God on Trial | Death Penalty - Luke23:32-56

Amen.

If you look at Luke chapter 23 and verse 32,

Luke 23 · chapter mention

we see the final arrival of the story of Jesus

as a man who is about to die.

Now, before I jump into the text,

I'm supposed to give a special announcement about tonight.

As many of you know, we've been in the building process

and in the building process

for the last over 12 months.

And tonight, there is a special meeting

with special guest Alfredo Sanchez and Sean Denoske

from DC Building Group for a building update meeting.

For those of you who are new to the church,

we're building a new auditorium right beside us.

That's why we have the new parking lot.

That's why you may see the new office

that is out there representing the building project

that's gonna start.

If tonight at 6 p.m., you would like to,

we've got a special meeting tonight at 6 o'clock

to talk about the future project.

It's very exciting.

We've got a lot of momentum of movement,

but we've been halted within the process a little.

And tonight, we're gonna give answers

on why that's the case

and really excited about some of the permits

that have come through even this last week.

So tonight at 6 p.m. for those who are interested in that.

I also wanna say a special thank you

to those who have been really working on this F1 race.

I know a lot of you have been really affected

by what's going on downtown.

A lot of the workers, you've been called in

and you've had a very long weekend.

I know one guy this morning,

his name is Jason.

And Jason today, last night was called in,

he's worked all week long.

He worked from midnight to 6 a.m. even this morning.

And he left work, he came to the church

and he served in the sound booth at 8.30

to make sure the 8.30 service was ready to go.

I think that kind of faithfulness to Christ in his work

deserves appreciation.

Why don't we just thank him for that at this time?

Praise God for that.

You know, every job has its good parts and its bad parts.

Every single one of us have a job

where we have the things that we like

and the things that we don't like.

I as a pastor do the same thing.

I have things in my job that I love

and I have things in my job that I do not love.

One of the things that I love in my job are doing weddings.

And I really do.

It's not something that a lot of people

I think would enjoy doing.

Like I really love doing wedding.

I just this last week had an opportunity

of talking with one of our church members.

Her name is Jessica.

She grew up at the church.

Jessica Graves is getting married.

How many of you remember Jessica when she was very little?

She grew up at the church.

Raise your hand.

So this is a very important person.

She was like, you know, five, six years old growing up

and now she's getting married.

And I have a chance to do the wedding.

And we met at Starbucks to talk about

like what the wedding was gonna be.

We're walking through the details

and I met the man for the first time.

And I looked at the man and I said,

you on behalf of our whole church,

you know that you're not worthy of this woman.

And he said, yeah, I know I said, I'm not joking.

Don't laugh.

And I love weddings.

I love all the aspects of them.

I really do.

I love putting them together.

I love performing them.

I love being part of that.

I don't put them together as much as I used to.

You have other people that do that now,

but I love being.

And one of the reasons I love doing it

is because of the spot I get to stand.

I get to stand right in the center of attention

just like I love every day.

And it's the bride show and me and me.

It's always fun, you know.

And the moment she starts coming down the aisle

is really a beautiful moment.

And I know you all love it like I love it.

And as she comes down the aisle,

what I've noticed about a really great wedding

and really to understand the beauty of the moment

is to not just look at the beauty of the bride,

but to see the beauty of the bride

from other people's perspective.

A lot of you do this with a groom, like I do, right?

You look at the bride, you see,

and then you wanna see the face of the groom.

So you look over and you see like the joy

or the tears or the terror.

You know, it's different for different grooms

have different faces, you know what I mean?

And to look down and see the mother

and the father of the bride.

And to look over at all the groomsmen

standing there with pride and smiles.

Look over at all the ladies and their tears coming down

and trying to keep the mascara coming, you know.

And you get a fuller picture of the bride and the joy

by not looking directly at the bride,

but by seeing the bride from different points of view.

That's what Luke does in his account

of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Whereas Mark, there's four gospels in Mark's account,

he points right at the cross

and you see the entire story right at the cross.

