4-2-21 Grace-Vail Good Friday Sermon

Matthew 27:45-46 Sermon. April 2, 2021, Good Friday. Grace-Vail.

“From the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

When the impossible happens we call it a miracle. There are plenty on the Bible, always to accomplish a purpose of God. But not always good for everyone. 10 plagues were miracles. Good for Israel, bad for Egypt. Same with the Red Sea. Then Jesus came along, and he did more miracles than anyone else, overwhelmingly positive, beneficial miracles. Yet on Good Friday, Jesus makes the impossible possible, and it’s a destructive miracle. It is impossible for God to die. True statement.

Yet in Jesus, fully human and fully God, on Good Friday, God died. True statement. The impossible happened, and it hurt Jesus greatly. To reflect and learn and worship consider what he said. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?”Learn from 3 things. The Cry, The My, The Why. The Cry. Jesus shrieked, he wailed, he cried out in agony. It was more than just volume of his voice, but the emotion behind the vocalization. Anguish. Up to this point, Jesus had been pretty composed for the most part. Here he loses it. No way anyone would make this up. Other religious figures die with some wise words to be remembered. Or peacefully. Not Jesus.

Those who heard it recorded it in two languages, Aramaic, Eloi, Eloi Lama Sabachthani. Then they explain what it means. Why do that? Because the shriek stuck in their minds when they heard it, they never forgot it. The same way that if you’d ever hear a loved one crying out as they’re dying, it’d be burned into your memory for the rest of your life. When Matthew records the Aramaic, as if he’s saying, it’s burned into my head, the sound of his cry. And through his recording it this way, he wants it to be burned into your head too. You need it to be.

Jesus cried out, and what did he say? A Bible passage. Psalm 22. Even in agonizing death, he quoted Scripture. He knew it so well, he lived it, and embodied it so completely. Psalm 22 was written

by David. David wrote many songs, some during occasions of his life that he indicates. But with Psalm 22, we’re left with the question, when did this ever happen to David? Consider what he described in Psalm 22. “I am a worm and not a man, All who see me mock me shake their heads at me.

I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint, my heart has turned to wax, it has melted away within me.” This could maybe describe a bad time in David’s life. But then in verse.16, he said, “they have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones, people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.” As far as we know, that never happened to David.

What is being described? Not just a hard time, not just any death, an execution. David died an old man, blessing Solomon. He describes an execution. And when Jesus quotes this, that’s what was happening. Divine execution. There were signs of it. Darkness for 3 hours in the middle of the day.

Rocks split apart. Earthquake. Temple curtain, thick curtain tears in two from top to bottom. Tombs open up and dead people come out of them. All signs that something more than an evil atrocity was happening. A divine execution. It had to be that way.

Why divine execution? Why is there ever execution for horrendous crimes? So that the victims are given some measure of justice, and so that further evil crimes are deterred. If there was no justice, crime would be worse, victims would be more traumatized. Same with divine justice. If God didn’t do something about the evil in this world, all who suffer because of evil would have reason to accuse God of injustice. And the evil would grow worse. So God decided this was the way he would deal with evil. And it all came down on Jesus.

He cried out, shrieked in pain and agony, not just emotional, but profoundly spiritual agony, the type that you and I will really never quite understand. We can try to grasp a piece of what he was going through as we look at the My. Jesus was dealing with Personal Relationship Pain. When Jesus cried out, he said, “My God, My God.” Many times in all of our lives relationships of various kinds end on bad terms. There are many times when someone who you have some sort of relationship with basically says in some way, I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. How much that hurts you is entirely dependent on the quality of the relationship. How deep emotionally was the relationship, how long have you known the person, how much have you invested yourself in them and they in you?

If you have a bad exchange at the gas station counter, you get over that pretty quickly, it was an entirely superficial relationship, they wanted food, your job was to give it no deeper than that.

What about a friend who you’ve known for years through school. Been close, but now you have an argument and they say, I never want to see you again, and they mean it. That hurts more. What if a parent, or a brother or sister, someone you’ve known your entire life says, I want you away from me.

That’s going to take a while to deal with, maybe even dome counseling. And if a spouse, and some of you have been through this, someone who you once said, I am giving my whole self to you, physically, emotionally, spiritually, we are one til death parts us, and years later they say to you, I never want to see you again. That’s one of the hardest things to deal with.

