The Availability Of Jesus
1st reading - Isaiah 33: 14-22/53:1-5
2nd reading - Luke 23:39-43
Jesus is always available to everyone who needs Him. Since he revealed Himself in His public ministry there have only been three hours, the hours of darkness on the cross, when he has not been freely available to all who sought him. We need to consider that very carefully. We are going to look at the events detailed in these verses of Luke’s Gospel just before the three hours when Jesus would not be available to anyone under any circumstances. We are depending on the Holy Spirit’s help to impress us that Jesus is available to every one today, regardless of age, ability or status.
Could there be someone here today who has not discovered the precious knowledge of the availability of Jesus? A line in the hymn that we’ve sung, “Tell me the old, old story,” says, “Remember I’m the sinner that Jesus came to save”. Did you sing that from your heart? Did you like to be reminded of it? Can I say that and truly mean it from the heart? Every redeemed sinner who values the cost of his or her redemption would surely always rejoice in the truth of that simple statement. The Apostle Paul who wrote, “The Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me,” would have loved that hymn.
Our passage in Isaiah 53 speaks prophetically of Jesus. It is one of the most amazing passages of the Old Testament. Written about eight centuries before the Saviour’s birth, it accurately foretells His rejection and vicarious sufferings in detail. Isaiah’s blunt assessment of man’s careless indifference to a suffering Saviour gives no comfort or escape from mankind’s guilt. He harshly accuses the human race, and particularly his Jewish brethren that they finds no beauty in Christ. He had “no form or comeliness”. He was despised, rejected and men “hid their faces” from Him. What does that mean? In simple language it means that they looked the other way!
People still look the other way. Oh yes – they make the sign of the cross, they adorn themselves with jewellery in its shape, they put it up on church buildings, in cemeteries and cenotaphs and on their places of worship, but they refuse the authority and scorn the redeeming work of the Saviour who died on His shameful cross just outside the most religiously famous city in the world. How often do I visit the cross to study its Divine Sufferer? Have you taken the journey to the Cross of Jesus? Do we rejoice in His availability? Is His triumph, our triumph? Do we bow constantly in thankful worship before the One who “bore our sins in His body on the tree”?
The passage in Luke tells us of two men who closely witnessed every detail of the actual fulfilment of chapter fifty-three of Isaiah, two men in the most terrible circumstances that anyone could imagine, suffering the horrendous agony themselves of crucifixion, and yet in close proximity to the Saviour of the world. Jesus was minutes, perhaps only seconds away from entering into the darkness of the unmitigated judgement of a holy, sin-hating God whose wrath was about to be unleashed on His sinless head. His cry would go unanswered. His prayer would be unheard. For His need there could be no relief.
How could Jesus make Himself available to these men in their death throes when the sin of all the ages was about to be heaped upon Him? He was three hours away from His own death and on the point of being made the very article of sin, of being treated by God as its physical embodiment. Remember Jesus had never sinned in thought, word or deed. He had not been conceived or born in sin like you and me. How then could He make Himself available to the lowest of the low in this, the worst of situations for Himself?
Divine grace and human compassion in perfect unison have never shone so brightly as they did in the events of the few minutes recorded by Luke in these five verses.
You and I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in such dreadful circumstances. We will never have to endure the agony of crucifixion. We will never know such a combination of excruciating physical pain and utter hopelessness in a situation beyond human help. This was the situation of these two malefactors. As far as what Jesus was going through is concerned, we are an infinity away from even beginning to understand what was occupying His holy mind; yet in these few moments Jesus was fully available to both men. Even more strange and wonderful is the fact that initially, according to another gospel account, neither had any respect or admiration for their fellow sufferer. If we examine the record carefully, it seems that it was almost in the last few moments before the sixth hour, the hour that God drew down a curtain of darkness to hide the atoning sufferings of Christ from unholy eyes, that one of these men repented.
They had both heard and seen all that had taken place. Both had heard the Lord’s prayer on behalf of His persecutors. Both had witnessed the perfection of His tender care for Mary. Both had seen him refusing the potion that would have dulled His physical pain. Both could have observed that not one word of reproach to His tormentors or hint of complaint for their brutality had passed the lips of the man called Jesus but only one conscience was pricked. In only one heart did the fear of God stir. Job tells us that the “fear of God is wisdom”. One Bible commentator says of the two malefactors, “One thief was saved that none may despair; but only one, so that none may presume.”
