Mark 15:33-43 Jesus opens the way to God.

Mark 15:33-43

This morning I was clearing the snow out of the driveway to get it ready for Debby to go out. Then I reversed the car out of the garage, made sure the kids’ car seats were in and fastened, and the car was warm. Before that I had charged the battery on her camera and her phone, swapped out the camera card and formatted it so that it was all ready to take pictures. When Debby came out she gave me a kiss and thanked me for all my acts of service.

And that got me thinking. I hadn’t noticed that I was serving, I was just, you know, doing it. And then I was amazed at the power of the Holy Spirit to enable a selfish person to be a servant – the essence of love. The heart of love is setting yourself aside for the good of others. It is saying no to what I want and yes to what others need. And I must admit that does not come naturally to me. Naturally I say YES to what I want and NO to what others want (unless what they want either doesn’t affect me or happens to be what I want too…)

My neighbour commented the other day about how kind Debby and I were to have so many people in our home. “Kind? But that’s what we do as Christians”, I thought. I’m not kind, any more than I am unselfish. And if you don’t believe me, well, you would soon believe it if you could listen to my thoughts for a day!

I am not kind. I am not loving. I am not servant-hearted. All too often I get angry when my needs aren’t met, when I feel sidelined, when I am insulted or my pride is hurt. I say things with too much bite. Or I just don’t bother to do things because I’m too lazy to do them.

But, and this is what struck me when thinking about, by the grace of God, little by little I am becoming a tiny bit more like Jesus. And if you’re a Christian today, so are you. By the power of the Spirit we are starting to have the same heart, the same nature as the one man who looked at all the people spitting at him and insulting him and rejecting him, looked at the agonising death awaiting him on the cross, looked into the pit of Hell and the armies of Satan and his demons waiting to attack him, who looked at his power and kingship and might and glory, and thought “I’ll give all this up in order to take the punishment they deserve, them and all the people like them throughout time and space, to adopt them into my family.” Now THAT’S a servant heart. That is LOVE which we only faintly echo. That’s the heart of the God who made the heavens and the earth and everything in it. The heart of the God we serve, the one and only God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Tonight I want us to see three things:

1. Jesus takes our place as a sinner

2. Jesus opens the way to God

3. The way to God is open for everyone, without exception

1. Jesus takes our place as a sinner

33 At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock.

Darkness. In the Bible darkness means judgement. Divine judgement. Remember the Exodus: when Moses led the great rescue of people of Israel out of Egypt? Maybe you’ve seen the movie Prince of Egypt? The people of Israel, cowering in slavery to the evil Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who was harsh and unkind, beating them and ordering all baby boy Israelites to be killed.

So the Israelites cry out to God to rescue them. And God raises up Moses to be their rescuer, and gives him power to perform miracles. There were 10 plagues – 10 judgements upon the stubborn Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who refused to obey the Living God. As Pharaoh refuses to obey God things get worse: the Nile River turns to blood, there’s a plague of frogs and then gnats, and flies, and then the cows and sheep and goats all died, and then the people get boils all over them, then there’s a huge hailstorm, then locusts come and eat everything - but the final two were the worst: darkness covered the whole land of Egypt; and the death of the first-born son of each Egyptian family.

But this time the darkness is not for wicked Pharaoh and the Egyptians - but for Jesus. This time it is the Son of God who is dying. Why? Why is Jesus facing God’s judgement as if he were wicked when he is innocent, perfect, pure and holy?

Because he is carrying our sins – all of our sins. He is taking our place to be beaten by the Roman soldiers like the Israelites were once beaten by the Egyptians. He is taking our place as a slave to experience the full extent of sin. Only sinners can treat other people the way we do. Only sinners can order babies to be taken from their mothers’ arms and slaughtered. Only sinners can beat another human being and feel pleased about it. Only sinners can enjoy another person’s suffering and humiliation.

Why?

