The Death of Christ (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 23 we learned that when Jesus was crucified. The sky grew dark in the middle of the day and then curtain in the temple was torn in two today on Truth for Life Alastair Begg continues his study on the death of Christ by teaching us about another event that took place were picking up our study in chapter 23 verse 46 third element we might simply restart it as the grand finale because that is surely what it is a total blackout divine vandalism in the grand finale.

Jesus verse 46 called out with a loud voice you will notice that each of the gospel writers make something marvelous and of course they should because crucifixion was routinely a long, gradual loss of strength and consciousness. Whatever strength the victim may have had in the initial moments of their pain if he had breath in the early hours to hurl abuse of their captors to shout down from the cross to engage in conversation that would very quickly go away and as the various functions of their body began to close in on them and close down in their ability to think properly that ability to process information properly and sadly their ability to have Brad to convey properly and definitely loudly would be going from them.

That's the point. The gospel writers is making the soldiers were familiar with the normal processes but they were unfamiliar with a three-hour black and his routine, his crucifixion was they were not used to somebody ending with a loud cry and what we have here is the fact that Jesus is not going out with a whimper, but he's going out in full possession of his faculties. Indeed, it appeared as though he just came to a point when he decided that it was time for him to leave came to a point where he decided that his work had been accomplished that he was done in the and he said I'm out of here. That is, in a kind of contemporary paraphrase exactly what Jesus is saying father into your hands I commend my spirit. After all of the darkness and all of the dereliction all of the pain, all of the suffering. All of the forsaken nests. Here we find even close his communion with his father once again entrusting himself into his care. Can you remember back to your childhood when you fell asleep on a trip from your grandmother's house to your own home. Let's say, and you spent the final few miles of the journey in a state of semiconsciousness coming to recognizing traffic lights without opening your eyes, knowing because you know the road so well and then finally that moment where you feel yourself being picked up out of the backseat and you open your eyes just long enough to look up and see my dad's got me.

I'm okay and you entrusted yourself completely into the care of your father, I need to get to where you need to be and when you awakened up your home. That's what's happening here. For Jesus, okay father this over to you. I may just entrust myself to you. Incidentally, that is death for the Christian, what you fear most. You want to experience you fall asleep in the arms of Jesus in your waking up in your in your own room when this was very on settling total blackout divine vandalism and what a grand finale come to the other side of the phrase he breathed his last. Let me point out to you three separate reactions there here for us will take them in reverse, so will start in verse 49 with those who knew him notice but all those who knew him, including the women.

The women get a good press and they deserve it.

Brave women scared man story of life for most of us, all those who knew him, including the women. The women will be back in a moment or two and the first thing in the morning that up and out and ready to go. The man hiding away in a cupboard somewhere, but this is a description of all those who knew him. If you been wondering where these characters have been since the all deserted him and fled. Apparently, some of them are back now standing over away from the events and there simply watching these things.

It's an interesting fulfillment of a prophetic word in the Psalms and Psalm 38 where the psalmist says my friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds my neighbors stay far away as Psalm 3811. You can read it at your leisure. And as we read this account were left to wonder what I want will happen with these people. What is going to happen now that Jesus died. He's breathed his last. There's a little group of the people you invest standing over there on the corner of the street looking across at the scene. Remember that Peter also followed at a distance and he made a royal mess of things I want to was going to happen with these characters and in describing this little scene look is reminding us that here he has in this company very eyewitnesses.

Presumably the gabion a significant amount of the information necessary in order to give is the orderly account so that we might know with certainty the things we believe it all fits together a group of people sitting in a room somewhere in a university library say now.

We got him over the gospel with something we need to do here. We want a better story that we want to tell know this is careful investigative journalism. Were you there. Yes, I was where we standing I was one of the group over in the corner. Oh yes, yes, of course, should been a follower of Jesus, you were standing at a distance, I humble of them, as well as many others would be dead to say I was standing right underneath the cross, the friend or say no you are in Alister you are you are actually hiding around the corner so not putting that in the onlookers are described in verse 48 where can we backup the text. All the people are gathered to witness the site. The crowd of folks who heads wandered down the Via Dolorosa of the people who had maintained their interest in this event are now beginning to drift away. The crowds realize as well is nothing much left now just the taking down of the body. Perhaps, although that was no foregone conclusion for criminal.

Many bodies were left to be eaten by the birds. They were swallowed by beasts.

The decayed, some people think of the reason the pill is called the Hill of the scholars because it was full of the skulls of the victims of crucifixion that had never been taken down and given a formal and proper burial, so they drift off a mixture of emotions grieved thoughtful distress disturbed convicted and just a little note is not that they beat their breasts and went away in the same way that people would put ash on their head or prostrate themselves as an expression of sorrow or grief.

The beating of the brass, the banging of the chest was an expression of the fact some of us had schoolteachers in England who used to do this.

All boys old boys old boys you and when they bring themselves like that you knew that the results that they were about to read were not good or tall. It was an expression of their grief and they walked away realizing that it some level they were responsible for the death of this innocent Nazarene preacher but that walk home that walk home was doubtless for some the entry onto the path of personal faith and obedience. Surely there were some from that crowd on the day when Peter preached and said you know this God was handed God handed him over and delivered him up and you wicked men crucified and nailing him to across.

