Final Words of the Lamb of God - # 4 - Desolation

4. The Word of Spiritual Desolation

“It is about twelve o’clock noon. The crowd stares up at the men dying as they hang bleeding on their crosses. The agonizing moans of the two malefactors ring in the ears of those who will hear as the blood of Jesus trickles to the ground. From time to time the silent sobs of the faithful few may be heard. Will the Father continue in silence forever concerning His Son, and not somehow make it known to the world by some sign that He is watching?

At that moment a sign appears, but what type? Who could have anticipated this thing? Surprise increases to horror, amazement to dismay. The sun, having just arrived at the meridian, withdraws its beams, as if the earth were no longer worthy of its light, and begins visibly, in a clear sky to grow dark. First twilight comes, then evening, and finally the gloomy darkness of night. The funeral pall extends not only over Judea but over the whole of the earth.

The animals cower in frightened silence. The birds flutter to their nests and the masses of people who surround the place of execution hurry back to Jerusalem with loud outcries, wringing their hands, and beating their breasts.

What does the darkness mean? Those who had demanded a sign now have one, not the miraculous display of power they so wrongly associated with Messiah, but the sign of the 9th plague on Egypt, which Exodus describes as the darkness that may be felt. Whereas that darkness covered only the land of Egypt, and not of Goshen which was the dwelling place of the Hebrews, this darkness covered the whole land.

In that moment the Lord withdrew Himself from the eyes of men behind the black curtain of appalling night, as behind the thick veil of the temple. For three full hours He hung there in impenetrable darkness. He is in the Most Holy Place. He stands at the altar of the Lord. He performs His sacrificial functions. He is the true Aaron, and at the same time the Lamb for the slaughter.”[1]

Mark 15:34

“And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’

The darkness is nearing its end. The time approaches 3 pm. The final agonizing moments of this scene are being played out.

The sinless One has become sin for His beloved. In this moment His Father turns away. He is alone. The perfect communion of the God-head is broken. Somehow, incomprehensible to us, all the sins of the world were laid on Jesus and the full weight of the wrath of God against sin was emptied on Him.

Martin Luther, sitting wide awake and motionless for several hours without good, returned from deep meditation on these words of Christ and exclaimed, “God forsaken of God! Who can understand it?” 

Have you ever felt forsaken of God? If you have felt that, let me tell you with 100% confidence, you have never been. Why? Because Jesus was. 

In His cry of desolation, there was a transaction made that traded all our sin for His righteousness and all our just punishment for His acceptance. He was forsaken so that we never would be. We are not and can not be abandoned in our sins. Jesus secured that for all eternity. 

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:

          “For Your sake we are killed all day long;
          We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.   (Romans 8:31–39)

---

[1] F.W. Krummmacher, “The Suffering Savior: Meditations on the Last Days of Christ.”

Final Words of the Lamb of God - #5 - Provision of His Beloved

5. The Word of PROVISION for His Beloved

John 19:26,

“When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother,  “Woman, behold your son!” 27 Then He said to the disciple,  “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.”

The world is a cruel, hard place, especially when you face it alone. At this point in time it is clear that Jesus’ earthly father Joseph has died, and His mother Mary is without the normal provision of a husband.

Surely Jesus’ half-brothers would have cared for her but here she was at the foot of the cross, her eyes locked upon her son, her first born child, being unjustly crucified for crimes He did not commit.

I spoke with a woman once who recounted a time when her son played the role of Jesus is a Passion play. As the tears streamed down her face she watched her own little boy being hoisted up upon the cross and she realized just what it must have been like for Mary to watch the cruel scene unfolding before her.

Sitting in a theater watching Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ some years ago, the most heart wrenching scene to me was at the particular point where Mary was running through the streets trying to keep up with Jesus as He made His way up Calvary burdened with the heavy cross. Throngs of people lined the Via de la Rosa as Mary worked her way in and around the crowd.

There is a flash back to a time when Jesus was a little boy, perhaps 4 or 5 years old. Little Jesus was running a bit too fast and falls, skinning his knee as his mother runs to pick Him up, cuddling Him in a mother’s arms. But now her Son is driven to the ground beneath the angry hands of His abusers and she is unable to pour her love upon Him again as she so desperately wants, to simply pick Him up and kiss the hurts away.

