Sermon Book: Luke

Sermon transcript

You may be seated. This evening, our text will come from Luke chapter 24. As you are turning there to Luke chapter 24, looking at verses 13 through 35. Remind you where this text is located. This is after the resurrection, but not everyone has heard about the resurrection. The women have heard, but most of the disciples, most of the followers of Jesus, even beyond the 12, were despondent and they were depressed in those days. We get an episode that is recorded here, an event after the resurrection, that is actually quite fascinating because the two men that Jesus appears to here after the resurrection were not part of the inner circle, part of the 11 of the 12 that were left. According to the Gospel of Luke, the first people to have interacted with Jesus after the resurrection were the women at the tomb and minor disciples. A fascinating point. Here we’re going to look at the account of the travelers on the road to Emmaus, beginning at verse 13.

But first, before we read the text, let’s go to the Lord in prayer. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, Lord, we confess this is your word. where it contains all that we need. for our justification and our sanctification, for edification, for the knowledge that we have of who you are and how it is that we should live our lives in light of that. Lord, we pray that the Holy Spirit who inspired these words to be recorded would also be present in the reading and expounding of these words. Lord, may we gain from your scriptures a greater understanding of who you are and what it is you require of us. And Lord, we pray that you would do this for the sake of the glory of your son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Luke chapter 24, beginning in verse 13. Hear now the word of the Lord.

That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.

But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? And he said to them, what things?

They said to him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning and they did not find his body. They came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but him they did not see. And he said to them, Oh, foolish ones. slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going further, but they urged him strongly, saying, Stay with us, for it is towards evening, and the day is not far spent. So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.

And their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures. And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem and they found the 11 And those who were with them gathered together, saying, The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. The grass withers, and the flower fades, but this the word of our Lord endures forever. Amen. There’s a lot here. There’s a lot that we could focus on.

But as we look at this text, I just have this question. Have you ever had, I believe we’ve all felt those times of being down, being despondent, dark nights of the soul as Christians used to call it. I don’t think I actually need a whole lot of illustrations for what that is. Everybody here has likely known it if you’ve lived long enough.

There may be many circumstances that spark it. Some of it may be physical in nature. It could be a sickness. It could be suffering. It could be a poor diet and lack of exercise. It could be genetic disposition. It could be relational in nature. It could be empathy for others in the midst of their loss and suffering. It could be hurt caused by others. It could be sin.

You know, despondency, depression, sadness can come on us in so many different ways. It’s not uniform in nature. But spiritual despondency can also come on us unexpected, like clouds that cover the sun. And you know that there’s a sun behind the clouds, but you just can’t see it. This comes from a loss of hope. an inability to see where you’re going, how the road leads from here to where it is that you wanted to go. Loss of hope can come when something that you’ve hoped in fails and those hopes are dashed.

Many of us have experienced that in many different venues. About every four years, it seems like half the country has this experience where they hope in the next person that is going to lead them that might become president. And they talk to their friends and all of their hopes are placed in this. And then lo and behold, they did not campaign enough in Ohio or Wisconsin or wherever, and their hopes are dashed and they have another four years until they can hope again. Some of our hopes though, are more serious.

Many of us. have known our hopes dashed in the relationship that we may have with a parent or with a child when those hopes are dashed. When our child loses the thing that they were going for, whether it’s advancement in sports or college, or they walk away from the faith. Or we lose them because they get sick or they pass away. We can have a loss of hope and the hope that we placed within a marriage or for a parent and they pass away. A spouse and they pass away or disappoint.

The sun is covered. It’s as night. We never think we’re going to see the light again. We’ve all known the death of hope in many ways. And what do we do? There’s many ways that people deal with a loss of hope. Some avoid the thought. Some dwell on it. When hope dies, we understand we don’t want to stay there. We can’t live there forever. It’ll be night for a time, but after a while, the soul starts to die.

What are we to do? Why are we down? It’s because what we wanted more than anything else was thwarted. That’s why these men are despondent and depressed, isn’t it? They’re down on the road to Emmaus because their hopes were dashed. We thought that this would be the one. They placed their hopes in it. The minute the question is asked, they look sad. They see no silver lining. It’s a dark night of the soul. For them, why? What happened? Of course, the reasons that you can be down are so many. There’s physical, relational, spiritual, like I just outlined. But I think we can eliminate some of those reasons.

It doesn’t seem to be a health problem with them. They can walk about seven miles. So they are obviously healthy and in good condition. They’re not like, I love the story of Elijah when he is despondent and he is complaining about life in 1 Kings 19. Basically, God tells him, why don’t you go to sleep for a while and gives him some cakes, which tells us that sometimes all we need is a snack and a nap in order to feel better. But what they are dealing with here is so much deeper, so much more of a loss of hope than a good walk can take care of. They’re dealing with this loss of hope, this trip of seven miles. If you’re going two or three miles an hour, this is a long time that they can just dwell on this, talk about what had happened as they are going.

And they are two men, one of them Cleopas. Whoever that is, we’re not given any other details of another Cleopas. But what we do know is Luke likes to footnote. In a sense, this is a footnote. Cleopas may have been alive at the time, and he said, if you want to know more about this story, if you want to verify it, go and ask him.

We’re not told who his companion was. There’s all these theories. It could be his wife. It could be just a friend. It could be Luke himself, and he’s being modest and humble about it. Either way, this is coming from someone’s account. This is how Luke writes his gospel as a historian from primary sources. just as we’re taught to write history today.

And so what happened? These two men had been walking back from the experience of going to Jerusalem for the Passover and their hopes had been dashed, believing that Jesus was the Messiah. But how could that be? How could that be if he was executed? How could that be if he suffered? In fact, a hero, a savior, a Messiah cannot suffer, cannot die, cannot be defeated. They wonder if their hopes were misplaced. They’re despondent. They’re sad. And then this man shows up on the road.

Now we know from the text immediately that this man is Jesus, but they don’t recognize him. I take a bit of a hope from the lack of recognition of Jesus. It seemed like his followers had a little bit of trouble recognizing him because he had a resurrection body. There was something different about this resurrection body. I don’t know about you, but when I get a new body, I hope that there are some revisions to that body. When Jesus appears to the disciples, those that knew him, Mary, Thomas, these men, they don’t quite recognize him. He’s different enough that it’s not immediate. So what does that man do?

He says, did you not understand that the Messiah, the Christ, was to suffer? And in verse 27, he says, and beginning with Moses and all of the prophets, he interpreted to them all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. Jesus showed from Moses, the Torah, the first five books, through all the prophets, that they were pointing towards him. They were pointing towards a suffering savior.

Now, love, this was happening on Sunday. And of all the Sunday school lessons that I wish that I was at, isn’t this a Sunday school lesson that you would most want to be at? Jesus opening up the scriptures, interpreting them and saying how each of them point to himself. It’s so strange to think through Luke’s account of the growing up of Jesus, of how many people would have read the scriptures to Christ.

The priests in the temple, right? And then he starts debating with them even as early as his childhood years with them. And Mary and Joseph, if they were following Deuteronomy 6, what were they doing? When they rise and when they went to bed, when they walked along the way, they were talking to him about the scriptures.

And what was Jesus listening to the entire time? He was listening to, in a sense, his biography, his autobiography, even. He knew the stories because he knew them about himself, how they were all pointing to him, leading to him. He knew them in a way that no one else, up to that point, knew them. And when he opened up the scriptures to these two men, he did not take out his iPhone. He did not take out his leather-bound Bible. He knew them because they were about him and written on his heart. He was the Word made flesh, and so he knew the Word written.

He could quote them. That’s perhaps something that we need to get to a point in which we can quote them. We can open them up with somebody without having to open up our physical Bible. How well do we note them? Not just, you know, the Bible says that God is good and he’s forgiving, but to actually be able to quote, to be able to open them up with somebody.

Jesus had time to teach these things, beginning with Moses and the prophets. He’s opening up these scriptures. Seven miles he has. probably over two, maybe three hours, he could have taught them about all the scriptures and how he was the substance of the entire Bible. You ever wonder what it is that he taught in that three hour, two, three hour, seven mile Sunday school lesson? You know that we actually have, likely, much of the content of that talk, or at least the principles of what he taught.

