Introduction
Listen to Jesus:
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 (10:45).
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed (8:31).
Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? (10:38).
But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! (Luke 50).
That baptism takes place now.
Text
33 At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. What manner of darkness we do not know. Was there some miraculous eclipse of the sun so as to make the day literally seem like night? Was there a thick layer of dark storm clouds covering the sky? We don’t know, but from noon to mid-afternoon, the hours of Jesus’ crucifixion, the land that bore the dying divine Son could not see the light of the created sun.
34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Is there a more frightening verse in all the Bible? Are there more haunting words ever uttered on this earth? Surely many have cried out in despair and torment. Many have cursed God, many have called out to him in anguish, but this one who cries out in agony is the Son of God, the second person of the Godhead who for eternity, for endless time as always been one with the Father, in perfect unity, bound together in perfect love – it is he who cries out why have you forsaken me?
This is his baptism that he undergoes. This is the cup given to him to drink to its last dregs – to not only bear the awful pain of crucifixion, but to be forsaken by his Father. This is what had made him tremble in the garden and say, Take this cup from me (14:36).
These are not words that just happened to pop in Jesus’ head. He is quoting Psalm 22:1, the psalm the prophesies the sufferings of the Messiah. Be sure that he has meditated on this psalm many times and knows it by heart. And though it means what he says, that at this moment he feels forsaken by his Father, even now he knows that if fulfilling all that the Messiah must fulfill to gain his victory. His suffering is not play acting; it is very real; even so, or because it is so, he knows the redemption he has come to accomplish is at hand.
35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
36 One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
In the midst of what is the most terrible moment, not only of the crucifixion, but of history, man shows how silly he can be. “Hey, did he say ‘Eli’? Is he calling for Elijah? Somebody, give him some vinegar. Refresh him so we can see what happens.” Are they joking? Are they continuing their mockery of Jesus or do some in the crowd wonder if something might possibly be about to happen? Surely they must feel somewhat uneasy by the dark sky. It was a common belief that Elijah would come back when the Messiah would be anointed and judgment take place. Is this the time?
Whether they are joking or at earnest, they show man’s foolish blindness to the real significant event taking place – the Son of God sacrificing himself for man’s sin. I am reminded of the line in the haunting hymn, “Ah, Holy Jesus”: “the slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered: for man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth...”
And finally, the end comes: 37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. He dies. And it is a strange death. He should not have died so quickly, nor should he have had the strength to cry out at the end. Screaming in torment is common on the cross, but that is early on while there is still strength in the victim. As death nears, it is all one can do to breath, much less call out forcefully. Usually the victim is unconscious or nearly so before he breathes his last. But, nevertheless, he does die. His body now hangs lifeless.
Truly, great and fearful mystery is before us. The eternal Son of God dies; the Creator of life loses his life. Of course, what we understand is that it is in his human nature that Jesus dies, not in his divine nature. The Son of God cannot die, only the Son of Man. But while we can reason out the correct theology, we cannot begin to fathom the mystery of which we speak. Now, how is it that Jesus is both God and man? And how is that God is three persons in one? We don’t know the how, only the what, and what know before the cross is that our Creator became our Redeemer and died that we may live. The one who is invisible and everywhere hangs upon a cross. and we can count his bones as he droops his head in death.
Surely those who love him and stand before him – his mother and his disciple John – surely life itself must seem to be coming to an end. But Mark mentions two things that happen next that signify that far from this being the end, something new has begun.
First, there is what happens in the temple: 38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. It seems clear that Mark is referring to the curtain inside the temple proper that separates the sanctuary called the Holy Place from the inner sanctuary called the Most Holy Place. The inner sanctuary was the dwelling place of God, the room that only the High Priest may enter once a year to make atonement for the sins of the people. This was the equivalent of entering into the presence of God. The Holy Place was reserved only for priests who would have been in the sanctuary at that particular time preparing for the evening sacrifice.
Then, there is the remark by the centurion in charge of the crucifixion: 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
Something about Jesus’ death shakes this veteran soldier who most likely has seen many crucifixions. Something makes him realize that this is no common man. As a Roman soldier he probably means that Jesus is divine like, someone favored by the gods; literally, he says that Jesus is “a son of God.” But it is clear that Mark records the remark as a way of saying that this man testifies truly to more than he knows: the one hanging on the cross is truly the Son of God.
Putting It Together
Let’s now put the elements of Jesus’ death together and understand the meaning of what took place through his death. Let’s consider the darkness, the cry of being forsaken, the rending of the curtain, and the centurion’s response. All these elements together convey the great truth that on the cross Jesus received the judgment for our sins and removed the barrier that separated all people from God.
Consider the darkness covering the land. In the Bible it represents God’s judgment. The last plague against Egypt before the slaying of the first-born was covering the land in darkness for three days. Amos 8:9, referring to the day of judgment to come, says, “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.”
We might think that the darkness here signifies God’s judgment upon the Jews or upon those crucifying Jesus, but remember the cross is not about bad men getting one up on Jesus; it is about the sacrifice that he is rendering on our behalf. He is taking our place, receiving the judgment meant for us. And surely the whole land should be darkened for he is receiving judgment for all the sins of God’s elect.
