Last Words of Jesus Christ

I have a listing of some of the last words spoken by different individuals. Let me read a number of these. The last words of John Adams, who was, of course, the second president of this country. Just before his death, John Adams said, Thomas Jefferson still survives. Well, the thing he didn't know was, on the same day, a few hours earlier, Thomas Jefferson had died.

They both died on July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence that both of them were involved in. Of course, after Adams was president, followed by Jefferson, there was a rift. A period of time of ill feelings, but they were able to reconcile and became dear friends later in life. Ethan Allen, Revolutionary General, the attending doctor, attempted to comfort him by saying, General, I fear the angels are waiting for you. And Ethan Allen said, Waiting are they? Waiting are they? Well, let them wait! So, you'd like to see somebody go out with a fire still burning, don't you?

Henry Ward Beecher, evangelist from back in the mid-1800s, his last words, now comes the mystery. Henry Ward Beecher. Seems like he was one of them behind the program of sending Bibles and guns out to Bleeding, Kansas. But we would know his daughter better, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the one who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.

And Abraham Lincoln met her on one occasion and said, So you're the little lady that started all of this. Well, there was more to it than that. How about Humphrey Bogart? Last words. I should never have swissed from Scots to Martinis. I like the final words of Grover Cleveland, US President late 1800s and lived until 1908. But he said simply, I've tried to do what is right. Be nice to have on your tombstone. Kind of like in the Nehemiah, he had one quick statement where he said, Remember me, O God, for good.

Bing Crosby, just before he died, said, That was a great golf game, fellas. That was a great game of golf. Queen Elizabeth of England, all my possessions for another moment of time. Douglas Fairbank, Sr., he said, I've never felt better. And then he died. O. Henry, author, William Sidney Porter, he said, Turn up the lights. I don't want to go home in the dark. Stonewall Jackson, General Thomas Stonewall Jackson, was accidentally shot by some of his own Confederate troops.

But as he died, he said, Let us cross the river and sit in the shade of the trees. Louis XIV of France, Why do you weep? Did you think I was immortal? Vespasian, Roman emperor, 1st century AD, said, What was me? Methinks I'm turning into a god. You know, one that fascinates me, Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci. I mean, you think of all the great works of art that man was behind.

And da Vinci at his death said, I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have. Now, that's a perfectionist going out, isn't it? Was never satisfied. Woodrow Wilson simply said, I am ready.

We have famous last words recorded in the Bible. We have, late in Genesis, chapter 49, we have Jacob kind of getting the sons, the tribes together. And then for each one, he had some final instructions and then he died. Or right at the end of chapter 50 of Genesis, we have Joseph. And Joseph, at the end of his life, he essentially reminds them, you're going to go through some hard times, but God's going to visit you.

He's going to bring you forth, and when you go, take my remains with you. Take my bones with you, he said. Or Stephen in the book of Acts, as he's succumbing to the stoning, simply said, receive my spirit, lay not this end of their charge. Humanly, we tend to look at the last words a person had to say, and we place great credibility, emphasis, impact on those words. Because as we would, we would probably be right in assuming that what they said weighed most heavily on their mind at that time.

Today, I want to cover a sermon titled, The Final Words of Jesus Christ. I've heard sermons along this line for decades in God's Church. I remember an article. I think Jim Lichtenstein wrote it back in the late 1970s. It appeared in the Old Good News magazine, and he looked at the different statements that Jesus made from the cross.

I actually first spoke on this topic in 1989, and I haven't addressed it since our last assignment. So, I wanted to look at the final words of Jesus Christ, because we would, I believe, be right to realize that these are some of the most weighty thoughts on Christ's mind, as He's just about to breathe His last, and then wait for the time when His Father is going to raise Him out of the grave. We'll just look at those hours, basically six hours, that Jesus was hanging from the cross. He spoke seven times. Three statements were made to His Heavenly Father.

Four statements were made to human beings who were nearby or humans in general.

And again, I believe these statements encapsulate the deepest, innermost thoughts that He had, as He was saying farewell to humanity. No one Gospel author records all seven.