Luke does something very different.

Luke wants it to be almost like looking at the sun.

You're only taking a glimpse of the sun

and then you're looking around at the things

that are illuminated by the sun.

And when you arrive in this passage,

you see this main concept.

Yes, humanity kills Jesus,

but there are a few who choose to believe.

And what Luke does is he says, look at Jesus,

now I wanna point out four different people

that are all looking at Jesus.

And that's what our story will be today.

Our text begins in verse 32

where we get a glimpse of the cross,

where we are momentarily looking at the beauty

of the crucifixion and the tragedy all at the same time.

Verse 32 through 38,

there were also two other criminals

led with Jesus to be put to death.

And when they had come to the place of Calvary,

they crucified him and the criminals.

One on the right hand and the other on the left.

At this time it is nine AM in the morning, Friday.

And Jesus said, Father, forgive them,

for they do not know what they do.

And the Roman soldiers divided the garments

and cast lots and the people stood looking on.

But even the rulers when they had snared saying,

he saved others, himself he cannot save.

If he is the Christ, the chosen of God.

And the soldiers also mocked him,

coming and offering him sour wine and saying,

if you really are the king of the Jews, then save yourself.

And an inscription also was written over him

in letters of Greek, Latin and Hebrew saying,

this is the king of the Jews.

There is your image of the cross.

Now Luke says, look over here.

And he points to the first individual in our story today,

number one, the thief on the cross.

Say it with me, the thief on the cross.

He says, look over here.

Let's go ahead and look at what Luke points us to, verse 39.

Then one of the criminals who were hanged,

blasphemed Jesus saying,

if you are the Christ, save yourself and us.

Jesus, the Bible says, was crucified between two thieves.

Above Jesus' head is a placard.

And it says the king of the Jews.

It was traditional during that time.

If you were gonna do a public execution,

was for the people that were walking by

to see what the accusation was.

What was their criminal offense?

And the criminal offense of Jesus

was that he was claiming to be a king in the Roman Empire.

And in the Roman Empire, there was only one king,

that Caesar.

You see?

So their accusation was king of the Jews.

On the right hand or on the left of Jesus,

they too were being crucified.

And on their placard it said, thief, criminal, thief,

criminal, Jesus, among the thieves, among the criminals,

among the sinners.

There Jesus hung.

And one of them, they picked up on what was going on.

He noticed the religious leaders

looking up with a snaring attitude saying,

he said he was the Messiah.

If he's the Messiah, he should save himself.

Then the thief watched as the Roman soldiers were like,

he said he was a king.

If he was a king, why would he be up on the cross?

And the one thief picked up on this terminology

and picked up on this attitude.

And with the last ditch effort of sarcasm

and gallows humor, he looked over to Jesus and said,

yeah, that's right.

If you are the Messiah, then save yourself.

And by the way, save us too.

And then there was a believer.

Now let me ask you a question about this other thief.

Was he a good guy or a bad guy?

He was a bad guy.

The Bible calls him a thief and a robber.

Was he a sinner?

Yes or no?

Yes, he was a sinner.

But look what he says in verse 40.

But the other answering Jesus, answering the thief,

rebuked him saying, do you not even fear God?

Seeing you are under the same condemnation?

And we indeed justly for we receive the due reward

of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.

Suddenly this thief recognizes what's really going on here.

And he rebukes the other thief and says, hey, hey,

don't you see what's happening?

You and I deserve to die for our sin,

but this man does not deserve to die for his sin

because he hasn't sinned.

This thief is going to be saved

because he recognizes who he is

and he recognizes who Jesus is.

Do you know how somebody gets saved?

Diamante, somebody gets saved.

When they recognize I'm a sinner who deserves damnation.

He's a savior who did not deserve to die.

That is the beginning point of salvation.

And here in this moment, we see a thief

who is filled with hopelessness.

Now imagine what it is to be somebody who's about to die.

Imagine what that final night is in the prison cell.

