The Church of Eleven22 - Good Friday 2017: Follow Me

Episode Date: April 11, 2017

There is no celebration of the risen King without the crucifixion.

Welcome. If you will, come on in and find a seat. We want to welcome you to our Good Friday service on Tuesday. And we are excited that you're here. And it means the world that you would carve out some time in the middle of the week, in the middle of Holy Week, to come and sit under what God would have for us tonight. Here's our hope for our gathering tonight. A couple of things that I would prepare you for. One is it's going to feel differently than something you may have ever experienced before. It's going to feel differently than a regular service that you would attend on a weekend here at 1122. It's going to weigh differently than an experience maybe you have been through before. And so I would encourage you to not feel the obligation to respond in

ways that are traditionally held as normal. When we sing, you don't have to stand and there's no behavior expected of you. The desire for us tonight is that we would sit in a, spirit and a posture of contemplation from a place of reflection as we look deep into the last hours of the life of Christ. We're going to go on a journey tonight, both musically and through the teaching

of God's word, where we look deep into the heart of the garden, where we look at the purpose and the plan, in the experience of Jesus through the trial, and ultimately where we stare in the face of the crucifixion of Christ. And the heart of this

is reflection, the heart of this is contemplation. And so we would ask that you would humbly sit and receive and respond as God would lead, but not feel any obligation to respond in a trained way, but only in the way that seems appropriate to the

experience that we're going through. So I'm going to pray for us, and then we are going to start this journey toward the place of the skull, the hill of Gagatha, where we are going to look at the crucifixion of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. Lord, would you meet us here?

Would you help us to find ourselves in light of who you are? Would you help us to see differently and hear differently and experience you differently than we ever have before? Lord, will you press on to us the weight of glory? Under the water's edge all you know and fear of the Lord. Come to the waters edge all you who are thirsty. He tell you what is done for me.

Me tell you what is done for me. He is done for you. He is done for you. He is done for. It's about the final hours of Jesus' life. But the story of the anguish and the arrest and the trial and the beating and the crucifixion of Jesus. of Jesus didn't begin that night. It actually began thousands of nights earlier.

Not in the Garden of Gassimony did it start, but it actually started in the Garden of Eden, where God created Adam and Eve to enjoy and trust their Heavenly Father. But instead of trusting God's perfect will, they trusted their own will. And instead of trusting their father's perfect plan, they trusted their own plans.

And in that garden, sin entered in. And it set the stage for a whole other garden to take place. Matthew records in chapter 26 that then Jesus went with them to a place called Gassimony. And he said to the disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And it was after the last Passover meal that Jesus walked out to this hillside to a garden outside of the city. And it was late and it was dark and it was quiet and it was still and they were all alone. and he turned to his friends and he asked him, would you just stay with me in the final hours of my life?

Would you pray with me? Would you pray for me? And taking with him, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Years earlier, Jesus had taken Peter, James, and John. He's taking them up on a hillside and shown them in all his glory that he was the fullness of God. And then in that night, he took those same men up on another hillside, and in all his agony, he showed them the fullness of his humanity.

And his humanity wasn't something of a scandal. It was really necessary. Because if our humanity. isn't fully assumed by Jesus, then our sin is not fully redeemed by our Savior. And then he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me. And Jesus sat in that garden. And as he sat there, he could look up the hill to where he would be tried and where he would

would be crucified. And the grief that was so impending about his death encircled him so greatly at that moment that Luke said that the capillaries in his skin began to tear open and he began to pour out, sweating out blood. Gassimony actually means the place of the pressing of oil. And under the weight of the sin and the death that was in the world, the pressing on Jesus would press out his blood for the forgiveness of that sin and the payment of the price for that death. But it wasn't simply his own death

that caused him agony. That it was the anguish of facing a death he didn't deserve, a death that we deserve, death that he would assume on our behalf. And it was so overwhelming that he began to shed blood in that garden. And his blood began to pour out in that garden for the forgiveness of sins that had started in a whole other garden thousands of nights earlier. And going a little further, he fell on his face and he prayed saying, my father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.

