3 April 2021 “Dark Saturday”

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Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends all around the world on this Easter weekend.

I will be giving you BOTH a “Dark Saturday” and “Easter Sunday” edition of “Walking with Jesus” this weekend. By the way, I hope by now you have discovered our new PODCAST platform which is taking “Walking with Jesus” literally to the far corners of the world. Here’s the link: https://podcast.ddawj-365.com/

Would you believe people in 93 countries are linking in with our journey everyday!! We are truly a global community of people “Walking with Jesus”! All glory to God, it’s entirely HIS project!

While all of us have had deep disappointments in life, and most of us have endured times of deep and prolonged grief, especially in the death of dear loved ones or friends, NONE of us can truly imagine the despair, the hopelessness, the deep agony of grief that the close friends of Jesus, and perhaps especially His earthly mother Mary, were feeling on Friday and Saturday of what we call Easter weekend. The horrificness of His crucifixion. Their certainty that Jesus was dead and buried. The reality that dead people stay dead, their bodies decay, the legacies eventually forgotten.

But added to this despair was FEAR. An almost paralyzing fear of those who had so brutally beaten and crucified Jesus. A deep fear of the religious leaders who had so strongly opposed Jesus and stirred up the crowd to call for His death. The disciples, His mother and the other women who had been known to be Jesus’ friends and companions in these many months, I’m sure felt they were all marked for close observation, probable harassment, possible arrest and maybe even death.

It was Passover weekend in Jerusalem. Sabbath always began with sundown on Friday evening, which is why the Jewish leaders had requested of Pilate that Jesus be confirmed as dead on the cross and His body removed before sundown. Death by crucifixion is among the most horrific, agonizing, barbaric of all executions ever devised by mankind. Depending on the health of the person, death by crucifixion could take several days. Jesus had been so horrifically beaten, flogged and abused through Thursday night, by the time He was sentenced to death on Friday morning, Jesus was hardly recognizable. When the cross was placed upon Him and He was forced to begin carrying His own cross to Golgotha, He stumbled frequently, nearly exhausted.

Matthew reports that the soldiers grabbed a man in the crowd and forced him to carry Jesus’ cross, as Jesus stumbled along to the jeers of the crowd, punched by those along the narrow streets, occasionally hit by a Roman whip. (Matt. 27:32) Once arriving on the hilltop, Jesus was thrust to the ground, stretched out on the cross and huge spikes were driven through His hands and feet, into the rugged beams. Finally that cross was raised, and Jesus, the Son of God, who had healed many cripples, given sight to many blind people, fed thousands with a little boy’s lunch, even raised several people back to life from the dead. . .this Jesus who had spoken God’s love and truth to all who would hear… this Jesus, nearly naked, horribly disfigured by repeated beating, hung on the cross like an animal, and Roman soldiers, Jewish religious leaders, political leaders and Satan waited for death.

Judas, realizing the horrificness he had put in motion, was so overwhelmed with shame and grief he found a place and hung himself in suicide. (Matt. 27:1-10) 9 of the other disciples had run into the night as Jesus was arrested in the Garden. Who knows where they were hiding in shame and fear. Peter had run into the shadows crying after he denied not once, not twice but three times that he even knew Jesus. (Matt. 26: 69-75) Only John stood at the foot of Jesus’ cross on Golgotha hill, with Mary, Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene and a few others, watching this horrific mockery of all that is good and right.

Sometimes the name and crime of the one being executed was crudely written on a piece of wood which was nailed to the cross above the criminals head for all to see. Above Jesus’ head the piece of wood read “This is the King of the Jews”. It was an insult aimed to further humiliate Jesus and mock the Jewish people.

As the executioners were nailing Jesus to the cross, Jesus spoke to God, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) It was true. That crucifixion Friday morning few if anyone in the world believed Jesus was God the Son. Many were greatly confused. If Jesus was Messiah, the Son of God, Immanuel “God with us”, it simply could not be possible that He was being executed on this day. Therefore, there must be some other explanation of all this… but what? Could anyone make any sense of this?

Yet Jesus continued stating His identity even from the cross, by calling God His Father. And Jesus continued living the LOVE of God that had sent Him to earth on this mission by asking God to forgive His executioners. And Jesus did not retaliate, He did not remove Himself from the cross, for Jesus was determined to accomplish God’s Redemption mission even though it required His agonizing death!

Two other men were crucified that Friday, one on either side of Jesus. One of them mocked Jesus. Luke records that the other said “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our crimes deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong. Jesus, remember me when you come into Your kingdom.’ Jesus replied to him ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with Me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) Everyone who heard it was amazed, stunned. What could it mean? Was Jesus hallucinating? Once again Jesus, in great agony but in clarity of heart and mind was making a statement for the world. He had repeatedly spoken of the kingdom of God of which HE was the king! He had many times spoken of heaven, a paradise from which He had come to earth and to which He was returning. (John 13:1; 16:28) Jesus had said He is the only way to God and God’s heaven. (John 14:6)

Here Jesus was promising that after He completed His God given atonement sacrifice mission, He would be returning to heaven and saving those who believed in Him. Years later the writer of Hebrews said it this way: “Because Jesus has a permanent priesthood…He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)

My “Walking with Jesus” friends, as you look around Golgotha hillside what do you feel? Look at each of the three men hanging on a cross. What do you see in their eyes and what pain can you imagine their beaten bodies are feeling? Look at the soldiers… they do this regularly, what are they thinking and feeling? Look at the people, especially those standing at the base of each cross, what are they feeling? And look at those bystanders, those passing by who spit or pick up a stone and throw it at those on the cross. What do you hear in their mocking and see in their eyes? Oh we live in such a wicked, broken, compassionless, world, don’t we?

