WHEN GOD TURNED AWAY
(#4 in the series CrossWords)
Mark 15:33-35
Introduction:
Jesus was on the Cross for approximately six hours. For three hours man did his worst. For three hours God did His best.
C. S. Lewis captured the Cross event in a poem:
"Love’s as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing He had done,
Seeing (with all that is)
Our cross, and His."
At the cross Jesus experienced something that He had never experienced before. From eternity past Jesus had always been in the presence of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. When He hung on the cross, Jesus experienced for a time the absence of God’s presence. It didn’t mean that He had rejected the Father. And it didn’t mean that the Father didn’t love Him.
Illustration:
When our son Will was five weeks old, he spent several days in the hospital with pneumonia. He had to spend much of his time in the hospital in an oxygen tent out of the arms of his mother. His cries were heartbreaking.
When our oldest daughter Emily was three she had spinal meningitis and spent 10 days in the hospital. When we first got to the hospital with her they took her from our arms to do a spinal tap. We weren’t allowed to be in the room where it was done. I can still hear her cries through the door.
When our children were separated from us at the hospital it didn’t mean that we didn’t love them or that they had rejected us. They were separated from us in a way that they had never experienced before. This is a poor analogy to illustrate what Jesus experienced on the Cross for us. But it may help us understand in some small way His experience.
Through His suffering on the Cross, Jesus won a great victory. It was a paradox difficult to understand. Through His death, Jesus purchased eternal life for us. He laid down His life and picked up the victory. He conquered death, hell, sin and the grave.
I. JESUS CONQUERED THE DARKNESS OF SIN
A. Darkness Caused by Sin (15:33)
The Bible says that darkness covered the entire land from 12 noon until 3:00 p.m. This darkness was no mere solar eclipse. It was a supernatural darkness caused by God Himself.
Amos 8:9 - “And it shall come to pass in that day,” says the Lord GOD, “That I will make the sun go down at noon, And I will darken the earth in broad daylight.”
There lived an Egyptian philosopher at that time named Diogenes. He said about this darkness, “Either the Deity himself suffers at this moment or He sympathizes with one that does.”
In the midst of this darkness Jesus cried out in loneliness. He had been abandoned by his disciples in the Garden. While He sweat blood in prayer they slept. He had been denied by Simon Peter in the courtyard. And now even God the Father turned His face away from the Lord Jesus.
Why did Jesus cry out in loneliness? Because at that moment He was feeling the full wrath of God against all the sins of mankind-past, present and future. In that moment Jesus experienced the ultimate loneliness; the loneliness of being separated from God. What should we learn from this event?
1. Sin brings darkness and loneliness.
The sin of Pharaoh in Exodus 10 caused God to bring darkness upon the land of Egypt for three days. While the Egyptians sat around in the dark at night the children of Israel had lights in their homes.
a. People who live in sin are more comfortable in the darkness.
John 3:19-21 (NKJV) - "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 "But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."
b. People who die in their sins will spend eternity in a place of “outer darkness.”
Matthew 25:30 (ESV) - “And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (cf. 2 Peter 2:4)
Jesus conquered the darkness of sin for us. We don’t have to live in spiritual darkness anymore. God abandoned Jesus at Calvary’s cross so He never would have to abandon us.
II. JESUS CONQUERED THE BITTERNESS OF SIN (15:35-36)
When Jesus cried out “Eloi, Eloi. . .” some around the cross thought he was calling for Elijah. One person filled a sponge with a bitter, sour wine and put it to the lips of Jesus. This fulfilled the Scripture of Psa. 69:21 that says, “They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”
This is a picture of what sin does to a person. Sin doesn’t promise bitterness at the beginning. But once we’ve fallen into snare of Satan, sin becomes bitter.
Illustration:
In high school, a boy named Tony, came to be one of my best friends. After high school, Tina and I married and bought a home in Myrtle. My friend also married a pretty, young girl and bought the house next door. By this time, Tina and I had been saved and were trying to live for the Lord. But our neighbors didn’t have time for God. They were caught up in a lifestyle of pleasure apart from God. It took its toll on them. They divorced. This young mother gave herself completely to a lifestyle of sin.
A few years later Tina saw the woman again. She came home and told me, "You wouldn’t recognize her now." Her youthful beauty had been stolen by her spiritual insanity. Her face, haggard and worn, gave testimony to the fact that sin, although it brings pleasure for a season, always take you further than you want to go and keeps you longer than you want to stay.
Romans 3:14 reminds us that the wicked are full of bitterness.
Romans 3:14-18 (HCSB) - “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Believers can be poisoned by sin. One person, or a small group of people, can contaminate the minds of other believers. We have power within us to be agents of good or agents of evil in the church.
Hebrews 12:15 (HCSB) - “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and by it, defiling many.”
The Lord Jesus conquered the bitterness of sin for us.
III. JESUS CONQUERED THE BARRIERS OF SIN (15:38-39)
Worship in the Jewish Temple involved a series of barriers. Jesus’ death removed all barriers between mankind and God. In the Temple there was the Court of Gentiles, beyond which the Gentiles could not enter. There was the Court of Women, beyond which the women could not enter. There was the Holy Place, beyond which the priests could not enter. Then there was the Holy of Holies. It was separated from the people by a veil (60’ high; 30’wide; as wide as a man’s hand). The High Priest was the only man who ever entered the Holy of Holies and he only went in once a year on the Day of Atonement. This veil that separated everyone from the manifest presence of Almighty God was torn from the top to the bottom at 3:00 p.m. when the priests were working in the Holy Place. God threw open the doors of His inner sanctuary and invited us to come boldly before the throne of grace.
As a result of the death of Jesus, the sacrificial system associated with Judaism was abolished. Jesus was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). Activity around the Temple in Jerusalem involved a steady stream of sacrifices involving turtle doves, goats, bulls, and lambs. But Jesus was the final and ultimate sacrifice for the sins of mankind.
Hebrews 10:10-12 (HCSB) - 10 By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. 11 Now every priest stands day after day ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.”
We who had been separated from God can now be reconciled by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2:13-14 (NKJV) - “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation”