Imagine what it's like to eat your final meal

to wake up the next morning,

probably did not sleep.

You walk out of the prison cell, you pick up your cross,

you're on your way to die.

They nail you or tie you to a tree

and then the rest of the community is going to sit there

and watch you die and bleed out in front of them.

You know you're about to die and face God.

You talk about a hopeless scenario.

What do you do when you're hopeless?

One man makes jokes and prays and hopes

that all of this will just end.

Maybe from the one thief's perspective, maybe, maybe his hope,

maybe his hope was that once you die, it's all over.

So he can mock the guy beside him

because we're all going to be dead soon anyway.

So what does it matter?

Maybe his hope was in the philosophies

of the Roman Empire or the Greek philosophies of the day.

And that is maybe once I die, I'm not really the bad guy,

but these people are the bad guys

because I'm really innocent and they're really guilty.

And maybe the gods will see that

and they'll resurrect me to some new life.

Maybe his hope was still intact in the philosophies of the day.

But the other man was hopeless.

The other man realized he was guilty

and he deserved death.

Jesus Christ was not guilty and could save his soul.

And so look at what happens.

The Bible says the man looks over at Jesus and says,

Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus looked and gave him a promise.

Assuredly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Imagine feeling hopeless, ready to die.

And Jesus himself looks at you and says,

it's okay, today you'll be with me in paradise.

I want you to engage your imagination today, will you?

I want you to engage your imagination with me.

Can you imagine with me multiple times

throughout this sermon today,

I'm gonna ask you to imagine.

Imagine with me what it would be like

to arrive at the gates of heaven.

A lot of you have done this over the years,

at funerals or when you got saved

or in a dark moment of your life,

you thought this is what it will be like.

I'll die, there'll be darkness and then bright light

and then we stand before the gates of heaven,

the pearly gates, the Bible calls them.

And for some of you, you imagine St. Peter being there.

For some of you, you imagine your grandparents being there.

And others imagine Jesus Christ coming

to the gates of paradise and opening them up.

And Jesus himself is there to welcome you.

Now, I want you to imagine what it was like for Jesus

to die and arrive at the gates of paradise.

Jesus has just finished being executed.

His body is empty of his own very spirit.

His soul is gone.

Where does it go?

According to Jesus' own words, paradise.

And when Jesus arrives at the gates of paradise,

do you know who is there to greet him?

The thief on the cross.

We know that Jesus dies at 3 p.m. on Friday.

We also know the criminals were dead before Jesus dies,

which means when Jesus finally shows up

at the gates of paradise,

his promise is fulfilled as a thief

who should have died and gone to hell

is standing there saying, thank you.

Let me ask you this question.

Which thief are you?

Like, are you so cynical in your life

that you've got to a place of hope?

Are you so cynical in your life toward God

that you've got to a place where you think,

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be okay after death.

I don't need Jesus Christ.

Or if you got to a place of such hopelessness

with your own self-righteousness

that you realize the only possible chance I have

at paradise is if I die

and he pays for my sin

instead of me dying and paying for my own.

This is what it means to repent

and receive Christ as Savior.

I see it all the time.

I love it when a sinner repents and receives Christ as Savior.

I did it when I was very young,

and now I see many of you who have made the same decision.

I could tell you about a story of a man.

I'll tell you about Dylan as an example.

Dylan's been coming to the church ever since

about eight weeks ago.

He was invited to church because his friend

or his brother Joshua was getting baptized.

And Joshua had just become saved and baptized

because his wife Daisy had gotten saved and baptized.

And Joshua was told, okay, I'm gonna go get baptized.

And I told Josh, I said, look buddy, this is exciting.

You get special seats for all of your friends and family.

Who are you going to invite to your baptism?

And I remember Josh saying, well,

I wanna invite my brother Dylan.

Dylan came and Dylan sat right over here

at the 10 o'clock service and was looking

and watching his brother get baptized.

And then he kept coming every single week to church.

And he would sit right up here in the front row

and Dylan's paying attention

and he's learning about Jesus for his first time.