It’s called the New Testament. It is the part in the Bible that tells how everything else was leading to Christ. And we obviously don’t have the time together to go through the entire New Testament to wonder what it was that they were taught. There’s entire books people have written on this subject. Jesus on Every Page by David Murray, The Unfolding Mystery by Clowney, Look Unto the Rock by Moyer, Biblical Theology by Voss. There’s so many different ways that you can explain this, so much richness that’s in the New Testament.

But I wonder if he quoted Genesis 3.15 and began there in the books of Moses, right? The seed of the woman that will crush the head of the seed of the serpent and how Paul will go on to tell us, you know what that’s talking about? That’s talking about Christ crushing and us in the church as his body crushing the head of the serpent in Romans 16. He could have gone to Abraham and talked about the seed, the promise to Abraham, and then gone and explained how that seed was pointing to him, just as Paul does in Galatians 3.

He could have gone to Isaiah 53, as I did one time when I was working together with a Jewish friend of mine. We just sat there and read through Isaiah 53, and he wondered, why are you reading the New Testament to me? Don’t you know that I’m Jewish and I don’t believe that? And I said, no, that’s Isaiah 53. It’s so obvious when you read these things that Jesus is the New Testament.

He’s in the New Testament as a fulfillment of all of these hopes of a better suffering servant, of a better prophet, priest, and king. Deuteronomy 18, right? The greater prophet that was to come that, in fact, they were looking for when Jesus encounters the woman at the well. We are waiting for this prophet. And I perceive that you are a prophet. Zechariah 3, the greater priest that’s to come that Hebrews tells us about. Second Samuel 7, the greater son of David that’s promised. My Lord that will sit at my right hand, right? From Psalm 110. And as we know, Jesus is crucified with a sign.

This is what he was king. of the Jews. You could go to so many promises in the Old Testament, how the temple was pointing to Jesus, how lamb sacrifice was pointing, how the Passover was prefiguring him, the rock in the wilderness, deliverance from the waters in the Red Sea pointing to Christ’s work. Those are just some of the things that Paul lists in his letters. That’s all to say I would love to be at that Sunday school lesson, but brothers and sisters, we have the class notes. It’s called the New Testament. It’s something that we can open up and see how all scripture is pointing in the Old and New Testament to Christ. And Christ himself was opening it to these two men. What is the Bible about? In John 5, 39, Jesus explains how you can read the Bible but miss the main point when he says to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

And it is they that bear witness about me. And you refuse to come to me that you may have life. When you see it, it’s exciting. And the men in the end, what do they say? When they realized all of this had always been pointing to Christ, it had always been pointing to the suffering servant, their hopes were not dashed. They say, did not our hearts burn within us? It was exciting for them to see.

Did you ever have that moment in your early Christian life when you started to see how it all knit together in Christ, that you were excited about it? There was a joy that was produced about it. You couldn’t get enough of it. Remember my earliest Bible that I actually did reading of and didn’t just carry around because I was supposed to. It was a Scofield, a reference Bible. But the minute that I came to faith, I opened it up and I started underlining in the text. I was excited about, there’s grace here in John, there’s grace here in Paul, and there’s grace all over the place.

Underlining each part that I got to. And for them, it was so exciting. It was joy producing. Their hearts burned. In fact, there’s this interesting image here. What do they do after this happens? They turn around and they walk seven miles back to Jerusalem. The word that’s used there is returned. It’s an image in a sense of repentance. They had a joy from hearing that, that fueled repentance.

And I wonder if in reading our Bibles and finding Christ there, if it doesn’t end in joy and repentance, then we’re not doing it right. We will not have joy without Christ and without repentance. And when we have a hope that will not fail, that is greater than any of the hopes that we had placed in others, that we placed in people, our spouses, our parents. children in our careers that we have this advancement that we had placed in power or achieving this or that. All of those hopes could be dashed, but they found that hope that wasn’t dashed. Even when they thought it was, they found out, no, their hope was true in Christ. When we know our Savior, repentance and joy kiss in our hearts burned. The message there that Jesus preached, that Jesus taught them, resulted in joy and, in a sense, repentance as they returned to Jerusalem. They returned to the place where they thought their hopes were dashed, but actually they were realized.

When I was converted, I feel like I have a story that I talk to other people about that is very similar. I lived in the New Testament, right? Everybody has their gospel. Mine was John, right? I was going through John, and I was underlining. I went through Paul’s letters. I felt like Augustine, who basically just sat in Paul when he was converted. And I loved those things. But let me tell you, when I had my Schofield reference Bible, I wasn’t finding any help with 2 thirds of my Bible. Two thirds of my Bible seemed to be closed. What was it about? What was two thirds of my Bible pointing towards?

And then the words of Christ and John. Once I got there, it was amazing to say, you read the Bible, the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, but it is they that testify to me. Then you can start to read the Bible and say, when I read through Job, how does Job testify to Christ? His longing for a mediator in chapter 10, his longing for resurrection in chapter 14, his longing for a redeemer later on. When you read Habakkuk, you can say, how does this judgment come? How does that point to Christ? How does that testify to Christ?

You can read Genesis and say, how is this testifying to Christ, to the Savior of Abraham, the Savior of Jacob to the Savior, the hope of Noah, the seed of the woman. Every passage then becomes a picture of the one who saves and how he saves and the sufficiency of his salvation. It becomes a picture of the hope that does not disappoint. And as we read the Old Testament almost becomes a mystery novel. Where is Jesus here? How is he longed for here? How is he prefigured here? How is he predicted? How is he an answer to all of the questions that people are asking, but they don’t seem to quite have the answer for yet.

It makes first Corinthians. 119 come alive where it says, for the son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you was not yes and no, but in him was always yes. For all the promises of God find their yes in him. And that is why through him, we utter our amen to God for his glory. Career, family, fame, power, whatever.

They’re not always yes. Our hopes are dashed. In every page of Scripture, though, there is a question that comes. When you read through Adam and Eve, their question comes, can it be fixed? This broken relationship through sin, this broken creation, can it be fixed? And we find out, and the answer in Christ is, yes, it can be fixed. We read through Adam or through Abraham, and we have the question, will God be with me here as well as over here?

And in Christ, the answer is yes. In Jacob, we have the question, is it impossible to outrun God’s grace? And we find out yes, even Jacob could not outrun God’s grace. In Christ, the answer is yes. In Exodus, can God save us from slavery? And in Christ, the answer is yes. In Joshua, can God provide for us despite the sins of our father and the enemies all around us? And in Christ, the answer is yes. And judges, can God save us in the midst of sinful leaders?

Is there a warrior that’s coming that is better? And in Christ, the answer is yes. Jesus was the one that was better than any of the deliverers of the Old Testament, better than Moses. He’s a better warrior than Joshua, a better king than David, a better priest than the Levites, a better savior of his people even than Esther.

Every page is God saying yes. in Jesus Christ. Every page is a cell in his face. If you want to see the face of God, then see it in Jesus Christ and his scriptures. Read your Bible. There is joy, fuel for repentance and our Savior and a hope that does not disappoint. It’s the Sunday school lesson we get every time that we open up our scriptures and say, how does this point me to the hope that I can have in Christ that does not disappoint? It’s what we get to hear every every morning, Sunday morning and Sunday evening, when the Old Testament is open and we’re searching for him there, the New Testament is open and he’s revealed there every Sunday. And every time we open up our scriptures, we’re on the road to Emmaus, or more accurately, the road to Christ and his gospel and his joy and his new life there.

Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, Lord, as we journey through our life, We ask that you would continue to show us how Christ answers every problem and question that we have. Lord, that he is the answer to how might we be reconciled to you? What must we do with our sins? Can a thing die and live again? Lord, direct us to Christ as our mediator, our redeemer, our prophet, our priest, our king. Lord, excite us about who he is and our Savior that we might take joy and that joy might be the fruit for our repentance. throughout this life, this new life you give to us in the spirit.

Lord, only you can do this. Only a spirit who testifies to who Christ is as we open up the scriptures. Lord, help us to open them up for Moses and the prophets to see how all the scriptures were pointing to our suffering Savior. Lord, we pray this in the name of our Savior, your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. We’ll sing as a closing hymn, number 170, God in the Gospel of His Son. 170, would you stand as we sing this as our closing hymn.

