April 14, 2006

“SURELY THIS MAN WAS THE SON OF GOD!”

Mark 15:33-16:8

The passage we read together a few minutes ago is familiar to all Christians. The events described in these verses lie at the very heart of Christian faith. It is appropriate that, after over 7 months of preaching and some 20 messages from the gospel of Mark, we have arrived at this text on Good Friday, when Christians around the world are worshiping and remembering these events.

From the verses we read, I want to focus on four specific details or points that Mark makes and emphasizes in his account. We shall then use these facts to answer three critical questions.

The first is an agonizing cry. We read this in Mark 15:33-34: At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud void, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

These are the only words of Jesus from the cross that Mark includes in his account. The language is Aramaic. Mark gives the translation for his Roman audience. It is a cry of utter desolation. The sun itself refused to shine upon the scene as God imposed a supernatural darkness over the land. The words are torn from the depths of his soul. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is a phrase and a moment that will ever be hidden in mystery. How could God be separated from God? How could the Father abandon the Son? We may never be able to answer that question satisfactorily in terms of the “how” in relation to our theology. But while we may not be able to explain the mechanics, we must face the fact that for that awful moment in history, God the Father turned his back on Jesus the Son.

The second point that Mark emphasizes is an unusual death. What do I mean by that? I am not talking about crucifixion as an unusual death. That was all too common in the Roman world. But how did people under crucifixion die? They died exhausted. The most common cause of death in crucifixion victims was asphyxia. When they could no longer pull themselves up against the nails in their hands and feet, their body slumped forward and their chest cavity collapsed. They died because they could no longer breathe. They were incapable of breathing, let alone speaking. How did Jesus die? In verse 37, Mark tells us, With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. Literally, “he expired”, he breathed out a final time. But with that last breath he had strength to give a great cry. We are not sure if this was a wordless cry, or represents one of the final words of Jesus described in the other gospels. That is not Mark’s point. His point is that he had strength at the very end to give a loud cry. Then he stopped breathing. This caused amazement on two points. First was that his death occurred so soon. Victims sometimes lingered for days on the cross. Jesus died after six hours. Pilate was amazed to hear that Jesus was already dead. The second was the physical strength he had to cry out. This so amazed the centurion that he knew that what he witnessed was something unusual, something divine.

The third point that Mark describes for us is a careful burial. Most commonly, the bodies of crucifixion victims were simply discarded like garbage, or buried in unmarked graves. Not so with Jesus. A wealthy man of influence named Joseph from Arimathea requested his body. First of all, careful steps were taken to ascertain his death. When Pilate questioned the rapidity of death, the centurion who oversaw the crucifixion was called. He confirmed the death. As a man who had probably witnessed numerous crucifixions as well as seen deaths on the battlefield, he was unlikely to make any mistake. The text itself somberly changes vocabulary. Joseph came requesting the “body”, using a Greek word which can mean either living or dead. After investigation, we are told that Pilate gave the “corpse” to Joseph, a Greek word that is only used of dead bodies. Once he received the body, Joseph carefully wrapped it in linen cloths and spices before laying it in a tomb hewn from the rock. As he did so he was watched by several women who carefully noted “where he was laid.” This careful burial is important for several reasons. First, it confirms the fulfillment of prophecy. In Isaiah 53:9 we read: He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but was with the rich in his death. This was an exact description of the difference from what would have been expected for a crucifixion victim and what actually happened to Jesus. Secondly, it sets the stage for what took place on Easter. If Jesus’ body had been carelessly flung aside, the precise details of his resurrection would have been very difficult to verify and prove. But there was no possibility of any error.

Finally, the fourth point that Mark emphasizes is a missing body. I am limiting my comments here to Mark’s gospel. In his account, he tells of the women approaching the tomb very early on Sunday morning to further anoint the body with spices. They have one primary concern. How will they move back the very large stone that they had seen rolled across the entrance to the tomb? To their amazement, when they approach they find the stone has already been rolled away. When they enter, an angel, described as a young man in white robes, is sitting there. His words confirm several things. First of all, they have come to the right place. You are looking for Jesus who was crucified…See the place where they laid him. Secondly, he points out what is so obvious to their own eyes; that is the missing body. He is not here. And thirdly he announces the conclusion. He has risen! Actually the angel starts with the conclusion and then points out the evidence. But the result is the same.

These facts are clearly written into the record; an agonizing cry, an unusual death, a careful burial and a missing body. Now I want to use these facts to answer three critical questions. Question # 1: Who is he? As I said in the sermon last week, I also emphasize again today. The identity of Jesus is central to this whole story. Last week, while under trial, we found that Jesus answered three questions in the affirmative. Are you the Christ? Jesus replied, “I am.” Are you the Son of the Blessed One (God)? Jesus replied, “I am” Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus replied, “Yes, it is as you say.”

