When the Sun’s Light Failed

[00:00:00] You know, as a church, uh, we've been looking at over these last six weeks, uh, Luke's account of the trial of Jesus and now the crucifixion all leading up to the celebration of the resurrection next week. You know, I'm thinking of even Palm Sunday, what we celebrate and how the kids came in and they're waving the psalms or palms and hosanna and uh, and you said, well, that's such a positive thing.

And yet we see by, by, you know, by the Friday, we see this incredible harsh picture of the cross. But even in that, as they said, Hosanna, and they were actually hosanna means the Lord save us. And what's interesting is the Palm Branch was actually a symbol of the Maccabean revolt. And so it was actually on a lot of the Jewish coins that they minted at the time.

And it was a symbol of, of wanting a political savior, a political revolution to throw off the Romans. And so they're crying out, you know, Jesus, we hope that you're the Messiah, the one who will save us from Rome. And yet they totally missed the point that Jesus did come as the Messiah that came to save, [00:01:00] but it was a different kind of salvation.

Something that they weren't looking for. Something through the cross that we're gonna see was, and it was like not only unexpected, but it was almost, you know, uh, so crazy that it was hard for them to anticipate to, to even believe once they saw it. So this morning we're gonna be looking at the cross.

We're gonna be looking at Luke 23 verses 33 through 49, and in Luke's, uh, description of Jesus' death on the cross. And, and what we're gonna see is that there are a lot of details that we might expect to see, things even we'd like to know about the story of the cross that are not there. There are actually very few details about Jesus' death.

But he does give us details and we're gonna see all the details that he does give us are significant because they're all not just informing us about what happened. They're also teaching us about the meaning about the spiritual significance of what was going on. And so if you have a Bible, I'm gonna invite you to turn to with me to Luke [00:02:00] 23.

And I'd encourage you to keep it open throughout our time so you could follow along from the passage, uh, the points that we make in the course of the message. But let me begin by reading from Luke 23, starting in verse 33. And when they came to the place that is called the skull, there, they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right, one on his left.

And Jesus said, father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. And they cast lots to divide his garments, and the people stood by watching, but the rulers scoffed at him saying, he saved others, let him save himself. If he is the Christ of God, the chosen one. And 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 and one of the criminals who were hanged, railed at him saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him saying, do not fear God since you're under the same sentence of condemnation and indeed justly, for we are [00:03:00] 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'll be be with me in paradise. That was 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 after seeing 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 crowd that had assembled for the spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, they returned home beating their breasts. And all who had all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from the Galilee had stood at a distance watching these things be, God bless the reading of his word.

Let me pray. Father, I thank you for the privilege that we have to come together this morning. Father, I thank you for the things that you continue to show me through your word [00:04:00] for the incredible truths that are here. Father, for the things that not only describe an event that happen, but that that actually explain aspects of the meaning that are incredible, that are overwhelming.

And Father, I pray that you would now bless this time, father, that your spirit would speak through, through this imperfect messenger that your Spirit would speak through your word. Father, that we, each one would see what you would would teach us this morning. Father, help us staff hearts that are open to not only understand, but to receive and to apply whatever you would have, uh, sworn today.

I pray your blessing in Jesus name. Amen. You know, it's not uncommon to hear somebody say something along the lines of, you know, all religions are alike. You know, they're all, they're all just different paths up to the, the same mountain to find God and, and is that right? On the one hand, I would say I could, I could argue that all religions are basically the same.

If you also realize that biblical Christianity isn't a religion at all, in many ways, its [00:05:00] message is actually totally at odds with all other religions. I. You see all other religions basically are saying we have to, we have to find our way towards God. They give us rules to keep and things that we have to do to somehow earn God's favor or things that we shouldn't do to be able to avoid his anger.

