the excuses, through the distances we keep.
SPEAKER_00: And each one is addressed not to a crowd in the past, but is being addressed to you tonight personally.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to rush this.
SPEAKER_00: Let yourself be still.
SPEAKER_00: Of all the things that Jesus could have said first, and I don't want to sanitize this moment, need to picture what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: His back is torn open, his hands have been nailed to the cross, his lungs are beginning to collapse under the weight of his body.
SPEAKER_00: And the first words out of his mouth is not to cry out in pain.
SPEAKER_00: It's not anger, it's not revenge, it's not even a prayer for himself, it's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Not just forgiveness in the general sense, he forgives them.
SPEAKER_00: The very people who put him there.
SPEAKER_00: Look at who he is speaking about.
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking about the soldiers who were probably good people who were trying to put food on their table and do the job that they were asked to do.
SPEAKER_00: The crowd that was caught up in the moment, swept by emotion.
SPEAKER_00: The religious leaders convinced that they were right, different faces, same blindness.
SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that they know nothing, it's that they do not know what they are really doing.
SPEAKER_00: Sin always looks smaller from the inside than it actually is.
SPEAKER_00: It blinds before it can destroy a soul.
SPEAKER_00: It convinces you by the words that you use, the decisions you make, the compromises that you do.
SPEAKER_00: And in a way, it's sin has a way of making you feel like it's not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: All the while it is driving the nails deeper and deeper.
SPEAKER_00: Because before we rush to judge them, we have to recognize ourselves in this crowd.
SPEAKER_00: How many times have we been the soldiers just going through the motions, not even thinking about the weight of what we're doing?
SPEAKER_00: How many times have we been that crowd going along to get along with everyone else?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because everyone else is doing it.
SPEAKER_00: How many times have we been so sure that we're right and still be wrong?
SPEAKER_00: We weren't physically there, but our sins are not a stranger to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And yet listen carefully, he does not say, I forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus from the cross does not say, I forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Father, forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: He brings the Father into it.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just a man trying to move from pain.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Son revealing the very heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because forgiveness is not a human achievement.
SPEAKER_00: It is a divine act.
SPEAKER_00: It flows from the Father through the Son, poured out into the world.
SPEAKER_00: A world that does not even recognize it that it needs that forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And he does not wait.
SPEAKER_00: No apology, no repentance, no acknowledgement from the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: And then this is the part that wrecks me every time.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them an excuse.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them an out.
SPEAKER_00: They know not what they do.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't minimize what was happening.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't pretend the nails didn't hurt.
SPEAKER_00: He simply said they don't understand the gravity of what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: And so he asked for mercy on their behalf.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't wait for them to be sorry.
SPEAKER_00: He forgave them while they were still active in doing what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00: He forgives them while they are still doing it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the part that confronts us.
SPEAKER_00: Because we tend to forgive when it feels fair.
SPEAKER_00: When they understand, when they come back and say sorry first.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus forgives before any of that.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you honestly.
SPEAKER_00: Who are you waiting for?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you waiting on?
SPEAKER_00: Who have you decided does not deserve your forgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you holding in the courtroom of your heart waiting for a verdict that makes it feel justified?
SPEAKER_00: This is the first word of from the cross because this is the first step of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is not saying what they did was acceptable.
SPEAKER_00: It is refusing to let what they did define you.
SPEAKER_00: It is stepping out of the prison that they put you in, and sometimes that prison you've chosen to stay in.
SPEAKER_00: And tonight you don't have to manufacture that forgiveness on your own.
SPEAKER_00: You can bring it to him.
SPEAKER_00: Because the same Christ who looked at his executioner and said, Father, forgive them, is looking at you.
SPEAKER_00: Not just asking you to forgive, but first reminding you you have been forgiven in your blindness.
SPEAKER_00: So now Jesus is asking you to go and do the same.
SPEAKER_00: Taken from Luke's Gospel twenty-three, forty-three.
SPEAKER_00: Two men, two same sentence, same hill, same agony, same proximity to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: One of them looks at Jesus and sees nothing.
SPEAKER_00: The other looks at Jesus and sees everything.
SPEAKER_00: One mocks him, saying, Save yourself and save us.
SPEAKER_00: The other rebukes him and then turns his head through pain, through exhaustion, through whatever strength he has left, and says something almost impossibly simple.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: No speech, no defense, no excuses, just please remember me.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, something happens that should shake every assumption we have about how God works.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus responds immediately.
SPEAKER_00: Without hesitation, he says, Today you will be with me in paradise.
SPEAKER_00: Today, not someday, not after you prove yourself, not after you make up for your past, but today.
SPEAKER_00: Don't misunderstand what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: This is not Jesus lowering the bar.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus revealing what actually matters.
SPEAKER_00: Look closely at this man.
SPEAKER_00: He acknowledges his guilt.