And he's just fallen in love with this whole concept

of God who loves him and that he sent his son Jesus

to die upon the cross for his sin.

And so Dylan came up to me after service

probably about a month or so ago.

And he said, hey, can we go to coffee and talk about this?

Because I know Daisy got saved and Josh got saved

and all my friends are getting it.

And I wanna do this too.

Dylan's 19 years old, 19.

I said, sure, let's go.

So we went to coffee.

I sat down with Dylan.

And I said, Dylan, tell me your story.

You went through his story.

It was a very short story.

He's only 19 years old.

And I said, Dylan, do you know Jesus as your savior?

He said, no.

He said this.

He said, but I've been watching.

And once Josh would got saved a few months ago,

his whole life has changed.

By the way, if you think you know Jesus

and your life hasn't changed because of Jesus,

you don't know Jesus.

And I said, Dylan, tell me your story.

He said, I know Jesus.

He said, I know Jesus.

He said, but I've been watching.

And I said, Dylan, tell me your story.

He said, but I've been watching.

You may have known religion.

Your parents may have had a special ceremony

where you got baptized or something.

But if you don't know, if your life hasn't been changed

by Jesus, you don't know Jesus.

That's what he does.

He changes people.

And so Dylan said, I just, I want to do what he did.

I said, you want to get saved?

He's like, yep, that's the thing.

So I walked through the gospel.

Christ loves you.

He died upon the cross to pay for your sin.

Are you a sinner?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ died for you?

Do you believe he rose from the grave?

Would you like to ask him to save you?

Call?

And he's like, yep, yep, yep.

I'm very matter of fact.

Yep, yep, yep.

I'm ready for it.

Yep.

I said, do you understand what we're talking about?

You have to give your whole life to Jesus Christ.

He's like, yeah, let's go.

I'm like, all right.

Dylan bowed his head right there.

Prayed to receive Jesus Christ as a savior.

He looked up at me.

He said, now I want to get baptized.

And I said, great, let's do it.

We got one coming up in, you know, December.

And he's like, okay, great.

And then he went just like this.

He said, do I get special seats for my family and friends?

I'm like, absolutely you do.

He said, good, because I've been thinking about it.

I'm going to invite my mom and my dad,

because I don't think they know yet.

Now look, look, look.

That's what it means to repent and receive Christ.

Your whole world changes, your perspective changes,

and your desire to bring people to Jesus blossoms.

That's what happened with the thief on the cross.

Number one, we see the thief on the cross,

and his feelings of hopelessness led to his salvation.

What I'm saying in this first point is if you're here

and you say, I feel hopeless,

the answer to that question is look to Jesus Christ.

Number two, the second person that Luke points to,

as we see the crucifixion,

he points to the thief on the cross.

Then he points to a person we call the centurion.

Save the centurion.

Some of you are a picture in a half horse, half man.

That's a different thing.

Okay.

A centurion was a Roman soldier

who was in charge of 100 other Roman soldiers.

If you like saying the captain of the guard.

This is a big shot, you understand?

This is a captain of 100 Roman soldiers.

He is the man in charge.

He's the guy in charge of the whole crucifixion.

He's not the guy whipping Jesus.

He's the guy standing back making sure somebody's whipping Jesus.

He's not the guy pounding the nails into Jesus' hand.

He's the guy standing back to making sure that nails are being pounded.

That's who we're talking about, the centurion.

Verse 44, and it was about the sixth hour.

This is now noon, high noon.

Jesus has been on the cross now for almost three hours.

And there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

Suddenly darkness swept in over the range.

We don't know if that means there was an eclipse.

We don't know if that means just dark clouds and thunder and lightning.

We don't know if it felt as if the sun itself was darkened,

but that's what the next verse says, verse 45.

Then the sun was darkened and the veil in the temple tore in two.

The Gospel of Matthew tells us an earthquake takes place in Jerusalem at the exact same time.

Between noon and 3 p.m. there are all these signs and wonders.