And the focus is on our, our responsibility to work our way towards God. You see? But the Christian message starts with the idea that we are separated from God by our sin, and there's nothing we could do to earn God's reward. And while religion is focused on our working our way up towards God, the Christian message is about God coming down to us for him, making a way for us to have relationship with him, not based on what we do, but based on what he has done for us through Jesus' death on the cross, we become a follower of Jesus by admitting our need and accepting the gift of grace that is offered to us through Jesus' death.

But it's the cross that is at the center of that. The whole message of Christianity is centered around [00:06:00] Jesus Christ and the cross, and him giving him his life for our sake. And, and when we think about it, it's not only here that that, you know, all other things are about here's what you have to do and, and the gospel is about what Jesus has done for us.

But in other ways, the whole message of the cross is that it's not only central to Christianity, but it's at odds with everything else. All other religions. Think about this way, if you think about the founders of other religions. Actually all the other founders, they have something in common. They all died as a success.

Muhammad died surrounded by his supporters and his nine wives, having established a new political kingdom with an army around around him. Moses died as an old man Lee, after leading the Jews out of of Egypt and right at the border of the Promised Land. Buddha died peacefully at the age of 80 as a respected and loved teacher surrounded by his followers.

And it's not only true with these, but with the founders of basically all religions that you can think of. Each of these founders [00:07:00] would point to their success as an evidence, as a divine proof of the fact that God was behind them. God approved to their teaching and their leadership, their, their success not only proved that God was on their side.

But it was also part of the motivation for people to join their cause. Islam is the extreme example of that. I mean, they joined an army. They formed an army, and then they went out and they conquered and the basically message was, you know, either join the victorious army or be conquered, be, you know, be overwhelmed.

Now, contrast that with the message of Christianity. What is the legacy of our founder? Well, he was killed at the age of 33, only three years after starting his public ministry. He was publicly executed, having been mocked, half being beaten, tripped, naked, put on a cross, and, and, and executed the most violent form of execution ever devised.

He was condemned both by the religious leaders and the governmental leaders of his day. He was abandoned by all his followers so that at his death at the [00:08:00] cross, there was only one disciple and a few women there to even observe his death. Now, if you were to start a new religion. Who in the world would, in the wildest imagination come up with this idea?

You know, where's the hero? Where's the victory? Where's the success to prove divine blessing? And why would anyone wanna follow this? Jesus, you know, if he's the example of greatness, why would we want to go down that path? If, if the cross is the high point of Christianity, where's the demonstration of God's blessing and approval?

That's why Paul says in one Corinthians, for, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God. The world looks at it and says, it's totally backwards. It's foolish. It makes no sense unless you've been saved by the message of the cross at, at that point, as Paul points out, it's, it's the greatest demonstration of God's power that has ever been revealed.

Now we may struggle even to understand the cross. [00:09:00] And, and it was even a bigger struggle for the people of, of Jesus Day, the people in the Roman Empire. Why? Because the cross was, was seen as an, a symbol of torture, of execution. Actually, to say the word cross was considered a curse word. And, and, and, and Roman culture, because it was so extreme, it was so terrible.

Why would anyone see the cross as something to be braced? But the cross is the mess center of the whole Christian message. And in fact, without the cross, there is no Christianity, no Christian message. You know, it's sad as some churches have, have want run away from this. I mean, there are churches, there are even denominations that are trying to take out the cross or talk about blood or God's wrath or they don't wanna sing about those things because it seems gory, it seems violent or, or many contemporary churches, if you go in there now, you know they wanna be sensitive.

The perception of visitors coming in, so they don't. They don't put the cross, you don't see a cross anywhere in, in their building because it just doesn't work. I think back about, for us, back in [00:10:00] 2019, we did a significant renovation for this room here and uh, and I remember meeting one of the first things that we did is we said, okay, we want to kind of embrace some of the tradition.