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Sermon transcript

This evening we are going to be in the gospel according to Luke chapter 24. And as I have occasionally visited in the evenings, I have gone through various texts in Luke and had been quite heavily in chapter 23 recently. And I thought I couldn’t just skip to something else. We need to see how things turn out. We need chapter 24. And even to marvel at the existence of chapter 24 in Luke, The other I was reflecting about when I was looking through my bookshelf.

I enjoy to read biographies. Half of my bookshelf is really filled with them. One that I really loved was John Adams by David McCullough. And I remember reading that. It’s 650-something pages. I remember reading it and wanting more. And as I got to page 651, I read the account of the death of John Adams.

And turning the page, my heart sank, because that’s the last chapter. That was at the end of the book. There wasn’t any more to read. He was dead. We get the account of Christ’s death and crucifixion in chapter 23. And yet, there’s another chapter. There’s something beyond that. It’s the most unique biography in all of human history. We have a chapter 24 of Luke. see the account of when the women came to the tomb to prepare a dead body.

And they will be asked a question, a question that we also need to be asked as well as we encounter Christ as he is and as he was in the text. Lord, let us bring ourselves to a time of prayer first. Lord, we ask that you would be present by the means of your Holy Spirit. Be in the midst of the reading of your word and the expounding of your word. or teach us anew what it is that you have for us in the gospel, in the life, in the work, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior and Lord. It’s in his name that we pray. Amen. Let’s look at chapter 24 together of the gospel according to Luke. Hear now the word of the Lord.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb. taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. And they remembered His words. And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the leavened and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna. and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in, and he saw the linen clothes by themselves. And he went home marveling at what had happened.” Grass withers and the flower fades, but this is the word of our Lord, endorsed forever. Amen. We have an account here of the women going to the tomb. If you look previously in chapter 23, you will see that there was Joseph of Arimathea. We’re also told in other gospel accounts that Nicodemus helped him in preparing the body.

But the women go back. Apparently, either they did not finish in time for the Sabbath to commence, And so they had to leave their work, or what I actually think was probably more likely, these two upper class men were trying to do a manual labor job. They made a mess of it. The women saw that, and they said, we are going to go back and do it right after the Sabbath. And when they come, they see the tomb is empty, and they are confused. They don’t understand what’s happening. Now let’s just pause for a minute, as we are very familiar with this account, but think about why Luke is including these details.

Because these details seem like an embarrassment to everybody involved in this story, right? First off, this seems like an embarrassment because in the first century, you’ve probably heard, the testimony of women was often doubted, whether in the courts of the Jews or also in the courts of the Romans. What can you say? Many of the Romans in that time, in today’s standards, would be sexist. They didn’t believe a woman’s testimony over a man’s. Secondly, not just that, the women were said not to realize right away what had happened, but to be confused, to not understand what had happened.

Remember the things that Jesus had said. If you go through Matthew’s account, three or four different times Jesus is telling them, I will die and on the third day rise again. He has told them this multiple times. And we’re given an account of the men at home cowering, afraid of what’s going to happen to them.

This makes everybody either look a bit dense or a little cowardly. Why include these details then? Well, because that’s how it happened. History has this funny way of recording what happened and not what would sound good or look good to us. It’s not always the tidiest or the most flattering story to the people that are in it. This is not the version that you would make up.

You see, the version that you would make up in that time would have the men arriving first. They would immediately realize what had happened. And you would probably have Peter or somebody saying that he rolled the stone away just by himself because he had been lifting weights and he was that strong. There would be things to brag about, things that would hold up in the court of law.

But that is not what is there. You know a made-up story when you hear it, and this is a story that rings with history. That was back when C.S. Lewis said it. He read all of these Greek myths, and when he read the New Testament, he said, this is different. This is an account of history. This isn’t a myth.

And the empty tomb didn’t happen in a way that was convenient to the legal system, convenient to history or to the reputations of these disciples or of these women. Life just happened that way, and it was recorded. by Luke, the one who is an historian.

I think we need to realize this because as we read this, often we will have certain sections of scripture that we’ve heard over and over again. We read them, we almost read them like, like families may read towards the night before Christmas around a fire, right? To children on Christmas Eve. But Luke did not intend the story to be understood or read that way. If you go all the way back to Luke chapter one, how does Luke begin his gospel? He begins it this way.

He says, in his months, as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past to write and orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught. My undergrad degree is in history. This is how you write history. You take eyewitness accounts, you take primary sources, you put them together in an orderly account. is acting as an historian here, as a first century historian. He’s gathering his gospel from eyewitnesses.

That’s why he includes so many names that sometimes when you’re reading it, you have no reference for who they are. Who is Joanna? Who is this buried mother of James? Who are some of these names that are recorded in here? This is Luke’s version of footnoting, right? He is writing to people in a time in which many of these eyewitnesses are still alive. In a sense, he’s saying, I got this from Joanna. Go ask her, her account. I got this from Mary, the mother of James. Go ask her what her account was. This is completely unlike what you see in the rise of many cults. The rise of many cults, what do you have?

You have a private experience, a private revelation that is only confirmed by one person, right? Joseph Smith, what did he say? I got these plates that nobody can read except for me with these special glasses, right? What was the account of Muhammad? I got the special revelation from an angel on a mountain. Nobody else heard it. It was just me. What is the account of these women? I was there with several other people. Everybody is confirming this. This was a public event. This wasn’t a private revelation. which presents us with something of an application question here. When we read the account of the resurrection, the question that we are asking is not merely, how does the resurrection story tell me how to love better or to make me feel better?

The question is, where is the body of Jesus? Did he rise or did he not? And do you believe that he rose? Because if he didn’t rise, this is a story about telling lies. If he did rise, then this is a story about God’s power over death, over sin, the acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice, and the need to be made right with God. And that is a pretty hard contrast.

Because if you don’t believe he rose, there’s not a whole lot that you can take from the ministry of Christ except a lesson not to make the wrong people mad because they will kill you. I don’t think there’s any lasting lesson from the life of Christ if he didn’t rise again. Because if he said he was not a mere teacher. He’s not something that we just have something to learn kindness from.

He came as a son of God to take the sins of the son of men in his body on the cross, to crush the power of sin, to defeat death and to rise again. The resurrection, then, is the linchpin of the entire Gospel of Luke. We can’t skip chapter 24. The end of the story didn’t come just with the death of Christ on the cross.

If it didn’t happen, we need to find a better use of our time than listening to the teachings of this man. But if it did happen, if Christ is not a liar and said he is who he said he is, this makes a claim on our life. We are, we are met with a choice. We need to take a side. Are we on the side of the tomb has Christ or that Christ has power over the tomb? Because Christ here confronts us in a risen form.

And even I find this almost ironic in verse three, did you notice this? They said that they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. I find that a bit ironic because if the women were right in their assumptions that Christ was dead and in the tomb, then he is no Lord, right? Lord is a title of authority, something that has authority over you, and dead men do not have authority. For Christ’s words and his life and his person to have authority, he must be alive. For him to be Lord, he must be risen. He must be currently alive at the right hand of the Father. Does he have authority?

Because if a dead man says, love your neighbor, or I forgive you for not loving your neighbor, which must come next, then they’re just words of a 2,000-year-old dead man if he did not rise again. There is this false idea in the world of a middle ground. Again, if I can to refer back to Lewis, he was right when he wrote this. He says, Christianity, if false, is of no importance. And if true, is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. It’s one or the other. Either it’s true or it’s not. Either he rose or he did not. I was reminded of that stark contrast of the difference that the resurrection makes when I saw a news item a couple of months ago.

This was from a minor celebrity. Some of you may have heard of him. His name is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s known for putting pithy statements on his social media. He was the host of a rebooted version of Cosmos. He’s gone on record as somebody who is attached to a scientific worldview, where he says he does not believe any divine powers behind the universe. And I appreciate his intellectual consistency when he posted a few months ago this message to people that were following him.