And what Jesus was praying was in that moment, Father, I praise you because you are perfectly just and you are perfectly holy. But when man's sinfulness meets your perfect holiness, you won't entertain it. and when man's sinfulness meets your perfect justice, you won't leave it undelt with. But, Father, in your infinite wisdom, you ordained that your holiness and your justice would mix in the cup of your wrath to be poured out over the sin of humanity. And, Father, they can't drink that cup. they can't do it father if they drink even a drop from that cup they'll die they can't pay for their own sin father and in that moment he cries out asking is there any other way is there any other way

other than them trusting me that i would step in and drink the cup that they can't drink is there any other way other than me dying a death on the cross of a criminal in their place is there any other way for them to be saved apart from me dying under the crushing weight the pressing of their sin and their death is it possible father for them to be saved by their own moral behavior is it possible father for them to be saved by their own moral behavior is it possible Father, for them to be saved by really religious actions. Father, is it possible for them to be saved by super sophisticated philosophies? Is there any other way other than this, your will? And then Jesus answers his own question. And he says, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. But as you will,

will. He says either they will die for their sins or I will die for their sins. For them to drink the cup of the new covenant of grace and life, Father, I have to drink the cup of wrath and death for them. And what he was saying is, Father, I won't do in this garden what Adam and Eve did in that first garden. I so want your children to have full life more than I want to save my life that I will trust your perfect, good, holy, sovereign will in a way that it wasn't trusted in that first garden, father. And he came to the disciples and he found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, so could you not watch with me one hour? watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. At that moment, right in the middle of while Peter's flesh and best efforts are failing him, the spirit is working to save. And again, for the second time, he went away, and he prayed, my father. If this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And again, he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.

So leaving them again, he went away and he prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. And then he came to the disciples, and he said to them, sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand. The son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Three times the disciples choose to drift off in disobedient comfort. Three times their disobedience is perfectly complete, perfectly sinful.

And at that very moment, three times at that moment, while the disciples are failing, Jesus is falling on his face and surrendering his will to his heavenly father. In his active, perfect obedience, he surrenders himself to his father. Three times his faithful, perfect obedience is complete. And then he looks up towards the city and he sees Judas. And he turns to his friends and he says, rise. Let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.

So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers, of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. First they led him to Annis, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. And it was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people. With the sweat droplets saturated with blood, still pouring from his forehead, Jesus is wrongfully arrested and taken away to be subjected to an illegal trial multiple of them

even overnight they stormed down on Jesus led by his betrayer the somberness of the pitch black night only lit by the torches of an angry mob coming to arrest an innocent man when they came the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together both chief priests and scribes

and they led him away to their counsel and they said if you are the Christ tell us but he said to them if I tell you you would not believe and if I ask you you will not answer but from now on the son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God so they all said are you the son of God. Jesus said to them, you say that I am. Then they said, what further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips. Jesus, on many occasions, was asked, is he the Christ?

Is he the anointed one? Is he the Messiah? Is he the son of God? And on many of those occasions, Jesus averted the question. He would reply to that question, with another question. But on this instance, Jesus answers very clearly.

Thou sayest it. I am. It is as you say. He could stay silent, but he chose not to. No matter what it would cost him, Jesus knew that he would follow the will of his father. And the high priest tore his garment

and said, further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him

and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him prophesied and the guards received him with blows. So as a mockery of the fact that Jesus was known as this prophet, they blindfolded his eyes.

