Deeper: S2, E7 - TWENTYTWO

At the crucifixion of Jesus, he utters 7 phrases while on the cross.  Here we explore how two of them could be linked together through a Psalm written a thousand years before Jesus was even born.  Could this spiritual song and poem written by King David (one of Jesus' direct ancestors) be a key to unlocking the hope of the cross?

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Alex. Welcome to our Deeper Podcasts Season 2, Episode 7. This one is going to be just slightly different from the others we've put out recently because this one is right slap bang in the middle of Lent. The time when Christians across the world get ourselves ready for the grief, the victory, the loss, and the triumph of the Easter story. Those of us who've got to know Jesus for ourselves over the time that we've been Christians feel the power of this Easter story more and more deeply as the years go on. In today's episode, which we've called 22, we're going to be looking deeper at two of the things that Jesus said on the cross as he hung there and what he could have meant when he said them. Hopefully, it will crack open the Easter story just a little wider for us all. So, season two, episode seven, twenty-two. Let's just pray and invite God to sit with us as we listen. Loving Father God as we explore some of the last words of Jesus. Help us to listen to them with our spirits fully engaged. Help us to be open to you, changing and reforming us. I pray you'd give us soft hearts. Even if this stuff is stuff that we already know, help us to re-engage at this point in our lives. What are you saying through this to us here and now? So speak, Lord. Your servants are listening. Amen. Right, so there are seven phrases that Jesus speaks out as he's on the cross, often referred to as the seven words of Jesus, although the seven words actually means seven phrases or seven sayings. We're just going to look at two of those. The first one is recorded by both Matthew and Mark in the accounts of the crucifixion, and the second one is recorded only in John's account. We're going to start with the John one, start at the end and go backwards, which means starting with the words recorded by John, just three words in this phrase. He says, It is finished. So we're going to start there. It is finished. For many, many Christians across the ages, these three words have been so incredibly powerful when it comes to us understanding our place with both God in this world and in the next world. For so many across the world today, these three words are like the final punctuation mark in the whole of the mission of God to the world. If you can, imagine for a moment that you can see all of human history laid out for you like a clear flowing river through a giant canyon. The canyon is time, and the river is God's Spirit moving through the whole of time. All the way along the course of this river, the Bible claims that there have been markers where God has spoken to humanity, speaking here and speaking there about this huge love-driven liberation plan for all of humanity. He's spoken through ancient prophets who stood up and overtly announced things that God was saying. He's spoken through ordinary people, extraordinary people who lived and acted like Jesus. He's spoken through others who'd written or spoken or sung about who Jesus would be, even if they weren't aware it was Jesus they were talking about, and what Jesus would do, where Jesus would be born, how Jesus would teach, where Jesus would minister, and even more profoundly than that, the how and the why of Jesus' death. And then Jesus finally bursts onto the scene like an island springing up in the middle of this river of God through all of time. Jesus fulfills everything that has been spoken or lived or sung before. He does everything that any human being needs to do in order to live a perfect life of love and obedience. And then Jesus willingly, consciously, chooses to allow himself to be executed in our place. He spoke about it to his followers multiple times before it happened. He claimed that he was about to take on all of the brokenness of the world, all of the spiritual debt that we owe God and we owe each other, and he was going to put it all on himself so that we could be free. And he would do that when he claimed he was raised up. The Bible also talks about this, the outworking of this moment, meaning that humanity can live, able to worship God free and forgiven for the rest of our lives. That God's Spirit would now come and live inside every believer. In fact, before Jesus even appears on the scene in a public way, John the Baptist claims that Jesus' ministry is going to immerse people, baptize people in the Spirit of God Himself, to baptize us all in God Himself. So as Jesus draws his final breath, he uses it to utter the three words, it is finished. There is nothing that you or I need to do to add to what Jesus has done with his life and his death. His eternally potent act is the full stop that the whole of history has been leading up to. It is indeed all complete. God has done it. A worship song written in the early 2000s in Australia uses these words talking about however broken or lost we feel, we are now able to come to God. Nothing you could do could make him love you more. Nothing you've done could make him close the door. Because of his great love, he gave his only son, and everything was done so you could come. Jesus speaks out in his home language of the Aramaic words, Eloi Eloi, Lema Shabakfani. I may have said that incorrectly, I'm sure somebody will correct me. But in English, those words are, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me or abandoned me? It's a painful, painful thing to hear Jesus shout out on the cross. He's lived his whole life in this intimate, woven-together relationship with Father God, and it feels like he's saying, Why is this broken? For many people, the conclusion this brings them to is that in these final moments, when Jesus is feeling the pain of the spiritual debt of all of time for the whole of humanity, that God the Father has to remove himself from Jesus. I've heard songs and sermons written about this, excellent ones, trying to use this line to explain how the good news works, that in order for Jesus to take on the sins of the world, God the Father needed to separate himself from Jesus for the