7 Words
Notes
Transcript
On this Palm Sunday, we think about Jesus coming into Jerusalem. It’s been a long time coming, this. Jesus was looking forward to this moment for years. He knew this part of His story would come to an end in Jerusalem. Well, on a hill outside of Jerusalem.
It’s on this Sunday that crowds of people shouted “Hosanna!” and laid their coats, cloaks, clothing down on the road before the borrowed donkey Jesus rode. They ripped down branches, palms, to lay before Him.
Jesus, the new king as they reckoned Him, was coming to save, so they shouted: “Hosanna! Hosanna!”
What would follow, the events of this Holy Week, would change the course of human history forever.
This morning, I wanted us to focus our thoughts on the 7 Words Jesus spoke from the cross. It’s more like 7 sayings. There are more than 7 individual words. But these are known as the 7 Words of Jesus from the cross.
We’ll start in Matthew’s Gospel, then go to Luke, and end in John. Get your Bible ready. Turn with me to each of these 7 words.
Let’s start in Matthew 27:
46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
Substitution (Mt. 27:46)
Substitution (Mt. 27:46)
Here, Jesus was expressing His feelings of abandonment as God placed the sins of the world on Him. As Jesus endured that weight of sin, He, who alone is holy, was made to be sin for us. And Jesus cried out in agony. For us. In our place. He, our substitute.
What does it mean when Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” It means reconciliation. Jesus made us friends with God by suffering our separation for us. He did this by substituting Himself for us.
Follow me here: Jesus’ cry on the cross is NOT a cry of unbelief, confusion, or despair.
Jesus is not doubting the Father. He is not confused about what is happening.
His cry isn’t, “Why are you doing this to me?” as if Jesus doesn’t understand.
Jesus knows everything that’s going on here.
He has foretold this moment. He is on the cross willingly.
There is no despair here. He is confident in the Father.
When Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it’s a cry of physical agony, spiritual anguish, and relational alienation.
It’s a quote from the first verse of Psalm 22.
Certainly for Jesus this was a cry of physical agony. As Psalm 22 records, “All my bones are out of joint…my strength is dried up…dogs have surrounded me…a band of evil men has encircled me…they have pierced my hands and feet.”
It’s also a cry of spiritual anguish. Jesus is experiencing the wrath of God—not just for a moment, but for hours. Darkness, literal and physical, covers Golgotha. Jesus is drinking the cup of God’s wrath.
We are meant to feel the weight of what Jesus is saying.
Matthew only records Jesus Aramaic words once. Here they are. We are meant to hear Jesus speaking these words: “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”
Jesus quotes the first verse of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus is experiencing God-forsakenness, not for anything He had done, not for anything in Himself, but He experiences it for the salvation of mankind.
Psalm 22 starts with abandonment, forsakenness. But Psalm 22 ends in victory. VICTORY!
Not victory like kids sports leagues: “Here, have a trophy. You didn’t do anything. You didn’t win. You actually came in dead last. But here’s a trophy. Congrats.”
The victory of Psalm 22 is complete, total, forever victory.
This is the kind of victory Jesus accomplishes—complete, total, forever, eternal victory.
Jesus, our perfect substitute, was victorious where we could never be. Jesus did for us what we would never have accomplished ourselves.
We need Jesus. We need Him to step in for us. We need Him to take what we deserve. We need Him in our place. And that’s exactly what He did on the cross. For us.H
We would not have been able to do it. And we don’t have to seek to accomplish any part of it for ourselves.
Our substitute did that. Our perfect substitute, Jesus.
34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
Forgiveness (Lk. 23:34)
Forgiveness (Lk. 23:34)
Those who crucified Jesus were not aware of the full scope of what they were doing. They didn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
Simply because they were ignorant of who Jesus was doesn’t mean they were deserving of forgiveness; they weren’t.
Jesus’ prayer in the midst of their mocking Him is an expression of the limitless compassion of divine grace.