Listen, Jesus with great effort takes a deep breath and is speaking again. He’s looking at and speaking to His mother who stands nearby weeping. “Dear woman, here is your son.” (John 19:26) Do you see the love in Jesus’ eyes for Mary? Can you imagine all the memories He has, the understanding He has of what it has been like for Mary to be His earthly mother? Jesus is entrusting her to His friend John, for no one else has helped her in these days, no one else can be trusted to care for her. John puts his arm around Mary, and Jesus struggling to gasp a breath, looks now at John, speaks again “Here is your mother.” (John 19:27) John understands. Oh such a remarkable privilege! He is being asked by Jesus to care for, provide for, protect this dear woman who has been mother to Jesus in such a harsh world. John tells us in his record “From that time on this disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:27) I’ve often thought about their many, many conversations which no one else ever was privy to. These two knew Jesus like no one else.

Look, it’s getting dark. Strange, it’s almost noon, the sun is high in the cloudless sky! What is this darkness? A solar eclipse perhaps? Whatever it is, it’s something only God can do. What does it mean? Jesus is again gasping for air, oh the horrific pain which must be shooting through His body. He struggles to speak, and cries out “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” Matthew explains it means: My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:45,46)

This is it! This is the PERISH Jesus had spoken of. (John 3:16) With the sins of humanity upon Him, God the Father is pouring out His justice wrath upon God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is withdrawing His Presence from God the Son. For the first time in all time, God the Son, Jesus, is experiencing separation from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit because He has taken upon Him my sin, your sin, and the sin of every person! The darkness of the sky is a symbol of the desperate soul darkness Jesus is experiencing in this PERISH!

Oh the heat of the sun, the wind swept dust. Jesus gasps and speaks again, only two words: “I thirst” (John 19:28) He’s dehydrated now. Jesus is slowly dying. He gasps again and says “It is finished.” (John 19:30) Jesus has accomplished the mission for which He came to earth. He has lived a sinless life in a very sinful world. He has spoken God’s truth in a deceiving, confused world. He has shown God’s love and power through His miracles, in a world that rejects God. He has unconditionally loved rebellious, dysfunctional humanity.

In this prolonged death experience, Jesus lived Isaiah 53:4-7 “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all…Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, as the LORD makes His life a guilt offering…” (Isaiah 53:4-7, 10)

This was all God’s purpose, His Redemption Plan. Jesus, the Son of God, had agreed to this, the only way of rescuing fallen humanity and providing a way for anyone to be forgiven of their sin and reconciled into a restored relationship with Holy God! (Colossians 1:21) But oh the indescribable price that is required. How do I value this terrible reality? How do I live my life giving thanks to Jesus for paying my price?

Look, Jesus gasps one more time, a final time, listen His voice can hardly be heard “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46) And Dr. Luke writes “When Jesus had said this, He breathed His last.” It was over, Jesus was dead!

I have an important question for all of us… what killed Jesus? Was it the beatings, the nails, the dehydration? Jesus had said “I am the good shepherd; I know My sheep and My sheep know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father, and I lay down My life for the sheep…No one takes it from Me, But I lay down My life of My own accord…” (John 10:14-18) In the upper room Jesus had said “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:13) When Jesus had fully accomplished ‘propitiation’, (1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:9,10) doing all that was necessary to be the full atonement sacrifice for humanity, Jesus entrusted His spirit into the hands of His heavenly Father and breathed His last breath.

John, the only disciple who was an eyewitness of all this, tells us the Jewish religious leaders were very anxious to get this death completed before Sabbath, so they asked Pilate to hasten the death process by breaking the legs of those on the crosses. This was done to the two criminals, but when they came to Jesus, He was already dead, so “…one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water…this happened so the Scriptures would be fulfilled, ‘not one of His bones will be broken.” (John 19:33-37)

Matthew tells us “At that moment the curtain of the temple [sealing the Most Holy Place] was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. Tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who were dead were raised to life…when the centurion and those soldiers with him who were guarding Jesus saw all that happened, they were terrified and exclaimed, ‘Surely He was the Son of God.” (Matt. 27:51-54)

And what about you, me and every person in our world today? What do we say as we contemplate the significance of the death of Jesus Christ? What does it mean in your life today? What does it mean for your city, your nation, your part of the world?

And one final question. . . and what if there was NO resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday?

Oh my friends, I look forward to tomorrow, Easter Sunday, with you!!

Here’s a brand new song to help us reflect on what we’ve experienced today. . .

Today’s Scripture is Luke 23.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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