We have one that is told by both Matthew and Mark, and then we have three we're going to look at in Luke, and three in John's Gospel accounts. Well, let's start in Luke 23. In the final words of Jesus Christ, we have a tremendous sermon of the plan of God, and we have the great encouragement for those of us who seek to live as He lived, and the following His steps. His first statements. Now, if you look at harmonies of the Gospel, other works, where they try to piece together the chronology, most of these, there's a certain chronological order. There's one in the middle that's somewhat difficult to nail down. The time when He cried out, He said, I thirst.

It's hard to tell if that's right after the one or another one, but basically, I'm going to just present them in a certain order, and for the most part, these are chronologically accurate.

Luke 23. We begin in verse 32. So again, we're breaking in on the story where we go right to the crucifixion. This first statement from the cross is a statement of forgiveness. I'll try to sum up each statement in one word, if that's possible. The first one is forgiveness. Verse 32, there were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him and the criminals on the one on the right hand and the other on the left. Verse 34, then Jesus said, and here's the first statement, Father forgives them, for they do not know what they do. That's as far as we need to read there. So the first statement is told by Luke. He's speaking to his father, and this is after the trial when more than once Pilate had said, I find no fault in him. And yet, at the demand of the religious leaders and some of the common people, Pilate caved in and condemned the one person to ever live without sin to death. But he cried out, forgive them. They don't know what they do.

As we look into the mind of Christ, as He spoke those words, we realize He harbored no anger, no resentment, no hatred. It is part and parcel of all of us as humans that if we are hurt or if someone close to us is hurt, we want to lash back at them. We want to see them pay. We want to see them hurt. But God is not in the business of giving us what we deserve. And Jesus said, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. We look at His mind. There was no vengeance in His heart. He was suffering beyond any ability that we have to comprehend.

He didn't want to lash back. He did not want evil for evil. He simply stated they don't know what they are doing. The mind of God is quick to offer forgiveness. That's a challenge for us.

Sometimes it takes us a while to work on it, to be able to set someone free of a debt that they may owe us. The mind of God, I think we'd have to say, is free from the vanity or the pride that demands a retribution that calls for a striking back in like manner. Now, as we look at this, we're left to look at our own face in the mirror. What about us? Are we as desirous, or are we learning to be as desirous to offer forgiveness to brethren and church, to family members? Because within a family, we always have things. You have these wedges that get driven between. We sometimes have issues at work or within a neighborhood or within a community. Anytime we rub shoulders with human beings, we're going to have these points when we need to forgive, to set free, to repent if need be, and to work on reconciliation, to rebuild what once had been. Do we view others? Do we give them the benefit of the doubt by viewing others as not knowing always what they're doing? Because oftentimes things are just set out of frustration, and they're not really worth making an issue out of them. From the beginning of Christ's ministry, we have in the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter 5 of Matthew, we have the Beatitudes, and one of those involved that he stated, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

And then in Matthew 6, still in the Sermon on the Mount, we had the question that he had fielded, as Luke's account tells, the disciples had asked teachers how to pray. And he gave them that sample, that outline for prayer, and then that was followed by a statement that if you forgive other human beings, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. And so it's always hinged together.

But we see from Christ's ministry as it continued. We have many parables that we could turn to, that are filled with lessons that stress the need to learn forgiveness. We have the story of the prodigal son, and the Father who received him back, welcomed him back into the family, and rejoiced through a feast, and that's contrasted with the reaction of the older brother, who was not going to welcome the little brother back. We have many parables that speak about forgiving. The one says something about to learn to forgive from the heart.

So forgiveness is a central message, and as we come to the Passover, there must first be a ready willingness to forgive if we are going to be forgiven.

When we get down to the foot washing part, by participating, we make a lot of statements.

That other brother or sister you're teeming with represents the body of Jesus Christ to you.

And one of the statements you're making by offering the service of foot washing is, you're making a statement, I forgive you. I forgive you. And we leave it all behind.

Hopefully, forgiveness is something that takes place throughout the year, however.

Christ's words stress the need that we must learn to be like Him and be quick to set others' debts free. Let's look a little further in Luke 23. We come to the second statement from the cross, and it is a statement that has to do with repentance. Repentance. And it has to do with the story of the two individuals who were crucified with Him. Luke 23, and let's skip down to verse 39. The mocking has continued. We have the sign that had been placed on the cross.