In His explanation of the parable of the sower, Jesus said, ” The seed is the word of God.” The Divine Sower, the Holy Spirit of God, had planted the seed. One man’s heart was stony ground. One was good ground. God had reached one man’s conscience. Not only was he aware of the hopelessness of his situation, he recognised its justice. How amazing it is that he first challenges his fellow criminal about whether or not he fears God! Every body here today surely believes in God. I would not question that. The question is, do we all fear God? What does it mean to fear God? We’ve been reminded of the words of Job in the Old Testament, but what do we read in God’s message of salvation about Jesus in the New Testament part of the Bible? The Apostle Paul writing to the Christian church in a place called Corinth says, “Jesus has been made to us wisdom from God.” God opened this man’s heart to receive that wisdom. God’s wisdom. Looking on was a crowd of people, experts in their religion but utterly foolish in God’s sight. This wretched, dying criminal had suddenly become infinitely wiser than all of them put together! God’s wisdom was available to him in the person of Jesus and he grasped it. He rebukes his fellow transgressor with a forceful reminder of the justice of their sentence of death and the need for the fear of God. He does not ask his fellow criminal if he realises that he is a thief. He asks him if he does not too fear God. Note the word “too”. He lumps his unbelieving fellow criminal along with the Roman soldiers, the religious leaders and the scornful passers-by that stood about the place of execution. Grace has already lifted him on to higher ground than them.
But then the work of the Spirit of God is revealed, “This man has done nothing amiss.” Have you, my friend arrived at the realisation that you are a sinner in God’s sight? Have you recognised that you deserve His judgement? Do you realise that according to His Word, that judgement involves the death penalty? The Bible says, “The soul that sins shall die.” (Ezek. Ch.18) Has it dawned on your soul that there is only one man who does not share your guilt? Like a shaft of sunlight it brought this man from the darkness of despair into the shining of the light of God’s truth. For him it shone on the Man who had done absolutely nothing wrong. Charles Wesley puts it thus in his hymn, “I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.” Never did divine light shine so brightly in such a dark dungeon!
He grasps that fleeting moment when Jesus was still available. He calls the dying Saviour Lord. “No one can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor.12: 3) He goes further. His acclamation of the Man on the centre cross as a King whose kingdom is still to come stands in magnificent contrast to the mockery of the sign nailed above it. At that moment in time this man was the only mortal alive who knew beyond any doubt that a glorious kingdom lay ahead and that he was in the presence of its King. He claimed a place in that kingdom on the basis of his faith in Jesus, the Servant King who was about to pay the penalty, not only for his sins but also for the sins of the whole world. Jesus was available to him and he would not miss the opportunity that God’s grace had placed within his grasp.
In our first passage in Isaiah we read the words, “Thine eyes shall see the King in His Beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off.” All Christ’s enemies could see was a naked, dying, crucified impostor whose life had been a complete failure, ending in shame. This poor dying thief, in all the agony and misery of his own brutal death saw the “King in His Beauty”. He saw a land that was very far off, a kingdom beyond the cross! His trust in the King gave him the assurance that his place in that “far off” land was secure. Then the King made a royal pronouncement, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” The kingdom in terms of human time might indeed be far off, but more far more wonderful was the promise from his Sovereign’s lips. “Today you will be with me!” This miserable wretch, a sin damaged product of a sin drenched world, had a place prepared for him in the intimacy of the presence of his Saviour. He had no need to wait for the glory of Christ’s coming kingdom, in a few short hours he would join his Redeemer in Paradise.
Have you called Him Lord? Do you recognise Him as your King? Have you heard His voice? Have you seen Him hanging in your stead on that awful cross? The malefactor came out of the darkness of sin just as Jesus was about to go into the darkness of God’s wrath in his place. Jesus was fully available to him, wonder of all wonders! Jesus is available now to all, whatever their sinful condition. He is available to you and to me at this very moment. Whoever you are, in true repentance you must acknowledge your guilt and turn to the only Man who has done nothing wrong, grasp the salvation that He alone can offer by virtue of His atoning death and the eternal value of His precious blood. You must call him Lord and recognise Him as the Saviour of God’s providing. There is no other way. Put Him on the throne in your heart and be assured of your place in His glorious coming kingdom. If He calls you from this world before His return, like the repentant thief you will have Him all to yourself until then. Everyone who is redeemed by His precious blood will return to this earth with Him when He comes to reign. God has so decreed in His word.
In Japan, many thousands of people got up in the morning a few days ago and never saw the sun set. Jesus was available to them when they climbed out of their beds but a terrible event changed that for time and eternity.
He is available to you today. He might not be available tomorrow. God’s word tells us, “Now Is The Acceptable Time, Now Is The Day Of Salvation.” Jesus is available to you personally today. I cannot say that will be so tomorrow. God may not give you tomorrow.