Because to be a sinner means to have a broken relationship with our Creator. And when that relationship is broken, all our relationships break.
And so we have divorce and abuse and slavery and abortion and murder and theft and genocide and fraud and corruption and greed and deceit and so on. Watch the news: it’s a massive message saying we have abandoned God and we can’t fix our broken relationship.

But Jesus steps into this gap. His relationship is perfect. Ours is broken. So he becomes our representative – born as a human being, fully human, fully God; starts his ministry by being baptised as a sinner; experiences hurt and pain and frustration and joy and gladness and friendship as we do; and all the time with his goal in mind: the cross, where he would pay the ultimate sacrifice of death, a sinners death, and a sinners experience of the wrath of God, of the broken relationship, of being abandoned by God. 34 Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

He who knew no sin became sin for us. Jesus took on our sin. He goes into the darkness for us. He takes the judgement we deserve, and gives up his life, the Son of God, in order to rescue all of us in slavery to sin. He’s leading the great Exodus from slavery to sin, to freedom in Heaven. He is carrying our sins – all of our sins. He has taken our place.

If you are a Christian this is the moment when all your sins were dealt with. God is not bound by time, he stands over it, he commands it, and he looked down at your life and all the wrong things you have done, all your regrets, all your dark secrets, those things nobody knows about, your darkest private thoughts which fill you with shame – all that is poured out on Jesus in this moment. And all the sins you will do! All our sin is upon his shoulders – not just half of it until now then, good luck on your own! No, Jesus’ sacrifice was not half-way there – he carries us through to the gates of Heaven. It’s the true Exodus, the Big Rescue, from the gates of Hell to the gates of Heaven and inside. It’s guaranteed, underwritten by the blood of Jesus. If you trust in Jesus as your Saviour, and follow him as your King, you can be sure of your salvation.
The Bible talks of us being seated in Heaven NOW – that’s how certain our salvation is. Because we’ve been moved from the enemy camp, into the camp of Jesus – and nothing can take us out. This will be familiar to those who’ve been coming on Wednesday nights to the Bible study! Do I hear a Hallelujah! A shout of Thank you Jesus! Hooray for Jesus!

Jesus takes our place as a sinner.

I just want to spend a few more moments on verse 34 because some people have spread misunderstandings about this verse. They say “Why does Jesus say My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? It’s because Jesus is not God, he’s just an angel or a good man, and now he’s failed, God has left him.”
Well, if you have no understanding of the Bible you might make up something like that. It’s totally wrong. We know already that he’s identifying with us as a sinner and taking our place – but Jesus isn’t just crying out something random: It’s a quote from Psalm 22, the Psalm of the suffering King. The King of Israel, God’s King, is under attack, an attack so fierce he describes it like crucifixion – hundreds of years before crucifixion even existed! And Jesus, the true King, God’s King who is enduring the ultimate suffering, quotes that Psalm with his last breaths. If you know your Bible you’ll easily be able to see that this is not a declaration of failure, but of victory! Even with his last breaths, Jesus is declaring to the world “I am the King”.

Through the darkness, through hell, through abandonment, our King opens the way to God!

2. Jesus opens the way to God

37 Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!”

Crucifixion normally took days – but Jesus dies within a few hours. He gave up his own life, breathing his last. He was totally in control. This was a deliberate act of love, planned from before the creation of the world. And what his death achieves is immediately clear: 38 And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

The curtain in the Temple was a massive, thick piece of cloth 20m high, 20m wide, and 10cm thick. It was more like a wall than a curtain. Behind the curtain was the Most Holy Place, and that was where God “lived” as a symbol of living with his people. If anyone went behind the curtain without going through a lot of rituals to cleanse them of their sin, they died instantly! God is holy, we are not – and unholy meets holy is like darkness meets light: it is destroyed. The curtain in the Temple separated God and man.

Until now. Now Jesus gives up his life to open the way to God, to make the unholy holy, and the Temple curtain is torn from TOP to bottom. God Himself has torn down the barrier between us! He has done the impossible, and made a way for unholy people to live with a holy God. And it’s not through a Temple, some special building, some special rituals – but through a person, his Son, the Lord Jesus. Christians don’t have Temple, we don’t have holy places. There is one holy place, and that is Jesus himself.