He said, Quote, the universe is blind to our sorrows and indifferent to our plans. Have a nice day. I thought the heaven I stayed was a nice touch to it, but if he’s right about God not existing, no divine universe, no resurrection, then in fact he’s right. The universe doesn’t care. It’s just an update of that poem in high school. Did you ever have to memorize that poem by Stephen Crane? A man said to the universe, sir, I exist.

However, replied the universe, the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation. All that means is, if there is no God, then who cares? And the answer is no one. The universe isn’t personal. It wouldn’t care about your pains or your life. It wouldn’t care if you’re a nice person or a lying cheat. The reality would be that you live, you die, that’s it, fade to black, no meaning, no judgment. Some people like that. Have fun now, some pain, and then you die and that’s the end of it. And you know, if Christ is in the tomb somewhere. That is exactly right.

And I can’t judge you for that belief because the universe wouldn’t care. One thing that we can’t do, though, if that is what we believe, is not be a believer because we think that the Bible is immoral. Nobody would care, right? The universe wouldn’t care. There would be no morality. There would be no meaning.

The reason, then, that I believe what the scriptures have here. The reason that I believe the tomb is empty and Christ is risen is not mere pragmatism. It’s not because of feeling. It’s not merely because it makes me a better person, because what would that even mean if Christ is truly dead?

The only reason that you should believe this is this, that it’s true. All of it. That is the only defensible reason to believe. To believe, in fact, that there is a God who is infinite and unbound by time or space or anything that made a creation of time and space. To believe that that creation is good.

To believe that something went wrong, namely sin, in the original design of the creation, corrupted by evil and misery and now death. to believe that God revealed himself in human nature, in human history, culminating in a man who was God and man in one person, Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life, died a death of propitiation for sin, and then on the third day rose again from the dead.

We should not believe any of that just because we believe things easily. We should not believe any of that just for warm fuzzies or that it makes your life better. In fact, it doesn’t make me feel that my life is perfect. It reveals the places in which it’s not. It doesn’t give me, in fact, easier things to do, often harder things to do. The only reason to believe this is if it’s true.

So when you read through the Gospel of Luke, When you read those 23 chapters of the account of Christ’s life and his death, when you get to the point at this place, you should have an answer to the question, who is Jesus? honest answer. Who is he? When you read through those 23 chapters, you can read through those 23 chapters. In my home church, I preached over 100 sermons on it. You want to listen to all those before you give your answer. I would suggest that, right? Take all of the information that you can about the life of Christ. John Owen once said, take what you know of him and what you have heard of him and answer this question. Who is he? What do you make of him? Who is he to you?

Because good teacher, that moderately important, is not one of the options on the table. After reading all that he said and did, good teachers don’t claim to be God, don’t claim to forgive sins. Who does Jesus seem to you from the history that you have in your hands? Let me ask you, do you believe the women? Maybe you’re like the ancient people. Maybe you’re a little bit sexist. You don’t believe the testimony of women. I guess the universe wouldn’t judge you for that. What about Peter, though? What about the apostles?

What about 11 men who gave their life on the testimony that we have seen him alive, right? Well, 10 out of the 11 are going to end up executed. John got off easy with life imprisonment, exile to an island, right? Would any of those men have testified to the resurrection just because it made their life better? No, it made their life harder. Would any of them have testified to that just because they wanted power? They didn’t get power. Instead, they got painful death. That is not helpful. But they died for that. Why? Because they believed it was true.

Do you believe the testimony of witness after witness after witness that says he rose again from the dead. Do you believe the Jesus that you have access to in your scriptures to say the things that he taught, the things that he did, is he who he says he is?

And if we come to the point in which we have the answer that is staring us in the face, that he was who he said he is, then we must answer the angel’s question. And that’s what I want to leave you with, is the angel’s question. Why do you seek the living among the dead? That’s a great question for us and for the women. You know, it was a survey that I was listening to a speaker.

He was a Christian, a philosopher, and he was going through a quiz. And one of the questions on his quiz to a Christian audience was, who is the most influential and important person alive today? And when he was getting the answers back, he noticed that over half of them did not put Jesus. He says, is Jesus not alive? Shouldn’t he be the most important and influential person in your life? It was a realization that they didn’t think of Jesus as alive at the right hand of God the Father. Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we act as if he is not, in fact, alive?

You know, if I asked you to come over to meet me at my office for lunch, the grounds of New Life has two different places. There’s a road in between the church offices, and then on the other side is a cemetery. If I asked you to meet me at noon, and I see you out there, and you were in the cemetery calling out to the ground, Jared, I’m here for lunch, I’m going to think that you’re a bit crazy, right? Why would you look for me, a living person, among the dead of the cemetery next door?

Well, this is basically what the women were doing, right? They needed to be asked the question, why do you look for the living among the dead? What do you do then with the empty tomb? Is he risen or is he not? Why do we keep going to the tomb and expecting to get a response?

And now this is also a question that we must answer in our own lives. And that is why do we keep searching for the living Christ, and the answers to questions only the living Christ can answer among the deadness in this world. Why do so many seek living and life among the philosophies of people like Neil deGrasse Tyson that say the universe doesn’t care and our world is just filled with dead things, things that don’t give life, things that don’t care, things that die. This is what happens every time we try to find meaning and fulfillment and ultimate purpose in a job or just in our kids or in our opinions and political party or in distracting entertainment. or the next high from some illegal drug just tempting death, or from the pursuit of all of these things, merely will end in death. Why do we seek a living meaning in the dead things of this world, and the dying things of this world? You know, our faith is often misunderstood by the world, isn’t it?

You remember a couple of months ago, the big news that everybody was watching on TV as it happened, the burning of Notre Dame’s cathedral. Remember all the commentary that came out of it that said, this is the death of religion in France. This is the death of the Christian religion. There was interesting articles that came out that said this was the death of religion in France.

And, you know, it made me think back to the fact that I’ve read somewhat extensively of two men who either were French or lived in France. Thomas Aquinas studied at the University of Paris, and John Calvin was French and lived his life in France and had traveled, at least at some point, to Paris. And I thought, I wonder what these men have written about Notre Dame, because it was in existence during their lifetime. And you can do searches, you can find these online databases of the works of John Calvin and the works of Thomas Aquinas.

Do you know how many times they were mentioned by both men? Zero. the most important architectural wonder of their time in their country, the greatest achievement of their country. And what did they have to say about it? Nothing. It just wasn’t as interesting as writing about Christ and his life and his work. Tens of thousands of pages and not a mention of that. Why? Because Jesus was what would last and not Notre Dame. Jesus is alive while Notre Dame is in smoldering ruins right now. Each of them could have written about it. It just wasn’t as interesting as Christ.

When we look at our life and what it is that we pursue, we can pursue many good things. But are there the things that will last? The things that will last when buildings fall down, when businesses fail, when kids are gone, when projects have ended and are forgotten. One thing lasts. One thing lasts. When we hear the words of the thief on the cross, Jesus, remember me when you enter into your kingdom. And when he replies today, you will be with me in paradise.

Then we know that we have the living stone among the dying things of this world. Why do we seek the living among the dead? Life, joy, meaning, fulfillment, true life and forgiveness are not found among the dead. They are only found among the risen living Christ. Seek life from the living Christ.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we are so guilty of acting as if Christ is still in the tomb, of seeking things that will pass away as our entire life’s duties and pursuits. Lord, convict us that, in fact, there is only one thing that lasts. That is you, your work through your Son, and the applying of that by your Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray that we would love those things, that we would be joyous about those things, that we’d marvel at those things just as the women and Peter did when they saw that in fact Christ was risen.

So this we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Often is sung around the season of Resurrection Sunday, but we are going to sing it now because it’s still true now. It’s number 360. Today, yesterday, and tomorrow, this will be true, Jesus Christ is risen today. Would you stand as we sing number 360.