SPEAKER_00: He says, We are receiving what we deserve.
SPEAKER_00: He recognizes Christ's innocence.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This man has done nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And then this is the key that entrusts him completely.
SPEAKER_00: Remember me.
SPEAKER_00: It's not minimal.
SPEAKER_00: That's everything.
SPEAKER_00: In one moment, he does what many of us spend a whole lifetime avoiding.
SPEAKER_00: He stops defending himself and starts surrendering.
SPEAKER_00: And that is when grace begins to break through.
SPEAKER_00: Because the difference between the two criminals is not their past, it's their posture.
SPEAKER_00: One clings to control even in his final moments.
SPEAKER_00: The other lets go and places entire life, broken as it is, into the hands of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where it becomes personal.
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of us live with this quiet narrative running in the background of our minds.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I've gone too far.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I've wasted too much time.
SPEAKER_00: If people really knew how I really am, or if God really saw all that I am and all that I do.
SPEAKER_00: And so we keep God as it at a comfortable distance.
SPEAKER_00: Not because he's far, but because we've decided to keep him that way.
SPEAKER_00: The second word of the cross cuts straight through the lie.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not speaking to a saint.
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking to a man who has nothing left to offer.
SPEAKER_00: No future, no restitution, no time to fix anything.
SPEAKER_00: This man is at the very last of the last.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't hesitate.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't say, let's see how sincere you are.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, Well, you should have thought of this earlier.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, This is cutting a little bit too close.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says today.
SPEAKER_00: Because salvation is not earned by time, it is revealed in surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't twist this.
SPEAKER_00: This is not permission to delay conversion.
SPEAKER_00: This is a revelation of how urgent it is.
SPEAKER_00: Because both criminals were close to Jesus and only one turned to him.
SPEAKER_00: Proximity is not the same as conversion.
SPEAKER_00: You can be very close to the cross and still miss everything.
SPEAKER_00: So the question is not, have you been around faith?
SPEAKER_00: Have you been around church?
SPEAKER_00: Are you used to the prayers?
SPEAKER_00: The question is, have you turned to Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Have you actually entrusted your life to Him, or are you still negotiating?
SPEAKER_00: The cross is not a finish line for the perfect.
SPEAKER_00: It's a rescue for the lost.
SPEAKER_00: The only door into that rescue is not achievement, it is absolute and total surrender.
SPEAKER_00: So tonight, don't overcomplicate this.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try to clean yourselves up first.
SPEAKER_00: Don't wait for the perfect moment.
SPEAKER_00: Just pray the prayer of the thief.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, remember me.
SPEAKER_00: And understand what you're asking.
SPEAKER_00: You're not asking to be noticed, you're asking to be brought home into the fold.
SPEAKER_00: And the same Jesus who spoke to that man on that cross is speaking to you tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Not tomorrow, not someday, but today.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, remember me.
SPEAKER_00: The third word woman, behold your son, behold your mother, from John's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of dying, Jesus looked down from the cross and saw the two people he deeply loved, his mother and the disciple John.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, nails through his hands, struggling for every breath, he made sure they would not be alone.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Mary, behold your son.
SPEAKER_00: John, behold your mother.
SPEAKER_00: A new family formed at the cross, sealed in the language of love and loss.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice something here.
SPEAKER_00: In the worst moment of his life, Jesus was still thinking about someone else.
SPEAKER_00: The cross did not make him selfish.
SPEAKER_00: It made him more generous, more attentive, more present to the people who were suffering alongside him.
SPEAKER_00: Love is not proved in the easy moments.
SPEAKER_00: Love is proved in the hard moments.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something even deeper here.
SPEAKER_00: The church has always understood this moment as a gift to all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Mary becomes in that very instant not just John's mother, she becomes the mother of everyone who stands beneath the cross.
SPEAKER_00: She becomes the mother of the broken, the lonely of those who are grieving.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever felt orphaned by a family that has failed you, a family that has disappointed you, by a faith community that has wounded you, by a world that seems indifferent to your pain.
SPEAKER_00: This word from Jesus is for you.
SPEAKER_00: You're not an orphan.
SPEAKER_00: You have a mother who was given to you by the same man who gave his life for you.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something else here that moves me deeply.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus ensures, even in death, that his mother is cared for.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word that makes people uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you believe that Jesus Christ is God, then this question seems to break the whole thing open.
SPEAKER_00: God asking God why God has abandoned him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus spoke these words because he needed us to know that he had been here in this very place, in the darkness where you scream at the ceiling and hear nothing back.
SPEAKER_00: In the silence after prayers that have gone unanswered, in the night when faith feels like a word you use to know the meaning of.
SPEAKER_00: Went into the darkness so that when you are in the darkness, you are never truly alone.
SPEAKER_00: These words are the opening line of Psalm twenty-two.