Here Jesus fulfills His own teaching Luke 6:35 “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back…”
These words Jesus speaks— “Father, forgive them” — were probably spoken while He was being nailed to the cross, or as soon as the cross was lifted up and placed on end.
“Just as soon as the blood of the Great Sacrifice began to flow, the Great High Priest began to intercede.” - J.C. Ryle
During these six hours, the time Jesus was on the cross, He suffered willingly for those who were crucifying Him. He was praying for them. He was praying and dying, bleeding and breaking that they might be forgiven.
Throughout Luke’s Gospel account, he portrays Jesus as continually offering God’s grace and forgiveness to sinners. This is who Jesus is.
Luke is the only one of the Gospel-writers who records Jesus’ prayer for the forgiveness of those who were executing Him.
Forgiveness is Jesus’ work. Not only does Jesus keep from exacting revenge, but pleads with His Father for forgiveness on behalf of those deserving His wrath.
Jesus forgives. This is the great truth of the Bible. Jesus is the One who announces our forgiveness, and the One who secures our forgiveness on the cross.
Make no mistake: you need to be forgiven of your sins. You’re all guilty of sin. You have sinned, and in your sin, you are dead. Dead. Apart from Jesus, I’m dead. You’re dead. Not mostly dead, but really, truly, spiritually dead. We dead.
The wages of your sin is death.
But Jesus is the forgiver. Jesus is the One who looks upon His enemies and asks God to forgive them.
Lest we think we’re any better than those who actively put the nails in Jesus’ hands and feet, we need to listen to Peter.
Peter preaching to the crowd at Pentecost refers to Jesus as “This Jesus, whom YOU crucified.”
We are the Ones who crucified our LORD. He was crucified for us. And, wondrously, miraculously, gloriously, Jesus forgives us.
Romans 5:8 “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Christ Jesus died for us, His enemies. And in Him, through His body and His blood, He forgives those who belong to Him by faith.
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Promise (Lk. 23:43)
Promise (Lk. 23:43)
Throughout His life and ministry, Jesus aligned Himself with sinners and prostitutes and tax collectors. In His death, it was the same: Jesus was crucified between two wrongdoers, two common criminals.
These men on either side of Jesus were bandits, armed robbers; men of violence prepared to kill as well as steal.
We are meant to think deeply about the strange—even unacceptable—nature of God being nailed up between two bandits; to think deeply about the accusing, mocking passersby staring down and ridiculing and shaming our Savior.
All four Evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—want us to know about these criminals on either side of our Lord.
It is a very deep part of this story. We are meant to focus upon our Lord, Jesus, the Messiah, the Second Person of the Trinity being “numbered among the transgressors,” as Isaiah puts it.
The first of these transgressors, one of the men who hanged next to Jesus, hurled insults at Him along with the soldiers and the people who stood watching.
The second transgressor, rebuked the only other guilty man hanging on a cross there that day, and, in so doing, took up for Jesus; came to Jesus’ defense and rightly said of Jesus: “This man has done nothing wrong.”
Picture it for a moment: there are 3 men on 3 crosses, each of the 3 men in the same ghastly predicament. There’s nothing to distinguish one from the other except the mocking sign placed above Jesus, reading: “This is the King of the Jews.”
Somehow, someway one crucified criminal was enabled to see something on that day that no one else saw—one criminal saw it, the other didn’t.
The soldiers, save one, missed it.
Those in the crowd missed it.
One criminal saw it. One criminal was given eyes to see.
One criminal spoke these now famous words: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Somehow this one criminal was enabled to see what no one else saw. He saw Jesus reigning as a King—a King who determined the destinies of people even in His tormented and dying state.
To see Jesus in that way, is to see Him as He truly is and to understand the source of His power—Jesus’ power is made known through His death; by the ultimate act of God’s own self-sacrifice.
The question facing us: Do you see yourself as one for whom Jesus died?
Can you say, with the second thief, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom?”
As Jesus hanged dying, He remembered. He remembered you. He remembered me. He remembered this thief. Jesus remembered and He spoke, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”
When Jesus made this promise, it was for us, with our masks of innocence and delusions of our own righteousness; it was for us.