and tighten the blindfold. And as he's there with his hands cuffed and his face blindfolded, they took turns throwing blows that would bruise his face, that would swell his eyes. They throw the blows, and Jesus has no opportunity to wince or to prepare for what's coming. And they mock exactly who he is, the prophet. They take him to Pilate. So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus to him and said, Are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus answered them once again. It is as you say. Pilots say, have you no answer to make against all the charges that they are bringing against you? Jesus made no further answer so that Pilate was amazed. See, the Jews' hatred for Jesus had boiled over to a point where they want. wanted him murdered. But since they were under Roman reign and rule, the Jews were not allowed to execute anyone. So they brought Jesus to Pilate to carry out the desires of their heart. And here, Pilate has Jesus' fate square in the palm of his hands. And anyone else would beg and plead for their

life. And yet Jesus does not answer Pilate. And it amazes him. After he said this, he went back outside and said i find no guilt in this man then pilot took jesus and flogged him and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe and they came up to him saying hell king of the jews hell king of the jews and they struck him with their hands when we hear flawed we think of our americanized version of a whipping one long strap and it goes and it goes and it snaps and it comes right back. But that is not what flogging was in Roman culture.

See, the Romans had a thing called Pax Romano, which meant the peace of Rome. And in order to spread the wealth of their nation, in order to spread a fear of their nation, they were professionals in torture and murder and instilling fear in anyone who opposed them. They were professional torturers. So it's scourging and flogging. and what they would do is take your hands and tie them to a pole above your head. And instead of a whip, they would use a phagellam or a cat of nine tails,

and it's a leather strap with multiple leather straps hanging from it. And along the little straps, they would have little metal balls. And at the ends of them, there would be shards of glass and rock and stone and bone. And those little metal balls were meant to curate or soften the skin,

almost like a butcher does. it's meat before he cooks it. And so when they caught back the whip, it wasn't meant to hit and move away. It was meant to hit and they would leave it for a while and then rip away muscle and skin. Jesus stands here like this as they do it over and over and over and over and over. and over again.

Jewish tradition was 39 blows plus one, but the Romans were professional torturers. They knew how to bring you right to the brink of death and pull you right back so that they could torture you even more. Their intent was not to just hurt Jesus. They wanted to mutilate him. So as Jesus is suffering from this blunt force trauma, His back is now just ribbons of flesh and exposed muscle and skin.

They then take the thorns from a nearby archaea tree, and don't think rosebud thorns that are just fingernail length at, you prick your finger and it hurts. These are needle-length thorns, and they jam it onto his head. And these needle-length thorns pierce into his head, and the blood flows down his face. They would take a rod and beat it down even further onto his head. Another effort to mock him, they would take a robe

and put it over his freshly open back and let the robe congeal to his back and almost create sort of a bandage. And then immediately they would take it and rip it back off again, exposing his back to the elements. Pilate brings him out and says, behold the man thinking that this would satisfy the crowd. He will no longer claim that he's a king.

Look at him. He doesn't even look like a human. And the crowd clamored all the more. Crucify him. Crucify him. It still wasn't enough. Pilot knew that according to custom that they would release one prisoner, so Pilate brings an insurrectionist, a murderer named Barabbas,

out to the forefront. And Pilate is sure. sure that they will choose Jesus to go free over the murderer. And the people ask for the murderer to be free. And Jesus standing there draped in blood, covered in our humiliation, bruised with our guilt, bearing the weight of our sin against a thrice holy God. Jesus stands there, innocent of any charge that any person could ever bring against him. He stands there and the murderer walks away free. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak.

And they put his own clothes on him. And they let him out to crucify him. Lift it out. Lift it out. Up the head. Begarant. Lift it out. I find hope in the aftermath.