These physical manifestation miracles around nature,

that it's like nature itself was groaning, saying, you're killing God.

And Jesus cried with a loud voice and said,

Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.

And having said this, Jesus breathed his last.

Now the lifeless body of Jesus hangs on a tree

and Luke says, look over here.

Look at the centurion.

And so now our eyes are diverted and we see the guy in charge of this whole thing.

And it's almost like Luke at first wants us to hate him, hate him.

He's the one who killed Jesus.

And Luke doesn't want us to hate him.

Luke wants us to have compassion on him because look at what the centurion says to himself.

And so when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God saying,

certainly this was a righteous man.

I know you've had the feeling of hopelessness.

I wonder if you've ever had the feeling of shame.

Have you ever got to a place of shame in your life like I have?

Shame is not good.

It does not feel good.

It is not a great place to be.

Shame is that aspect of your life that you say, if people knew,

they would hate me.

Shame, fear combined with the idea of being known.

You know what's amazing about the gospel?

The gospel tells us that God fully knows you and fully loves you.

He knows everything there is about you and he loves you.

And God loves the centurion.

But in this moment, he feels shame.

Okay, why does he feel shame?

The answer is right in this statement.

He feels shame because he just oversaw the death of an innocent man.

He looks around and he's not a fool.

He's not a believer at this moment.

He's not an individual who has studied the scriptures.

He's not a rabbi who understands the Old Testament.

He's not in the temple where he sees the temple of Veltorn.

He knows none of that.

But as he looks around, he's like, okay, something's going on here.

We're killing this guy and the world is going crazy.

What did I do?

And that shame brought him to a place of repentance.

Shame can only be healed by repentance.

We live in a world today that says if you feel shame,

the one way out of feeling shame is to take pride in your shame.

And the problem with trying to take pride in your shame

is that you already know you should be ashamed of your sin,

not proud of your sin.

And this is why depression and anxiety and self-harm and escapism

and self-medication is to the place where it is in our society

because our society says if you feel shameful about something,

take pride in your shame and we just self-destruct.

God doesn't come and say, don't feel shameful

for destroying yourself or sinning.

God comes and says, you feel shame because you sinned.

But if you acknowledge your sin, I'm a sinner.

I killed an innocent man.

When you acknowledge your sin, you repent of your sin.

Oh God, I turned my back on who I was and what I've done.

I do not take pride in my sin.

I repent of my sin.

The Bible says at that moment God will save your soul.

Just as He does for the Roman soldier.

Imagination.

I want you now to imagine this Roman soldier's life.

Think about it now.

Spoiler alert, Jesus doesn't stay dead.

He raises from the grave, amen?

But the Roman soldier doesn't know this.

Roman soldier's like, oh my God, what did I do?

I killed an innocent man.

And then three days later, the innocent man is walking around alive.

Imagine what that would have been like for the Roman centurion

to show up at one of these Christian early meetings

and there's Jesus.

He literally watched him die and now he's alive.

And now all the people that follow Jesus are becoming his friends

and they're telling them about the history of who Jesus is.

The Son of God, the Messiah come to save the world

and that He can believe too, repent of His sin and be born again.

And the Roman centurion now becomes a believer in Jesus Christ.

Now imagine a moment five years later

when He's done with His tour of Judea.

You see, this was a soldier who wasn't from the land.

He was deployed to the land.

And he's going home.

This Italian man is finally returning to the peninsula.

And he goes back to Rome five, three, seven years later

and when he arrives back at home,

none of these people know anything about Jesus, the Son of God.

He spent the last few years learning about Jesus,

about Christianity, about how to be saved,

about how to spread the gospel.

I imagine the moment that this Roman centurion

goes to the local church leadership there in Jerusalem

and says to Peter,

Peter, they're going to send me back.

What do I do?

Peter said, what do you mean, what do you do?

I have to go back to Italy.

I'm going to miss the church.

He said, no, no, you're not going to miss the church.

You are the church.

What am I going to do?