And the first thing we did is we looked and we said, okay, there's a cross here. We wanna highlight that. And, and so it used to be everything was beige up here. And we said, okay, we're gonna paint everything white. We're gonna paint just the cross, this dark color. So that when you walk in, especially in the morning and sun's coming through, you hear you have the stained glass and, and the stained glass tells the story of Jesus' life on one side and his death on the other side.

And when the light comes through, your eyes are drawn to the stained glass, to the cross because that is the center of our message. And as much as people will walk away from that and say, no, people will be followed to some, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. It is what we will glory in.

So let us go deep more deeply into that. What is the story of the cross? And, and we look in Luke 23 and we're gonna see APIC picture of here of Jesus' death [00:11:00] and, and he starts with telling us not only about what happened, but a paradox that is in this whole event, a paradox again, that shows some of this folly of the cross that the world sees.

It's interesting, you know, that Luke. I like the other gospel writers give us almost no detail about the event of the, of, at the cross itself of Jesus' death, but a lot of details around it. You know, when we're, when we're told about his actual death, were in 33, it says when they came to the place that is called the skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right, one on his left, serious, some there they crucified him, four words.

And yet he describes only four words about his actual death, but a lot about what's going on around him. Specifically the reaction of the people around him and, and, uh, look at his description. Picking up in verse 35. You know, we're told that the people we're watching, and specifically then he calls out the leaders and how they're sneering at Jesus.

Verse 35. And the people stood by watching, but the rulers scoffed at saying he saved [00:12:00] others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ of God. His chosen one in verse 36 we're told the soldiers joined the mockery. The soldiers also mocked him coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself in 39.

Were told even the one of the criminals who has been crucified joined in the mockery were told one of the criminals who were he, uh, uh, hanged, railed at him saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. And all of them are basically mocking Jesus with the same accusation. If you are who you say you are, then prove it by demonstrating your power, by saving yourself.

You see in each instance they're saying self deliverance is the criteria that you're gonna prove your genuineness. You know, basically, if you're saying that you're the messiah, if you're saying that you can save other people, if you can't save yourself, why should anybody think you can save anyone else?

And this whole crowd is calling it out because in their eyes, power is all about self-protection, self-promotion. [00:13:00] Since interesting, numerous times we're told in the gospels that the religious leaders fear Jesus. But now he's on the cross and surrounded by enemies. He appears weak. And so now they mock him.

Look at the words in verse 35. It says, he saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ of God. You see, they can't deny that he saved others. They knew that he had, there were countless people around that he had healed. There were even people that were there that, that he had raised from the dead, and they know that.

They can't deny that, but they say, oh, sure, you claim to have power. But if you really have power, then show it by saving yourself. And likewise, the Romans. And they, they knew about power. The whole Roman empire was built upon power. And when they think about a king, they think about Caesar. And Caesar was a man who knew how to wield power and, and how to gain that for his advantage.

And so the soldier sin, verse 37, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. If you are a king, then show [00:14:00] it by saving yourself. But they all misunderstood. The, you know, or miss, the complete upside down nature of the gospel message, because only in not saving himself was Jesus able to save others. What they missed was that Jesus power was demonstrated not in what he would do for himself, but the fact that here you have the king of kings, the Lord of Lord, the creator of the universe, who emptied himself and became nothing, who allowed himself to be beaten and mocked, allowed himself to be stripped naked, and hung on a cross.

It allowed himself to become an object of ridicule because the one who had all power also had the strength and the love not to use it, so that by the very act of not saving himself, he was able to save humanity. And again, this is so backwards. It goes so against everything that we think from our culture that even now, 2000 years later, people struggle with the image of the cross.

That's why we [00:15:00] saw Paul said earlier for the word of the cross is folate To those who are perishing. They don't understand it. It doesn't make sense. But to those of us who are being saved, it is a power of God. And there might be some, you know, that look at it and say, I, I still struggle with the cross.