Jesus our Lord is risen today Alleluia. Sons of men and angels sing Alleluia. Raise your joys and ♪ Rock of my life, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Sleep in heavenly quiet, hallelujah ♪ ♪ The dreaming bird is gone ♪ ♪ Fight the battle, Lord ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ The Son depleted, Lord ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Holy Gents, his blood no more ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ The stone will wash the sea. Alleluia. Christ has washed the gates of hell. Alleluia. Tears will be washed in your eyes. Alleluia. I

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Sermon transcript

You may be seated. This evening we are going to look at a passage from Luke chapter 23. It is a passage that we are invited to behold, and it is in fact a very serious and a somber one. It’s one of those passages that you almost feel as if you need to take off your shoes when you read. I’m not asking any of you to do that tonight, but I am suggesting that it is a passage that we ought to listen to. We ought to read and we ought to contemplate with a sense of reverence for what we see and we hear here. what the centurion originally saw and how the righteous one suffered. We are going to read Luke chapter 23 verses 44 to 49.

But first, let’s go to Lord in prayer. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have preserved it and that it is your infallible and errant word that speaks to us not merely words of truth, but words of comfort, words of love, words of edification. Lord, we pray that this evening your word would be heard and that your spirit would be present. As we confessed earlier with effectual calling, the spirit and the word work together to accomplish your purposes. Lord, we pray that you would illumine this text and we pray that we would have greater understanding and greater love for you through it. And this we pray in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Luke 23, verses 44-49 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

And having said this, he breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, certainly this man was innocent. And all the crowds that had assembled for the spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance, watching these things. Grass withers and the flower fades, but this is the word of our Lord, endorsed forever.

Amen. The sixth hour in Jewish reckoning of time is around noon and it is dark. Some amateur authors and theologians have tried to theorize about the timings of eclipses to see if they coincide with this. But when the recent solar eclipse happened, I actually went down to Nashville to witness it. It lasted about two minutes. And it was like dusk. It was not completely dark. Something else is happening here in this moment, in this blackout. not merely poetic language. In fact, we are told literally the sun’s light failed.

It brings to mind other times in the Old Testament, especially in Amos, when you hear words of judgment and descriptions of that, such as where it reads in 8 verse 9 to 10 in Amos. And on that day declares the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will bring sackcloth on every waist and boldness on every head. I will make it like the morning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

When you hear the description of the scene, it seems after witnessing all of this, everybody who came to see the spectacle, they realized this was different than what they came to see. Some of them came to see a comedy to mock, and instead they witnessed a tragedy. They thought it was entertainment. Instead, they saw horror. They watched an innocent man suffer. And what’s more, they watched grace in suffering, a grace directed toward people that knew that they did not deserve it. What did they see?

The whole scene, as you can see in the previous passage, a few verses earlier, began with, Father, forgive them. and then they hear another cry beginning with father in verse 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice father into your hands I commit my spirit and having said that this he breathed his last between the two fathers on the lips of Christ, we have the purpose and the intent of the cross. Jesus began with, Father, forgive them.

And we see that in the previous passage, but that cry, that request came with a cost. It was a request that cost something. Many times our request will cost something. We could request something from somebody, but we have to know that there’s a corresponding cost. Many of us will watch sports much like a spectator, kind of like these people were watching for entertainment. When you watch, you see the products of what people have spent much time on. And I think, especially when I watch college sports, at one point, this player came to the coach and said, make me a great player.

And what you don’t see is the cost of that request. It will be granted, but it’ll be granted in saying, now you must run these laps. Now you must do these drills. Now you must study these plays. Now you must memorize these things and practice these plays. Make Me a Great Player had a cost to it. It’s on a totally different level for us to understand. When Jesus said, Father, forgive them, there was a cost to his request. And Jesus asked for something fully knowing there was a cost.

There was the three hours on the cross in full reception of the curse of the law. Jesus asked for your forgiveness and was prepared to pay the cost of his request with himself becoming a propitiation, as we were told elsewhere in scripture, the object, a substitute for the wrath against sin that God had. In other words, Jesus on the cross was enduring the fires of hell for three hours. He suffered more than any sinner had known.

Not because of the nails, not because of the shame, but because to pay the price of sin is to receive the wages of sin. And the wages of sin is hell, what we call the final death. He did not descend into hell after the cross. That’s not what I’m saying.

In fact, what he endured there on the cross, in fact was held. After the cross we know from the thief said he would be with him in paradise. Now there are sparse details here on the crucifixion physically because of what was happening in a different realm. of what he was experiencing there. Isn’t it fascinating that Luke, the physician, doesn’t have all of these gory details about what happened on the cross.

In fact, he describes the physical part in just three words. They crucified him. That’s really it. You don’t get a description of what’s happening with the nails. You don’t get a description of what’s happening with his suffocating. None of that is on display there, although we sometimes focus on those things. No, because there’s something different that’s happening here. The suffering is different. It’s not mere physical. We are told in 1 John 2.

Christ was a propitiation for our sins. We’re told in 2 Corinthians 5 that Christ became sin on our behalf. It’s described by hearing the words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In other words, the sufferings of Christ cannot be displayed on a picture. They cannot be displayed on the big screen because the cross was the location, but not the cause of the greatest suffering of Christ, our substitute.

That is what is so amazing. is the fact that this suffering occurs in between two calls to his father. That’s what’s amazing about verse 46. When we think of Jesus enduring the wrath of God for our sins, we’re tempted, as some theologians have today, to charge divine child abuse. It’s been a popular charge in recent years. And it’s completely destroyed by what we see here in Luke. It’s completely destroyed by this verse. What do we consistently see throughout Scripture? Philippians 2 says that Christ emptied himself. In other words, became a servant is what it is talking about. In other words, he chose to do this. He chose to save us. Jesus was not picked as the best person on the earth, and then this was thrust upon him. No. Instead, he had chosen this.

In the garden, Jesus picked up the cup, the cup of the wrath of God. of wrath of his own nature as fully God against what had happened in the first Adam. These This is happening in one person, Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man. There’s a deep mystery in the fact that one person ever had been the God-man, and in one person, the price for the enmity between God and man is being paid, and then God and man are being reconciled. It is pictured there in the curtain, torn in two. And these two that were separated now are united in Christ, His person, and after the sacrifice.

The willingness is what we see here. The love of God mutually between father and son and son and father bound together by the Holy Spirit that begins with father forgive them and ends with father into your hands I commit my spirit. This entire time is happening in love and submission to his father. He begins in the love of his father in a request. a request that has a cost, and he ends this time of suffering, calling out to his Father one more time. What does that tell us? It tells us the entire time Christ was in control. He freely chose to pay for our sins on the cross. He freely chose to pay for the requests. Father, forgive them.

Jesus commits his soul to the Father, and then the text actually puts it, as he breathed his last, using active verbs. showing us Christ was in control even when he departed. It was enough. He laid down his life just as John 10 had said when he said, I have authority to lay down my life and I have authority to pick it back up again. The language that Jesus uses here when he says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, you probably have heard at modern committal services. The statement at the graveside is not a prayer for the dead or a meritorious offering for the dead. It is a confession.

We trust our Heavenly Father. That is what Jesus did the entire time on the cross. He trusted His Heavenly Father even during and after the suffering of the cross. He believed His Father was good. His Father was in control and worthy of that trust. That is how the righteous one suffered. What a model that is for us. After the greatest suffering that you could imagine, even in our hour of death, He is still worthy of our trust. He is still good. He is still sovereign. Christ begins and ends His time on the cross in conversation with His Father.

May the same be said for us, because how often we don’t, right? When we go through times of suffering, how often we are found avoiding prayer. How often we are found avoiding God’s people and worship. How often we’re avoiding reading scripture, being in conversation with our Father.

But Jesus began His suffering and ended it with the name Father on His lips. He is, in a sense, the perfection of Job’s suffering. Job suffered well, but not perfectly. But Christ suffered perfectly. Job is commended for his suffering, though. And I don’t know if you ever struggled with that. How is Job speaking rightly when many times Job is saying things where he’s questioning God. He’s saying, what is going on here? I don’t feel that I deserve this. Answer me. Give me an answer.

But the one thing that you’ll find of Job, over and against his friends is this. His friends talk to Job and his friends talk about God, but Job is the only one who will be found addressing God. talking to God. He doesn’t just complain about God to his friends, he laments to God. Job directs his speech multiple times to God.

And Jesus does this perfectly in his suffering, in conversation with his father, lamenting his feelings of being abandoned, directing his pains and requests to his father who heard him. Imagine seeing that, witnessing this display of the righteous one who suffered and how he suffered. Because that is what we’re told. In the midst of that suffering, who was watching? A Roman soldier. Not any Roman soldier. Not just somebody who happened to be there. A centurion. A commander of about a hundred men. at that time. And he was in charge of this execution.