SPEAKER_00: A psalm that begins in desolation but ends in total trust.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus just says a sentence.
SPEAKER_00: He sang the whole song.
SPEAKER_00: He walked the whole road from abandonment to surrender.
SPEAKER_00: And he did it so that we wouldn't have to walk it without a guide.
SPEAKER_00: That God is not there.
SPEAKER_00: The suffering of doing everything right and watching everything fall apart.
SPEAKER_00: The suffering of praying faithfully and feeling nothing in return.
SPEAKER_00: Saints have called this the dark night of the soul.
SPEAKER_00: And most of us, if we're honest, we've been there.
SPEAKER_00: This fourth word of Jesus from the cross is saying that I know you.
SPEAKER_00: I know your darkest places.
SPEAKER_00: I've been in that exact same spot.
SPEAKER_00: And I promise you, in the silence is not my silence is not absence.
SPEAKER_00: The darkness is not abandonment.
SPEAKER_00: I am here.
SPEAKER_00: Even when you cannot feel me, especially when you cannot feel me.
SPEAKER_00: What is extraordinary is that even in this cry of desolation, Jesus says, My God, not a God who has become a stranger, but my God.
SPEAKER_00: Even in the abyss, he holds on, and so can we.
SPEAKER_00: In your darkest times, let these words cover you.
SPEAKER_00: He has been here.
SPEAKER_00: He has been here for you.
SPEAKER_00: He is here now for you.
SPEAKER_00: Taken from John's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Two words.
SPEAKER_00: I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: The shortest of the seven sayings.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps the most intimate.
SPEAKER_00: I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: He's been on the cross for hours.
SPEAKER_00: The sun is brutal.
SPEAKER_00: Every breath is agony.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, I am thirsty.
SPEAKER_00: It's a statement of profound, undeniable, uncomfortable humanity.
SPEAKER_00: God thirsts.
SPEAKER_00: The one who created the oceans is thirsty.
SPEAKER_00: The one who turned water into wine is parched.
SPEAKER_00: The one who told the woman at the well that he could give her living water, that she would never thirst again is crying out for a drink.
SPEAKER_00: But the mystics and saints like Mother Teresa built their entire ministries on this.
SPEAKER_00: Understanding that thirst is to go deeper than the physical.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' thirst for souls.
SPEAKER_00: He thirsts for you.
SPEAKER_00: He longs for you.
SPEAKER_00: Not your performance, not your religion, not your attendance record or your offerings, but you.
SPEAKER_00: Angels stood ready.
SPEAKER_00: Legions stood ready.
SPEAKER_00: All of heaven stood there holding their breath.
SPEAKER_00: But he chose to stay.
SPEAKER_00: To stay desperate.
SPEAKER_00: To stay human.
SPEAKER_00: Because leaving would have meant leaving you.
SPEAKER_00: He is thirsty for you.
SPEAKER_00: He's been thirsty for you and your int for your entire life.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you felt unworthy of love.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you thought you were too far gone.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you ran, he was thirsty.
SPEAKER_00: And he's still thirsty right now.
SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to hear him say to you personally, I thirst for you.
SPEAKER_00: Specifically for you right now.
SPEAKER_05: In it for your hands, I comment my spirit the sixth word, it is finished from John's Gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Two thousand years later, those words still echo.
SPEAKER_00: It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: In the original Greek it is one word.
SPEAKER_00: Teteletasis.
SPEAKER_00: In the ancient world, ancients would stamp this word across paid debts.
SPEAKER_00: It made paid in full.
SPEAKER_00: Paid in full.
SPEAKER_00: An account closed.
SPEAKER_00: The settling of accounts, it is done.
SPEAKER_00: The debt is paid, not reduced, not refinanced, not rolled over to next year, paid in full.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you owe, it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever holds you back from God, it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you thought disqualified you, it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: But notice Jesus does not say, I am finished.
SPEAKER_00: He says, It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: There's a critical difference.
SPEAKER_00: He's not exhausted and surrendering.
SPEAKER_00: He's completing a mission.
SPEAKER_00: He is standing back and saying, It is done.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I was always supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: I came to do the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: The work of redemption is not ongoing.
SPEAKER_00: It is not a project you have to help complete.
SPEAKER_00: It is not something that you can add to or subtract from.
SPEAKER_00: It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: The gap between you and God has been bridged.
SPEAKER_00: The accusation against you dismissed.
SPEAKER_00: The exile is over.
SPEAKER_00: Again to quote Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
SPEAKER_00: He once said that Jesus filled the reservoir of grace at Calvary, and now it is the work of distribution.
SPEAKER_00: He's not still dying, he already died completely, perfectly, once and for all.
SPEAKER_00: The rest is an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: The rest is to come and drink.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who are exhausted from trying to earn your place with God, this word is for you.
SPEAKER_00: You can stop now.
