hour had come, there was a darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, 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 a 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 and Mary, the mother of James the Younger and of Joseph and Salome. 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. May God bless to us the reading of this, his word. And I will mute myself and we will ask Reverend Beck to bring us the morning message. Unmute himself, sorry. Thank you. It is certainly a joy to be with you today. And it's been interesting watching Mark try to master the technology at his fingertips. But I don't want you to think I didn't enjoy the Psalms, the only tune that I recognized was the last one so I was able to sing along with that. And I will say that it's probably a good thing that we're muted because I sing in the key of me and in the note of Neil. I've been thrown out of several choirs and I do make a joyful noise but it is apparently a noise and not a song. Let's have a word of prayer to begin. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen. If I were to have a title for today's sermon, it would be Mark's Concise Account of Redemption Purchased. Mark's account of the crucifixion is short and to the point. He doesn't tell you everything Jesus spoke from the cross. He leaves that for others. He tells you one of the words, then mentions a loud cry, but doesn't tell you what it was. He also, he's always cutting to the chase. From the beginning of his gospel, he is concise. His gospel is loaded with now, then, immediately, and similar never-catch-your-breath narrative-style expressions. Mark tells you nothing about Christ's incarnation, nothing about his childhood. He skips directly to Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. He's not interested in much outside the ministry of Christ. It's like a condensed version of a book. There's enough there to get the full picture. Nothing is missing that would change the story in any way. This is the lean and mean account of Jesus. No frills. It's important then to identify the things Mark tells you. You won't want to miss any of it because he's trimmed it down to key events. He just set the scene for you prior to this passage. The people, the place, and the prejudice. Now he tells you the time. He is given an accounting of the time through this 15th chapter. It's now the ninth hour. The sky has been remarkably dark for three hours. Jesus cries out, and my pronunciation will be a little different than David's, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthanai, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Mark tells you the reaction of the crowd. Events that happen when Jesus breathed his last, then finishes this section with a list of others at the crucifixion. Short and simple. A total of nine verses. A concise account of redemption purchased. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Christ's ministry. Each element tells you something about Jesus' purchase of redemption. Let's start with the time. Mark covers six hours. He starts at the beginning of the crucifixion ordeal, all of it painful, humiliating, and exhausting. Then accounts for the three hours once the cross is raised, where the accused dies by a process of asphyxiation. Given the beating Jesus endured, the horrible night of arrests, trials, and imprisonment, and the science of crucifixion which causes you intense pain to pull yourself up so you can breathe, it's a wonder Jesus endured the six-hour ordeal that Mark identifies. That Jesus did is the point Mark is making. He did this incredible thing for you. He's telling you. He's giving you the timeline of crucifixion so you can count the hours. The term excruciating comes to us from crucifixion. It's a kind of suffering that is unique. Christ's back had been laid bare by the whipping he had taken. He had thorns pressed into his head. He had nails through specific nerves that issue indescribable pain every time Jesus pulled with his arms and pushed with his legs so he could catch a breath of air. His wounded back would rub against the rough hewn wood, causing splinters, reopening wounds, and allowing infection. His body, fearfully and wonderfully made, with so many systems designed to sustain life and heal life, was working at fever pitch to keep him alive, ironically all of it adding to his pain and exhaustion. Jesus endured the curse of the corrupted creation, even here where it had turned against itself. His blood was rushing healing agents to his many wounds. And that required oxygen, forcing him to breathe oh so painfully again and again, each breath creating new urgencies for the body to address. Designed by God to heal, it became a hideous cycle because of the curse of sin, creating more destruction. Jesus endured many things in life for you. He was enduring a more intense physical testing and experience than you or I can possibly imagine. The curse of sin includes physical suffering. You learn about thorns and thistles in Genesis. Pain is a form of death. The wages of sin is death and Jesus was dying this horrible physical death with every gasp of breath he took. He did it. Now truth is associated with light. Light has many benefits including health benefits. But Mark tells you it was dark. Darkness is associated with evil. God created light even before he created light bearers. And that created light separated the day from the night. One of the myriad of qualities he gave it. John beautifully tells you in John 1, in him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. Mark gives you a condensed, pointed example. Darkness was the perception, but light was doing its healing. Those in darkness didn't and don't comprehend it. Another gospel writer, Matthew, tells you in 4.16, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon them, upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned. Quoting Isaiah 9.2. This is certainly the darkness of those three hours. Sin, theirs and yours, had darkened the sky, but through that darkness By God's grace, you have seen a great light. Here you understand that those who sat in the shadow of death have had the light dawn upon them. At the end of this darkness, Mark tells you, Jesus cried out, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The phrase Jesus spoke, not the translation in Greek, was Aramaic. Calvin makes the point that this is a way the Holy Spirit uses to engrave these words so you can hear Jesus say them. That this is the only word Mark mentions in his account of the crucifixion underscores the pointed, concise nature of this redemption purchased account. God wants you to know all seven words and you have them. But besides telling you the physical suffering Jesus bore, Mark picks one word to express the spiritual side of the redemption Jesus purchased. It defies my ability to fully express or even understand all the physical suffering Christ endured in this brief account. It is more than a lifetime of pain for mere mortals. The spiritual suffering, however, was even greater. Philippians 2, in some translations, the more literal ones, say that Jesus emptied himself. If you can picture that, then you can see the entirety of what Jesus did. Our nature is self-preservation. We look out for number one first. Paul gives you one example of emptying yourself in Matthew 5, 7-8. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now if this was a sports analogy you would say he left it all on the field, but sports references are poor expressions of the spiritual emptying Jesus experienced purchasing your redemption. He withheld nothing. He gave all he had, as you will see, his very communion with God the Father. You can hear the words emptied himself, but you cannot understand it in the perfectly righteous human and divine natures of Christ. Jesus is one person with two natures. One nature is human. The other nature is divine. Mark has given you a glimpse into the human physical suffering of Christ and now in his concise style he gives you the divine side of Christ's suffering. Jesus cries out to his Father. God to the Jews and to you generally is a reference to the Father. He is the Godhead. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity of the triune God speaks to the Father. Now we can imagine this type of relationship and communication in the Trinity from verses like Ephesians 111. In him also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. The counsel of his will gives us a glimpse into the tri-unity. This relationship, communion more than communication really, is eternal. Now you cannot fully understand it when you put in the limits of time, but since that is the world you live in you must use words that attempt to speak of a timelessness in a timely way. So you must say the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is eternal. which you can probably best understand as everlasting, but unfortunately that expresses time. This oneness is beyond those terms. Another aspect of the nature of the persons of the Trinity is holiness. This is a holy communion. One wants to say perfectly holy, but that is the only way that holy can be holy. One unholy act destroys holiness and leaves unholiness. Holiness is the hallmark of God. God the Father is holy, God the Son is holy, and the Holy Spirit is holy. It is the beauty of their communion. It is the substance of their communion. It is the basis of their communion. They cannot abide unholiness, for it is not what they are. It is virtually impossible for you to understand a perfect relationship. You know what a good relationship can be to a certain degree. Christians have a basic understanding of one another. Christians know they are sinners saved by grace. There is a common denominator of gratitude for God's grace. Some may understand it better than others. But there's a certain form of humility Which is common to all who love the Lord Jesus. Christians know they don't deserve God's grace. There is a love of God's word. It is the essential book of life to Christians. It teaches you all you need to know for life and godliness. Christians revere it as infallible as God breathed. These are things Christians have in common and which teach you to understand how some relationships have more in common than others. The triune God has everything in common. The thread that makes everything common is holiness. Holiness is the means and method of the perfection of the Trinity's communion. God is good. He is perfect. The counsel of God is perfect because it is one. It is drawn from holiness. It thrives on holiness. exists in holiness. We come to the ninth hour and Jesus tells you something about the perfection of the Trinity. He tells you in the most horrible terms that it is broken. Never, again a time-based term, has there been a disruption in the communion of the Trinity. Never has there been a moment when the communion wasn't perfect. Never was there any break or schism in the seamless fabric of the Trinity. The connection is one. There are three persons but one God. Now Jesus tells you something you can only begin to understand in the most limited fashion. Jesus tells you The Father has forsaken him. It is an anguished cry that tore through the eternal fabric of God. This second person of the Trinity was forsaken. The Father could not abide to commune with the Son. He could not look upon his only begotten, the Holy One of Israel, the way, the truth, and the life, and so much more. His life was holy. He was sinless. He was righteous. He did nothing to break communion with the Father. But here Jesus cries out in a way you can barely comprehend, though God has illumined your dull wits so you can grasp a little, that Jesus was as good as abandoned by the Father. The bond of holiness had been disrupted not because of Christ's sin, he had none, but because of yours. Jesus became your sin and God could not look on him because of the guilt and shame and stench of your sins that he now bore for you. Christ's physical sufferings, though beyond your imagination, pale to the nth degree when measured against the moment in all eternity when your sins broke the fellowship, blackened the communion, threw an impediment in the relationship of the Trinity. When you lose a loved one, you have a sense the loss separation brings. It hurts deeply. It touches the fabric of who you are. It dwells in every corner of your being. It consumes your view of everything. It seems insurmountable. It creates a vacuum in your inner being that cannot be filled by any other. This you feel for those you have known imperfectly for a few fleeting years. This and much more was the reality for Jesus, but not for what was a temporal reality or an incomplete knowledge, but what had been an eternal reality. The father and the son were out of communion, out of fellowship, out of relationship, because of your sin. Forsaken. Enduring the almighty wrath of the Father for the sins he now bore. Sinless, holy, pure. He now felt the shame, guilt, and penalty of sin. Your sin. Now Mark has chosen a concise point to tell you of Christ's suffering. the cost of your redemption, both physical and spiritual. He has more to say. Mark continues, some of those who stood by when they heard that said, look, he is calling for Elijah. Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed and offered it to him to drink, saying, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah will come to take him down. It is not enough that Jesus must bear the unimaginable abandonment of the Father. He now hears the mockery of the crowd, not only against him but the Father as well. It is clear Jesus was calling out to God, not Elijah. The idea that he is calling for Elijah is a false accusation. Fake news isn't new. The crowd in general hated Jesus. They now twist his words. They will not acknowledge his closeness to God. They will not admit to his divinity. They suggest he is deranged, out of his mind, not responsible for the glorious words he has spoken from the cross. Words of forgiveness, love, accomplishment and redemption. They cannot allow these words to be heard and understood by those present. They misquote Jesus. They demean him. They falsely accuse him. Even as he was fulfilling the scriptures, they should have known. It is sad really. Imagine yourself there. He did this for you. The crucifixion ordeal that ends in these last three hours on the cross, the darkened scribe, this wrenching truth of what your sin costs, Christ forsaken? By God's grace you know the cause of Christ's suffering. You can see the light through the darkness. You can be horrified and still rejoice in the price paid for your sin. You are not detached from those things. but they are done for you, not by you. In this last action, by some of those there, you can identify yourself. If you are a Christian, you know what it is like to be a God-hater because he has made you a God-lover. Even so, your life is still full of sin. Though you know the truth, and the truth sets you free, You often find yourself beset by the sins that so easily befall you. You are still slave to those sins. It's like you are saying, no, he's calling out to Elijah, not God. Your sin is a mockery of what Mark is telling you right here. Jesus is not finished, however. Mark isn't done telling you what you need to know, what God wants you to know. You are told And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. So you can assume this cry was, it is finished. Mark tells you this in his own way. He doesn't tell you the exact wording of the cry. He tells you it is loud and all those gathered there can hear it. Yet he still lets you know that Jesus tells you it is finished. Because Mark says, and he breathed his last. Well, that is finished. Jesus was finished his redemptive work on the cross. He had no more to do there. He accomplished what needed to be done. He breathed his last. Even the mockery was endured. Man's despising of the communion of the Trinity. the forsaking of which was the ultimate price to be paid for man's sin. This is a great sign to you of the thoroughness of Christ's redemption. Even the insults hurled at Christ, ridiculing his oneness with the Father, are covered by the work of Christ. So great is Christ's redemption. So complete is his salvation. This being my first time preaching to an RPCNA congregation, I don't know if you want to shout amen, but I sure do. Mark now gives you proof of Christ's finished work. He gives you evidence of the reconciliation Christ accomplished. He tells you of the restoration of communion with God for man as it was in the garden before Adam fell. What the first Adam took away, the second Adam has now recovered. Mark tells you that the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. Mark, the man of few words, packs quite a statement here. The veil was symbolic of the separation of God's holiness from man's sin. It could only be passed once a year, and then only by following a very carefully planned procedure. Now it was ripped open. Man, his sin covered by Christ's sacrifice, by Christ's righteousness, could now enter the holy place, could now come personally before God. Not as a sinner, but as redeemed. Mark notes the veil was ripped from the top to the bottom. This was not the work of man who could tear the veil from the floor up. but it is the work of God, torn from above. God has granted you entrance to his throne, to his holy place. Mark's report on the veil was interjected in his closing remarks of Jesus on the cross, but he doesn't let this observation disappear. He says, so when the centurion who stood opposite him saw that he cried out like this and breathed his last, he said, surely this man was the Son of God." Mark gives you this eyewitness account. This was a man who had doubtless seen others crucified. He was familiar with the actions of such a death. He heard Jesus say the things he said from the cross. He saw his compassion for the thief who believed. He heard the words of redemption, salvation, and forgiveness. He witnessed the completeness of Christ's work and the finality of Christ's death. Mark sums all these things by quoting the centurion. It is another witness to you of Christ's character and accomplishment. It is another concise account of redemption purchased Mark closes this concise account of redemption purchased in a surprisingly expanded fashion. He tells you those at the crucifixion who loved Jesus. He doesn't simply say some of Jesus' followers were there. He says there were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the less and Joses, and Salome. who also followed him and ministered to him when he was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. Mark tells you the names of women, his followers who were there. He doesn't give you every name, but just enough to know that God knows you by name. You're not just the number in a crowd. You are personally known to God. He's giving you a partial list of those written in the Lamb's Book of Life. He's including some of those in a personal way who he died for and redeemed. None of them, like no one here today, deserves to have their names listed in God's Word. esteemed in a certain way for following Christ to this bitter end, yet Mark saw it necessary by God's leading to include this extended list, at least for Mark, of those Jesus died for so you can see yourself in that list. Mark was still concise He didn't list all the names in the Book of Life. He simply gave you enough to recognize that Jesus died for you. He didn't die for us in a corporate sense. He died for you personally. This is the bottom line of Mark's concise account of redemption purchased. It is you. your redemption purchased paid in full amen David I believe we have a psalm to sing