It's a crazy idea. And it is a crazy idea. But here's what I want you to realize. If you were to make this up, you would never make a religion based on this. In Jesus demonstrates his power, not in his ability to promote himself, but in his love and self sacrifice, not in overcoming his enemies and establishing a political earthly kingdom, but in the fact that he died, that he might save others and give a spiritual life.

So it tells us he didn't save himself. But then even in that, what did he not save himself from? Well, let's go a little deeper on that. As we saw in verse 33, Luke describes his death with just four words. It says, and when they [00:16:00] came to the place of the skull there, they crucified him. Just four words.

There's after spending literally a chapter on, on all these details around his trial and around his, you know, um, um, you know, beating and all these things. Just four words. Now we have to ask why, you know, why don't they describe more of the physical suffering and, and all the things that he went through.

Realize that the Bible is incredibly precise. It's very selective in what it says and what it doesn't say. And, and here in Luke we have incredible details around some events, even, even about them gambling for his clothes, and, and yet it says almost nothing about the physical suffering of the cross, the central events.

I mean, throughout the whole gospel of Luke, Luke has been pointing us towards the cross as Jesus' destiny. But now we get there and we only have this four words and they crucified him. There are very, you know, no details about his physical suffering and considering all of this and the fact that it's, you know, the central event in Jesus' [00:17:00] life and all of human history literally, doesn't it seem unusual that we don't have more description.

It's not only in Luke, it's actually in all the gospel writers. They all give us these incredibly brief descriptions. In fact, I, I think about in Colossians four, Paul refers to Luke as the beloved physician. So Luke, we know is a doctor, and if there's anyone who would take interest in the physical sufferings of the cross, it would've been Luke.

But we just have these few words describing his death. And it's not only even here in the gospels, if you look in the epistles, none of them give a, a description of Jesus' physical suffering. Now, on the other hand, when I think about it, you know, the, this time of year, I mean, we probably have, you know, if you've listened to the radio or you probably have heard messages, you've seen things where we have these descriptions of here's what the cross is and, and, and a description of his pain and his suffering and, and, and the trauma.

Uh, or I think about the movie, the Passion of the Christ, which was just a visual depiction of that, of his physical suffering. And it's overwhelming. [00:18:00] And, and we know, I, I could describe that we know what it was like, but all of it is from other historical records of Crucifixions or it's from modern medical descriptions.

It's not from the Bible because the Bible doesn't give us a description of his physical suffering. And again, we have to ask why that seems unusual. And I think the key reason is that the gospel writers led by the Holy Spirit knew that if we focus too much on the physical suffering of Jesus, we might stop there and see that as the main event.

To become fixated on the physical suffering and realize that and not realize that was just a shadow, that wasn't the real thing. Jesus' death had not only a deeper meaning. His suffering on the cross was a shadow. It had a deeper dimension. I. His real suffering was happening at this deeper level. The shadow was giving us an idea, but was pointing us to this ultimate reality.

As terrible as the physical suffering was, it was a shadow [00:19:00] of a far greater pain and torment that Jesus went through on the cross. And the physical pain of the cross was a shadow of the spiritual torment that Jesus took as he took the sins and the punishment for our sins from the Father at the cross there.

And that's why the, the gospel writers don't say, what was his suffering? Like? What did it mean? What did it accomplish? I think about one Peter where it talks about for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous that he might, uh, bring us to God. It's about that, about what he accomplished.

And so, so how did it accomplish that? Again, seeing that the gospel writers, the Luke, gives us almost no details, but here's what I want you to realize. It does give us a lot of details, but not about the physical suffering. I. And in these other details actually show us about the true meaning, the true agony, kind of what's behind the shadow.

Now, again, if we wanna look at this, let me draw your attention to verses 44 and 45. We read now was about the sixth [00:20:00] hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour when the sun's light failed. Now you say, what in the world is that? Why is that there? Now there's more here than Jesus just dying on the cross.