Verse 39, then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, if you are the Christ, save yourself and us. Now, we have an interesting insight into the minds of these two thieves, these criminals. The one is just as belligerent all the way to the end as He ever was. The other one, we see something remarkable and dramatic, has been taking place during, again, something that only took about six hours of the day. If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. Verse 40, but the other answering, rebuked Him, saying, do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?

This one understood, we're getting what we deserved. He's implying this man didn't.

We indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said to Jesus, Lord, and notice the name by which he calls Him.

We can only wonder how many seeds had been sown in this man's life, as he had gone through the business of being a criminal. But what happened with the ministry of Jesus Christ didn't happen hidden off in a corner somewhere. It wasn't off in one little community of Israel. It was around Galilee and Samaria and Jerusalem, and he moved around the country. How many seeds might have been sown in the mind of this man who is now there crucified and about to pay for his sins with his life? And finally, some of those seeds began to germinate. Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. He recognized there was this kingdom that had been spoken of.

Now, I was reading earlier this morning and looking at this in the Scofield Reference Bible, and I happened to notice a little box there that I hadn't seen before. And it talked about the repentance that this one thief was experiencing. And it began with the realization that I'm getting what I deserve, as we read there in verse 41. We're receiving it justly. And then we see that he recognized that the man crucified between them had done nothing wrong. The man was free from sin and did not deserve what he was being given. Then he moved to the point where he said to Jesus, Lord, which means master, ruler, something had happened, something had transpired, that he had had the eyes open a bit to realize, as Scofield suggested, the deity of Christ, that this may truly have been God in the flesh who is now hanging there.

And then, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He recognized there is a future beyond this physical life. And then verse 43, Jesus said to him, Surely I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Now, we realize it's not something I'm going to take time to go into today. We realize this is misunderstood, misapplied, and twisted a great deal in the world around us. We're not talking about somebody who's about to die and go immediately to heaven. That's not what it says because that would conflict with many clear scriptures. Jesus, during his ministry, had said there in John 3, No man is ascended to heaven. And then in chapter 5 of John, he spoke of a time when everyone will hear the voice of the Son of Man. There was a time that would come in the future when all would be called from their graves. So he's not saying you're going to go with me into heaven right now. But he did say, I'm going to tell you right now, you're not far from the kingdom of God, what you understand. You are going to be with me in paradise, which symbolizes that eternal life with a family of God. Now, Christ's words were to give comfort and encouragement to a pitiful, a wretched human being who had done an awful lot wrong, apparently.

And he had then been paying for what he had done. But in the process, he began to have the scales removed and he saw things he hadn't seen in all of his lifetime. And he held out to him hope.

He held out to him hope in the future. These two thieves, as King James, I believe, calls them, these two criminals, as the new King James calls them, are unnamed. We don't know what their names are and it's not important. What we do know is they were worthy of death and they were being given a death sentence. And during those momentous hours, something remarkable changed in the life of one. He began to believe in this Jesus as His Christ, His Lord, His Savior, His King.

The example, the demeanor of Jesus Christ, must have had a tremendous impact upon Him. We have two men. I believe it's valuable for us to contrast these two men. The one remained unrepentant. He only wanted to escape his own pain and suffering. He never professed faith. He never professed repentance. And he felt no remorse and Jesus never answered him. The other one, the thief who now was repenting. You see, earlier in the day, he had joined the others in mocking Christ. But by his own admission, he deserved to die and he began to have his eyes open.

You know, too many times human beings are like the first thief. The one who rejected God and His way and His plan, His purpose, His law, His everything. But God has given us the privilege to choose.

The two can be contrasted and we can choose to be like the second man. And hopefully we are, because as our eyes are opened, the healing of a breach between God and man begins.

But it can only begin and it can only continue when there is a repentant, pliable, teachable mind, like this repentant thief came to possess. And all who repent and all who then surrender to Christ are beginning to take steps down a path. I think I've always been delighted with the name of our booklet, United's booklet on the Holy Days. God's Holy Day plan, the promise of hope for all mankind, and what Jesus said that day was a message of hope. Christ's message from the cross was that there must first be a repentant, yielded, teachable mind. And if there is, there can be eternal life, the hope of eternal life on down the line. For the third statement, let's go to John 19.

