Sunday Sermons
The Last Words of Christ - Part 2
The Word of Devotion
"Therefore the soldiers did these things. But there were standing by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, 'Woman, behold your son!' Then He said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her into his own household" (John 19:25-27).
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"Standing by the cross... His mother"
I am impressed that all during Jesus' trial, punishment and execution that Mary is silent! In a sense, Mary might have been able to persuade Pilate or the multitudes not to crucify Him. She could have said something like, "What Jesus says is not true, He is beside Himself, He is not well, He was born in the usual way and He is just a mere man". This might have saved her son, but she remained quiet. "Do you know why she kept quiet? She could not lie. As she stood there by the cross, her silence was testimony that Jesus Christ is the Son of God" (Jesus' Seven Last Words, Warren W. Wiersbe, p. 37). More than thirty years before Mary had been told, "A sword shall pierce through thy own soul" (Luke 2:35). "Those who love most deeply, suffer most intensely. For Mary, 'The greatest of all privileges was to bring with it the greatest of all sorrows'. It was her very own Son who was suffering. The outstretched arms and nail-torn hands once had clung around her neck. The head now tortured with a crown of thorns was once pillowed on her chest. Though powerless to help, she could at least be beside Him in loyalty and love" (The Incomparable Christ, J. Oswald Sanders, pp. 172,173).
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"Woman, behold your son"
The picture we have here of Mary is one that should discourage anyone from ever thinking about worshipping her. "If, as is asserted, Mary is the queen of heaven and the mother of God, then surely Jesus should have committed John into her care, not her to John... There is no ground here for the doctrine that Mary is patroness of the saints and protectress of the church. On the contrary, she needed protection herself" (Sanders p. 171, 172).
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"Behold, your mother"
The message to Mary is that Jesus, who had been her Son for some thirty plus years was going back to heaven, and the relationship between them was changing. Even while upon the cross, Jesus is still thinking about others, especially the woman who had taken such good and loving care of Him for so many years. "Jesus may well have been excused had He been so engrossed in His own sufferings as to overlook the future of His mother. Or He might have been so occupied with the stupendous work of redemption that He was achieving as to forget the ties of nature. But such was not the case" (Sanders p. 174). He is giving her a new relationship and a new son. The disciple that Jesus fondly loved is being given to Mary to replace the Son that is being taken from her. "He assured her of His love as He took His choice disciple and made him Mary's son. The Lord Jesus felt her sorrow, He knew her loneliness" (Wiersbe p. 38). In addition, Jesus is reigning even while upon the cross. He was giving orders and directing His own followers.
The Word of Anguish
"Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?'" (Matthew 27:45-46)
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"Darkness fell upon all the land"
Wiersbe offers the following observations about this darkness: 1. It is the darkness of sympathy. 2. It is the darkness of solemnity. 3. It is the darkness of secrecy. The high priest went alone into the tabernacle or temple to accomplish atonement. Jesus is in the process of carrying out an eternal transaction with the Father — alone.
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"Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?"
Some conclude from this statement that when Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world that He became sinful and the Father was forced to withdraw from Him. I am not convinced this is true: 1. I believe that God can tell the difference between a sinner and the one who was making a sin offering. 2. At the very moment that Jesus was dying for our sins He was expressing obedience to God in the highest measure (Hebrews 10:9-10). I do not believe that God abandons those who obey Him. But having said all that, it is clear that Jesus is expressing anguish and the anguish is due to offering Himself for our sins.
"Let us abhor the sin which brought such agony upon our beloved Lord. What an accursed thing is sin. Do you laugh at it? Will you go and spend an evening to see a mimic performance of it? Do you roll sin under your tongue as a sweet morsel, and then come to God's house, on the Lord's day morning, and think to worship Him? O, if I had a dear brother who had been murdered, what would you think of me if I treasured the knife which had been crimsoned with his blood? If I made a friend of the murderer, and daily consorted with the assassin, who drove the dagger into my brother's heart? Surely I too must be an accomplice in the crime. Sin pierced the heart of the incarnate God; can you love it?" (Christ's Words from the Cross, Charles H. Spurgeon, p. 68). There is a tremendous depth of anguish in this cry, depth that none of us have fully realized. We need to see the consequences of our sin in its true light. Let us no more argue, "Well, I am only hurting myself", or, "I deserve a little sinful relief because my life is so hard". Let us cast sin to the abyss!
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"And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, were saying, 'This man is calling for Elijah'... 'Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him'" (Matthew 27:47-48)
The people who heard these words were the professed people of God and yet no one recognized that Jesus' words were a quotation from Psalm 22. He wasn't calling for Elijah, He was quoting a well known Scripture! If they had only recognized this verse, they might have remembered the rest of the Psalm: "All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him" (22:7-8); "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture" (22:18)
These people who heard the Scriptures read frequently in the Synagogue all their lives did not recognize the clear fulfillment of prophecy before their very eyes.
The Only Request
"After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, 'I am thirsty'" (John 19:28)
What a contrast, the Maker of heaven and earth in need of a drink! Of all the things Jesus could have asked for, and of all the cries He could have made, He made one simple statement. Up to this point Jesus had been silent concerning the physical agony of crucifixion, but now, in order to fulfill Scripture — Scripture, the prime-directive, to follow Scripture (Psalm 69:21; John 4:34).
Why was He born in Bethlehem — to fulfill prophecy. Why did He go down to Egypt — to fulfill prophecy. Why did He move to Nazareth — to fulfill prophecy. Why did He do what He did — His overriding goal was to do the will of the Father. "Obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8). Next time someone ridicules you for seeking to follow Scripture so closely or next time someone argues you are putting too much emphasis on Scripture, remind them that while upon the cross, Jesus said, "I thirst" in order adhere to one line in a verse in the Word of God.
"Only once did a cry of pain escape Him during the long, excruciating ordeal, and then it required the recognition of His Father's expressed will to open His mouth. No plea of sympathy, no word of complaint crossed His lips. He lost Himself in care for others or in communion with His Father. How easily we are made to cry out. How peevish and ill-tempered we become under slight annoyances! A headache, a toothache, a cold or some other affair is supposed to be sufficient justification for losing all self-control and making a whole household uncomfortable" (Sanders p. 186-187). And it isn't merely that Jesus is thirsty, the way that we are thirsty or claim to be. The thirst created by the scourging and pain of crucifixion was intense.
Conclusion
In contrast to Jesus who was physically thirsty, anyone who opts to remain in sin will suffer a spiritual thirst. "The question today is not, 'Do you thirst?' because all mankind has a thirst for reality, a thirst for God, a thirst for forgiveness. The real question is, 'How long are you going to thirst?'" (Wiersbe p. 56).