We wear it around our necks and we hang it on the walls of our homes. It is a symbol that is defined a religion for more than 2,000 years. It has been on the banner of soldiers as they march in to war in the mark of a people on human history. We go as far as to tattoo it on our skin and to design it into our clothing. but do we really understand the cross? Do we really know what the cross was? It is one of the great tragedies in our modern era that the cross has somehow become commonplace

and that somehow we have grown inoculated to its devastating reality. And so the question we ask ourselves tonight is that have we somehow become inoculars? to the power of the cross in our own lives. 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul, writes it like this. He says that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

This cross, this death by crucifixion was a brutal form of capital punishment. It was a form of state-sponsored terror. The Romans ruled the earth for more than 1,500 years, and their kingdom stretched more than 1.5 million miles, and they ruled with an iron fist, and the tip of the spear used to incite fear and provide domination was the cross. This inhumane form of torture.

the Romans murdered millions on crosses. In that day it would not be out of place for someone to be traveling from one town to the next for miles and miles and the roadways be littered with men and women hanging from crosses. It was savage. The historian Josephus writes about crucifixion. He says it is so awful that it should not even be mentioned. You see, the cross was not merely intended to hurt physically. It was intended to eviscerate. It was every bit as emotional as it was physical.

You see, its primary purpose was to produce shame. It was always done in a public setting. So Jesus wasn't crucified on a hillside in a remote region. He was crucified in a marketplace, in a public setting, surrounded by people full of spectators to participate in this brutal shaming. And for those being crucified, it was common practice that they would be spit upon. They would be cursed at. They would be stoned in far more disgusting acts.

Most people would be hung naked or almost naked. Their body parts would be nailed to the wood supporting him. And they would be covered in their own blood, in their own sweat. and in their own excrement. You see, the cross is not just a place where people went to die, but it is where people went to lose everything that it means to be a human. And here, in this place, in this crucible of atrocity, we find God.

They did this to God. And God let them so that He will. wouldn't have to do it to us. He offered himself to save us from himself. What is the cross of Christ? It is the picture of sin and sinners heinous offense against the holiness of God Almighty. I mean, as one would hang there on that tree, shamed, alone, hopeless, their lungs would begin to fill with fluid. This is known as death by asphyxiation. This is a place. place where your lungs feel and the heart pounds faster and faster and faster and faster and eventually the heart explodes or the person suffocates on this fluid. You see Jesus very literally choked

to death on our sin and he died of a broken heart hanging from a beam of wood. And from this place of terror as the sky turns black in the middle of the day, as creation begins to close in on the Creator as the sustainer of the universe is finishing the pivotal chapter in a story that he wrote. Jesus paints the picture for us with his words. And in this picture, he wants us to see him. He wants us to be able to share in his suffering. And so from the cross, the first thing that Jesus says is he says, Father, forgive them. For they, don't know what they're doing. Father, forgive them. Forgive them for what? For loving what is evil? For abhorring what is good? For despising God's good gifts, for rejecting purity, for spitting on glory

with pride? Father, forgive them. Forgive them for betraying us. Forgive them for loving idols more than us for needing me to hang here in their place. Father, forgive them for like Israel, they have committed eternal adultery against your good name and against your holy law. Father, forgive them. That sounds really nice until you realize that he is talking through time and through space to us. Forgive them because they did this and they're so self-absorbed. They don't even know what they have done. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. And as he hangs there, he looks to his right, and he looks to his left, and he sees men like us. Glory thieves, justly condemned. And in a cry of mercy, one of the men hanging next to him, calls upon him and says,

please remember me. And Jesus says back to him, I assure you today, you will be with me in paradise. As his heart pounded out of his chest, Jesus sees a man. He sees a cry of faith. He sees a scarlet-threaded promise of another life, and he breathes out hope for this man. He breathes out hope for all men. For if we share in his suffering, we shall surely share in his glory.

And then in a distinct moment of crimson's soul, He turns his eyes to the street below. And there, he sees his mother. His mother. There's no manger. There's no wise men. There's no star in the sky. There is just his mom sitting there, and her eyes are filled with tears.

