Christ died for our sins, according
to the Scriptures
(Or, “The
Death of the Passover-King”)
Mark 15:33-37
Introduction: Memorial
Day is a day for all Americans to remember and honor those who served to
preserve our freedom and paid the ultimate price. I hope you will take time
tomorrow to think about those who laid down their lives for us. Their sacrifices
helped preserve our freedom… even this freedom we are expressing today as we come
together and worship. Not all nations have such freedom! It is appropriate on
this Memorial Day weekend that our series in Mark brings us to the account of
the death of Jesus on the cross. Because of His sacrifice we are free from bondage
to sin and to Satan: “If the Son therefore should make you free, you shall
be free indeed!” That brings us to...
The BIG Idea:
The Cross was the place of divine judgement against sin, and the death of the
Son, as our substitute, is the only way to forgiveness and reconciliation with
God. We’ll look at that from three perspectives…
1. Darkness:
Jesus endured the darkness so that we could see the light of life.
2. Desertion:
He was forsaken, so that we never would be (34-36).
3. Death:
He laid down His life, so that we could live eternally. So, first…
I. Darkness: Jesus endured the darkness of judgment, so we could see the light of
life (33).
33 And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land
until the ninth hour.
Last week we read the account of Jesus, in
fulfillment of the Scriptures, being crucified between two thieves. Greater
love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Mark
has been answering some big questions for his readers (including us!), This is the heart of his answer
to one of those questions: Why did He come? Let’s look first at 15:33…
The first word of God recorded in the Bible is spoken in the context of
creation: “Let there be light!” God
shined light over the universe, and it was good. Throughout the Bible light and
darkness are used to describe life and blessing and the presence of God on the
one hand, and separation, judgement, and death on the other. This imagery is so
ingrained in Scripture that John could describe the coming of Jesus into the
world as the coming of light:
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the
world was made through him, yet the world did not know him… (John 1:9-10).
Later John describes believing
in Jesus as “coming to the light” and
unbelief in terms of loving the darkness (3:18-21). But remember that the
context is the Passover. And remember that this is Passover week.
The people are hearing and reciting the story of the Exodus from Egypt,
including the ten plagues which culminated in the Passover, and the death of
the firstborn in the homes of the Egyptians. Before that final plague there
were nine others. The ninth is described in Exodus 10:21-23,
…the LORD said to Moses,
"Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the
land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt."
22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there
was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. 23 They did not see one another,
nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel
had light where they lived.
Pharaoh’s unbelief and refusal to
obey the Lord had brought a series of devastating plagues on Egypt, but until
the final plague, this was perhaps the most terrifying. Pitch dark, a darkness to be felt. And it occurred
in all the land except where the Jews were! That darkness continued for three
days. Mark tells us that darkness came upon the land for three hours, from noon
to 3.
The prophets also spoke of the coming judgement in terms of “darkness.”
Joel chapter 2 begins and ends with a reference to the coming Day of the Lord…
Joel 2:1-2 …the day of the LORD is
coming; it is near, 2 a
day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like
blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their
like has never been before, nor will be again...
Then in a passage, quoted in part by
Peter on the day of Pentecost, we read in Joel 2:31, “The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the
moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.” Darkness
and judgment together! In fact, hell is described as “outer darkness” as in the
parable of the wicked servant, a place where there will be weeping and gnashing
of teeth.
Joel also describes the coming “Day of the Lord” as darkness in 5:18-20,
and then we read an intriguing statement in Amos 8:9, "And on that day," declares the
Lord GOD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in
broad daylight.” That is pretty specific! And here in Mark 15, at the
height of day, the 6th hour—noon—until the ninth hour (3 PM) there
is darkness. The Light of the World, shrouded in the darkness, the complete
absence of light! John Calvin said, “Our
Lord Jesus… was denied the light of the sun, when He was in His sufferings, to
signify the withdrawing of the light of God’s countenance…” Derek Thomas alluded
to this when he called this moment the opposite of the Aaronic benediction that
we have in Numbers 6:24-26. In that
blessing it says,
“The LORD bless you and keep
you; 25 the LORD make his
face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
26 the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you
peace.”
Instead of the described blessing,
Christ, though holy, became a curse for us… It is as though God said, “May
the Lord curse you and reject you, and hide His face from you, and give you His
wrath!” Darkness came on the whole land as the
Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all, He bore our sins, He was made a
curse for us!
The apostle Paul wrote in 2
Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said ‘Let
light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts…” He endured the
darkness that we deserved, so that we could receive the light of life. The
Cross was the place of divine judgement against sin, and the death of the Son,
as our substitute, is the only way to forgiveness and reconciliation with God.
Yes, Jesus endured the darkness of judgment, so that we could see the light …
He also experienced…
II. Desertion: He was forsaken, so that we never would be (34-36).
34 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?" 35 And
some of the bystanders hearing it said, "Behold, he is calling
Elijah." 36 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."
Mark tells us that Jesus cried out, citing Psalm
22:1 in its Aramaic form, and then Mark gives us the translation, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We need to preface our struggle to understand how this could be and what it
means, by acknowledging that there is mystery in the Godhead, one God,
eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. There is also
mystery in the incarnation, the Eternal Son taking on a human nature, so that
He now has two natures, human and divine, without mixture, but also without
division, in the One Person, the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Theologians call
this the hypostatic union. Somehow, during this time on the Cross, after
three hours of darkness, Jesus cries out, “My
God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” R.C. Sproul says that,
“At the climax of that period of
darkness, Jesus cried in agony—not the agony of the scourging or the agony of
the thorns and nails, but the agony of forsakenness.”
