About this sermon
Darkness falls over the land from noon until three, and Jesus cries out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ He bore the Father’s wrath and was forsaken in the place of sinners, so that his people will never be. With a loud cry he breathes his last, a cry of victory, and the temple veil tears from top to bottom, opening the way into God’s presence. A Gentile centurion confesses, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’
Sermon transcript
standing for the reading of God’s word. This evening, instead of preaching from a psalm, we continue from this morning to consider the events of our Lord’s passion, and in particular, His death, as we consider Mark chapter 15, verses 33 through 41. The Lord Jesus has been scourged, and He has been crucified, and He is on the cross. Mark chapter 15, beginning at verse 33, and I’ll read through verse 41. Let us hear God’s holy word. When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, Behold, he is calling for Elijah. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink, saying, Let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.
And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the Son of God. There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, the less and of Joseph and Salome. When He was in Galilee, they used to follow Him and minister to Him. And there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem. Dear friends, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the proclamation of His Word. Once again, dear Lord and Father in heaven, as we approach this text of Holy Scripture, we are standing on holy ground as our Savior lays down his life for our redemption.
We ask, O God, by your Holy Spirit, that you would once again cause your word to find a lodging place in our souls this evening. We ask that you would deepen our faith, and strengthen our love and our hope in Christ this evening through what we consider. We ask that your word would go forth. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare your word with clarity and power and with the assistance of your Holy Spirit, so that you would be glorified, so that the lost would be brought to faith in Christ, and so that your people would be built up in grace and faith. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. Once again, I would encourage the children or anyone else who finds it helpful to follow along with the key words that I’ve suggested on your sermon outline.
The title of my sermon this evening is The Forsaken One, The Victorious One. The Forsaken One, The Victorious One. Well, dear ones, in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, we consider a solemn and powerful record of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mark, the divinely inspired author of this gospel account, records the basic details of our Lord’s death, and he records it in a very simple and straightforward manner, giving the basic details of our Lord’s death with very little comment. But even though this account is simple, straightforward, and very direct, it is nevertheless a powerful and moving account of the sufferings and death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In our text for this evening, Mark records for us two miraculous events which took place in connection with the suffering and death of our Lord.
Miraculous events that were signs that this was something supernatural that was taking place. This death of this man, Jesus, was more than the death of an ordinary man. The first event recorded for us in this passage, this first miraculous event is recorded in verse 33. And I’ll just read it again. It says, when the sixth hour came, that would be about 12 noon, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. And as I will soon explain, this darkness seemed to have had a supernatural origin and was not simply a matter of God’s ordinary providence. Of course, everything that occurs is under the control of God’s divine providence. God uses secondary means to accomplish his purposes most of the time. But in this case, it would seem that this particular darkness was not merely of a natural, providentially controlled event, but rather an event involving a supernatural divine intervention.
And I’ll explain more about that in a bit. The second event is found in verse 38. And I will again read that for you. It says, and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The veil that separated the holy place in the temple from the most holy place. It was a very thick veil. And so it would take a supernatural power or a great power to to split it in two from top to bottom. This event is also clearly a miraculous event, even more clearly miraculous than the supernatural darkness of verse 33. While Mark records this amazing event without comment, which is sort of typical of Mark’s fast-paced, just-the-facts style, Nevertheless, this amazing and miraculous historical event is overflowing with rich redemptive historical significance, and we’ll get into that in a bit as well.
But as you will notice if you read our text for today carefully, it was not until our Lord cried out and breathed his last, it wasn’t until then that the veil in the temple separating the holy place from the most holy place was torn in two. And so before we consider the symbolic significance of this tearing of the veil from top to bottom, we’ll first be considering the final cry of Christ from the cross before he breathed his last. But before we get to that, let’s dive into verse 33 and 34, and this is the first main point in your sermon outline if you’re following along. Brothers and sisters, let us consider the meaning and significance of the darkness between the sixth and the ninth hours. the meaning and significance of the darkness between the sixth and the ninth hours.
Verse 33, it says, when the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, and notice that Mark translates this for his Gentile audience. It’s translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which is a quotation from Psalm 22, verse one. Now, we notice here the timing and the extent of this darkness. The sixth hour, as I mentioned, would be, by Roman reckoning, about 12 noon, and the ninth hour would be 3 p.m., 3 in the afternoon, which incidentally, and interestingly, was the time around which the sacrifices would have been offered in the temple. So this darkness lasted for about roughly three hours. And as verse 33 indicates, we are told that it was over the whole land.