But it is his blood-curdling cry that pronounces the judgment that has fallen upon him: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why? How could the Father turn away from the Son? What could cause this break, this anguish for both Son and Father? It is the falling gavel of the Judge pronouncing the guilty verdict on the Son: you are guilty! The Lord has laid on the Suffering Servant, his beloved Son, the iniquity of us all. He has crushed him and caused him to suffer as a guilt offering for us.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It is happening now upon the cross. This is not a myth to illustrate God’s sacrificial love. The sacrifice is literally true. Jesus is really dying, really suffering, really experiencing the anger of his Father. He is an abhorrence to God, whose just wrath is now bearing down upon him.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? How can God do this to Jesus? How can the Father bring his wrath upon his Son? Because somehow, somewhere in the inscrutable mystery of the Godhead – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – there lies a merciful love that moves both Father and Son to bear incomprehensible agony to spare us. Parents, you know the Father’s agony, if anything, was greater than the Son’s.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Those ought to have been our words. I recently read Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Listen to his description of the punishment of sinners.
Consider this, you that are here present, that yet remain in an unregenerate state. That God will execute the fierceness of his anger, implies, that he will inflict wrath without any pity. When God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon you, he will not forbear the executions of his wrath, or in the least lighten his hand; there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires.
Consider this, that we who are born again will not experience such wrath, because it was inflicted upon our Lord Jesus Christ who received all that “strict justice requires.”
But if the elements of the crucifixion story depict the judgment visited upon Jesus, they also depict the redemption won. The cross is not the story of a father who lost his temper with his son. It is the report that the battle for our souls was won. The battle plan succeeded! How do we know? Consider what happened after Jesus died.
First, 38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. What did the curtain cover? The Most Holy Place, the room of God’s presence. It was God’s throne room, or perhaps more accurate, his judgment room. Again, why did the High Priest enter that room each year? To make atonement for the people, to remove the guilt of their sins. Only he could come into God’s presence as a mediator for the people, only then once a year and only then to make atonement. Though the Most Holy Place served as a visible sign that God was in the midst of his people, the curtain served further to signify the barrier that prevented his people from approaching him. The curtain was a way of saying, “Stop, you can come no further.” Why? Because though atonement may be made each year, the very fact of it having to be offered again and again proved that man’s guilt remained and prevented him from ever being accepted into God’s presence.
But now our guilt is taken away once and for all. No priest need go for us into the Most Holy Place, for the curtain has been torn open. Christ has opened the way for us. Listen to the writer of Hebrews explain:
11 When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption... 15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant (9:11-15).
I started this sermon quoting Jesus’ own words about his impending death. Remember the two in which he spoke of his death as a baptism? Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? (10:38). But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! (Luke 50).
Think back to the baptism Jesus received at the hand of John the Baptist (1:9-11). Mark reports: As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
That phrase – heaven being torn open¬ – sounds very similar to the phrase, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. The verb is the same for both. When we looked at Jesus’ baptism I noted then the similarity and made the point that his water baptism foreshadowed his baptism of death, and that the rending of heaven signified the same thing as the rending of the temple curtain – that our access to God is now open thanks to Jesus’ baptism.
Jesus’ sacrifice worked! God accepted his sacrifice and not only forgave us our sins, but he exalted his Son as we shall see in the resurrection. That Jesus will be exalted and vindicated is seen in the last sign given, the centurion’s remark: Surely this man was the Son of God! Go back again to Jesus’ baptism. After he came out of the water, he received affirmation from the Father: And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Do you catch the connection? In each instance Jesus is affirmed as God’s Son; in each instance the affirmation comes after his baptism, whether of water or death. What Jesus’ water baptism anticipated and what his death accomplished was his great work of redemption. It is that work which ushers him into glory. Here again the great hymn of Philippians:
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:8-11).
Therefore God exalts Jesus. Therefore God accepts the sacrifice of his Son. Therefore Jesus is able to pass through the baptism waters of death and come out safely. Therefore his redemption for his people is won.
One last thing to note, the centurion himself is significant as the one who makes the profession. This pagan soldier represents us, i.e. those of us who are gentiles. He is but the first of millions upon millions of gentiles outside the covenant people of God – Israel – who will make the same profession, for Christ’s death was not only for the Jews, but for all who profess his name as Lord and Savior.
This great redemption accomplished is for you. It does not matter whether you are Jew or gentile, a church-goer or church rebel; it does not matter if you are morally respectable or a notorious sinner; your past makes no difference. Your sin is not too terrible to resist the redemption that Christ has achieved; you are not too hopeless for one who bears such power as Christ displayed on the cross. Jesus died on the cross to redeem you; he has fought the battle and has won; he has offered the sacrifice on your behalf and it was accepted; he has purchased you with his blood.
Remember that you, Christians, who keep worrying about your salvation. Your Redeemer has achieved it, and he intends to keep you whom he has purchased. And to you still on the fence, still not ready to commit: now is the day of salvation. I don’t know about tomorrow. I don’t know if the Lord returns today or if your life is required of you. All I know is now. Do not treat lightly so great and costly such a redemption. Call on the name of Christ as your Savior and Lord. Escape the judgment that comes to all without Christ. Receive the salvation that comes to all who belong to him.