He is crying out to the Father, with
whom He has been in eternal fellowship! The giving of some sour wine on a sponge
itself fulfills Scripture – “They gave me
vinegar [sour wine] for my drink…”
(Psalm 69:21). But, why did the bystanders not understand Jesus’ words? Were
they still thinking in Messianic categories, so that even in their
rejection of Jesus’ messianic claim, what they hear is different than what
Jesus said? They spoke Aramaic and would have understood biblical Hebrew, at
least the Jews who were present surely would have. And most would have known
the Psalms well, especially the first verse of the psalms would have been
recognizable. But it seems they catch part of what Jesus said, and “fill in”
what made sense to them. Elijah was to come and usher in the Messianic kingdom
after all, so if Jesus is expecting the kingdom to start, “let’s see what
happens.” That fit their messianic understanding better than reading Psalm 22
as referring to the Messiah. Their minds just wouldn’t go there, that picture
didn’t make sense. A suffering Messiah? A Messiah was a Rescuer, a Savior, not
someone who would suffer such an ignoble death!
So, they may have misunderstood, or misheard what was said. But
some commentators, like John MacArthur, think that they understood perfectly
well what Jesus said, and they intentionally twist His words to be a reference
to “Elijah.” It was a way of further mocking His messianic claim. “My God? No, he’s calling Elijah! Ha!” It
could be there was mixture, some who heard wrongly, and some who continued to
mock Him. They didn’t understand that
this was God’s plan, and that Jesus, the Son, experienced separation from the
Father, so that we would not have to. Tim Keller said that when Jesus asked, “Why have you forsaken me?” that…
“…It wasn’t a rhetorical question. [Why?] ...the answer is: For you, for me, for us.
Jesus was forsaken by God so that we would never have to be. The judgment that
should have fallen on us fell instead on Jesus.”
And so, because of what He did for
us, after the resurrection He would say “…I
will never leave you or forsake you…”
(Heb 13:5) and “..Lo, I am with you
always, even to the end of the age…” (Mt 28:20). We will never be
forsaken!
The Cross was the place of divine judgement, wrath against sin, and the
death of the Son as our substitute is the only way to forgiveness and
reconciliation with God. Jesus endured the darkness of God’s wrath against sin
so that we could see the light of life, He was forsaken, so that we never would
be, and finally came…
III. Death: He laid down His life, so that we could live eternally
(37). When the Apostle Paul summarized the Gospel message, he said, “Christ died for our sins according
to the Scriptures…” This scene expresses that moment.
Notice how Mark tells the story: “And
Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.” To “cry
out in a loud voice” [we get the word megaphone
from this phrase] would have been physically impossible after scourging and
six hours on the cross, yet here we see Him do it twice. The only word of Christ from the Cross that
Mark gives us is that in v.34, the quotation of Psalm 22:1. But now, a second
time, in a “great voice” he cries out before He breathes his last. We know from the other Gospels that among His
last words on the Cross He said, “It is
finished” and “Into your hands I
commit my spirit…” Whichever Mark refers to, His work was done, and the
implication is, that He willfully and willingly laid down His life. The
suffering He endured, as horrific as it must have been, was not enough. He had
to die. The wages of sin is death...
(Rom 6:23a). And so, “Christ died for
our sins, according the Scriptures…”
All of human history, since the time of the Fall, awaited this moment.
Since Adam disobeyed and brought the curse on humanity and all creation,
creation itself was “groaning,” waiting for the Redeemer, the only one who, by
his obedience, could make it possible for sinners to be reconciled to Holy God.
Listen to the “before and after” as Paul describes it in Ephesians 2:1-7…
And you were dead in the
trespasses and sins 2 in
which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of
disobedience- 3 among whom we
all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the
body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of
mankind [We were all deserving of wrath, without hope and without God]. 4
But God, [Thank God for that contrast!] being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved
us, 5 even when we were
dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you
have been saved- 6 and raised
us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, 7 so that in the
coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness
toward us in Christ Jesus.
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe!
It happened here, in this scene, on the Cross.
What is God saying to me in this passage? Do you see that the Cross was the
place of divine judgement against sin, and that the death of the Son, as our
substitute, is the only way to forgiveness and reconciliation with God? *Jesus
endured the darkness of God’s wrath against sin so that we could see the light
of life, He was forsaken, so that we never would be, and finally He died, He
laid down His life, so that we could live eternally.
What would God have me to do in response to this passage?
1. The
cross helps us to know God better, it displays both His holiness and justice on the one hand;
and His love, expressed in the amazing grace He extended toward us, on the
other. Holiness, and love. Justice, and mercy. No conflict, it is His nature. We’ve
spent several weeks looking at the passion of Christ. Remember, it was the plan
of God to accomplish the redemption of all who would believe—this is how God
could be just, and still justify sinners.
2. If you know
Him, you can be assured of forgiveness, because he bore your sins in His body
on the tree. He took your sin, so that you could receive His righteousness.
There is therefore now no condemnation… He died, so that you could live.
He showed us His love. Has that truth touched your heart? Are you still
astonished by the Cross? God so loved you, that He gave His only Son…
3. We should never forget the sacrifices that were made
so that we could be free. And believers, remember that Jesus willingly gave
himself for us. If the Son therefore should make you free, you are free
indeed! AMEN.
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