It's actually pointing us to the real suffering. What's to talk about darkness? And see, we might look at this and we think, well, maybe it's a solar eclipse. Most of us, when we think of darkness coming in the middle of the day, that seems to be the picture that we have. And in fact, for many of us, that was always kind of a theory.

Um, you know, we've seen pictures, we've heard about an eclipse. Well, this spring we got to experience one, didn't we? And so, so if you were out there, you saw that solar eclipse, you saw the darkness that came over our land. Now, we don't know exactly what happened at the cross, but I don't believe it was an eclipse because all the gospel writers not only tell us that it got dark, but it was totally dark for three hours.

And while an eclipse does bring darkness, it only lasts at the center for about seven minutes, not three hours, [00:21:00] nor some people would say, well, maybe it's really dark clouds that came in. And I don't think it's that either, because based on the Bible's description, it was something that was really unusual, very disturbing.

Look at how Luke again describes it. He says It was about the sixth hour and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. So for three hours while the sun's light failed. Now what in the world is that? And why do we have this description? Why is this important? And again, some people, man, is it just a scene?

It was like sadness and like was Jesus, you know, God being like the ultimate movie maker and setting the scene of darkness. No, it's not that either. Those of you who have been a part of our church for any period of time, you know that periodically we talk about rules for interpreting the Bible, right?

And so if you've been around, you know, the first rule of interpreting the Bible, so you can say it with me. The first rule of interpreting the Bible is use scripture to interpret scripture. Right, and this, this is what we have to do here. So we look at this and we say, well, what is the darkness? What does that mean?

Well, let's [00:22:00] start and say, does the Bible use this imagery? Does the Bible talk about the sun going dark? Does it talk about a day of darkness? And the answer is yes. If we look at the Bible, we see that darkness is repeatedly through use throughout the Bible. Specifically speaking of God's judgment upon sin.

Especially in the Old Testament, the day of God's judgment is consistently called the day of darkness. I'm give, give just a couple verses and there are many that do this. So for example, in Amos on that day, it declares the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth and broad daylight.

That sounds like it fits, doesn't it? Or, or, or we could to go on, Joel, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the word comes. And so it's talking about ultimately God's ultimate day of judgment. That you know, that ultimate judgment upon sin. It's talking about what we would refer to hell.

So when we look at this and we see, okay, [00:23:00] what it means then when the sun goes dark, I think what Luke is telling us is that air at the cross, Jesus literally experienced hell. Theater, darkness and sunlight failing. What was happening on the outside that we could perceive is teaching us about a spiritual reality that was happening in Jesus' soul.

That Jesus at the cross not only took our His, our sins upon himself, but at that time he also then took God's punishment for those sins. And so he experienced not only the physical pain of crucifixion, but at the same time a far greater agony. The agony of God's wrath of the punishment Upon sin, he experienced the agony of hell.

The Bible teaches that at the cross, Jesus took not only our sins upon himself, but the weight of God's punishment. This one who had lived a perfect life, who, who deserved God's reward, instead took our sins and the punishment that our sins deserved while at the same time then offering those of us who believe his righteousness.

That's what Paul teaches in one [00:24:00] Peter three. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God. And so when we say that he took the punishment of our sins that we deserved, what it means is that I think that he literally experienced the agony of hell while on the cross.

That's what it means when he says the sun's light failed. That's the picture we're trying to see. See, it's not only here when we look at it, it's not just this description of Jesus' death and or when we look in the Old Testament, when we see all these descriptions of God's judgment, the day of darkness, and, but you know, if many of us we know, okay, we go to Revelation.

And when you think of hell, it's often referred to as Lake of Fire. Well, that's in Revelation, right? If you know, it's far more common in the Bible than most common description is not the lake of fire. It's actually utter darkness, the place of utter darkness. And all this is pointing to this incredible idea that what we need to think is when we think of God's ultimate place for judgment of sin, we describe it as hell.