In other words, it was an extensive darkness. So it was a widespread darkness that would have been noticed by multitudes of folks. Now, what was the cause of this darkness? While some have suggested, well, maybe it was an eclipse or something like that, but as Bishop J.C. Ryle points out in his commentary on Mark, he says, it is almost unnecessary to remark that the darkness which covered the heaven on the day of the crucifixion could not possibly have been occasioned by an eclipse of the sun because the Passover was always held at full moon. It is evident that the darkness was miraculous and caused by some special interference with the course of nature. So whatever God used to cause this darkness, it apparently was a supernatural darkness. It was supernatural in its origin, and it was miraculous in its timing.
For this darkness descended upon the land while Jesus was in a sense, finishing his work of atonement. He was completing his work of atonement for our sins by dying on the cross. It was in the last three hours of his crucifixion, the three hours leading up to his breathing his last, leading up to his death where this darkness descended upon the land. So even if God chose to use natural means to bring about this darkness, the fact that he caused it to become dark at just the right time, at just this particular time, shows that it was a miracle. Now what is the significance of this darkness? I think there is much that we can learn from this, brothers and sisters. Oftentimes in scripture, hell is described as the outer darkness. And what this points us to, brothers and sisters, is that Christ endured the outer darkness of God’s wrath in our place. in our stead.
As I mentioned, hell is sometimes described in Scripture as the outer darkness, hell being the final place of punishment for the unrepentant wicked. And we see hell described as the outer darkness in multiple places in Scripture, but just to give you one example, I’d invite you to turn to Matthew 8, Matthew 8, verses 11 and 12. In those verses, the Lord Jesus, speaking of the spread of the gospel beyond the Jews, He says, He’s anticipating there prophesying the Gentile ingathering from the nations, that the gospel would go out to all the world and that people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation would be welcomed into the kingdom of God and become part of the true Israel of God, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then notice what Jesus says in verse 12, but the sons of the kingdom Those who were outwardly in the kingdom, outwardly part of the people of God, but who had rejected Him as Messiah and Savior, who were not truly in the kingdom, the sons of the kingdom, will be cast out into the outer darkness, in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Dear listener, if you have been born again by the Holy Spirit and thus truly know the Lord Jesus Christ as your very own Lord and Savior, then you can rest assured that Christ your Savior endured the outer darkness of hell in your place. During those hours, those, from our vantage point, brief hours, Christ endured an eternity of suffering. Christ, the eternal Son of God, suffered infinitely during that brief span of time. He did so in our place, in our stead, in order to redeem us from our sins. And if you are in Christ, if you’ve been born again by the Spirit and are trusting Christ as your very own Lord and Savior, then this outer darkness shows you what your sin and my sin deserves. Christ endured that outer darkness for us. and for our salvation.
Christ endured the outer darkness of hell in our place. Christ endured the infinite weight of God’s holy wrath. He experienced an eternity of hell during those brief hours of darkness and during his suffering, his passion and death on the cross. Now the human mind cannot even begin to plumb the depths of our Lord’s sufferings during those hours. And yet, as I pointed out this morning, our Lord Jesus underwent this suffering willingly, voluntarily. He willingly stayed on the cross, even though he could have come down from the cross if he had chosen to do so. But no, he willingly suffers, and he does so in our place, in our stead. He willingly tasted the darkness of God’s holy wrath against our sin on the cross, that we who through sovereign grace trust him as our Savior might know his love and his grace.
So this is one of the important lessons we can draw from this. Believer notice, consider also that Christ endured the agony of forsakenness in your place. A dear Christian, do you realize that as Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, he was experiencing for the first and only time in all of eternity, Jesus was experiencing the agony of being forsaken by his father. Christ as our sin bearer and substitute, receive the Father’s holy rejection and righteous wrath in our place so that we might never have to experience the horror of being rejected and forsaken by God the Father. Indeed, in and through Christ, we are, both now and forevermore, we are accepted and loved by God the Father, and He promises never to leave us nor forsake us. Now, I do want to make one brief comment about this.