Jesus has opened the way to God, torn down the barrier. It’s his work, his action, his power which holds the door open. So do not be afraid. You are secure in Christ.

Jesus has opened the way to God.

But what if you’re not a Christian? Or what about our friends and family and colleagues and neighbours who will face the darkness alone, who will face death alone, and who will face ultimately Hell, alone, for all eternity? There is good news:

3. The way to God is open for everyone, without exception

Immediately, IMMEDIATELY, we see the effects of Jesus’ opening the way.

39 When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!”

The statement in verse 39 is utterly incredible.“This man truly was the Son of God!” What is it that turned this man around – from abusing Jesus to worshipping Jesus? V39 says when he “saw how [Jesus] died”. I wonder what he saw? Perhaps he saw in Jesus’ eyes, through the spiritual and physical pain, the love that drove him to the cross? Perhaps Jesus looked at him with eyes so filled with forgiveness it pierced even this rough Roman soldier’s heart? Perhaps it was something else. We don’t know – but it was the death of Jesus that brought him new life, as it has been for every Christian since.

I love how God does things. He chooses this man to be the first one to declare the truth about Jesus! Isn’t that amazing? Here’s the man who nailed Jesus to the cross! He is a Gentile, he is an enemy of the Jews, a soldier of the oppressors – and he’s the first one who declares the truth about Jesus. Not Peter, not John, not the priests, none of the crowd – but an enemy Roman soldier. There is no-one beyond the reach of Jesus, not even you. Not even me. If he can save a man like that, a man who moments before was spitting at him and hitting him and mocking him and nailing his hands to the cross – well, he can save anybody.

And not just him – have a look at verse 21 A passerby named Simon, who was from Cyrene, was coming in from the countryside just then, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. (Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus.)

Simon was most probably a black man, a North African (Cyrene is now Libya). Mark mentions Alexander and Rufus like we would know who they are – it’s not too much to assume that they are leaders in the church and that they and their father turned to Christ because of this moment, when their father carried Jesus’ cross, and saw him die. Even in this darkest of moments, there are glimmers of light.

In verse 40 we read about the many women who were following him. In those days women were second-class citizens, unimportant, not to be taken seriously – a woman could not be a witness in a court case as her testimony was considered unreliable! But Jesus accepts even women(!), takes them seriously, loves them even to death on a cross. Many women were there, followers of Jesus.

Glimmers of hope. The Roman soldier, the oppressor at the top of society; the black tourist or trader, a foreigner; the women, unimportant, nothings in society; and, finally, even a religious leader of Israel! 43 Joseph of Arimathea took a risk and went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (Joseph was an honoured member of the high council, and he was waiting for the Kingdom of God to come.) Even at this dark moment, like little glimmers of light, we see a group of people around Jesus from different nationalities, different social status, different political backgrounds, different genders, different religions, just like here – all welcome at the cross, all being given new life as Jesus gives up his life.

It’s like planting a seed, a tiny seed in the dirt, and you see nothing for so long, then suddenly – a little green shoot! Then another. And another. And a vast tree grows from this tiny seed, covering the whole world! That’s what the gospel is like, said Jesus. And here we see it. His death brings light and life to the whole world, even to us in Notodden, Norway, just like a tiny seed can spawn a great tree.

1. Jesus takes our place as a sinner

2. Jesus opens the way to God

3. The way to God is open for everyone, without exception

This is the hope for the non-Christian: that Jesus has opened the way to God for them. So pray for your friends and family and colleagues and tell them about Jesus. And if you’re not a Christian here today, today turn to him and give up your life to receive his.

This is the hope for the Christian. The cross is just as much for the Christian as the non-Christian, if not more so. Remember you are secure. Your sins are carried, taken, dealt with. No guilt in life, no fear in death – this is the power of Christ in me! You are safe. Remember the cross! Amen.