Good Friday

Good Friday meditation from Mk. 15:21-39

Transcript

Verse 21. And they compelled a passerby Simon of Cyrene, who's coming in from
the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus to carry his cross. And they
brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they
offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified
him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what
each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the
inscription of the charge against him read, the king of the Jews. And with him
they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who
would pass by derided him, 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 are crucified with him also reviled him. And when the sixth hour had come,
there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth
hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani, which means
my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it
said, behold, he is calling Elijah. And someone ran and filled the sponge with
sour wine. He 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 stood facing him saw that in this way he
breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. As we spend this
Good Friday together, reading Mark's account of the crucifixion of Jesus, I want
us to spend some time reflecting specifically on the endurance of Jesus. Mark
makes it very clear to us that Jesus stayed on the cross voluntarily. And by
that, I mean, Jesus was not lacking the divine capacity to avoid the torture of
the cross. If you remember, when he was arrested, the initial impulse of Peter,
his disciple, was to fight back. But Jesus made Peter put his sword away. And
he said, this is in Matthew 26, do you think that I cannot appeal to my father
and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels? But how then should
the scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so? The death of Christ was carried
out by wicked men and through human treachery, but at the same time, it was also
the redemptive plan of God and Jesus stayed on the cross to make a way for you
and I to come to God. Let's look at this passage briefly and we'll see how Mark
makes that clear. First the background, we just read this. Jesus has already
been mocked, struck, spit upon, stripped of his clothes. Another man, Simon of
Cyrene, was compelled to carry the cross because Jesus was already in a very
weakened physical state. He's taken to a place called Golgotha outside the city
where this crucifixion is supposed to take place. Because of the immense pain of
crucifixion, Jesus is offered wine mixed with myrrh, which is supposed to have a
mildly numbing effect. But we see that Jesus refuses it. He is determined to go
through this suffering, fully conscious. Now Mark writes primarily to a Roman
audience, so he doesn't explain in detail how a crucifixion works because they
already knew. But from history, we know that the Romans at this time were
experts at physical torture and Jesus was nailed to a vertical beam with spikes
through both of his feet and he was nailed to a horizontal beam with a spike
through both of his wrists. Below the cross, Mark says there's a group of Roman
soldiers. This was a calloused group of men. They have probably at this point
seen so much death by torture that it doesn't seem to move them very much.
They're below at the bottom of the cross, casting lots to see who will take the
belongings of the dying man. And then there are two ordinary criminals, side by
side of Jesus, one on his right and one on his left. When Isaiah prophesied
about Jesus, he said, he was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the
sins of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. So Mark kind of sets
this horrendous scene for us. But if you read the Gospel of Mark in its
entirety, you'll see that Jesus foretells his suffering, his death and his
resurrection three separate times. The entire narrative is leading up to this
moment. Jesus knew it was coming. He speaks of his death and resurrection three
separate times. In Mark 8, 31 through 38, then in Mark 9, then in Mark 10. In
Mark 8, it says that Jesus began to teach them, those are his followers, that
the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the
chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. And
he said this plainly. When Jesus foretold to his followers what was to happen,
it was not a parable. There was not any, there wasn't any symbolism. There was
no metaphor. It didn't need interpretation. Wasn't mysterious. It was shocking.
And disturbing, but it was straightforward. It didn't need to be translated. And
yet the disciples did not understand and did not want to understand. When Jesus
repeats the same idea in Mark chapter 9, the disciples don't grasp it and they
don't want to get more information either. In Mark 9, Jesus says very similar
things about his forthcoming death and in response Mark says to the disciples,
but they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him. Then the
third time when Jesus foretells his death, he and his disciples are on the road
to Jerusalem where the climactic scenes of this gospel narrative will take
place. In Mark 10, 32 through 34, it says they were on the road going up to
Jerusalem and Jesus was walking ahead of them and they were amazed and those who
followed were afraid. And taking the 12 again, he began to tell them what was to
happen to him saying, see, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will
be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him
to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles and they will mock him and spit on
him and flog him and kill him and after three days he will rise. Those who
follow Jesus were amazed that he was willing to go to Jerusalem for Passover. It
was a hotbed of unrest. They knew Jesus's life was in danger in Jerusalem and
yet Jesus led the way, walking ahead of everyone. We see Jesus going forward,
very clear, very purposeful about the reason for which he came to earth. Jesus
came to earth according to Mark to give his life as a ransom for many. That
means that his life would be a substitutionary payment on behalf of the
undeserving. It's hard for us to even grasp the weight, the intensity, of this
mission. And it would be a mistake for us to think that Jesus's divinity made it
any easier for him. There's nothing easy about it. In Mark 14, as the
crucifixion draws near, we also see Jesus in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane,
knowing the suffering that awaits him in that moment. And he goes to pray, we
read this just moments ago. He said to his disciples, my soul is very sorrowful,
even to death. Remain here and watch. And going a little farther, he fell on the
ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he
said, Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet
not what I will, but what you will. So when the hour came, Jesus prayed in the
garden, asked his father to remove the cup of suffering. And yet even in that
request, he asked that the Father's will might be done. His mission is very
clear. It's to give his life. And the tension that Mark builds up through the
narrative is really this. Will he go through with it? Will it actually happen?
Will he go to the cross? Will he come down from the cross? Will he be rescued?
Will God intervene? And those questions are exactly the ones that get posed to
Jesus as he suffers. We just read the crucifixion lasted for six hours. It's
pain that we can't even really conceptualize. Physically, mentally, emotionally,
and spiritually. And in the midst of that terrible pain, Mark highlights for us
the mocking challenges that Jesus endures. First, the passerby's mock him. They
say, if you're so great, why don't you come down from the cross? Look at 29 and
30. Those who passed by derided him, 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. These are people that likely had flocked around him
before. They had no use for him. No use for Jesus now that he's suffering. Have
you ever been, you ever been mocked or taunted? And in that moment, you just
wish that you had the perfect reply? 95% of the time, we don't think of it in
that moment. But if you do have the perfect comeback, it's almost impossible to
keep your mouth shut. How tempting it must have been to come down from the
cross. And then secondly, we see the chief priests and the scribes mocking
Jesus. They have been a thorn in his side the entire length of his ministry.
Nothing he said or did could keep them from antagonizing him. And all the while
they insisted that if a sign that they deemed appropriate was given to them,
then they would believe. And now this appears to be their moment of triumph
because Jesus, the one that they see as their rival, is suffering. 31 and 32
says this. 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. Even as they
watch Jesus slowly bleed and suffocate, these religious leaders acknowledge to
each other that Jesus did save others. And yet in their hard-heartedness, they
taunt him. And again, how tempting would it have been to come down from the
cross? And third, Mark tells us that as Jesus hangs on the cross, there's two
common criminals, one on his right hand and one on his left. These two really
should have nothing to say because they're actual lawbreakers. If anyone should
have had a reason to keep their mouth shut, it would be those guys. But Mark
reports those who were crucified with him also reviled him. There was no reason
for Jesus to have to listen to abuse like that from men like these ones. How
tempting it would have been to respond to them, to come down from the cross. And
from the sixth hour to the ninth hour, so 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., the whole land is
blanketed in darkness. Jesus is mocked and deserted by everyone. He's
experiencing absolute alienation. 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? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he is calling
Elijah. And someone ran and filled the 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. So fourth, after the, after the passers-by taunt him to see if
he'll come down, after the chief priests challenged him to come down, after the
criminals mock him, there are still some in the crowds wondering whether Elijah
the prophet will come and rescue Jesus and bring him down. There were Jewish
legends that Elijah could be called upon to help in time of need. And even as
Jesus approached death, there was this sense among some that it couldn't really
be happening. Will he really go through with it? Will there be a miracle? Will
Elijah intervene and bring him down? Elijah didn't come. And Jesus stayed on the
cross. Jesus endured physical, emotional, spiritual agony beyond what we're able
to conceptualize. He experienced alienation from God the Father. He endured the
taunts and mockery of the crowds. The text tells us that Jesus uttered a loud
cry and breathed his last. We know from other gospel accounts that when Jesus
uttered a loud cry, what he said was, it is finished. And the sense of that
phrase really is, it has been and it forever will be finished. At the moment of
his death, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. That
barrier between the holiness of God and man. The barrier between God and man is
our sin. But in Jesus's death, that barrier had been broken. In his death, Jesus
took the punishment as our substitute for our sin. And he stayed on the cross in
love for you and I to make a way, the only way, for sinners to come to God. And
he proved his power and his love, not in a demonstration of physical force, but
by suffering, by staying on the cross. When the New Testament reflects on this
later, the Apostle Paul says, while we were still weak at the right time, Christ
died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person. Though
perhaps for a good person, one would even dare to die. But God shows his love
for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So on Good
Friday, for those of us who have turned to God, and trusted in Jesus as the only
sufficient sacrifice for our sins, Good Friday is a time where we are humbled
and we worship in reverence. And we read these events and we sing and we pray
and we remember that for those that observe them, his followers, those that
observed his suffering, and they would, soon after observe his resurrection,
their lives were forever changed. And some of you have never turned to Jesus.
And if that is true, then there's still a barrier between you and the God who
created you. You have to actually confess your sins. You have to place your
trust in the work of Jesus, who stayed on the cross to make a way for you to
come to God. The way that you need to respond is actually right in this text. We
see a man at the bottom of the cross. Remember I said Mark was written to a
primarily Roman audience. At the beginning of Mark's Gospel, he says that this
Gospel is about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So he kind of tells you in verse
one what he believes about Jesus. And then the rest of the way he's just
reporting. He's not editorializing. He's just reporting. But the proper response
to all of this is the response that the Roman soldier came to in verse 39.
Again, we're not talking about a righteous person. We're not talking about
someone who'd never seen death before. We're not talking about someone who'd
never participated in an evil like this. We can only imagine the things that
this man had participated in. When the centurion who stood facing him saw that
in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man is the Son of God.
Would you pray with me?