Recently, I was listening to a theologian talk about the atonement of Christ. And this is a theologian that is somewhat controversial, but is generally identified as an evangelical of sorts. And he was saying how when it comes to the doctrine of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement. That is to say, Christ took the penalty for our sin upon himself in our place. This is what we’re speaking about. This is what our text points to. He says that oftentimes this particular theologian was saying, well, we have to be careful when we talk about the substitutionary atonement, especially when we’re talking about it to folks who have experienced abuse. And he made the point that some folks, when they hear preaching about the substitutionary atonement, instead of hearing, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, they hear, for God so hated the world that he punished his son.
This, of course, is a twisted caricature, a straw man of the biblical and historic doctrine of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement. You see, it isn’t that Jesus died to make an angry God loving. God is indeed angry with our sin. The Bible says God is angry with sinners every day. God is angry with sin. And His righteous, holy character demands that sinners be punished for their sin. but it was not anger or hatred that moved God the Father to send His Son. It was out of love for sinners that the Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, and Christ came willingly, voluntarily to take the penalty of our sin upon himself. So it was love that sent Christ to the cross so that the demands of God’s holy wrath and justice against our sin could be satisfied.
So whenever you hear liberal theologians or those who have issues with the substitutionary atonement saying things like, well, that’s divine child abuse or what have you, or you can’t preach that to someone who’s experienced abuse, there was no abuse taking place here. God the Father and God the Son in the covenant of redemption in eternity past made a covenant within themselves. The Father promised to give His Son a seed and Christ promised to come and suffer for that seed. so that they might be redeemed from their sins. Again, as we’re told in Romans 5 verse 8, God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Christ’s death on the cross is a demonstration, a manifestation of the Father’s love for us. So let us make sure we keep that in mind, especially as we hear those who mock or ridicule the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement.
Certainly we need to be sensitive in the way that we communicate this doctrine, as we need to be sensitive in communicating any doctrine. But remember, friends, it was love that moved the father to send his son, and it was love that led Jesus to the cross and kept him on the cross, even during this time of outer darkness. Christ endured the agony of forsakenness in our place. so that we might not be forsaken but might be accepted in the beloved both now and forever. Dear listener, are you accepted in Christ the beloved? Are you in Christ? Turn to Christ by God’s sovereign grace. May you come to put your faith and trust in Christ and Christ alone for your salvation from sin. And then look at verses 35 and 36. We read this, when some bystanders heard it, they heard Jesus say, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.
When some bystanders heard it, they began to say, behold, he is calling for Elijah. They mishear him. They think, oh, he’s crying out to Elijah. And it was believed that before the Messiah would come, Elijah would come and set things right. Of course, that was fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptist and so forth. but the bystanders are mocking Jesus. They’re saying, oh, he’s calling for Elijah. Verse 36, someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink saying, let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down. Notice that at this unimaginably sober, solemn, and holy moment, of our Lord’s passion, the calloused onlookers respond to our Lord’s agonized cries, not with reverence and awe, not with respect, not with compassion, but with jest and mockery.
This too underscores the utter forsakenness and the utter loneliness of our Lord on the cross. But again, He did that. He went through that. He experienced that loneliness and forsakenness so that we might never have to experience it. Beloved, because of original sin, the unbeliever has no true fear, no sense of awe-filled reverence for God. By nature, by fallen nature, our depraved and fallen hearts delight in mocking that which is holy. Not too, a while ago I remember, some of you are familiar with the atheist promoter Richard Dawkins and I remember hearing how, I guess he’s got a following online and it’s my understanding that at one point Dr. Dawkins put out a challenge to to his followers, especially those from Christian backgrounds, to openly over the internet renounce their baptism and curse the Holy Spirit, trying to get them to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
And this apparently was a very popular trend for a while. I don’t follow these things as I should, perhaps, but we have that mockery out there, this hostility and mockery and scoffing against the Lord and against the gospel and against things that are holy. And that is in line with our sin nature. Our sin nature leads us to mock that which is holy. We see that here in the way these calloused bystanders mocked our Lord. Dear listener, let us be warned against the blasphemy of mocking or making light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The worldly-minded, the unregenerate, think that the gospel of a suffering, crucified Savior is utter foolishness, and they cast ridicule and mockery and scoffing upon it. But the Word of God teaches us that this foolish gospel, this good news of a crucified, risen Savior, this Message that is viewed by the worldly wise and the worldly sophisticates as being just silly mythology.