In the theater that day you could hear one great collective groan and I looked over to see the mother of my own children sink into tears in the seat beside me.

Jesus, looking down from the cross said, “Woman, behold your son,” and looking to the beloved disciple John, “Behold your mother.”

What amazing love that Jesus would provide for His mother in a real and tangible way through the apostle John.

In light of that provision I wonder how we will behold the lonely, the orphaned, the widowed, the disheartened who live all around us beneath the cross.

Will we love them like Jesus?

Final Words of the Lamb of God - #6 - Hope

6. The Word of Hope to the Repentant

Luke 23:43,

“And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Hope. Without it we are undone. It is said that a man can live 40 days without food; 3 days without water; 8 minutes without air, but not once second without hope.

Two men hung on crosses next to Jesus, one on either side. Three men, three crosses, and only one way down..... death.

What hope remains? Where were they to go next? Death is so final, so fixed, so unconquerable.

But do you believe as the anti-God, anti-supernatural culture of today would have us believe, that death is simply ashes to ashes and dust to dust? The grave is the final stop for a life of dashed hopes and unrealized dreams. 

Where is real hope in that? Where is the joy of life lived when you know that no matter what you obtain, no matter what you accomplish, it is merely food for the worms or forgotten words in the annals of history?

One man looked to Jesus and spat on him. He forsook all hope and resigned himself to the inevitable fate of the next few moments of his fleeting life.

One man looked to Jesus and worshiped him. He reached out to the Son of God for hope and resigned himself to receive what this man in the middle had to offer.

One man steeled himself for hell. 

One man yielded himself to heaven. 

One man died eternally. 

One man lives eternally.

A promise was made from the lips of God Himself and today one man walks the streets of glory with the Lord, and one man forever suffers separation from the One Man who would have freely given him paradise.

Which man am I?

Which are you?

Final Words of the Lamb of God - #7 - Forgiveness

It requires little convincing to demonstrate the importance of the final words of a dying man. When we consider the import of the words Jesus spoke during three years of ministry it takes on even greater significance to hear His final words spoken from the cross.

 I want to look at the final seven words of Christ from the cross. I will count them down in the typical “top 10” fashion. We begin with number 7.

7. The Word of Forgiveness for His Enemies

Luke 23^34 

“Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

Forgiveness. It would be hard to imagine a world so hard and brutal that there would be no forgiveness. Can you picture harboring every wrong committed, unable to let pass even a single mistake? Surely it would be a burden far too heavy to bear, yet aren’t we so adept at picking and choosing how and who we will forgive.

Yet who does Jesus forgive? He forgives those who have placed Him upon a cross. He prays to the Father that these, His enemies, these, who revile Him, these, who spit upon Him, these, who brutalized Him, these, who hate Him, that these, will be forgiven.

Up until this point Jesus had simply forgiven sins, but now He prays to the Father for their forgiveness, for the Son of God now hangs on a cross. He is the sacrificial Lamb of God. He is the blood atonement offered for the forgiveness of sins, for as the Bible teaches, without the shedding of blood there is no remission.

Thus prays Jesus, Father, forgive them. Does this mean that all men for all time are forgiven? No, for not all will accept the forgiveness so graciously offered, but it does mean there is sufficient forgiveness for all who will receive. There is no height, nor depth, nor breadth of the sins of man that exceeds the grace of God pouring forth from the fountain of His love on the cross.

Oh how desperately we want forgiveness. Oh how desperately we need forgiveness. And though none of us can fully fathom the depth of our own sin, for we know not what we do, the precious Lamb of God knows fully the depth of all sin, for all persons, for all time, and He has prayed, Father forgive.

For what do you need forgiveness? Will you be forgiven today? Will you receive the forgiveness already prayed for by Jesus who prayed the prayer of forgiveness that He alone could pray? 

Are you willing in turn to forgive some wrong committed against you? Would you pray with Jesus, Father, forgive them?

Seek forgiveness today. It is gracious available for you in full. Jesus prayed for it, and His prayers are always answered positively.

Give forgiveness today. Be gracious in kind. As God has forgiven you, so you forgive another.

Pray with Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.