These are Jesus’ claims, plainly made in the text for us to believe or reject. The question before us today is, how do the facts we have been considering in today’s text give credibility to those claims? I would point to three powerful evidences for the validity of Jesus’ claims. First of all was what Jesus cried on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? These words expressed the agony of Jesus on the cross, but they were also a fulfillment of prophecy, as those very words were used in one of the most powerful of the Messianic psalms in Psalm 22:1. They demonstrate that he is fulfilling prophecy and fully entering into the suffering of Messiah that was prophesied in that psalm.

Secondly was the unusual manner of his death. He died so quickly. He had so much strength left at his death. It is as though he died, not when he ran out of strength, but when he chose to die. This fact is born out elsewhere in Scripture, in John 10:18: No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again…And so, at the hour of his choosing, he dismissed his spirit and died. It is interesting to see the impact this had on the centurion standing by in verse 39: When he…heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” I am not sure how much this pagan, Roman soldier understood when he spoke these words. But here is an interesting point. We believe that Mark wrote his Gospel primarily for a Roman audience. He began with the words “The beginning of the Gospel about Jesus Christ the Son of God.” In his account, the first human being to voice this conclusion in witness was a Roman soldier. “Surely this man was the Son of God.” And he did so purely on the basis of the way he died.

Finally, and most powerfully is the witness of the empty tomb and the missing body and the angel’s announcement, “He has risen!”  It is Paul the apostle who says it most clearly in Romans 1:4: He was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Who is he? He is the Christ, the Son of God. That fact is supported by the fulfilled prophecies. It is supported by the way he died. It was declared with power by his resurrection from the dead.

Question # 2: Why did he die? If he is the Son of God, what was the purpose of his death? Let us start with Jesus’ own words in Mark 10:45: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Did you get that last phrase? To give his life as a ransom for many. That’s why he died. Paul supports this in I Corinthians 15:3: Christ died for our sins.

Here are a couple more Scriptures to make this absolutely clear. Isaiah 53:6 says it in prophetic form. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. That was what was happening as Jesus hung on the cross. Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:21: God made him, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That is why the sun went dark. That is why the Father turned his face away, and Jesus experienced that awful separation from his Father. He was carrying our sins. He was dying for us. Our sins were laid on him. Every lie we ever told, every harsh word and unkind action, every lustful thought, every crime, every foul or blasphemous word that every passed from our lips. It was laid on him, and he died as the sacrifice for our sins. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That was our separation from God that he endured for us.

That brings us to critical Question # 3: What did his death accomplish? To answer that question, I want to highlight one more dramatic incident that took place when Jesus died. It’s recorded in Mark 15:38: The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. For hundreds of years a curtain had hung. First in the tabernacle; then in Solomon’s temple; now in Herod’s magnificent reconstructed temple. It was magnificent and awesome in size. According to scholars, the curtain in Herod’s temple was 60 feet long and 30 feet high, and 5 inches thick, made of 72 squares joined together. It was so heavy that we are told that it took 300 priests to manipulate it. It hung between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies which represented the visible dwelling place of God on earth.

So holy was this place that only the High Priest was allowed to enter, and he only went in once a year on the Day of Atonement. He went in to sprinkle the blood of sacrifice on the Mercy Seat, to atone for the sins of the nation. He went in fearfully. According to reports, the other priests would tie bells to his robe so that they could hear him moving about inside and know that he was still alive, that God had not struck him down. They tied a cord to his ankle, so that if the unthinkable happened and he died inside the Holy of Holies, either by natural causes or because God struck him down, they could pull him out without going inside themselves. This curtain symbolized the awful gulf of separation that existed between God and man. It was the separation caused by sin. It was a gulf that wasn’t there when Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God. It had come as a result of sin. A holy God cannot tolerate sin. He must separate himself from sin. That curtain symbolized that separation.

Now, at the moment of Jesus’ death, that curtain, that awesome, awful symbol was torn in two. And it was torn in two from top to bottom which means God was the One doing the tearing. Jesus’ death opened the way for us to enter the very presence of God. The barrier of our sins has been removed by Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice for our sins.

The writer of Hebrews says it this way in Hebrews 10:19-22: Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith…

What did Jesus’ death accomplish? Our sins are gone. The barrier between us and God has been removed. The veil’s been torn from top to bottom. We can draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. No wonder Mark began his book by saying it was “good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

But I have to challenge you this morning. Is it good news for you? There is a condition here. It was there in the passage from Hebrews: We can “draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. Faith is the condition. Always and everywhere in Scripture, faith is the condition. Look at Romans 5:1-2: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

Access to God is by faith and faith alone. Faith in what? Not faith in what! Faith in whom? We could say that the answer to that question is found in the answers to the three critical questions of our sermon. Who is he? He is the Christ, the Son of God. Why did he die? He died for our sins. What did his death accomplish? His death removed the barrier of sin, and opened the way for us to enter the presence of God. Do you believe that? Have you entered into that relationship of peace with God which comes only through faith? If not, wouldn’t this Good Friday be an appropriate day to do so?