John 19. This is a statement of, again, just to simply put it, a statement of care.

Care, love, provision, number of words we could choose, but just simply a statement of care.

John 19. And let's go to verse 25. Verse 25, Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary, wife of Cleophis, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, he said to his mother, now let's pause right there, with the gospel accounts, Luke and Matthew begin with Joseph and Mary. Matthew especially begins with the story of how Mary was a child of the Holy Spirit. But Joseph was involved with the birth, with the flight to Egypt, the return after Herod the Great died. We have them then going to Nazareth, up in Galilee.

We have all the way through the story when Christ was about 12, when he was left behind at the feast.

And they came back and he said, I've got to be about my father's business.

And then Joseph drops off the radar screen, never to be heard from again.

Jesus, as the oldest, it would have been a part of that culture, and it's largely a part of our culture today. The one who is oldest will have oversight and essentially be kind of the surrogate head of the family. Somewhere along the line, Joseph died and Jesus would have for a lot of years had oversight of his mother. And by this time, his mother, by their life, average life expectancy at that day, she would not be a young woman. And she's up in years.

Now, she may have lived a lot more years, but it was Christ's responsibility to pass the baton.

And so there at the end of verse 26, he said, Do his mother, woman, behold your son.

And she's standing there with the disciple whom he loved. And that's John's own code for referring to himself. She's standing there with John and John, or Christ says to his mother, This is your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her to his own home. Now, we realize the Gospels also tell us that Joseph and Mary had other children. Jesus had four brothers are named. And then it says his sisters, plural.

So he had four brothers and at least two sisters. But we also have to realize at this point, you see, there were times his family was offended at him. His family would have nothing to do with him. They certainly were not believers. They were not disciples of his. We do know, thankfully, two of those brothers, James and then Judas or Jude, came along later on. But at this point, at this point, he gave the care and the oversight of his own mother to his dear friend, John.

Now, and again, there may have been a family connection there, but that's a story for another time as well. To the very end, he lived selflessness. He saw to the needs and the care of his mother after he returns back to his father in heaven. He honored his mother.

We read in the New Testament where Paul wrote to Timothy that if you don't take care of your own, you're worse than an unbeliever. He committed her care, Mary's care, to one he knew would be absolutely faithful to that trust. And to the end, he lived the virtues of responsibility and integrity and love. We also read in the New Testament that pure religion undefiled is this. Now, who wrote that? His half-brother James, who woke up later on, James 1 verse 27, added and included the oversight and the looking after the needs of those who are in need.

James 1 verse 27. So, I would involve honoring parents and honoring caring for family and brethren and sacrificing. And so, to the very end, Jesus exemplified compassion, love, concern, service, and care. Love, the way of give, starts at home. We live it at home first, and that's what he was doing all the way until his last breath went out, seeing to the care of his mother. Jesus, a few hours earlier, the night before, after the Passover, as he spoke with them, he did say, after the foot washing, hereby will men know you are my disciples, if you have love, one for another. And so, it involves a lot of actions of care, of service, of concern, one for another.

Let's go to Matthew 27 now. Matthew 27.

And we will read verse...let's begin in verse 45.

Matthew and then Mark refer to this one statement from the cross.

The others don't refer to this one. And this is a statement of aloneness.

It came crashing down. The realization came to Jesus that when he became sin for humanity, he was alone. He was cut off from his father, because that's what sin does.

Matthew 27 verse 45. Again, the crucifixion has been going on from around nine o'clock that morning.

Now, from the sixth hour, which would be around noon, until the ninth hour, around three in the afternoon, there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Mark's account, it has an O in there, Eloi, Eloi. But that is in the Aramaic, and it's left that way, untranslated, for just a moment. I think it has the effect of driving in the impact of what was happening here. As from three hours of darkness that symbolized the Father and Christ being separated as Christ took on humanity's sins, the realization struck, and he cries out. And translated then, it says, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And of course, you will recognize that from Psalm 22, one of the beautiful messianic Psalms where David foresaw so many of the very thoughts and statements and actions of Messiah at the time of His great agony and suffering. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The statement is different from the others. This one is in the form of a question.