It is the very power and wisdom of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. I’m reminded of what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 14 through 16. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 14 through 16, Paul writes, but a natural man, that is to say, a man who is fallen in his sin nature, devoid of the Holy Spirit. A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. That word spiritually, I think, should have a capital S. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to appraise and accept the things of the Spirit. Verse 15, but he who is spiritual, capital S, appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him?
But we have the mind of Christ. Let us, by the grace of God, embrace the mind of Christ. Let us be willing to let the world look at us as a bunch of fools and idiots and silly people believing silly myths. That’s what the world thinks of us. But we know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the very power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. But next. Not only do we see the powerful truth of the substitutionary atonement highlighted and displayed in the outer darkness that Christ endured during those hours, but next I would have us to behold the victory cry from the cross. Let us, and this is the second point in your outline, behold the victory cry from the cross, verse 37. After Jesus had been mocked and someone had offered him sour wine on a sponge again as part of the mockery and scoffing.
Let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down. It says, and Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. Now that is an amazing statement there actually. And this is perhaps one of the things that got the centurions attention. Because it is well known that if you are a crucifixion victim, As victims of crucifixion near death, they are utterly and completely exhausted. After hours upon hours of pulling themselves up by the spikes driven through their wrists and into their feet in order to just breathe, they wear out. No crucifixion victim on the verge of death would have the energy or the strength to cry out in a loud voice. But Jesus has made it clear, I lay down my life, no man takes it from me, I lay it down of myself.
So what does Jesus do when it is time, when the work of atonement has been complete, when God’s elect have been redeemed, when Christ has accomplished our redemption, what does he do? Does he just kind of quietly give up the ghost? No. He utters a loud voice and he breathes. Now, when we compare Mark’s gospel with John’s account of this in John 19, verses 28 to 30, which I’ll read for you in a few moments, we can infer that our Savior’s cry from the cross was not a cry of disillusionment or defeat. He wasn’t saying, Father, why? Why? There’s theories out there among the higher critics of the Bible that say that when Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, that Jesus felt defeat, that Jesus had this scheme in mind that if I go to the cross, I’ll get God’s attention and he’ll finally end the world and usher in the consummated messianic kingdom.
And when that didn’t happen, Jesus was dejected on the cross and he cried out in defeat. But no, that’s not how the scriptures present it. As I mentioned before, when Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is quoting from Psalm 22. He is indicating that he is fulfilling messianic prophecy. And when Jesus cries out at last, it is not a cry of defeat, but a cry of victory. Turn with me, if you would, to John 19, and look at verses 28 to 30. John 19, verses 28 to 30. Says this, after this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished. This is John 19, beginning of verse 28. After this, Jesus knowing that all things had already been accomplished. In other words, he had fulfilled the mission that the Father sent him to fulfill.
He had accomplished our redemption. He had atoned for our sin. To fulfill the scripture, he said, I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to his mouth. Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, what? It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Was this a cry of defeat? Far from it, no, beloved. It was a cry of victory. It was a cry which anticipated the glory of the resurrection. The forces of the worldly wise, the forces of the evil one, thought that they had finally conquered the Son of God. But in that apparent defeat on the cross, Jesus snatched victory. out of the jaws of apparent defeat.
It was no defeat at all, in fact. It anticipated His resurrection glory. Dear ones, our Lord’s last cry on the cross, as I said, was not a cry of defeat, but a cry of victory. It was finished. The work of atonement was complete. The divine wrath, the holy wrath of God against our sin was satisfied. The strict justice and the tender mercy of God had come together and had met at the cross of Calvary, and there in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, both of these attributes, the justice and the mercy of God, were vindicated and displayed. Sin had been fully paid for. The great multitude of God’s elect had been redeemed. Salvation had been accomplished. The night of crucifixion was over. The day of resurrection was about to dawn. Hallelujah. And as the confirmation of that fact, as confirmation of the fact that Christ had succeeded in making a full and perfect atonement for sin, an amazing event occurs.