Do you know what that tells us? To become in charge of something, typically, you have to have done it and been under somebody else’s command for a while to work your way up to being in charge. In other words, he had seen this done before. Romans did executions a lot It was, of course, a hundred years earlier that the only time you really get a mention, anytime it kind of makes a blip on our history books, is when the Romans executed 6,000 slaves at one time. That’s when it made a blip on our radar. But what that tells us is it was fairly commonplace, except for there was a big number at that time. So what does that mean?

There was a trickle all the time of people who were being executed, people who were on the cross. And this centurion had been there. He’d been in charge of many of them. He’d seen them year after year. He was an expert in their effective ends. But when he saw Jesus suffered, he said, this man was innocent. Indeed he was. He was the only innocent man who was completely innocent who ever suffered.

In fact, we’re told in Matthew, he records one other sentence this centurion uttered. In Matthew 27, 54, it says, when the centurion and those who were with him, seeing, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the son of God. Truly, this was a son who was calling out the whole time to his father. He suffered and entrusted himself even in death to his father.

He fell asleep in the arms of his father. That’s how we speak of death. That’s how we talk about the sting being gone. Even Paul will use this language of many have fallen asleep. It’s almost the image of one of my favorite things about having small children is how they fall asleep in the car when you’re driving somewhere. And sometimes when you get home, you go to your children that have fallen asleep, and you pick them up still asleep, and you take them and carry them into the home, into their room, lay them down for them to keep sleeping. That I think is perhaps one of the best pictures we have of when a believer passes away. The father comes, picks them up in his arms, takes them to the room that their elder brother Jesus has prepared for them.

The centurion couldn’t help but notice the suffering of this man was unique. It was unique in that he suffered as a propitiation and how he was suffering was unique. It was a holy suffering. It was a suffering with grace to those even that were causing it. Holy suffering can be amazing testimony to an unbelieving world.

Think of the story of Johnny Erickson Tada. You probably have heard her story before of someone who was paralyzed in a diving accident. She’s written many books on faith, on suffering, even given talks about suffering to share her faith in her good father. I was struck by the story of, as many Christians sometimes will like to do, going to Israel and seeing the pool of Bethesda. seeing where somebody was physically healed and hear her tell the story of how she looked there and realized that God had already healed her soul and she trusted him despite the fact that she was not healed of her paralysis.

It’s enough to make you say, what sort of suffering is this? What sort of reaction is this to being crushed in the world? It is the unique and supernatural suffering of someone that trusts that they are carried in the arms of their father. Surely that is a son or daughter of God.

Everyone watching this, then we are given this reaction in verse 48. And this is all the crowds that assembled for this spectacle, when they had saw what had taken place, returned home, beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.” If you read through the entire Gospel of Luke, the last time that you see somebody beating their chest, do you know when that is? back in the story of the tax collector and the Pharisee. The tax collector was beating his breast, saying, have mercy on me, a sinner.

It was a sign in that time of repentance and of confession and of sorrow. And this was a common, this seemed to be a common reaction, that the man who had breathed his last here did not deserve what he received. This was a mourning by those who were realizing something. This is a morning to show that they’ve come to mock. They participated in this, and now they’re realizing exactly what had happened. I find it interesting, too, that in the text it mentions the women. In the end, there are the women watching these things, as most of the disciples are cowering in their hiding places. How brave Peter said that he was. Now, where is he?

No, it’ll be women like Joanna and the Marys at the tomb. Magdalene, Coppice, and Salome. The women will be standing there ready to pick up the pieces, to do the work after everyone goes home, the collecting of the body. In fact, these were the coroners, watching and waiting until everything was done. And as the passage ends, there’s a sense of finality. He breathed his last. The people went home. The coroners are there. He is really and truly dead. These are the women that are there when the man ran away.

It almost looks like the modern American church, doesn’t it? When you see the numbers, it’s something like 60-40 of women in the church or 70-30 today. It seems the case there with only John being told to be present there. And even though these women are there, they don’t seem to fully get it. They think this is the end. They think that they are just as surprised as anyone on Sunday morning.

In fact, that there is another chapter to the life of Christ after chapter 23 and 24 that is going to tell the resurrection of Christ. When you look at this passage, it almost seems something of a downer to end at verse 49, but there’s so much to glean from this passage. I’d just like to conclude with three things that I think we should take away from this passage. Three things that we should take away first. what we see here in the trust in the Father, even as Christ is going through the pains that are likened to hell.

There’s an old saying that’s attributed to Winston Churchill. He probably didn’t say it, but it’s a good saying still. The saying was, if you find yourself going through hell, keep going. There’s a sense in which when we find ourselves suffering, we don’t stop. We don’t wallow in it. Instead, when we find ourselves suffering in our lives, we keep calling out to our father.

Christ began and ended his suffering with the father’s name on his lips. Isn’t it appropriate that when the disciples said, teach us to pray, teach us how it is that we are to speak to God in the midst of this suffering world, what were the first words out of his mouth? He says, pray like this, our father. We, our children, and our fathers know more than us. Like when they take us to doctors to get shots, when we have to practice and then to show up for soccer games, to trust in God as our father is to trust him, even lacking all the information, trusting his goodness and knowing that he is looking out for our good too, even in the midst of our suffering. The first thing we learn from this is to trust our father in between the beginning and end of suffering.

Secondly, something we should take away from this passage is to glean the innocent suffering of Christ as a witness to the world. Grace in suffering is one of the most powerful witnesses to the gospel that the church provides the world. Think about it. It was this innocent, this graceful suffering that the thief on the cross saw, that the centurion saw. Though they were pagans, they came to embrace the work of the suffering one because it was supernatural. in its origin. We learn here that grace and suffering is a powerful witness to the world. And thirdly, we see the proper response to the cross is to see our part in it.

The centurion realized he had killed an innocent man. The people who came for spectacle and mocking, and they came because they’d cried out, crucified, realized their part in the guilt And so they were beating their chests. They repented. They saw what they had done. When the apostles in the book of Acts will start preaching the good news, it begins with this Christ, you killed him. Repentance, confession of sin has to be the first step in the message of the cross.

Not everyone there literally had pounded the nails. But the only reason that Christ was on the cross was because of their varied and diverse sins. They may not have literally been Herod, who had just looked to Christ for entertainment when he got bored with him and sent him away, but they were like him in their sins. They may not have literally been like the Sanhedrin in their self-righteousness, but they had self-righteousness of their own. They were literally Pilate, all of them, saying that they were innocent while they were guilty, but they had done so up till that point.

It makes us ask the question, have we seen our parts in why Christ had to go to the cross? Is your sin so bad in your theology that it would take the second person of the Trinity paying for them in order for you to be right with God? Do we see it as that bad when we cry out, have mercy on me, sinner? Only if you were there as a guilty one whose sin put Christ on the cross will you be there on Sunday. when Christ rose in resurrection. As Romans 6, 5 says, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall surely be united with him in a resurrection like his. But to be united to his death requires, as 1 Peter 2, 24 says, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. Makes us ask the question, were we there like the centurion realizing his innocence and our guilt? Were you there like the people beating their chest, confessing that their sin had put him there. And were you there to sing praise to the one who purposely and willingly laid down his life and had the power to pick it back up again, as well as our lives, as well as a result.

Let us pray. Father, in seeing the suffering of Christ, Lord, may we take him both as an example of how to suffer well, but also confess that his suffering was unique, that his suffering is what our sins deserved and he took our place. Lord, grant us faith. Grant us faith to have your name on our lips in the midst of suffering and grant us faith in the one who took our place, who suffered the curse of the law on our behalf. Lord, we pray that as we see how the righteous one suffered, that would cause us to sing, that would cause us to love and to be changed people as a result, that we would go away beating our chests, but then soon to be rejoicing at the risen Lord. And so this we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Our final hymn then together would be confessing that in fact, what we witnessed in the death of Christ is him paying all of it. Number 276 in your hymnals.