These words Jesus spoke from the cross open us up to the power of His death—and we are assured of the gift of life His life provides for us. And we rejoice.
We rejoice—not only for ourselves, but for all the rest who are promised an eternal destiny with Christ by trusting in Him and relying on His death.
These are words from Jesus; words of promise from One who always keeps His word.
46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Trust (Lk. 23:46)
Trust (Lk. 23:46)
Here, Jesus is willingly giving up His soul into the Father’s hands, indicating that He was about to die—and that God had accepted His sacrifice.
Hebrews tells us Jesus offered Himself unblemished to God.
Far from Jesus’ cry of forsakenness, is this cry of confident trust. Luke shows us here a confident, trusting Jesus, who commits His spirit into God’s care.
Jesus quotes Psalm 31 here. Psalm 31:5 “Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.”
Jesus knows what He’s saying. He’s trusting in His Father, the Faithful God.
This is not to say Jesus’ death wasn’t horrible or terrible in the nature of it; Jesus’ death was the most horrific death imaginable.
Luke here is stressing that in the terrible death Jesus died, crazy as it seems in the midst of all of this, Jesus was at one with the Father.
Jesus is, on the cross, doing the Father’s will. Jesus is fully trusting His Father; there’s never a time He didn’t. And now, at the moment of His death, Jesus’ trust is on full display.
Jesus commits Himself to God the Father and then breathes His last.
The word used here for breathed His last is not the normal word used for saying someone has died.
In fact, no one, not one, not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John says “Jesus died.”
Luke here says Jesus commited His spirit to His Father, and then breathed His last.
There’s something going on in this moment; in Jesus’ death there was something most unusual. It was not just another death. It was not your standard crucifixion. It was more than that. It accomplished so much more.
It was death, crucifixion; a horrible death. Unbelievably, Jesus was trusting His Father through all of it.
In this, Jesus is teaching us, His people, to trust His Father no matter what. Trust Him; He is completely trustworthy—in life and in death.
26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
Care (Jn 19:26-27)
Care (Jn 19:26-27)
Jesus, a compassionate Son, is making sure His earthly mother is cared for after His death.
The traditional role of the oldest son in a Jewish family was to provide for the care of the mother when the husband or father of the house was no longer around to care for the mother.
It seems clear that Jesus here fulfilled his family responsibility as a dutiful son.
Jesus fulfills His duty as the son of Mary in a wonderful example of obedience. This is the crux of the 5th Commandment (Honor your father and your mother); Jesus follows it to the letter.
Jesus takes the initiative to care for His own.
The great problem with most great world/religious leaders is that, in all of their fame and with all of their power, they tend to lose sight of the individual.
But this King who reigns from a cross on Golgotha is different. Here is a king whose embrace is as wide as the world, the one to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given, and still this King reaches out to each one of us individually. He deals with us personally, specifically.
As Jesus hangs there with the burden of all our sin, the burden of a world’s redemption upon His shoulders, He finds time to express His personal, loving concern for His mother and one of His disciples. He’s caring for His mom and one of His friends.
In a time of unmatched physical pain, intense mental anguish, horrifying spiritual reality, Jesus is thinking of others. Jesus cares about His mom. About John. About those He asked God to forgive because they didn’t know what they were doing.
And listen, friends, Jesus cares about each of us, too.
This interaction between the Crucified Savior, His mom, and His friend reminds us of this beautiful truth: He cares for you.
28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”
Fulfillment (Jn. 19:28)
Fulfillment (Jn. 19:28)
Jesus was here fulfilling the Messianic prophecy from Psalm 69:21 “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
John gives us some important context. John writes, “Later, knowing that everything had now been finished...”
Jesus knew. He knew what was going to happen. Amid all of this, Jesus retains control. He knows. He is fully aware His suffering is fulfilling the Father’s plan and bringing it to its conclusion. Jesus knew, at this particular point in time, everything had now been finished. “Finished”—a word He’ll speak as His last word from the cross.