The cry is intense. It is filled with the deepest feeling and emotion. It is a reflection of the innermost thoughts of Christ. He was, after all, fully flesh and blood, God in the flesh. He was as subject to pain and suffering as any one of us. And after three hours, he hung on the cross alone. Sins of mankind were placed on Him. You may remember, think back to the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16, the casting of lots, the two goats, and the one that was to be released out into the wilderness. The high priest laid hands on it and confessed the sins of Israel on that goat, and then it was removed from the camp. And that too was, what a forerunner of this.

Little tiny glimmer of what was taking place here, though. The sins of six thousand years now of humanity placed on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. And that very process, in that process, He became our sin offering. He became sin in our stead. He did that willingly. And as a part of that process, the Father withdrew. And it is as though there was this barrier between the Father and the Son, something that had never ever happened. You can just make note of Isaiah 59 verses 1 and 2. Isaiah 59 verses 1 and 2, as Isaiah wrote to those of Israel and Judah at that time, he reminded them that your sins have separated you from your God. Sin separates us from God. Sin, the way of get, the way of selfishness, cuts us off from God. And we should read this part of the story in fear to walk the path that separates us from our God, the God who has redeemed us. I think we get a glimpse of that in David's Psalm of Repentance, Psalm 51. He said, you know, my sins are ever before me. He said, He cried to His Father, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. He wanted to be restored to the relationship they had had before.

Well, there is the deepest sense of aloneness for anyone who cuts himself off from his God.

Back to John 19. The fifth statement is a statement of need, because it may seem somewhat surprising that right toward the end, as death drew near, Jesus turned and cried, I thirst. John 19. We read through verse 27. Let's simply read verse 28. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. That too points us back to Psalm 22 verse 15, about His tongue cleaving to His throat. He cried for something to drink.

Now a vessel of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine, and put it on the hyssop, and put it to His mouth.

Death drew near. The time of His final sacrifice had just about arrived.

He cried out for human help. Now, Matthew's account, Matthew 27 and 48, he doesn't give the quote, I thirst, but at this point, as you line up the story, Matthew says that a soldier ran and got the sponge, the hyssop, and the sour wine, and put it to His mouth.

One soldier immediately moved to action. He acted to serve the man who by now he may well have sensed was more than the average human being. He was moved with empathy for the man he had earlier scorned, and ridiculed, and crucified, and he went into action to serve him, to try to relieve a bit of his pain. Jesus cried out for human help, human assistance. Well, God called a lot of us, somewhere along the line. He called us at a time when we were oblivious to, and actually rejecting, the way of God, the truth of God, the plan of God. We were unconcerned once upon a time about what God had to say, what He commanded us, what He wanted us to do with our life. But He said to us in different terms, in different ways, I thirst. I need your help. I've got something for you to do. I've got a job for you. And we responded. The work of God, the work that Jesus began, continues to this day, and it is accomplished by a lot of human help. It's interesting that so much of what we do is in the form of acts of kindness, one to another, acts of love and care and concern.

The parable there toward the end of Matthew 25, you have Christ there on His throne, the nations before Him, the separating of the right and the left. And to those on the right, He welcomed to the kingdom. And as I asked Him why, He said, inasmuch as you have done one of these, you know, this to one of these, the least of my brethren, you've done it to me. And He had talked about giving cold water, feeding, clothing, visiting someone in prison, someone's caring for someone who was sick. And it's just the basics of little acts of kindness. Henry Drummond, wrote a little short essay on the love chapter. And when he got to the statement that love is kind, he said that kindness is love and the little things, just the little things of life.

And I like the way that he wrote that. His little essay, I've got a book at home, it's just a little bitty one, but it's called The Greatest of These. The Greatest of These by Henry Drummond.

Kindness is love and the little things. Well, we were called, we were immersed in the work of God, and we too were sent to be about our Father's business.

And like the soldier who jumped up and went into action, we should hasten to perform the work God has given us while it's day. Number six is a statement of accomplishment.