Hell is ultimately a place of utter darkness because it's a place of [00:25:00] total separation from God. That's the image that is here. See, God is a light. And to be banished from the presence of God is to be cast into utter darkness. And when I say that God is light, what I mean by that is that God is the source of not only light, of, of everything that is good.

James one 17 says that every good and perfect gift is from above. God is the source of every good gift, every good thing that we experience, even though we live in a fallen world. See, even for those who are those who reject, God, we live in this fallen world, but we still experience God's goodness because we, we live in this world that he's created.

It's often referred to as as common grace, that there's common grace that comes to everyone. So God is the source of all love, any joy, any goodness, any, any beauty, any kindness, any peace that we would ever know, that God is the source of that. And the only reason that humanity doesn't totally freeze and fall apart.

Is that even on this earth, even for those who reject God, God is still in a sense [00:26:00] near to us. He's like the son that is to some degree, keeping our humanity from totally freezing. This is true even for an unbeliever. Well, lemme try to illustrate this idea. Imagine that there's a group of people that, uh, they spend their whole life in a cave that's underground.

If somebody is born there, they're raised there, they're deep under earth. They, they've never come out from, from underground. I. And perhaps they would say, well, I've heard about the sun, but they disagree there is even a sun because they've never seen it. It's like, why would I believe it? I've never seen it.

I've never felt it. It's, it's all, it's all a make-believe. And yet, in spite of the fact that they're living in the cave, then they've never seen the sun. They don't believe in the sun. It's the sun that's still keeping them alive. The fact that the cave is 50 degrees where they can survive and not negative 455 degrees of space.

It's because of the sun. And even though they cannot directly see it or sense it, it's keeping them from freezing. And that's exactly the situation. The Bible says we're all [00:27:00] in any good that we experience any love, any joy, any beauty, any pleasure, all of that is from God. And even if we don't have a relationship, we still have it indirectly and hell is described as utter darkness because in hell, those who are unbelievers, who reject God are are cast away from God.

And not only from God's presence, but all the vestiges of his goodness. See when God leaves you, when you are totally separated from God, what that means is that your humanity freezes because you're in the utter darkness. There is no love to experience. There is no beauty. There is no peace. There's no kindness.

There's no none of those things. There's none of it, my friends. That's what happened to Jesus. Jesus for the Jesus, the sun went out. The sun did not shine. He could not sense God in any way. There, there he didn't feel God's presence. And, and in the process, he took a, he took the sense of humanity in himself and the wrath and that wrath of being totally punched in utter [00:28:00] darkness with something that was, was overwhelming.

The physical suffering on the cross was nothing compared to what he experienced through the spiritual suffering. And that's why we never see him cry out. That's why there isn't the description of the physical suffering in the gospels. That's why in all the gospels, he never cries out, you know, my hands when he puts her, you know, by side or he doesn't ever do that.

In fact, the only time we see him cry out in agony is in Matthew 27, where he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And what is that? Describing the utter darkness. I can't bear this. This is the ultimate pain. See, what Luke is telling us is this is a judgment day before the judgment day.

There's a darkness that's coming upon Jesus, the eternal justice of God upon sin that comes upon him, that demolishes him, and why did Jesus do this? Because he had to experience our judgment day for us so that we wouldn't have to experience it for ourselves. The reason [00:29:00] Jesus did it is because what he knew he could accomplish as he didn't save himself.

But he gave himself up for our good. And you see what he accomplishes in taking our judgment at the end of verse 45, because we're told that at the end of the crucifixion, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. And he's describing the barrier that's destroyed by the cross. You see, if you were to, it's describing the Jewish temple.

If you were to, we don't understand this, but if you were go into Jewish temple that time, we know these descriptions. The De temple was defined by barriers. You know, if you were a Gentile, you could go to the court of the Gentiles, but you couldn't go any further. Well, if you were a Jewish woman, you could go a little further, but court of women, but you couldn't go any further.