first time in his life. Jesus feels the pain of separation from God. But the problem with this concept is that it seems to bypass the fact that Christians believe Jesus to be God Himself. He's not another God or a lesser God, but but that God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are inseparably one being, one and the same. So that so while on the cross Jesus may have felt like there was total abandonment, it is not possible for Jesus to have been separated from Father God any more than it would be possible for me to separate music out of a song. So why would Jesus say this? Why would he say, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well, the strongest theory out there is that Jesus is actually quoting a psalm. He's there on the cross, specifically bringing to mind for himself one of the psalms that speaks clearly about the crucifixion. Even more specifically, it begins with the line, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And ends with the line, He has done it, which can also be translated, It is finished. Ring any bells. Importantly, in the middle of Psalm 22, the writer King David concludes that although he felt abandoned, God has not abandoned or rejected him, he's not hidden his face from him, he has listened to his cry for help. In fact, the psalm writes that the moment will be remembered for all time by all people as God's saving actions. So what we're going to do now is listen to that psalm. As I read it, imagine Jesus on that painful cross, taking on himself all of your, all of my spiritual debt, and holding in his mind that this has always been the plan, that river through that canyon of time. Jesus is hanging there with people encircling him, shaking their heads, accusingly, shouting to him if he was really the Messiah, that God would save him. The soldiers below him are dividing his clothes by gambling with dice. Imagine the feeling in his body of agony, his dry mouth, his bones pulled out of joint, his pierced hands and feet. And so in all of that, he drags up for himself this spiritual song and poem written a thousand years before the event by King David, one of Jesus' direct ancestors. Try to hold that in your head and heart as I slowly read this. It will take around five minutes. So far from my cries of anguish. By night, but I find no rest. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One. You are the one Israel praises. In you our ancestors put their trust. They trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried out and were saved. In you they trusted and they were not put to shame. But I am a worm, not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They hurl insults, shaking their heads. He trusts in the Lord, they say. Let the Lord rescue him, let him deliver him, since he delights in him. Yet you brought me out of the womb. You made me trust you, even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast on you. From my mother's womb, you have been my God. You do not be far from me, for trouble is near. There is no one to help. Many bulls surround me, strong bulls of bastion encircle me, roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water. All of my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax. It has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a pot shared, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs surround me. A pack of villains encircles me. They pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them. They cast lots for my garment. But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength. Come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of lions. Save me from the horns of the wild ox. I will declare your name to my people. In the assembly I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him, all you descendants of Jacob, honor him, revere him, all you descendants of Israel. For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him. He has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly. Before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied. Those who seek the Lord will praise him. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations will bow down before him, for authority belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship. All who go down to the dust of death will kneel before him. Those who cannot keep themselves alive. Generations will come and serve him. Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring even to a people yet unborn. It is finished. Before it all, what David wrote would be quoted by Jesus on that cross to remind himself that through everything, though it would all look like God needed to turn away, God did not do that. What seemed to the world to be a defeat was the moment that God showed himself in all of his love and wonder and forgiveness. As Jesus took those last breaths, he said with a sense of eternal victory, it is finished. Whenever you are going through this season of your life, know that though it may feel like God's abandoned you, or that you are encircled with evil, or you're stretched too thin, God does hear your cry. He will not hide his face from you, he doesn't despise or scorn you. It is finished. You can know God's full forgiveness and love and presence with you through the agony of your loss or your grief, through your temptations or your failures, though accusers stand all around you, or though you feel this is unbearable, Jesus would whisper to you, I have done it. It is finished. Let me pray. Father God, your plan for Jesus' life and death and resurrection was always there throughout the whole of time. And in the same way, there is nothing that's happening to us now that's taking you by surprise. You're not caught off guard, you're not asleep on the watch. You've been going ahead of us, you're here with us now, and you will remain with us. In those times where we feel like crying out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Help us to see Jesus on the cross, feeling even greater anguish, and may we conclude with him, it is finished. I'm going to conclude today in both English and Manx Gaelic with words written two millennia ago by a man called Paul, who started up many of the first ever churches. He says this the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Grace Ninjan Yesic, as gray ye, ashezika joy la spirit lu merin illu as son de breath. Amen.