SPEAKER_00: The earning is done.
SPEAKER_00: He did it.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who feel like you You keep failing and getting back up and failing again.
SPEAKER_00: This word is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Your failure does not unfinish what he finished.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is not undone by your weakness or by your mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: It is precisely for your weakness that he said it.
SPEAKER_00: It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: And the good news is that you can begin anew.
SPEAKER_00: What have you been carrying that is already covered?
SPEAKER_00: Name it.
SPEAKER_00: And understand that Jesus has paid it in full.
SPEAKER_00: From Luke's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how it ends.
SPEAKER_00: This is how he ends it.
SPEAKER_00: Not with a pronouncement.
SPEAKER_00: Not with a grand finale statement.
SPEAKER_00: Not with a theological declaration.
SPEAKER_00: He ends it in the way he lived it, surrendering completely to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Into your hands.
SPEAKER_00: His first recorded word in the Gospel of Luke when he was twelve years old and when he was with his parents and he found himself in the temple was Did you not know I must be about my father's business?
SPEAKER_00: His first recorded words.
SPEAKER_00: He begins in the father's house and he ends in the father's hands.
SPEAKER_00: Every moment in between was a love story.
SPEAKER_00: And here is where and here is what I want you to hear in this first in this final word.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender is not defeat.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender to God is the most powerful act a human being can ever perform.
SPEAKER_00: The entire life of Christ was a demonstration of this.
SPEAKER_00: That the path to fullness is not grasping.
SPEAKER_00: It's not trying to control everything and every narrative.
SPEAKER_00: It's opening your hands and letting go.
SPEAKER_00: There is something in your life right now that you are white knuckling.
SPEAKER_00: A relationship you're trying to force.
SPEAKER_00: A future you're trying to control.
SPEAKER_00: A pain you're trying to manage on your own.
SPEAKER_00: A fear you haven't been able to release.
SPEAKER_00: And you're exhausted from holding on so tightly.
SPEAKER_00: It is Jesus saying to you right now.
SPEAKER_00: I know what it feels like to let go of everything.
SPEAKER_00: I have done it.
SPEAKER_00: And what I fell into was not darkness.
SPEAKER_00: What I fell into was hands that have been waiting to catch me since before the world began.
SPEAKER_00: You're not falling into nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You're falling into hands.
SPEAKER_00: The same hands that wrote your name before you were born.
SPEAKER_00: The same hands that numbered your hairs.
SPEAKER_00: The same hands that were in this very moment receiving the spirit of their own son.
SPEAKER_00: Into your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Let that be your prayer today.
SPEAKER_00: Not a long prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Not a perfect prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you're holding on to.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever is holding on to you.
SPEAKER_00: Into your hands, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Seven words, seven sentences that shook the cosmos and have rewired the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness before it is asked for.
SPEAKER_00: A debt stamped paid.
SPEAKER_00: None of those words came from a throne.
SPEAKER_00: They came from a cross.
SPEAKER_00: They came from a man in agony.
SPEAKER_00: In love, giving everything he had to make sure you understood one thing before he closed his eyes.
SPEAKER_00: You are wanted.
SPEAKER_00: You are desired.
SPEAKER_00: You are loved.
SPEAKER_00: Not tolerated, but wanted.
SPEAKER_00: Not pitied, but chosen.
SPEAKER_00: Not because of what you have done, but because of what he decided before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: That you would be his and he would be yours.
SPEAKER_00: And nothing not sin.
SPEAKER_00: Not death.
SPEAKER_00: Not your worst day.
SPEAKER_00: Your worst mistake.
SPEAKER_00: Your longest night.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing would be allowed to stand between you and him.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Good Friday is all about.
SPEAKER_00: Not guilt.
SPEAKER_00: Not self-flagellation.
SPEAKER_00: Not a performance of sorrow designed to satisfy a demanding God.
SPEAKER_00: Good Friday is about standing at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Looking up at a man who chose to die with your name on his lips.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, finally believing that you are loved.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't have to earn your way here today.
SPEAKER_00: You showed up and that was enough.
SPEAKER_00: That's always been enough.
SPEAKER_00: So tomorrow is Saturday.
SPEAKER_00: Silent, waiting.
SPEAKER_00: The day the disciples didn't understand.
SPEAKER_00: But we know that Sunday is coming.
SPEAKER_00: It's always coming.
SPEAKER_00: But today, today we need to stand here at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Beneath the cross.
SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to stand now.
SPEAKER_00: And I invite you as you, as we depart this evening in silence, and you make your way to your cars in silence.
SPEAKER_00: Take in these seven words.
SPEAKER_00: Take in all that Christ has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Let the seven words wash over us.
SPEAKER_00: We let them be what they were always meant to be.
SPEAKER_00: Not an accusation, but an invitation to the newness of life.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.