And if you were a Jewish man, you could go a little bit further, but then you had to stop and, and then you had the holy place and, and only the priest could go in there and only every once in a while, but they couldn't go any further there. Then you have the holy place, the most holy place, the holy of Holies, and, and there was this huge curtain that was there.

Several inches [00:30:00] thick. It was so thick, it was like a sound barrier and 60 feet high. And, and there was the holy of holies and only the high priest could go there once a year, only after making numerous sacrifices. And see, part of the me, me message of the temple was that God is not accessible through the sacrificial system.

The wrath of God could be in, uh, appeased, but even the best of Jew couldn't hope to go into God's presence. You couldn't have a relationship with God. He couldn't, he couldn't have intimacy. The whole temple said, no access, no matter how hard you work, no matter how sacrifices you make, no matter what you do, the fact is you can't go in and have access with God because we're separated by our sins.

And that's the problem. All of us we have, we're separated and there's nothing we can do to remove our sins. There's, there's no rules that we could keep to take that out. And if our sin isn't removed, then when we die, then we're eternally separated from God. That's hell. That's eternal separation from God.

The utter darkness we talked about. But at the cross, [00:31:00] Jesus took upon himself not only our sins, but God's just wrath that our sins deserved. He took our punishment, he experienced our hell, our separation from God. It's clearly taught in passages like Colossians two and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh.

God has made alive together with him having forgiven us our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross we're separated, but he set it aside. He nailed to the cross. It's paid for there, but the Bible teaches us that the cross, he does even more.

God not only takes our sin and the punishment we deserve, but then he then transfers God's Jesus righteousness to us and the reward that he earned. So in two Corinthians five, for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin that in him we might become the righteousness of God, that we actually become righteous.

You see, if Jesus just forgave us, you know, we would have a blank [00:32:00] slate, and then we would have to try to do enough good things on our own, establish our own righteousness. But the Bible teaches that at the cross, Jesus not only takes our sin, but he gives us his righteousness. Not only did he take our punishment and experience hell for us, but for those of us who believe in him, we get not only his righteousness, we get his reward, we get heaven.

That explains the tearing of the veil. The veil was a symbol of how we were separated by God, by our sins. The law pointed to the failure. We couldn't keep the law. But when Jesus died, the veil is ripped not from bottom up. It's not by our effort, but from top down because it's God saying, now I am destroying the, the, the veil, the barrier that divided you.

And he said, now I'm gonna enter on the way into the holy of holy. I'm gonna enter away so that you can now have relationship with me. It's a door of relationship with Christ. We don't have to go to a place, we don't have to go to the temple. We don't have to go through certain priests. We don't have to keep rules and rituals.

I love Hebrews 10. It describes [00:33:00] this imagery of the veil and, and it talks about what we have in Jesus Christ says, therefore, brother, since we have confidence to enter the holy place, we can go in the holy place. We can go where no one could go before. Why By the blood of Jesus and by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh.

He tore the curtain, and now we come in because of what he tore. Therefore, since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with a heart sprinkled quain from an evil conscience in our bodies. Watch with pure water. We draw near to God.

We have relationship with him. So that's the beauty of the cross. That's what this all means. That's why we have the details that we have. But the question that we have to ask is, at the end of the day, how do you respond to this? How do you respond to the cross? See the cross is foolishness to many. It's foolishness to the don't believe.

It doesn't make sense, but the fact is, apart from the cross, we are separated from God by our sin. [00:34:00] There's nothing we can do through religion to work our way towards God. And if we die in our sin, the reality is that we die and we have eternal separation. It's God not even punishing. He says, so can you choose?

You chose to live life without me. I will give you that for eternity. But we also have none of the goodness that comes with God. That's what Hell is. And one of the things that we need to remember is if you are an unbeliever, if you reject God, not only here, but through the end of your life, what that means is this life is as close to heaven as you're gonna ever get because you, you still have God.