Here, Jesus speaks. He says: “I am thirsty.” What a human moment!
This makes complete sense. In view of the dehydration that was a prominent feature in the torture of crucifixion, of course Jesus was thirsty.
But John sees deeper than the natural. It’s more than the human need of something to drink.
Jesus is fulfilling Scripture, and as John implies, is doing so deliberately.
There have already been so many details of the OT depictions of the divine sufferer fulfilled. Here, Jesus is going for one more fulfillment.
Psalm 69:3 “… my throat is parched… Psalm 69:21 “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
Jesus knew what He was doing. There’s no question He was thirsty; but He was up to something more. He was showing, at least one more time, how He was the fulfillment of all the OT predictions.
My favorite children’s Bible has as a tag-line: “Every story whispers His name.” The Resurrected Jesus would teach about Himself from the law and the prophets, making clear it’s all about Him.
Jesus is the One who offered living water, which meant never thirsting again; Jesus is the One who said, “If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink.
This same Jesus now cries out, in fulfillment of Scripture, “I am thirsty.”
The soldiers who crucified Jesus respond with a momentary show of pity. Jesus is offered a sponge on a hyssop branch, soaked in cheap Boone’s Farm vinegar wine—the same wine the soldiers had brought along to refresh themselves throughout their watch.
For the soldiers, it was pity, maybe mockery.
For Jesus, it was a moment done on purpose. It was Jesus knowing, and showing His control. For Jesus, it was fulfillment.
30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Completion (Jn. 19:30)
Completion (Jn. 19:30)
“It is finished.”
Those are powerful words. Words of accomplishment. Words of completion. Words of totality.
“It is finished.”
Three words in English, but only one word as Jesus spoke: Τετέλεσται (te-TELL-es-tai)
Jesus, of course, new what He was saying. And what He said, He said just the way He intended—the word, the tense, the moment, the force: “Τετέλεσται!” (te-TELL-es-tai).
The word Jesus spoke, the last word He spoke, is in a form of the Greek (the perfect tense) that indicates an action that has been totally completed—a present action with continuous results.
When Jesus said, “It is finished/Τετέλεσται (te-TELL-es-tai)” He meant it was finished at that moment, and forever.
There would never be another payment for the sins of the people.
Jesus completed it, then and there. Done. Complete.
The significance of Jesus’ entire life came down to this moment. When He said, “It is finished,” He was saying not just that His life was over but that His mission had been fulfilled.
His purpose in coming to earth and going to the cross was accomplished.
Τετέλεσται (te-TELL-es-tai)
This word was used in the commercial arena in the Greek world. It was stamped on a purchase or written on a receipt, because it meant “paid in full.”
Jesus says here: “I’ve done it all. I have taken the cup of God’s wrath and I have drank every bit of it. The sin debt of My people has been paid in full.”
Τετέλεσται (te-TELL-es-tai)
With nothing left to do, Jesus “gave up His spirit.” When His mission was accomplished, when the atonement was complete, Jesus made the decision to die.
On that Friday—that good and awful Friday those many years ago—Jesus received the sour wine in order to moisten His parched throat so that He would be able to proclaim with a loud cry:
the triumph of the moment,
the triumph over sin and death,
the triumph at the end of His suffering.
“It is finished” proclaims that all the work the Father had sent Him to accomplish was now completed, most significantly His work of absorbing God’s wrath and bearing the penalty for our sins.
There was no more penalty left to be paid for sins, for all Jesus’ suffering was “finished”.
It is just as Jesus said—His last breath, His last word: “Τετέλεσται (te-TELL-es-tai)/It is finished!”
“Jesus paid it all,
all to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain;
He washed it white as snow.”
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Reflect this week on these 7 Words. Stop throughout the week and ponder Jesus’ substitution, His forgiveness, His promise. Think about what you learn about trust and care from Him. Pause and marvel at His fulfillment of Scripture and His completion of salvation.
Wonder and worship.
Pray and praise.
In response to these 7 Words, give Him your life.