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Sermon transcript

evening we are going to be looking at a passage from Luke chapter 23 verses 32 to 43. Verses 32 to 43. As we look at this passage, we look at an ancient way of execution. And I want to just remind you, when we look at the sufferings of Christ, we’re looking at more than just mere physical suffering.

Many people suffered the pain of crucifixion. Many felt the nails in their hands and feet. In fact, we are told in history about 100 years before this incident that the Romans executed as many as 6,000 men in a slave rebellion on the road from Capua to Rome so that the entire way along the road you would see one of these men who had been executed on this 120-mile road. I think it’s a little bit ironic that we see the Roman Empire in some ways as the height of civilization, when in fact they had perfected their methods of rule and justice in ways that were anything but civilized.

They were very scientific in the weaponization of torture. And if anybody wished this sort of torture on you, if someone tried to subject you to it, I wonder how we would respond. Jesus was subjected to all the wrath and the evil that humanity had to offer. And what reaction would come from the one who had power to do something to stop it at any moment? Well, let’s look and find out here in verses 32 to 43. It also asks you to see this incident from the vantage point of one who was near him, the criminal.

Before we do that, let’s go to the Lord in prayer. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, Lord, open up your word. We ask that your spirit would be present, not only in the reading, but in the hearing and the understanding and the expounding, but also may it not merely stay in these walls, but follow us in our minds and hearts as we go into the world, knowing what it is that is happening on the cross to hear the words of Christ from the cross. and to know what it is that he’s doing there. Know what his job and his work was there. Lord open up your word to us this evening and we pray this in the merciful and powerful name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen. Luke chapter 23 beginning in verse 32. Hear now the word of the Lord.

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called the skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by watching.

But the ruler scoffed at him, saying, he saved others. Let him save himself. If he is the Christ of God, his chosen one. The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. There was also an inscription over him. This is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals were hanged, railed at him. saying, Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself in us. But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. Grass withers and the flower fades, but this the word of our Lord endures forever. Amen.

In the first three verses, we’re giving the scene. We see here the three crosses and the three men that are being executed. Two criminals on either side of Jesus. Likely these were Barabbas’s co-conspirators, where they had the same title given to them of a bandit or thief, depending on how you translate the word. But they were given the same word. They were likely all cohorts. Two of them there with the replacement for Barabbas, Jesus of Nazareth.

And the first three verses of our section communicate this with One other detail, and that is that Jesus is using his limited breath to breathe out a word, a message for those who have murder in their eyes for him. I wonder if you’ve ever seen somebody who has a hostile, violent intent towards you, have murder in their eyes towards you. Have you ever looked at someone desiring your death, or could you even imagine that? Jesus knew this experience with many men before this. The Pharisees had tried to kill him. Sadducees and Roman soldiers and crowds of sinful men now were there at this moment with murder in their eyes towards him.

Ever look at somebody who hates you, who obviously hates you, who wants to do the maximum amount of damage and harm to you as possible. And what do you say in that moment? What words do you have for such a person? Well, Jesus has some words. He lifts up his head, takes a pained breath to say with a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.

And he belts out, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Now, before we look at those who are crucified with Christ, I think we have to pause and reflect on just how bizarre these words were to the ears of those that were there. Jesus’ Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now, they very well lacked the knowledge and understanding that this, in fact, was the Christ, the Son of God.

They did not, maybe they probably did not know the history of Genesis 3.15 to Malachi 4 to put that together. But in another aspect, they knew exactly what they were doing. And the fact that they knew that they were murdering this man, they fully knew that they were killing him. Those are the people that Jesus looks at and says, Father, forgive them.

Look at that moment and you realize that that is not a natural response. I wonder how many executions these people had seen before. This was not an uncommon sight in Roman occupied territory. In fact, they liked to publicize their executions, put them on public roads so that everybody saw what happened to a rebel against Roman rule. This scene would have played out over and over again. They probably had seen the full textbook of reactions to this being done to them. Natural terror from the victims. Reactions of rage to the people that were doing this, or just rage at whoever is nearby.

And in fact, I think that’s mostly what you’re seeing there in the reaction of the mocking criminal in verses 35 to 39. He’s doing this in the context of a crowd that has various verbs that are used for the reactions towards Jesus. In verse 35, we’re told that the rulers scoffed at him. used in 36 is the soldiers mocked him. And in verse 39, one of the criminals joins in and it said, this is a strong word to say that he’s railing at him.

He is throwing abuse at him. It almost makes you wonder why Jesus, why was he the object of his wrath? Suffering can produce a reaction. people of anger and rage. And Jesus was the closest target. He was the one that was a target of others. And so the focus was off of him, off of his shame and his pain. And so he’s just the nearest person nearby in which to have violence by words.

Sometimes we hear that saying as a child, sticks and stones break bones, but words will never hurt you. That’s one of the most untrue things I think you ever hear as a child. Words reach where hands cannot. Words are often the sharpest swords that we have. I’ve heard it said that the tongue is a deadly weapon by some, perhaps even in scripture.

And that is a natural reaction of natural fallen man. And that is one that you observe by those who are in suffering. Many of us can have one of two reactions to getting hurt physically or relationally. I observe it in my children. You know, some will get hurt and they’ll be in tears and in self pity at the hurt. While others will stub a toe or get hurt somehow and they get mad and they want others to know the hurt that they feel and they yell or they hit in their pain.

And this man on the cross, the first thief, feels pain, and the reaction is to give out what he has been given. It’s a natural reaction to give an eye for an eye here. This criminal has been mocked, and so he will mocked in return. Now, he did not know who he mocked at that point, and yet he still might have mocked if he knew this was God incarnate.

You see, when we hurt, We often will stab at others around us. And sometimes we stab upward towards God. Sometimes our questions of why are not looking for a response. They’re just interested in stabbing up to God with questions. We think of God sometimes in our pain as a tyrant or sadist or an uncaring monster. And we want to punish God for our pain. So we withhold our prayers and our worship. We declare our doubts with anybody who’s around us, all the while trying to punish God with the deadliest weapon that we have, our words.

And still, in the midst of scoffing, mocking, and railing, are the words of Jesus, Father, forgive them. And both criminals hear this. But something significant happens to the other criminal. In verses 40 and 41, we have this reaction, which is worth hearing again. But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.” In that moment, he makes his confession. We are guilty, and he is not.

Now, first, something that makes this moment a little bit more dramatic is this detail that we find in Matthew 27, 44. We’re actually told that at one point, both of the thieves on the cross, both of the criminals were mocking Christ. That’s what we’re told in Matthew’s gospel, which means that at some point, this criminal had to turn from mocking Christ to defending and declaring his guilt and the innocence of Christ.

What caused that change? I don’t think we can necessarily put our finger on it for sure, but think about what he saw. He saw the suffering of the unique one. And when he saw the suffering of his friend, and he saw the suffering of this unique one, he saw a unique sort of suffering. On the one hand, he saw rage from his friend, and that’s natural. In fact, that’s what he felt too. But when he saw Jesus, what did he see? Something supernatural. a unique suffering that under suffering spit out forgiveness rather than rage. Have you ever seen someone suffer with grace? It is a rare sight, I think, even among faithful.

I don’t know if some of you are readers of history. I was a history major in college and so I love to read biographies and histories. I was struck in reading the book that perhaps many of you have read, Unbroken. This was a story of an Olympic athlete, runner, Louis Zamperini.

In World War II, he became enlisted in the Air Force, was shot down in the Pacific, and then was a prisoner of war, and was put into a Japanese prisoner of war camp and suffered great torture, things that left him physically affected for the rest of his life.

And in fact, the main person that was doing this was somebody that gave the nickname The Bird. And in fact, towards the beginning of 1945, he and his fellow prisoners began to circle around and plot. Even if it meant their death, how would they kill this man who had put them to such torture? They were desperate for any opportunity they had to dish out what they had gotten. But they were stopped in their plans by the end of World War II. They went home.

And Louis Zamperini married. and then sunk into alcoholism, didn’t know how to deal with his pain, with his suffering, with his rage that he still felt until one day his wife forced him, as wives are known to do sometimes with their husbands, forced him to go to hear the gospel.

