Mark Chapter 15 Verse 35

•Jesus didn’t speak in tongues when He cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” He spoke in Aramaic. A language that many (if not all) of the Jews would know at the time because the Old Testament is written mostly in Hebrew but it does have a decent amount of it written in Aramaic. And so if those that stood by would have been more perceptive they would have recognized Jesus’ words were the beginning of Psalm 22, a Messianic Psalm (a Psalm about the Messiah). No doubt some did.

•I want to be part of the some, man…to hear correctly. To not just hear what is being said but to hear why it is being said. To see in full color if you will…To understand the genesis, the root, the connections, the truth…I don’t want to miss real meaning, (do you know what I’m sayin?) (like when Link has his batteries backwards in his toy because Madison put them in there)…when I’m spending time in the Word…or when I’m just talking with a friend…they miss it here…

Mark Chapter 15 Verse 36

•This sour wine, powerful vinegar, again would have been a numbing agent and so this “someone” did not do this out of compassion but out of curiosity…to prolong His suffering to see if Elijah would come…

•Did Jesus call for Elijah? No! Who said He did? “Some of those who stood by,” right? So here’s the scene. This person listens to people, not to Jesus (and look even you are people, even I am people)…misses what’s really going on and then what…does something stupid. Man that is always the case!

Mark Chapter 15 Verse 37

•Seven statements were made by Jesus as He was upon the cross. Mark only gives us 1. The weight of my condemnation resting fully upon Him…His shoulders, His mind, His heart…knowing the penalty that I deserve…He cries out the first…”Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing!” Man that wrecks me…He looks down, hanging a story in the air by three nails and as He is ridiculed and murdered, He prays mercy for them…

•Then, to the thief next to Him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise!” Think about this! Jesus is dying for that man’s sins!! And blasts forth grace! Not only will I die here in your place with you weight of sin on Me, I will trade you, deliver to you, secure for you My weight of glory!!! Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting that which you do not deserve! Grace is on display in that statement!

•Then, “Woman, behold your son. Son behold your mother.” Not speaking of Himself but entrusting Mary into the care of John as she weeps desperately at the foot of the cross. Oh how He does that today. As we weep at the cross of Christ with our hearts ripped open…how the Lord sends folks to care for us.

•And oh man, how is this? He is on the cross and STILL making provision for others…so amazing! Man I want to be more like that! Notice though his provision for the proud? The blasphemers? Opportunity! His provision for the broken? Thorough! God help us to discern wisely…

•Then, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Next, “I thirst.” Most believe Jesus was calling out as a result of His body…His dry mouth…but I’m not sure I see anywhere in the Bible where Jesus complained…”I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m sore,” but yet I do know that at this moment, and for only this moment, no time before and no time after, He is fully acquainted with sin…and therefore could it be that He hungers and thirsts for righteousness? Thirsty for closeness with the Father? (Matthew 5:6) We have only a glimpse of the pain He felt…

•Then, “It is finished!” “Tetalisti.” Paid in full. And finally, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” And He breathed His last.

•And oh man, I looked at this in the Greek and there is a syfy, thriller, hair-raising, crazy awesomeness hidden here. These seven statements, if you take the final word…(know how we always say, “the final word” because that is what means the most?)…in the Greek of each of these statements then you come to the doorway…the doorway to truth itself! “Do” in the first statement most literally is translated “cause.” Then “paradise.” Then “mother” or more literally translated, “mother” as in land or “motherland” or we could say “home.” Then “Me.” Then “Thirst.” Then “finished.” Then “spirit.” You ready? I trembled when I found this and was writing this down…

•‘Cause or because paradise is home, thirst is finished, we are alive in the spirit…and what’s the smack center? Me! Jesus! That is the seven statement secret to it ALL! Jesus the very center. The very focus! The very source of hope and the very end of all thirst! The center of the home. The center of the church. The center of the life man! Dag that’s awesomeeeeeee!

Mark Chapter 15 Verse 38

•The thrust of what happened at the cross. We will come back to that specific statement as we close this morning so hold that thought.

Mark Chapter 15 Verses 39 – 41

•This centurion must have known the Psalm…see that? “When he saw that Jesus cried out like this…” But even more, this was no petty officer, this was a captain. How long had he been in the force? How many had he seen crucified and yet never any like this…a man who didn’t struggle and fret and finally succumb to his wounds but a man that had the power to simply release His spirit…and the response? Always the response after studying Jesus and finding Him absolutely different and amazing and powerful and loving and wondrous in all His ways? “Truly, this Man is the Son of God…”

Mark Chapter 15 Verses 42 – 43

•A huge move of faith on the part of this council member. He was there when the council delivered Jesus to Pilate, without a doubt…we know that from the first verse of Mark 15…and now here he comes…and takes the body of Jesus…to honor Him! But there’s more than meets the eye here. (There’s always so much more than what is written in words…) What where Jews never to do in terms of the dead? Handle dead bodies! That would make them unclean! And so not only is he giving up his prominent position but he is also offering to God his societal reputation! Why? Why were all these things meaningless to him? Because he has a correct, wise, proper, brilliant perspective. He was waiting for the kingdom of God!!!

Mark Chapter 15 Verses 44 – 47

•John 19 tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was accompanied by whom? Nicodemus…Nicodemus left it all behind as well…why? He had found what he was looking for that night. That night, back in John Chapter 3, when he came to Jesus because he had the entire world…money, position, popularity, respect, possessions, righteousness in the law even…and yet he thirsted…something wasn’t finished…paradise wasn’t his home…and Jesus told him that night…you cannot make yourself right…you must die and be born again not of water but of the spirit…paradise, home, end of thirst, all of this wandering finished…you must be born of the spirit.

•You see salvation must be a work of God…not of you…you can’t get at it man…impossible…but God can…for anyone…check this out…back to verse 38, back there as we close…as Jesus breathed His last on the cross…our perfect Passover Lamb…dying in my place and in yours for the sins of the world…the separation between God and man was torn in two. The veil in the temple separated the inner sanctuary from the Holy of Hollies. The Most Holy Place…a place only the High Priest could go that contained the throne of God…the Ark of the Covenant…man forever removed because of sin…and yet when Jesus accomplished my rescue…it was torn how? From the top down…and the very presence of God is now in the midst of man…because the price has been paid in full!

•You and I, this world, human beings…are born and by our very nature…immoral. And in my sin years ago I would wear that like a badge…yea I’m reckless, no one can control me, I do what I want! But the definition and the destination of immorality is dissolution…depravity…decay and ultimately…abandonment…

•Introduce the cross…the “t” into our nature and we go from immoral…lost, degrading, being defeated, losing and decaying to immortal…and immorality becomes immortality…a thorough offering from Jesus Christ this morning to the believer and an opportunity offered this morning for the nonbeliever…