And again, we turn to a very familiar passage for most of us. There's always the possibility that someone has happened upon us this night, and they're very welcome. We're going to be focusing this night on what stands at the very center of our faith. Any of you who's been following social media will know of Scott McKenna, the minister in Edinburgh, who says that nowhere does the Bible teach substitutionary atonement. And, well, if you were listening this morning, it would be difficult to draw a conclusion like that. And it is very clear, as we read particularly the Gospels, that a significant part of those gospels of people telling the story of Jesus for all his wondrous miracles and for all his peerless teachings and insights and for all the care that he offered to the poor and to the ill, at the very core of these gospels, taking up substantial chunks of the material, is the build-up and the reality of the cross and the resurrection. These are not just the ends of the gospel, but they are the climax, as we saw this morning, not only to the gospel, but to these trajectories that have been pointing towards these incidents. And we're going to use Mark again to help us in looking at these matters. So, if you turn with me to Mark 15, and from verse 21, I'm reading from the ESV. It will not be significantly different in your Bibles. This is the Word of God. And the compelled, a passerby, Simon or Cyrene, who is coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry Jesus' cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him, and the inscription of the charge against him read, The King of the Jews. And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, Aha, you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days. Save yourself and come down from the cross. So also the chief priests and the scribes mocked him to one another, saying he saved others. He cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabbathania, which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, Behold, he is calling Elijah. And someone ran and filled the sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last." And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the Son of God. There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Younger and of Joseph in Siloam. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him. And there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. Amen, and may God bless to us this reading of His holy word, and to His name be praise and glory given. I ask you to have your Bibles open at Mark's gospel. Normally I would stick to one passage, but we're actually going to be gathering things up from the various gospel accounts. So, if I don't perchance tell you exactly what gospel I'm referring to, then you should, before you accuse me of preaching something that's not in the Bible, at least go home and try and find it in some of the other gospel accounts. And then if it's not there, you have every right to then challenge me about what I've been saying. So, we began this morning, as we began the Lord's Day, by identifying the fact that there were a number of different trajectories that ran through the whole of the Bible, but one of the central, if not the central trajectory that we identified this morning was the trajectory of God's saving activity in the world, that God is identified in many ways in the Bible But I suppose ultimately what we're saying is that he is identified as a saving God, a God who saves our sins and a God who then sends us out into the world to proclaim the gospel And it would simply not make sense for us to be proclaiming any gospel that didn't have that central theme at its heart, that God is a saving God, that mission and evangelism and outreach is something that begins with God, and it begins with what God has done, and it begins with what He has done uniquely in the saving death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this evening we come again to one of the key works of God, the work of God in salvation, namely the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. And so we get rid of all the foreshadowings of the Passover, of the previews that we have in these elements of bread and wine. We even move away from where we were this morning in Jesus experiencing a foretaste of the cross and of the agonies and sufferings and isolations, as we're going to see in God's Word this night, that he knew he was to experience in the reality and the experience of the cross, to dealing with the actual cross itself. The cross has a key role in instructing us generally. You hear a lot of chat in liberal circles these days about the God of the New Testament being somewhat different from the God of the Old Testament. Well, that's impossible to rationalize if you have at the very center of the whole of the Bible the cross. because in the cross we see the crucial coming together of mercy meeting the wrath of God, as Stuart Townend very skillfully puts together in his great hymn. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament is the one saving God. And that experience that we see the Lord Jesus Christ engaging in is the experience of the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world. And as we can imagine, after contemplating all that he foretasted in the Garden of Gethsemane, the reality and the experience of the cross is never something that we should lightly pass over. Actually, it's a very interesting point to make in passing that the New Testament writers do not dwell very much, if at all, on the horror that crucifixion undoubtedly was. And yet, as we read through the various gospel accounts, we recognize that something of a physical horror took place, something of an emotional horror took place, and something of a spiritual horror took place. The other interesting thing that we can perhaps notice, because it's almost so obvious as we read the passage, is that there seems to be a number of conversations that are