What do you mean, what are you going to do?

Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel.

Guess what?

You're the guy.

Christian history has lost track of who started the church in Rome.

We don't know.

Some people falsely say Peter,

but no, we know from the writings of Peter,

Peter, the church had already been started for years

before Peter ever showed up for the first time.

Some say it was Paul.

No, Paul wrote the book of Romans to the Romans

saying, I want to meet you someday.

So who started the church in Rome?

Could it be possible that the centurion that is standing

at the foot of the cross goes back to Rome

and begins to tell everybody about the false gods

that we worship are nothing.

There is the one true God who sent Jesus Christ to be a son.

And so this feeling of shame leads to the great evangelistic

work in the heart of the empire.

Luke doesn't want us to just focus on the cross.

He wants to see the cross from various points of view.

Yes, it's true.

Humanity killed Jesus, but there were a few who believed.

We see the thief on the cross.

We see the centurion.

Next, we see Joseph of Arimathea.

Look at verse 48.

And the whole crowd who came together to that site

seeing what had been done,

they beat their chest and their breasts and returned.

But all of his acquaintances and the women who followed him

from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

The Bible tells us that the broader crowd was grieved over it.

They beat their chests and walked away.

The women of Galilee, there was a large group of believers

that was led by Mary and Martha and Jesus' mother Mary.

And the Bible says they departed in sorrow.

But there was one man who was standing on the edge of the crowd.

His name was Joseph.

And Luke wants us to see him.

He was a council member, a good and just man.

What does it tell us about him?

He was a good guy.

He was a righteous guy.

He was also a council member,

which means he was a member of the Sanhedrin.

Do you all remember the Sanhedrin from a few weeks ago?

That was the religious leadership community

that sentenced Jesus to death and turned him over to the Romans.

Now, if you're not careful as you read the Bible,

you're going to assume that the entire group

of religious leaders of the Jewish community,

they all hated Jesus.

They all wanted him to die.

Not true.

Joseph of Arimathea was one of the ones

who did not vote for the death of Jesus.

He either voted against it or he abstained from voting.

Why?

Here's why.

Because Joseph was a secret believer.

Say it with me.

Secret believer.

Say it again, say it again.

Secret believer.

Say it with me, Pastor Josh.

Are you telling me there are secret believers,

people who believe in Jesus,

but they just don't tell people?

Yes.

I don't want to point you out.

I'm sure there are some in this room.

And they're not just secret believers.

Like guys like me, this is all I do.

Tell everybody this about it.

There are other people who have different layers

of their secrecy.

Right?

At church, you're like super Christian, right?

You walk around and you're like,

hey everybody, press God.

Praise the Lord.

You've got your light so shining

so that all the church can see.

Right?

Bless you, my friend.

God bless your soul.

God bless your soul.

God bless everybody's souls.

And then there are even maybe communities outside.

Like you go to a small group and you're like,

oh, that's right, Christian man.

I'm a Christian man here.

And then you go around other people

and you're just, you're a secret Jesus person.

And you know why?

Here's why.

Because you're afraid.

Because you're afraid.

Your fear of rejection keeps you from being honest

about your faith.

Now I do think it goes both ways.

I think there are people that come to church

who pretend to be Christian.

They're really not.

They're here for other nefarious purposes.

But there are also Christians who are really Christians

and they pretend not to be when they go out.

Why?

Because of fear.

Joseph was one of these guys.

He was a very wealthy man.

He was a very powerful man.

He was a very connected man.

And so to come out and just say,

I'm a follower of the guy you just crucified

is probably not good for his political career

or his professional career.

Does that make sense?

But something happens to where suddenly this secret Christian

because says, no longer I need to come out of the closet.

I need to let the world know that I'm a believer.

Amen.

Look what happens.

This is amazing.

This is really cool.

He was from Arimathea, city of the Jews,

who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God.

He was waiting for the Messiah to come, verse 52.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

You can picture him, can't you?

As he's standing at the cross looking around,

realizing what's going to happen to the body of Jesus.