Indirectly, we're still in the cave, but at the end of the day, we lose everything of God. We're totally separated from everything that is good, you see? But Jesus Christ came and at the cross, he took our punishment. He took hell for us. He, he experienced that for us so that he now offers each one of us, trust in me, believe in me.

And if we believe in him, he then not only takes our sin, he takes that penalty, he takes that punishment, he gives us his righteousness so that we not only have his [00:35:00] righteousness, we have his reward. And here's the beautiful thing for those of us who are believers, for those of us who know Christ, you know, we, we can recognize that this is as close to hell as we're gonna ever get.

Right, because we now have partial ex separation from God. But, but our eternity is, is totally united with Christ. Our future reward is perfect relationship with God, perfect joy, perfect Jo beauty. Perfect goodness, perfect love. That's what heaven is. I mean, it's overwhelming. So what is your response? And there were a lot of people there that, that watched, that knew.

We saw the leaders and, and, and, you know, the, uh, the soldiers. They're mocking. They, they understand, well, this doesn't make sense to me. This. It is foolish. It's folly. I hope that's not you. But there were others that we read at the end of this, this section where they were moved. Look at verse 47. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God.

Certainly this man was innocent. The crowds assembled in the spectral when they seen [00:36:00] to place return home beating their breast. He's innocent if the crowds, they're moved emotionally. The SEC Securian, he's moved intellectually. This is a righteous man, but. But we don't have any record of him actually trusting in Jesus.

So it's not just to know about, it's not just to be moved emotionally, but what we see is especially the reaction of that second criminal who is being crucified with Jesus. That's the reaction God calls us to Back in verse 31, you know, he's speaking to the, the other criminal who is mocking Jesus. And he said, we, uh, justly deserve this.

We are receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. And then he turns and he says to Jesus, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. What did he do? He acknowledged his sin. God, there's sin that separates me. And, and I acknowledge that. And, and he doesn't try to, he doesn't try to, you know, um, you know, Jesus, I'll do this.

He, he has nothing to offer. He ask for grace. He doesn't try to convince Jesus. He's good. He doesn't talk about, he just says, I need to be forgiven. [00:37:00] He understood at a very basic level that here you have Jesus who is not just dying. He's not dying for himself. He's dying for him, for you. For me, taking our sin, our punishment, so that all who would believe in him see our sins would be forgiven, that we would know the forgiveness and grace of Jesus Christ.

That thing that would remove us, that veil is torn into so that we now enter into relationship with Christ. We enter into the holy place. That's the invitation of Easter. That's the invitation of the cross. What's your response? You know, there may be some here. If you've never trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior, I hope today there's the day that you do that, that you understand not only the events that happened, but the meaning, but you also understand that it's Jesus not only died, he died for you, and his invitation is for you.

Are you willing to come to him and say, God, I ask you to forgive me for my sins. I I want to trust in you. There may be some where you've done that in the past, and if you've wandered [00:38:00] away and, and we need to come back and be amazed again to understand that Jesus has brought forgiveness for you. Not, it wasn't cheap, it was incredible.

He went through hell. Do you understand what that means and how can we continue to reject him and continue in our sin and wander away? And I hope this Easter that you overwhelmed by how deeply you are loved. How the incredible price that Jesus Christ paid for the forgiveness of your sins, and invite you to say, come and be overwhelmed by that.

Come into relationship, come into closeness. I hope that for each one of us, that as we think about the cross this Easter, it's not just a story. It's not just an event that happened, that we're overwhelmed by the demonstration of Jesus Christ and his love for you from me. The price that he paid and the invitation into relationship of coming into the holy place.

Because we know [00:39:00] that through our faith in him, our sins have been rema removed. If you have a question about the Message Community Church or Jesus Christ, send us a text to 3 3 0 432 42. You can learn more about our events and community groups at CCP Life slash connect There. You can also send in a prayer request.

We would love to pray for you. Have a blessed Lord's Day, and we'll see you on Sunday.