The Death of Jesus

Thank you, jason, for being here with us this morning, and I'd just like to say during the offering today, if you'd like to give something to Phil's friends, you can just write a check out or put cash in an envelope and mark it for Phil's friends and we'll make sure they get it.

So thank you again, jason, for helping us understand that ministry.

I don't know about you, but you know summer is the time a lot of people take a vacation to get away from it all, as you can see this morning.

But I don't know about you, but what I've discovered is that when you get back, it all has been patiently waiting for you Now.

Last time in the Gospel of Mark, we looked at the crucifixion of Jesus.

We are in, we've been going through the Gospel of Mark for quite a while and we're really coming down to the final chapters here, and this week and next we're going to look at the events surrounding the death of Jesus and if you'd like a sermon outline or would like to borrow a Bible to look on today, just raise your hand or ushers to be happy to give you an outline or a Bible, and we're going to be in Mark, chapter 15.

Mark 15 · chapter mention

If you brought a Bible and want to follow along as I read it.

Mark, chapter 15, beginning.

Mark 15 · chapter mention

I'm going to go jump up to verse 27 and then go to verse 33.

Mark 15, 27, they crucified two robbers with Jesus, one on his right and one on his left.

And when the six hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour.

At the ninth hour, jesus cried out with a loud voice Eloi, eloi Lama, sabbik Tani, which is translated my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And when some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying behold, he's calling for Elijah.

Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave him a drink, saying let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down.

And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.

And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

And when the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said truly, this man was the Son of God.

So we're going to look at this passage this week and next, because there is a lot here to cover.

One of the major events that we're going to focus on today is the fact of the darkness that surrounded Jesus' crucifixion.

Those betrayal, arrest and trial all happened at night.

And Matthew, mark and Luke all describe a deep darkness that comes down on Jesus on the cross from the sixth hour to the ninth hour, which in our frame of understanding, was from noon until 3 pm.

Now some people, some commentators, look at this and say well, the darkness was probably some natural explanation, like a solar eclipse or a huge sandstorm that blocked the sun's light.

But it couldn't have been caused by a solar eclipse, because those only blocked the sun for a few minutes, not for three hours.

Not only that, a solar eclipse can't happen during a full moon.

It was Passover in Israel always held the time of a full moon and it couldn't have been caused by a huge sandstorm either, because it was the rainy season in Israel during the spring.

There's no explanation for the deep darkness, except that it was a supernatural darkness.

And today I want to look a little deeper into what the supernatural darkness means is that it came down on Jesus at his death on the cross.

We're going to look at three things the meaning of the spiritual darkness, the effects of being in spiritual darkness and the darkness that Jesus received.

What does a supernatural darkness mean?

This may surprise some of you, but darkness in the Bible means darkness.

Darkness can refer to physical darkness, like nighttime or a dark room.

But darkness in the Bible can also refer to spiritual darkness, referring to the powers of evil.

For instance, in Ephesians 6, 12, paul says for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

And what's interesting is the gospel of Luke points out something Jesus said when he was arrested Luke 22.53,.

He says While I was with you daily in the temple, you didn't lay hands on me, but this hour and the power of darkness are yours.

Jesus recognizes that he's about to enter a supernatural darkness.

And in the Bible darkness is used quite often as a metaphor to describe our spiritual state.

Before we believed in Jesus, the scripture tells us we were in spiritual darkness.

John 12.46,.

Jesus said I've come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness.

But when a person believes in Jesus, we are turning from spiritual darkness to the light in Jesus.

Ephesians 5.8.

Paul says you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord, walk as children of the light.

So we need to ask what does it mean to be in spiritual darkness?

Well, let's start here.

In a number of places in the Bible, god is likened to the sun.

By the way, did you see the sun come up this morning?

The haze Blocked a lot of the intensity of the sun and I just saw an orange ball out there.

It was amazing.

Anyway, god is likened to the sun in places like Psalm 84-11.

And what does that mean?

The sun is a source of truth, why?

Because by it we see everything else.

We see the reality.

The sun is also the source of life, because without it, everything withers and dies.

Just like we cannot live without the sun, we cannot live without God.

God is the source of all truth and the source of all life.

And to be in spiritual darkness means somehow we've turned away from God, the source of truth and life, and our centering and orbiting our life on something else to give us truth and life.

It could be our career, it could be a relationship, our family, success, a lot of things.

And when we turn from the darkness to the light found through faith in Jesus we're given new spiritual life, god's life, eternal life.

So why do we resist turning to God's light?

Well, as we heard earlier, jesus uses the metaphor of darkness to describe the sin nature in us, our propensity to rebel against God and cover our guilt.

When Jesus said in John 3, this is the judgment that the light has come into the world and men love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

For everyone who does evil hates the light, does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

What are the effects, then, of that we would experience if we choose to orbit our life around things other than God and live in spiritual darkness?

Well, two main things.

First, to live in spiritual darkness, apart from the truth and life in God through Jesus, means we are lost and radically disoriented.

We may not fully grasp this because where we are here, we're surrounded by lights everywhere.

We don't really know what it means to experience real darkness.