He heard the gospel, became a Christian, had a Billy Graham crusade. And then what he did after that was not natural. He decided he was going to go back to Japan. And he was going to seek out the people who had tortured him, the guards that had been responsible for his torture. And he found one, actually, in a war camp that was in there for war crimes. And he went and visited them. And the guards were confused, thinking that perhaps he would come to them to mock the fact that they were in prison and he was free, perhaps to add to their imprisonment or torture.

But Luis Zamperini visited every soldier he could find to forgive them. so bizarre to them, they’d ask why. And Louis would explain, it’s because that’s exactly what Jesus did to me. Because Jesus was the first here to do that. He forgives his torturers.

And that is a bizarre sound and image to them. It is supernatural. So when the other thief saw this, a unique suffering, that the sufferer would give grace. It’s after that, that we see the thief rebuke his friend. confess his sins, that we are getting what we deserve, and then say to Jesus, remember me. Grace, especially grace in suffering, can melt hearts. It’s a picture of the gospel whenever you see grace in suffering.

Now, when the thief said this, when he said, remember me when you enter your kingdom, we can take stabs at what he meant by that. We don’t know the theology of the thief in that moment. In fact, maybe when he said, when you enter your kingdom, he thought some distant future. I believe you have some kingdom, but maybe it’s way out in the future.

Or maybe he thought that when they were separated, he’s just asking for a fond thought of him. If somebody, one person can have a fond thought of him. Or maybe he thought kind of like the prodigal son. Remember the story of the prodigal son when after he has spent all of his money, he thinks, I’ll go back to my father and I’ll be a servant in his house. I’ll serve him.

Maybe he thought there’d be some offer of you can work this off. Maybe he thought he’d be in a different place. Maybe he thought he’d be in purgatory to burn off or work off his sins. But the response that Jesus gives to him betrayed his highest hopes.

It’s beyond that. Because Jesus says, today. Not the distant future. Not after some time in purgatory. No, Jesus says today, because both of them would be off of the earth by the time that the sun set. That was the end of the day. And they’d already passed noon. From noon to three is the suffering of Christ. They’d already passed that point. But Jesus says today, before the sun sets in a sense, I’ll be stabbed in the side. You will have your legs broken.

We both will be off of this earth and today you will be with me. in paradise. The thief would not get a fond thought of remembrance. He would not be a slave in the fields of the kingdom of heaven. In fact, he would be in paradise with Jesus. And this is such a horrifying thought to some. especially in the unbelieving world. A man who may have been a murderer, undeniably a thief and a rebel, would be promised heaven without any penance. There’s no community work that Jesus says he has to do first, no cleaning up trash on the side of the road, no payments to the families of victims.

You know, I have in my study an entire shelf that’s just dedicated, that shelf, to the writings of atheists attacking Christianity. You want to know what they’re arguing. You know what’s surprising to me, an argument that comes up so often against Christianity, is the thief on the cross. Christopher Hitchens, the late famous opponent of all things religious, said that he hated above all the idea of forgiveness apart from personal repayment of debt.

He called it vicarious redemption, we know of it as vicarious atonement. The idea that you could be a sinner for your life and throw your sins onto a substitute, he said, quote, destroys responsibility and morality. Ultimately, the objection is the story of the thief on the cross is not fair or moral. You see, the true carrying out of justice, he said, would be the death of the rebel, the upholding of personal responsibility, and even as Hitchens says, quote, a rejection of loving your enemy. Beyond that, there are some that are horrified by this thought because they think that even while you have forgiveness, that there has to be some sort of repayment, either in another world, in purgatory or something like that.

But it doesn’t work when Jesus says, today, I will see you in paradise. Not in purgatory, not after some time paying it off, but today I will see you in paradise. You know what? For both of those groups of people, it’s just not fair. And thank God, fairness is justice, and justice calls for a condemnation. You remember the story of Cain and Abel? Do you remember after Cain kills Abel, what God says to him?

He says, the blood of your brother cries out from the ground. What word do you think that that blood is crying out for? It’s crying out for justice, for his condemnation. Think about Hebrews 12, 24. which is one of my favorite short summaries that’s packed with theological significance in all the Bible, where it says, Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Our deeds call out for our condemnation. The blood of those that we spilled, the ones that the thief probably had killed, called out for his condemnation.

But there was one bleeding for him And His blood called out for His forgiveness. Brothers and sisters, do not look to the cross if you want to hear cries merely of justice, because when you look at the cross, you will hear one who was on it say, Father, forgive them. Jesus proclaims in loud and gracious words from the cross in that moment, salvation is by no other means than by grace alone, given by the work of Christ alone, received by faith alone.

There was no baptism for the thief on the cross. The substance of salvation would have to be there without the sign. There was no good deeds from the cross, no tithes or attendants that he could pay for his ticket. There was no love of his neighbor in the actions of feeding the needy or clothing the naked or sheltering the homeless. He had nothing in his hands to give. All the thief had was sin and debt and immorality. The only thing that possibly could have paid his ticket to heaven was Jesus and his work and his words.

And Christ hung and bled there for the sins of a rebel, of a murderer, of a thief, physically for Barabbas, whose spot he took, and spiritually for the thief next to him. And that’s because Jesus’ suffering was unique, like no other in history. In essence, since he was unique as God and man in one person, but also as you look at the next few verses, in 42 and 43. There is where we had read when he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. When you collect the words that Christ said and thoughts for his mother and her care.

In the midst of suffering, this also, these words of grace to the thief, were sufferings of Christ, because he was giving grace. To give grace is to suffer. It is to suffer loss. Why don’t more people give grace and act with grace? Because grace is expensive, costly, and often painful to give, because grace suffers loss to give forgives the damage done to let someone have something for free. We need to realize this.

We love grace because when it’s given to us, grace is literally a gift. We love being given a gift because it’s free to us, but it would be very ignorant to think that the gift given to us did not cost the one who gave that gift a price. This is why gifts are often measured by their cost.

The cost of giving something to someone may be measured by the cost of how much it took you to give. We were given a quilt for our wedding. And part of the cost of that was the hours that went into it. Often, people will measure the engagement ring that you buy for your betrothed by how many months’ wages it was for the ring. You see, the giver suffers loss in obtaining and giving the gift. Loss of effort. in it, payment to give it, work to give it.

The gospel is news of both free and costly grace, not costly to us, completely free for us, but costly for the giver. The minute Christ said, Father, forgive them, he knew that he was going to have to pay for his request with his blood. And yet he asked for it fully knowing that Christ suffered loss. loss of comfort, loss of the physical toll on him and loss in spiritual terms, the broken communion with the father when he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And Christ suffered the loss of it all, as we’re told in the scriptures, emptied himself by becoming a servant, by taking on human nature in a body, being fully God and yet fully man, losing his comfort in heaven in order to pay for sinful men. was cheap or a cheat.

It was costly and lawful. It was costly to Christ, for Christ was the lawful federal head to pay that price. But it is true that it wasn’t fair. It’s better than fair. It’s grace, free and clear to a man who couldn’t pay it back in the slightest. And that’s exactly as it’s offered to us. And looking at these two thieves, we have to ask, What is our reaction to the suffering that we encounter in this world? Is it rage against the Creator?

Or do we hear the One offer a gospel of forgive them and we confess our guilt and confess that our just condemnation would be bearing that penalty and then we see Christ pay for us. If only we would look to the One paying the price, trust His work, trust Christ than today, we could be with him in paradise.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord convict us of the fact that when we look at the cross, we see what we deserve, even as we confess Christ as our substitute. Lord, may we confess not only our guilt, but the grace that is offered to us in Christ is one that is beyond our comprehension. It is supernatural. It is, in fact, the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Lord, cause us to have faith to receive and to spread that.

And Lord, I pray that you would do this to your glory in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen. We are going to sing a song before partaking of the Lord’s Supper. number 340 in your hymnals. There is a fountain filled with blood. Draw your attention to the presence of our dying thief within verse 2. But let’s stand as we sing this as our hymn before we partake of communion. Number 340. There is a fountain filled with blood. so There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. ♪ And the year is past when he can find ♪ ♪ Those other guilty stains ♪ ♪ But I can’t wait for you to speak that loud again ♪ ♪ And there am I as child I speak ♪ ♪ Watch all my sins away ♪ was the

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.