Like literally, like, who's going to take the...

What, the fishermen and the carpenters and the homeless people?

They're going to go to Pilate and ask for the body.

This body is going to be taken to a dump heap

where all the other criminals and thrown into a mass grave.

And suddenly with his power, his wealth and his influence

realizes I'm the only person who can get the job done.

And so what does he do?

Well, it's not in this gospel, but in the gospel of John,

the Bible tells us that he goes to go talk to a friend of his,

another very well-known, wealthy leader.

In the community.

Does anybody know what his buddy's name is?

Anybody know his name?

Nicodemus.

So Joseph of Arimathea goes to Nicodemus and he's like,

buddy, I know that you know what I know.

And you know that I know what you know.

And we both know, but nobody else knows that we know that we know.

And Nicodemus is like, yeah, I know.

What are we going to do?

And I don't know what that conversation was like.

I would have loved to be in the room.

But in that moment, both Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea

decided to come out for Jesus and they stand in front of the

governor of Rome and they say, hey, we want his body.

Then they take it and wrap it in a linen cloth

and he puts it in his very own pocket.

It was hewn out of a stone, which means this was a very

expensive tomb, a sepulcher.

A tomb would have not been built for one person.

It would have been built for large families.

You place the body on the tomb on a slab inside of the tomb.

You let the body decay until it becomes bones.

Then you take all the bones, gather them up.

You put them in little boxes called sarcophagus.

You put those in and you put them in a small box.

And you put them in a small box.

And you put them in a small box.

So you put those in a small box for sarcophagus.

You put those in and you stack those against the wall.

You can have scores if not hundreds of family members in one tomb.

This was a brand new tomb that nobody had ever been laid in.

Joseph's own family tomb.

And he goes and he stands and says, he's mine.

I want him.

Can I ask you a question?

Is there anybody in your life that you're too afraid to talk to Jesus about?

Like the people in your life, do they know you're a follower of Jesus Christ?

For some of you at work, you say, well, how would they know that?

The same way they know your favorite sports team is?

Like the same way they know about your obsession with your hobby.

The same way they know about your favorite movies that you like.

Do you know why they know?

Here's how people know about you.

You say, they don't know anything about me.

They don't need to know anything about me.

Then why do they know about your favorite restaurant?

Because you talk about it all the time.

So why don't you talk about Jesus all the time?

Do you know why they know about your sports team?

It's because you wear memorabilia all the time.

If you said to them, you know I'm a bulls fan, they'd be like, duh, everybody's like,

everybody knows you're a bulls fan.

I wonder if you said, you know I'm a Christian, they're going to be like, duh, everybody knows you're a Christian.

Or is your loyalty so strong to your sports team and kind of, you know,

I mean, they don't need to know about Jesus because you got to focus on the important things.

The reason people know things about you is because you talk about it,

you demonstrate it through symbols on your body.

There's another reason because you change your schedule to make sure you prioritize

whatever it is that is important to you.

You change your schedule for it.

This is why your boss knows anytime such and such is going to take place,

you're going to come in and you're going to ask for time off.

Why? Because he already knows what's really important to you.

My question to you is, would they be surprised that you're a Christian

because you're like Joseph, you're a secret Christian.

And I'm not saying that to make you feel with shame.

I'm saying that to say, what needs to happen for you to come out

and say, I'm a believer in Jesus.

And everybody needs to know it.

And I love him.

This is one of the reasons why Luke points to Joseph of Arimathea,

the last group.

See, Luke wants us to see the crucifixion,

but he wants us to see it from different points of view.

The thief on the cross, the centurion, Joseph of Arimathea,

and then lastly, the women of Galilee.

Verse 54, that day was the preparation in the Sabbath, Junior.

It's Friday.

Friday is the preparation day for the Sabbath, which is Saturday.

Now, you have to understand, Sabbath does not begin on Saturday morning at 6 a.m.

Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday,

which means you have to be very, very busy getting ready

because the moment Sabbath hits, everything has to stop.