I don't know if you've ever been in a deep dark cave, but when I was young, our family visited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.

We went in quite a ways.

By the way, it's the world's largest cave system 412 miles long and still counting.

We went deep in the cave, tour guide taking us way, way, way in.

And then we're all staying there together, small group, and all of a sudden the tour guide turned off the light.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this.

It was penetratingly dark.

I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

I couldn't see it.

I couldn't see the truth.

I couldn't see the truth.

It was disorienting.

I couldn't see myself, where I was, where I was going.

I couldn't see others around me.

I knew they were there, I couldn't see them.

I was blinded.

I took a picture so you could see what I mean.

Yeah, astounding, isn't it?

Staying in total darkness for any length of time has a horrible effect on you.

It's radically disorienting.

Physical darkness and spiritual darkness are similar.

They're related.

You can't see the truth about yourself in physical darkness or spiritual darkness.

You can't see it.

You can't see forward the truth about the purpose God has for your life.

You can't see it.

You can't see anyone or anything else, the truth about your relationships or truth about who's with you.

You're isolated.

It's horribly disorienting.

Lost is a good word, being in darkness.

Spiritually, we become so wrapped up in the things we're living for apart from God that we can't see the truth.

We can't see the truth of the light of the gospel of Jesus.

That's what Paul's referring to in San Corinthians 4-4.

The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Darkness, spiritual second thing, not only radical disorientation, but the second thing, physical and spiritual darkness.

The effect it has is an unsettling disintegration in our life.

In the Bible, darkness and disintegration and chaos go together.

Take something out of the light and after enough time it just dies.

Look at what happened at creation.

The earth was empty, formless, covered in darkness.

And those things go together until God steps in.

Let me read Genesis 1-3.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Then God said let there be light.

When God said that God's light triumphed over the darkness as a true source of truth and life.

And any time we move away from God, you move away from that spiritual light and life, we move away.

I'm talking not only to unbelievers, but to believers as well.

That's why we're told several times in the New Testament don't walk in the darkness.

You're children of light.

To the degree we move away, it isn't just disorienting spiritually, it's also disintegrating, just like the original creation.

Things start to fall apart, things become unsettled and chaotic.

In spiritual darkness we move closer to a state of uncreation, outside God's light and life.

We walk in darkness when something becomes more important to us than God.

We're moving away from Him.

And any time we walk in darkness, apart from the light of Jesus, the light of God's Word and the light of the gospel, we will experience I'm not kidding, hear me we will experience some sense of disintegration.

I know because I've experienced it.

Our soul, our spirit, our body start to get torn apart.

We lose our peace, we lose our joy, we lose our rest in God.

We become more and more uncreated.

Our disintegration can be manifested in several ways.

I mean a whole host of things anxiety, discouragement, self-pity, self-condemnation, shame and irrational fears.

Things are disintegrating because somehow, some way, we've moved away from the source of life and truth in our relationship with God.

We walk in darkness when we give our desires and devotion to something else, something else that we think is absolute.

We've got to have it.

I'm going to get vulnerable here.

I'm going to share a personal example of when I'm not free from this.

I'll tell you.

You want to know how I end up walking in darkness.

Here's how it's happened.

I become more and more aware of it.

You see, I want to be a good pastor.

I want to be loved and respected by others in the church.

But, as you know, there have been times in the ministry when people have not been too nice and they've criticized me.

They've been harsh to me.

They told me I was a terrible pastor, a terrible leader I'm not kidding.

And as I take that stuff in, it crushed me.

Devastation, darkness.

Every time Give me feel shame, condemnation.

It devastated me.

Why?

Why does it do that?

Because I'm heading into the darkness.

That's why.

What does that mean?

Because being loved by people has become more important to me than being loved and approved by God, no matter what else.

He is the source of my life, the object of my devotion, and when I replace that with oh, I just I need to have people recognize that they want me, I'm good.

Disintegration Start moving away from the truth of the gospel.

God loves me, period.

I am His Son.

When I start moving away, I'm moving out of the light into darkness.

I see it and you know the result is disorienting and disintegrating, devastating.

Now the apostle John actually describes the difference between believers who walk in darkness and those who walk in the light.

First, john 5, 5-7,.

Listen to this.

This is the message John says.

We've heard from him and I'll see you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.

Now, if we say we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, look, darkness doesn't mean I'm walking in sin.

Like I said before, darkness really means something else.

See, I need that more than I need God.

That's what I think, that's what I believe, and if I don't get that, I'm devastated.

If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and we're not practicing the truth.

We're not walking in the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he Himself is in the light, you know what we have?

Fellowship with one another In the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

Encouragement.

With that in mind, let's go back now.

This is where we've been leading.

Let's now talk about the darkness Jesus received on the cross.

That was His.

To help us understand it, the Old Testament can give us a few insights.

The prophets told us in the Old Testament what Judgment Day would look like.

They refer to Judgment Day, this future time when God's wrath and judgment comes upon the sin of the world.

They refer to that time as the day of the Lord.

Whenever you see that in the Old Testament prophets that's the Judgment Day.

On that day, here's what happens.

I'll read you a couple of passages.

When that day happens, what's happening is God is pulling away light and life.