They are filled with terror at what her son has become right in front of her. But behind the tears and behind the terror, there's this promise, this echo of an angel. who says that you, dear woman, you shall have a son and his name shall be called Jesus and he will save you from your sins. And with that promise hidden behind a mask of suffering, Jesus looks into his mother's eyes and he says, Dear woman, behold, here is your son. I mean, can you imagine an emotional torture deeper than that of meeting eyes? eyes with your mother while you're hanging there naked, beaten, rendered helpless, raped of dignity, and there you hang, looking at your mother as she sits there, looking through tears of agony,

staring at her son. I mean, Mary, did you know? What did you think? Did you think that your son would be a king, Mary? Mary, did you think that he would rule from a throne of gold? Dear woman, And here he is, behold your son and Christ. The suffering servant, he turns his eyes from the temporary. And as he unlocks eyes with his mother, he turns his attention solely to the father. And with a loud voice, he fulfills the prophecy that he spoke to King David. When he cries out the word that he not only feels, but that are actually true, when he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

After breath, after breath, the more his lungs would fill, the more blood he would lose, the more shame he would endure, the closer and closer he dives in to hell. The hell of being separated from the Father. Jesus didn't just die for us. He subjected himself to hell so that through faith we can, could escape hell. The payment for sin is death, eternal death, death of access to the father. I mean, it is mind-numbing to conceive what the prophet Isaiah says when he utters the words that it was the Lord's will to crush him, to put him to open grief. What are you telling me? You're telling me that it was

the will of the Lord that Jesus experienced hell, that he experienced the hell of the cross, the hell of death, the hell of separation. Hell? He endured hell so that we could be embraced by God. And then as his body fails, choking and gasping, he cries out in his humanity. And in his last moments of being wrapped

in this frail, wretched body of death, he says, I thirst. And to this humble, request for a moment's reprieve, the Romans subject Jesus to the most offensive act imaginable to a suffering and dying man. Under great and terrible agony, he cries out, I'm thirsty, and do the Romans give him a drink? No. They give him a sponge with sour wine on it. Now, when you first hear this, it doesn't seem so terrible until you understand what the sponge was used for. You see, in a public marketplace in

first century Rome, toilets were an open affair. And in order for men and women to clean themselves, they would take sponges and they would tie them to the end of sticks and then they would dip these sponges in soured wine to clean them

and to try to prevent bacteria. So when the Bible says they put a sponge with sour wine on it in his mouth, what the Bible is saying is that they are shoving used toilet paper into the mouth of God in response to his statement, I thirst.

And as the weight of sin is on his shoulders and the blood demanded for atonement is dripping from his face, after such intense torture, he is barely recognizable as a man. After he has endured all the scorn of man and he has willfully swallowed the wrath of God. As he hanged there,

he says the three most powerful words ever uttered. When he cries, it is finished. The inflexible judge called the law, the weight of God's demands, the punishment for sin, the cries of creation, the groanings of rebellion, the need for blood, the demand for justice, the chasm of death, the cancer of sin, the sting of hell, it is finished. The empire of evil, the day of darkness, the nation of Satan, the plan to steal, to kill and to destroy, the weight of perfect performance, the plague of self-absorption, the impossibility of God, the path you can never walk, the life, you can never live, the death you do not want to die, the needs you can never meet, the longings you can never satisfy, the shame meant for you, the nakedness you now realize the fluid in your, your lungs, the separation of water and blood, the finality of forever. It is finished. Tell, tell us I, glory to God the sun, it is finished. And it was.

Having done the will of the father, he pushed up on his nails one last time, finds one last breath, and lifts his head and whispers these words. And as his body drops, he breathes his last. Can you see it, my friend? Do you see the son of man dead on a tree, dead because of you, dead because of me? Can you smell it? The blood and the sand and the stench of flesh torn from this man? Can you feel it?

The whip of rock and bone, the beating, the shaming, the forsaken one, hanging there all alone. Can you hear it? The sound of death knocking on your door? Cry of hell as it crashes on your shore? Can you hear what it cost that you would go free? The sound the nails make as they splinter into the tree. Brother and sister, can you hear it now? Listen closely for this is the sound.