going on around the cross and with Jesus and with the prisoners who were being executed beside Him. And I want to use some of these aspects of what took place on the cross to help us to begin to consider again this evening something of what it cost the Lord Jesus Christ to bear our sins. And the first of those conversations or cries comes from Jesus to the Father. from Jesus to the Father. We're told that Jesus cries out in a loud voice, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, we'll touch on this a wee bit more in a few moments' time, but I want to say three things very quickly about that cry from the cross. That cry of isolation. Remember how we noticed this morning about Mark isolating Jesus? He went a little further, and he took three disciples with him, and then he went a little further, and he was alone, and that sense of being alone, and that sense of being alone with the Father. Remember, he cried out, Abba, Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me. But now he cries out in total isolation, forsaken by the Father. And the first thing we need to realize about that is that that is a real experience for Jesus. There are many of us who could associate with the children's talk this morning when we find ourselves in a time of crisis. We cry out to God, don't you care? We have that sense of feeling forsaken by God, abandoned by him. We cry out, what on earth are you doing, God, in the circumstances that prevail around our life? And a lot of people in pastoral situations in these extremes will often say to me, I feel that God has abandoned me. And many of us perhaps could associate at least with moments when we have at least crossed our mind that perhaps God has abandoned us. We open up our Bibles. And we find assurance in the Bibles that the promise of God is that He will never leave us, fail us, or forsake us. And so the Bible becomes a corrective to the ups and downs of our emotions and of our feelings. And I don't mean this in any irreverent way. We are missing the point. if we think that Jesus is simply having a bad day or an emotional down when He cries out that He is forsaken by the Father. It is real. On that cross He has become sin, the very damned and rejected of God. It's not just a real experience, it's a new experience. It's a new experience for him. From the very moment that he took on the fullness of human flesh, he had been in perfect communion with the Father. In his walk, in his prayer, in his spiritual life, he would look to the Father, he would talk to the Father, he would commune with the Father. and he would know nothing but the Father's delight and approval. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." That was not simply a one-off exhortation of the Father towards His Son, but it was a constant affirmation of the Son and of His faithfulness and of His walk, of His to that task that he had committed himself to before the very beginning of the world. And now, in perhaps the cruelest of ironies, as he fulfills that promise and completes that For the first time in his life, he looks for the Father, and the Father has turned his face away. And he is absolutely and finally isolated. The second person of the Godhead, whose very identity is measured in relational terms, he is part of the Trinity. He is of the oneness of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that Trinity has been broken. And the Son has been cast away. As the Father pours the wrath that should have been poured on me and on you, he pours it onto the Son in that new experience of isolation. And do you notice in the course of those few verses from what we were looking at this morning in chapter 14, where he cries out in that foretaste of the cross, Abba, Father? Do you notice the difference of his cry on the cross? Do you notice it's no longer Abba, Father? It's my God. My God, why have you forsaken me? It's not just real. It's not just you. It's our experience that he experiences on the cross in my place. condemned he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood." Hallelujah. What a Savior. As we work our way through this, turn with me to Luke's gospel and his account in chapter 23 of Luke's gospel. Here we have another comment or cry of Christ to the Father. 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." Here is something that reminds us that in amongst all that is happening, the Lord Jesus Christ is still exercising His full lordship and divinity over His death. Do we realize that on the cross, as the Lord Jesus Christ was being crucified, He alone determined the moment that He would die? Now that shouldn't come as a surprise to us, because he's already said things like, I will lay down my life, no one will take it from me. And there are lots of wee evidences and hints that we can find in the gospel accounts that confirm this. Not least in verse 46 here, Jesus cried out with a loud voice. Now what does that tell us? Well, what happens in crucifixion is that generally people didn't die in crucifixion from being nailed to the cross. What happened was they died from the fact that they basically couldn't breathe. And they couldn't breathe because they couldn't physically hold air and draw air into their lungs. And therefore, they effectively collapsed into themselves and couldn't lift themselves up on the cross in order to take a breath. So one of the signs that a prisoner who was being executed in a crucifixion was near to death is that he had no breath. And he certainly would never have been able to cry out in a loud voice. He cried out in a loud voice. And having said this, he breathed his last. Here was the Christ on the cross. crying out to the Father that He was still exercising His full control and lordship in the midst of that saving death. And so once again, we have a wonderful picture in Mark's gospel of Jesus experiencing the fullness of His divinity in crucifixion. and the fullness of his humanity in crucifixion. Another wee verse just to look at, chapter 19 of John's gospel, tells us again that, verse 33 of John 19, the soldiers had got to the time of the day when they had decided that they'd had enough of this spectacle, so the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. And again, what happened was they would break the legs so that the prisoner couldn't push himself up in order to take his breath. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, between the lines there we read they didn't expect him to be dead after that time, they did not break his legs. And just while we're here so that we can see how all this so wonderfully ties up with these trajectories of the Bible, if you flick back to Exodus 12 and to the Passover, when the instructions were being given in Exodus 12, 46, The Bible tells us that the instructions were that the statute of Passover, no foreigner shall eat of it, but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. No foreigner or hired servant may eat of it. It shall be eaten in one house, and you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. And so we see in this sovereign act of the Lord determining that he would lay down his life, he is fulfilling the scriptures and fulfilling the plan. Jesus' death was deliberate, sovereign, and active. And that was the experience that he communicated on the cross with the Father. Secondly, and much briefer, are the conversations that are taking place in the crowd. As we read through that account, if we go back to Mark's gospel, one of the words that keeps coming through this account is the word save. He saved others. He cannot save himself. If you come down from the cross, save yourself. Surely God will send angels to save you. But as William Booth once said, it was precisely because he did not come down that he was the savior. What we have in these conversations with the crowd is the crowd engaging first of all in mocking. Matthew particularly draws our attention to this in the 27th chapter, as he offers his account of what is going on here. 27, 29, twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand, and kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. Jesus on the cross is the King mocked. Jesus on the cross is the King charged. Above him was placed the sign, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews. But the most dramatic and powerful conversation that takes place on the cross is the one that Luke records for us, that takes place between the Lord Jesus Christ and one of the thieves who was dying beside Him. The King petitioned. Luke 23, 42 says that one of those who was crucified with him turned to Jesus and they said, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Have we ever thought of how bizarre that is? That a man who is dying on a cross would turn to someone else who was in exactly the same predicament and look for hope and look for an assurance of the future and look to find peace? What a bizarre thing that would be. to turn to somebody who was in the same hole as you were. And yet in that turning, we see the very identity of the one who was turned to. And on the cross, he petitioned the King crucified. Remember me when you come in to your kingdom. A dying man turns to a dying man and seeks to find hope and assumes hope from a fellow death row inmate in the midst of his execution. There can be no more hopeless a picture than the crucifixion of a man. He was going nowhere. He was done for. The end was both near and inevitable, and yet this man beside him turns and finds hope and assurance and promise as he looks into the eyes of Jesus. If there ever was a reminder of the truth that we live by promise and not by circumstances, then here it is. the dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. And there have I, as vile as he, washed all my sins away." And we could, of course, go on with many other things that were said and done, conversations from the cross. But Jesus died on that cross not for my righteousness, for I have none. But for mercy's sake, Jesus God's Son suffered on Calvary's tree, crucified with thieves was he. And this he did for me." The final great cry is the cry of Jesus to the world. It is finished. It is finished. The work that began before the very beginning of the world and those conversations between the Godhead where Jesus, if you like, put up His hand and says, I will go. I will die that saving death on the cross. It will fall on me. And with complete awareness of the finished nature of the task as He is crucified and as He gives up His life, the testimony to us is, that he has now finished the great work of salvation. Let this cup pass from me and we hold our breath. We can now release it and draw another breath to allow us to worship him and praise him and rejoice in what he has done for you and for me. on Calvary's cross, bearing our burden, bearing shame and scoffing rude in my place, condemned he stood. This night, as we gather around this Lord's table, my prayer is, and the prayer of many in this building is, this night, that no one will leave this building without being able to say to that testimony, hallelujah, what a Savior. Let's pray. Father, we pray this night for all that we have heard. of what you, at the very beginning of the world, had determined would take place, and what the Lord Jesus Christ, in all the fullness of His humanity and the fullness of His divinity, was uniquely equipped to finish and accomplish. It is finished, was His Christ. And so there is nothing more for us to do. There is nothing for us to bring. There is nothing of ourselves that has any value here. Because it's done. And it's finished. And as we now crown this day around the Lord's table, May we receive this bread and wine in grateful remembrance of all that you have done for us in that completed work of salvation through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, bless us. Continue to minister to us through Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray this.