And we just have to read the next verse. John 19 verse 30. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, it is finished. And bowing His head, He gave up His Spirit. Well, we're going to add one more from Luke's account before His actual death. He had finished. He had completed. He had accomplished the work God had sent Him here to perform. And now, all was finished. When we read of the story where He was left behind at age 12, and He was asked where He was, what He was doing, and His answer was, don't you know I need to be about my Father's business. Age 12, here He is a few years past 30, 33 and a half, and He's still about the work of His Father. There's a place in John 4.34. He says, my meat is to do the will of the Father who sent me. And there too, He sets a pattern for us. To the end, His mind was on His Father's business. And in front of God, the angelic host and the humans there who could hear, He declared, victoriously, it is finished. It is completed. It is accomplished. And our meat, our focus as well, must be to do the will of our Father to finish the work He's given to us. And so, we ask ourselves, am I finishing? Am I continuing to work on that which God has given me to do? Do I focus on it on a daily basis? Is it a driving priority of my life? Do I have my hands and my shoulders into that plow that God has given me to push? And like Christ, there is a time, a time of triumph that lies ahead as we devote our lives to finishing what God has given us to do. We go back to Luke 23 for statement 7.

This is a statement of reunion because He realizes it's just about over, but more importantly, it's just about to be as it always has been. A reunion. Luke 23, verse 44 speaks of those three hours of darkness. The veil of the temple was torn in two. Of course, Matthew's account, he adds the earthquake, he adds that some of the tombs were broken up and some of the saints who had died came walking back into town. I mean, you talk about dramatic evidence that something supernatural has just taken place. Something earth-sattering has just happened. Verse 46, when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, breathe his last.

There is a seventh, the final statement. His life had been dedicated to accomplishing the will of His Father. His mind had revolved around giving and loving and sacrificing all the way to the very end.

He had accomplished the work His Father had given to Him. The strength that He had, as He had said earlier of myself, I can do nothing. The strength that He had came from the Father.

The final message was an affirmation of the greatness and the glory of God. Ecclesiastes tells us that when we die, you know, the bodily remains die. There's no great mystery there.

We die all over, and our remains are buried. But the Spirit goes to God who gave it.

And He knew that that Spirit was going to be preserved. And three days and three nights later, it was going to be used to bring Him back to the state of glory that He had always had with His Father.

We live by faith in the promises of God and in the hope of the resurrection.

We must walk the same path as Jesus. We must have our trust in our Father. When we gather to keep the Passover, it's kind of the culmination of what should be in our heart all year long. Everything that we do comes back to the issue of our faith. Do we believe God?

Look at all that God has promised us. He's given us a promise that we will be called out of that grave one day. John 5 there, He talked about the time is coming. Now is when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth. We look at the Passover and by partaking of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, we have a bit of God living within us. The promise of His Spirit, the promise of eternity, the promise of having a high priest, the promise of having a King who will reign with forever and ever. We perceive all of these by faith. On a daily basis, we place our hands in God's hands for protection, for sustenance, and we live by faith. Let's go to Mark 15. Mark, what we're going to read is not another statement. We've seen the seven statements.

Mark only had the one about, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

But right down the line from that, Mark 15 verse 34, the statement, my God, my God.

And then, the one with the sponge and the sour wine in verse 36, and they thought he was crying for Elijah, he breathed his last, the veil being torn. But notice verse 39.

So when the centurion who stood opposite him saw that he cried out like this and breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the Son of God. Passover. As we keep it two weeks from tomorrow night, it is one of those bittersweet occasions. There's a bitterness of the night. It is a funeral memorial service. As we were commanded, we remembered the Lord's death till He comes. We are told, discern the Lord's body. And stories like this leave a bitter taste. But it's also, as I said, a bitter sweet festival. There's a sweet side. A sweet side that with great joy and gratitude, we realize that as He says, it's finished. It's done. It's accomplished. The victory over sin through Christ's sacrifice can also be ours, and the spiritual creation continues.

So from that cross of the day, that day, Jesus spoke of forgiveness, of hope, of care, of aloneness, of suffering, of triumph, and of ultimate reunion with His Father.

And in those words, He preached the plan of God. And then He died. And in dying, He repaired the breach. That had taken place so long ago, back in the Garden of Eden. So as we gather for the Passover, let us remember the final words of Jesus Christ, and let us come together in an attitude of great sobriety, but also of indescribable joy to pay homage to the great God, who orchestrated His own death so that we may live throughout eternity with Him.