There were some who went from the beating of their chests to the faster beating of their heart to the opening of their hearts and lives to this Christ in their own personal faith. And finally, in verse 47 the reaction of the centurion probably not an officer of rank, someone who had worked himself up been promoted through the ranks into a position of small position really of authority. The routine responsibility of these death sentences being carried out under his watch and the centurion seeing what it happened. Incidentally, we just notice all the emphasis on seeing and watching in these few verses you will back down to 49. They were watching these things, the final phrase you up to 48. All the people together to witness this site saw what took place and then verse 47 in the centurion, seeing what it happened near thing that Luke with his eye for detail and is orderly account doesn't, at least in his mind, hope, and wonder that there will be some who will remember that when Jesus read from the scroll in Luke chapter 4 and he said the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor and the liberation of the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, the whole picture that runs through the gospel of Luke is in part the fact of darkness being invaded by light the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. It is the picture of the density of the heart and mind of a man being invaded by the liberating power of God's truth. It is the picture of blindness being replaced with site and the thing that is most striking here is the fact of the one who makes the best declaration out of the threefold reaction is not someone with a background in Old Testament studies, not even a Jew. Certainly not a disciple but the one who makes the best of all reactions is a Gentile Army officer with no previous connection to Jesus. I love this against me very excited. It gets me excited in the same way that when the Pharisees were the religious party together.

The focus of the event turned out to be a woman who was a woman of the street who had no right to be there and was welcomed by Jesus that when the monitoring Pharisees were concerned about whether things were going their way. Jesus told stories about individuals who came from the periphery of things right to the very heart of his gospel and here once again in the events of the drama that is unfolded in this amazing scene what the Jewish leaders have denied and what the disciples had failed to grasp an ordinary soldier at some measure understands that the meeting is better than any of the rest the group that you would think will be standing there saying well here is the Savior of the world and giving out tracts they are over here at a distance, nothing to say, we don't know what's going to happen to them. The onlookers were now penetrated by the awesomeness of what is data place. They are off down the street meeting on themselves and do something sadly wrong with Anderson Julian who awaken to a normal day to engage in his routine procedures confronted by this darkness, this unraveling of creation was confronted also by some kind of invasion in his mind and he declares essentially he was a good man and quite right in calling God his father Mark tells us that he says surely this man was a son of God, he wouldn't. He wouldn't attach significance to son of God, he wouldn't be all energize it so it's it's a moot point to argue about. Well, how much do you think he understood. We don't know how much he understood but he had got enough to say this wasn't right. This was a good man.

This fellow did the righteous thing and the righteous man is that God, man, and it is right enough for him to call himself the son of God. I don't mind him saying father, into your hands I commend my spirit. Indeed, scissors and jury of it seems to make perfect sense to me and I have a sneaking suspicion that I can verify that this centurion proved to be for Luke again. One of the key eyewitnesses when he put together is orderly account. Who can I talk to about the events of the cross Somerset talk to Levi the centurion. He was there. It was a short step for this man from this declaration to personal faith and allegiance.

I guess if we were to summarize it, we have to admit that basically people were leaving the scene and all saying the same thing. It's over it's finished's finished. How can we expect anything beyond this, he was a good man we thought he had something about a kingdom or his mother, looking on the death of her son, his antagonists, it's over for them. There's nothing more you can do with a dead man. He can hear you. There's no more courses or abuse you can hurl upon them. It's over his followers. Yes, I guess it is finished. And of course Jesus says yes it is finished.

Actually, it is now finished and the way you think it is finished, in the sense of a work completed of a sacrifice accepted and of a communion between the father and the son restored and is for this reason that the Christians declaration must ever be.

We preach Christ crucified, and here is my final word to the focus of Revelation in the Bible.

The focus of God's disclosure in the Bible which comes finally and fully in saving the two is in the person of his son.

The focus is not Bethlehem but Calvary and any attempt to articulate Christianity that begins and ends with the incarnation that diminishes or denies the centrality of the cross can never accurately refer to itself as a biblical Christianity examine the records friends and see whether it is not right for me to tell you that the emphasis is not on Jesus being here, but the emphasis is upon Jesus being here as the atoning sacrifice for sin.

So another words Christmas is really dangerous because it is surrounded by sentimentality. It is surrounded by so much that smacks of well wishing and hopefulness. Well, I guess.

Man will live forevermore because of Christmas day know he won't man may live forevermore. Because of this day, the day when he bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. So what's the kicker. The kicker is obvious you and I returned this week to a world that is completely confused religiously and spiritually, and not least of all in these fair shores. I'm not least of all about the Christmas story and the challenge and the privilege and the opportunity is this to seize the moment in your own language and in your own way. When you come across somebody saying well I suppose that's really what is about, you know, God came to say will not know really what it's all about the real question is why did he and how did he achieve what he set out to achieve, and then you will be able to make the step from Bethlehem to Calvary and you be able to tell them in your own words, the best use just the very best use just a very, very best use. You are the witnesses go out into your field and let people know what you the best news about Jesus is simply that he came why he came from today's message on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg.

Alister will close in prayer in just a minute, so please keep listening.

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Amen Bob Lapine thanks for listing today sure to join us again tomorrow. When will learn about a man named Joseph, who faced a critical decision that ultimately put his faith in Jesus on full display as a follower of Christ Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Learning is for Living