There's no cooking, there's no cleaning.

Can I get an amen?

How many of you are like, we should do a Sabbath, amen?

Yeah, you should, you should.

No cooking, no cleaning, no traveling, just rest.

And so traditionally for the Jewish community,

these ladies were getting ready for 5.30, 6 p.m.

whenever the sun went down, that was it.

The moment the sun disappeared behind the mountains

was the moment they were done.

Now, you have to understand that to understand the frustration of these women.

Jesus died at what time?

3 p.m.

3.30 p.m.

Joseph and Nicodemus are talking near the temple.

We should go get the body of Jesus.

4, 4.15 p.m.

They finally get an audience in front of Pilate before Pilate is done for the day.

Hey, hey, can we get the body of Jesus?

4.45, near 5 o'clock, now they're at the cross.

The women of Galilee are like, what are we going to do?

What are we going to do?

You say why?

Because it was the tradition of the culture

that when your loved one died,

it was your responsibility to prepare that body for burial.

You needed to have the ointments together.

You needed to have the spices together.

You needed to wrap the body in a certain way.

You had all of these things to do.

And you have to get it done now.

You got to get it done quick.

Why?

Because very soon at 6 o'clock, we won't be able to do it because Sabbath is there.

And so now, according to the text, you must understand the pressure in this moment.

The day of preparation was there.

The Sabbath was drawing near.

And the women who had come from Galilee followed after,

and they observed the tomb and how the body was laid.

So now it's near 5 o'clock.

The women are all gathered, and they notice the person taking it down,

taking Jesus' body down, was a Sanhedrin member.

That's Joseph.

Everybody knew this man.

And Nicodemus, the rabbi from Galilee,

what are they going to do with Jesus' body?

And so they follow far off, and they say,

okay, there's the tomb.

We know where it is.

And so they rushed back to their home,

probably the home in Bethany of Mary and Martha.

They rushed back to make sure they get rid of, take care of all the spices.

Look at what it says in verse 56.

And they returned, and they prepared all the spices and the fragrant oils

to anoint Jesus' body for burial.

And they run out of time.

Can you picture it as Mary, Martha, and everybody's running around in the kitchen,

putting this together, that together, and Mary walks over to the window,

and she notices the sun is set.

And she quietly walks back to the ladies and says, it's too late.

The only way they could honor the one they loved,

the only thing they could do to show Jesus how much Jesus meant to them,

and they couldn't get it done.

So now they all sit down.

Can you imagine this moment with me?

In their sorrow, in their pain,

as the oils and the spices build a fragrance that fills that house,

and they think we failed.

We have no choice.

So we have to wait all weekend, and wait until Sunday morning

before the sun comes up, and then we'll get there.

And before the sun even comes up, nobody will know,

we'll get there before the sun comes up, and then we'll anoint this body,

and they're crying.

And you know something about the story that they don't know yet.

I wonder if God knows something about your story that you don't know yet.

I wonder if you've been sitting in that house of sorrow, frustration,

trying to get it all together.

And God in this moment is saying to you,

it's okay, you don't know what's going to happen on Sunday morning,

but it's going to be fine.

The oil, it's not even necessary.

Yeah?

One last thing to imagine.

Imagine feeling like you're running out of time frustrated and exhausted.

I don't want you to think of them. I want you to think of you.

What are you doing here in that place?

I think Luke would say, look to Jesus.

Imagine being a secret believer afraid of the consequences.

Say, what are you doing here? Look to Jesus.

Imagine awakening to the seriousness of your sin, your shame, your guilt.

Like finally you get it. It's not a game anymore.

You really are as bad as you think you are.

It was your sin that put him there.

What do I do? Look to Jesus?

Imagine the desperation, the feeling of hopelessness,

that need of one last chance, like a criminal about to die.

What do I do?

The answer is look to Jesus.

The reason is because this one who died upon the cross

holds all the power to rise from the grave.

That's what we see next week. Let's pray. Father.