When the father was forsaking the Son on the cross, what was Jesus losing? What was the quality of his relationship with his father? Almost indescribable. From all eternity, they were one.

Different persons, yet one God, a mystery, but their relationship goes back into eternity. They made the world together, they enjoyed unity and even in his life, the 33 years, he had heard at his baptism, this is my Son who I love. Approval. Affirmation. All the things we long for. At the transfiguration,

same message. This is my son. But on the cross, Jesus was forsaken. What he lost we can’t understand how valuable it was and how crushing to lose it. Jesus was experiencing hell itself on the cross. Hell is God saying away from me. Jesus felt it. What he lost was eternal infinite love. And what he suffered was in a sense eternal infinite torment. There is no way for us to quantify the suffering he went through, infinite.

And yet, amazingly, in the middle of it all, he says, My God. Though you are forsaking me, and I’m experiencing hell itself, I still call you My God. Even if he brings hell down onto me, I will call him My God. Incredible. With that faith, Jesus endured the worst suffering any human has ever felt. Jesus cried. He said, My God. But why? Why volunteer for this? Why was this happening? When Jesus asked why, it’s not as if he didn’t know the answer to. But he was asking it from a place of torment. Why have you forsaken me? Why does the perfect Father have to forsake the perfect Son? What did Jesus gain by going through this experience of death, and then resurrection? What he gained from it all is you.

Why he endured it all is you. Why he knew it was coming but went through it anyway is you. You are the why behind God’s most impossible miracle. Why did the Father forsake the Son? So he wouldn’t have to forsake you. Why did the Son endure such suffering? So he could call you his brother his sister for all eternity. You are the why. Divine justice without Jesus would mean you are forsaken forever. But because Jesus went theret, it means you will live with his favor forever.

A few take aways. First, there is no salvation like this. No other way of solving what’s really wrong with you and with the world around you that goes this deep, that is this complete. Every other god that you put in charge of your life will make demands of you that you can’t keep, and if you fail that god you’ll never be forgiven, and even if you get what that god promises you will not be satisfied.

This, the cross is what you need. This is where forgiveness that penetrates your soul is found. This is where you find God not making demands of you, but placing all the weight of his demands on himself. This is where you will be satisfied to the depth of your being.

Your God was willing to get messy, to endure unspeakable anguish so that you would know you are his. Your sin goes so much deeper than you know or can know. Only this horrible death can show you how damaging your rebellion and the evil that dwells within truly is. But God’s solution is so much better, the good news is so much better than you’d even dare to imagine on your own. This is not, God did his part, now you do yours. This is not, he showed you the way, now it’s up to you to follow. This is; look at what God did for you.

And it all means that what they did to Jesus, Jesus now asks you to do with your sinful nature.

Crucifixion was not just a way of executing. Much more efficient ways of executing. A type of death designed to maximize suffering, send a message, we consider you sub-human, ridicule and shame encouraged. So that no one will want anything to do with the person or their actions. Jesus says, do

that to your sinful nature. To the evil part of you that desires to be its own god. Have a view of yourself that says, a part of me needs to be crucified. May your sinful nature through the power of the spirit become an object of death. Also ridicule, shame, public disgrace. May your sins die in such a way that others see it and say, I don’t want anything to do with sin ever again. The only way to do that is with a confidence in the resurrection. If my sinful nature is crucified a new life and resurrection awaits me. That leads to the last point.

God places an incredible amount of value on you. In the marketplace, an item is as valuable as the highest bidder. If there’s a piece of jewelry that almost every will only pay $5 for, but 1 person says a million; what’s the jewelry worth? When you see the cross, what Jesus was willing to pay for you, there is no one who values you more. No one who will pay as much for you as Jesus did. You are valued, you are respected, you are loved more than you can know. He wants you to be able to face even death knowing that you will rise and be changed and live with God forever because he wants you there with him.

It’s a miracle. It should be impossible, but now it’s not only possible, it’s true, it’s real, and God has shown you how. He was crucified and brought back to life. The was a cry, Jesus said My, and you are the why. May you now be a living miracle of God, who lives right now in the life that Jesus gives and looks forward to receiving it even more fully for all of eternity to come. Amen.