And that’s my final point in your outline. Consider, beloved, the symbolic significance of the tearing of the veil in two from top to bottom. Verse 38, and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. As an initial confirmation of God the Father’s acceptance of His Son’s sacrifice, a mysterious, miraculous event occurs here. The veil of the temple, which separated the holy place from the holy of holies, and only the high priest could enter the holy of holies and only once a year, That veil, that veil which barred ordinary folk from the holy presence of God, the special presence of God that dwelt there, was removed. The way into the holy of holies was opened up. Now notice the manner in which it was torn in two. Was it torn in two just from the middle out, from the bottom up?
No, from the top down. I believe, beloved, that this is significant. It was not from the bottom up, but from the top down. It would seem that by this miraculous action, God is symbolically teaching us that he takes the initiative in coming down to us. We don’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We don’t work our way into heaven. We don’t climb Jacob’s ladder into glory. He comes down to us. He came to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, and His grace comes to us. We don’t climb up to God. We do not tear the curtain asunder from the bottom up. Salvation, restoration into a right relationship with God is not by our works or by our initiative or by our efforts. It’s not by our free will or our decisions.
It is from God. Salvation is of the Lord. God initiates the salvation process. God continues that process. God completes that process. God, out of love for us sinners, sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. And Christ’s broken body and shed blood on the cross were the means by which God removed the thick curtain that bars us from entering His holy presence because of our sin. The tearing of the veil was made possible by the tearing of our Savior’s flesh and the pouring out of His blood on the cross. In closing, I want to make a number of points of application or takeaways. We learn here that sin has separated us from fellowship and friendship with the holy God who created us. When God commanded the Israelites in their construction of the tabernacle and later the temple to put this thick veil between the holy place where the priests could be and the holy of holies where only the high priest could go once a year, And on this veil there were depictions of animals and cherubim.
It was a depiction of the Garden of Eden. But because of man’s fall in sin, We’ve been cast east of Eden. We’ve been cast away from Eden. And so that veil represented the barrier between the holy God and sinful man. And that we cannot presume to enter into the holy of holies without priestly ministrations. And so this teaches that we could never remove that separation or satisfy God’s holy requirements by our own initiative or works or merits or strivings or will. or decisions. But God, out of love for sinners, took the initiative to remove that thick barrier by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for sin on the cross and to satisfy the demands of His own holiness and justice against our sin. By Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, sin has been atoned for.
The barrier separating unholy sinners from the Holy God has been removed And therefore, all who trust Christ and His saving work alone for their salvation receive the benefits of His saving work on the cross and are restored into a right relationship with God, restored and reconciled to God, and indeed become beloved children of God. In other words, those who come to know Christ as their Savior are justified, reconciled, and adopted by sovereign grace. How then should we respond to these truths? Well, like the centurion, we must confess that this man, Jesus, was indeed the Son of God. Notice the centurion’s response. Now, this was the soldier who oversaw the crucifixion. So this man was a pagan man. He was a Gentile from a Gentile background. And yet, he had been noticing these strange things. He’d been noticing this darkness.
He had been noticing, and he noticed our Lord give up the ghost with a loud cry. And he realized something supernatural is taking place here. Verse 39, when the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. Another gospel account has him saying, truly, this was a righteous man. Now even though this centurion probably did not understand the full significance of what he just confessed, I doubt that this centurion had a correct orthodox Trinitarian theology or understood the depths of the incarnation of Christ as the God-man, the Word made flesh. But nevertheless, at some level he recognizes This man is the Son of God. And so this centurion was the first Gentile ever recorded in scripture to have been drawn to the crucified Savior.
Let us confess Him as the Son of God, as our Lord and Savior. And let us follow the godly example of the faithful women who followed Christ and were with Him even towards the end as verses 40 and 41 indicate. We could spend a whole, there could be another sermon on the women who attended Christ at the cross. But given the time, I will leave it there. But brothers and sisters in Christ, let us praise God for his amazing grace and mercy for us in Christ as displayed in our Lord’s death on the cross. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that Christ has made full satisfaction, propitiation for our sins. We thank you, Lord, that we fellowship in the benefits of Christ’s finished work by faith, God-given faith. We thank you for your word, for faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
We pray that as we consider these truths, tonight that our faith would be deepened and strengthened, and especially, Lord, be with us as we prepare to commune in fellowship with our Savior in the Holy Supper this evening. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s respond to the preaching of the word by rising and we’ll sing Psalm 22a. Because it is a lengthy psalm, we’re going to sing stanzas one through three, seven, 10, and 11. Psalm 22a, let’s rise and sing together.
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