He's pulling away to release His wrath.

Darkness Making things really start to look like they did before.

He said let there be light, uncreation.

Here's Jeremiah 4, 20 and 23 about this day coming.

Disaster on disaster is proclaimed, for the whole land is devastated.

Suddenly, my tents are devastated, my curtains.

In an instant I looked on the earth and behold, it was formless and void.

Oh, reference to uncreation and to the heavens.

They had no light.

Darkness.

The day of God's wrath Isaiah 13, verse 9, behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation.

Isaiah 13:9

He will exterminate its sinners from it, for the stars of heaven and the constellations will not flash forth their light.

The sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shed its light when judgment occurred.

God pulls back and creation starts to become dark, disintegrate and become the uncontrollable chaos of what it was like before and uncreation Now.

That helps us understand the meaning of the darkness Jesus received on the cross.

The darkness surrounding Jesus' death on the cross was a supernatural darkness, like the darkness that came on Egypt when God's judgment fell on them.

This was the darkness that could be felt.

Exodus 20, 21,.

The Lord said to Moses stretch out your hand toward the sky that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even a darkness that can be felt.

It's a supernatural darkness.

You can feel it.

At the ninth hour, jesus cried out my God, why have you forsaken me?

What's going on here?

Well, on the one hand, the darkness coming down on Jesus is when Jesus experienced the full range of human evil.

He's been rejected by his people.

He's been betrayed by one of his followers.

He's been deserted by his close friends to save their own skins.

He's been set up out of envy by the religious establishment.

He's been sacrificed for political expediency by the secular authority.

He's been violently tortured, beaten and nailed to the cross.

He's publicly demeaned, humiliated and shamed as a criminal.

He's experiencing the ultimate injustice.

He's getting everything that human evil can throw at him, but that's not all.

He's getting as awful as that is, he's not just getting human evil, but divine wrath for the sins of the world.

For all time.

This was a supernatural darkness, not a natural darkness.

Now listen to me carefully.

You want to understand the crucifixion in its relationship to this darkness.

Listen to this when Jesus is on the cross and I described last week the torture of it, the pain of it, indescribable.

But when Jesus is hanging on the cross and he starts crying out, he doesn't say, oh, my head hurts so much.

He doesn't say, oh, my hands are penetrating pain beyond my imagination.

Oh, my feet, they're so painful.

He says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Oh, there it is.

He's experiencing a pain infinitely greater than a physical pain.

He's experiencing the darkness of the abandonment and loss and intimacy with his heavenly Father, whom he shared joy, peace and love from all eternity.

He's losing it.

He's moving away from it.

No, the Father's moving away from him and the darkness overtakes him.

What is the darkness coming down on Jesus?

I'll tell you what it is.

It's our judgment day, our judgment day on him.

The judgment for our sins is coming down from God on him.

God the Father, is slipping away.

He's becoming disoriented, disintegrating in his person.

He's experiencing what we would experience if God just for the sins we committed.

It's coming on him the darkness of God's wrath.

Instead, jesus is taking our judgment on himself so we could be free.

Now we're told in Hebrews 1-3 that from the creation of the world, jesus is holding all things together by the word of his power.

But here on the cross, as the darkness descends on him, jesus is unraveling.

He's experiencing the effects and consequences of the sins we've committed and the evil in the world, and this is absolutely astounding.

The maker of the world is becoming unmade for our sake.

Instead of releasing the horrors of his wrath on sinners, he's bearing it himself.

As horrible and painful it is to be scourged and have your flesh torn to ribbons.

As horrible and painful it is to be pierced with nails.

As horrible and painful it is to die of heart failure and suffocation.

Jesus doesn't cry out because of those things.

Those things compare to the loss of his God, life and truth and light in him, being enveloped in eternal darkness.

It was just a mosquito bite, those other things, the supernatural darkness that descended on Jesus was the wrath and judgment of God coming down on him for the sins we committed.

He loved us.

He took our judgment.

When we got the freedom, he deserved it.

As Segent Corinthians 5.21 says, he became sin.

Who knew no sin, so we could become the righteousness of God.

You know what?

There are only two really, my mind, only two appropriate responses a person could have for such an act of love and sacrifice for us.

The first response is to believe in Jesus, to receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life, to move into God's presence through him, through faith in him.

Mine was the sin that drove the bitter nails and hung him on that judgment tree.

I would like to urge you to believe in Jesus as your Savior and be saved from the darkness of God's coming judgment upon the sin of all who would stand before him to answer for them in their own.

And then, second, if you have believed in Jesus, the second response I think most appropriate is to give your life completely to him, who gave his life for you.

This was Paul's point in Segent Corinthians, 5.14 and 15.

For the love of Christ controls us.

Having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died, and he died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf, let's pray, father, thank you for Jesus and his sacrifice for us.

He is willing to experience the darkness that we deserve, being cast out of your presence forever.

I thank you, jesus, for giving yourself so that we could know you and spend eternity in your presence, in your life and light and truth.

Now would you help us, as we go from this place, to respond to you, to your love, to your amazing grace, by spending the rest of our lives on this earth, living for you In the praise of your glory?

I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.