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. Over this communion weekend, we have been looking at people that met Jesus at the cross. And on Thursday, we began with Simon of Cyrene, a random passerby who was compelled to carry the cross after Jesus. We saw a great picture there of Jesus bearing his own cross in terms of bearing the guilt and the sin of his people to be punished in their place, but following behind Simon as a disciple, denying himself, taking up his cross and following after Jesus. This morning we considered the various mockers that there were from the Romans who had the mock coronation for Jesus, to those passers-by who laughed at Jesus, save yourself. The chief priests and the scribes who believed that Jesus had done great works, he saved others, yet he cannot save himself. And they were put in conditions, we'll believe if he gives us a sign. I see an evil and an adulterous generation seeks after signs. And then we also saw the robbers, those who were condemned to die, those who truly deserved under Roman law to die. And yet they are not concerned about their own death to humble them and keep them from slandering the Son of God. No, they mock Jesus. Although, as we'll see again this evening, one of them. is converted. One of them is changed and comes to believe that Jesus is Lord and Savior and able to take us into paradise, into heaven, into everlasting life. That there is something beyond the grave. That this life is not all that there is. That when you die here, it's not the end. There's something more. Whether good or evil depends on whether you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he came to see. But this evening we're considering this centurion. We know very little about him. We don't know his name. Verse 39 just describes him, the centurion who stood facing Jesus. This was the man who was overseeing the crucifixion. He was in charge of the soldiers that were around the cross, those soldiers who had divided Jesus's clothing amongst themselves by lot. This was the man who was in charge of many of those soldiers that, as we saw this morning, made up that battalion who had mocked Jesus. We do have some other verses to consider. In Matthew 27 and verse 54, it says something quite similar to this. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly this was the son of God. And then in Luke 23 in verse 47, it says this. Now, when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God saying, certainly this man was innocent. So we'll need to take these three verses together in order to understand what this centurion really said. Each gospel writer gives us a piece, but we have to build the puzzle. I'm sure for this centurion, He was having a particularly difficult job at this time. The centurion was used to being a man of authority. He was used to giving orders to those soldiers under his command. But at this time in Jerusalem, the city had swollen in population because all the Jews were coming in for the feast, for the Passover. And because at this time Jerusalem was part of the Roman Empire, although not a willing part, they had been conquered by the Romans. And because there had recently been insurrection, Barabbas was one such man who had been arrested for insurrection and murder. Perhaps even these thieves that were on the cross were guilty of that too. And because of these things, I'm sure security would have been quite tight. We know that when there are football matches and there's threats. of terrorism and that security threat is raised, the police are out in force. And I'm sure the person who's in charge of the police at that event, the person who has that overall authority, responsibility, they're taking it very, very seriously to ensure that nothing happens on their watch. And that's the sort of situation that this centurion finds himself in. And he's been tasked with overseeing the executions this day. And he has to ensure that everything runs smoothly. There's a lot of potential for difficulties, for trouble. Someone could come and try to interfere. Things could get out of hand, these mockers, things could get out of hand. And so he is observing things very carefully. This is a man who is on the scene. He's there at the cross. And he observed firsthand the events of that day. Now, before we get to what he says, that'll be our third point this evening, we need to consider two other things. Things that he observed. First, he observed the unusual events on this day. There were many unusual events on this day. Let's consider three of them. First of all, he observed that there were hours of darkness. If you look at verse 25, it says, it was the third hour. when they crucified him. That is 9 a.m. They counted from 6 a.m. They didn't count from midnight. They counted from dawn. The third hour is 9 a.m. That's the time that Jesus is put up on the cross. But then down at verse 33, and when the sixth hour had come, that is 12 noon, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. That is three hours of darkness. from 12 noon until 3 p.m. Now you know as well as I do, that's the time when the sun is highest in the sky. That's the time when the sun is hottest. That's the time you try to avoid on a sunny day being out for too long. And yet this is the time that Jesus was hanging on the cross, and this is the precise time in which it went dark. It went dark for three hours. Now some might think this is a solar eclipse, But friends, I'm sure you've seen solar eclipses. I didn't look up when the last one was. But eclipses last seconds to minutes. Seven minutes, I think, is the longest sort of time span for these sorts of eclipses. This was not a solar eclipse. And also, it was the wrong time for that. Passover was when the moon was at its fullest. So this is not something that happens because there's a natural explanation for it. This is not something that just simply, if they had been more enlightened in this day, they could have predicted it and everyone would have been standing, waiting, watching for the eclipse. This is an unusual event. This is something that takes everyone by surprise and it would take us by surprise too. Three hours of darkness when you least expect it. Now, why was that? Well, Amos chapter eight, this Old Testament prophet Amos says this, verses nine and 10, and on that day declares the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth. in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day." There God was predicting thousands of years before that he would bring the sun down at midday. He would make it dark. when it should be bright. And in the context, you can look at this yourself later on in Amos chapter eight, it's in the context of judgment. Judgment upon God's people for their wickedness. And so I think we can take that as instructive for what's happening here. God is bringing judgment upon his people for this grave, serious sin of crucifying the Lord of glory. Although God has planned this, although this is the way of redemption, although God is well pleased with what the son is doing, he accepts the son's sacrifice, yet God is angry against the wickedness of those who crucify him. God is angry against their sin and he holds them personally accountable for it and he will punish them. They are killing the son of God. Not only was there darkness, the second thing that the centurion would have observed, that would have taken him by surprise, was the earthquake. Now earthquakes, tremors, I've never experienced a serious one, but those of you perhaps who have, you know what it's like. And you think of these earthquakes in other places, other parts of the world. The earthquake, it's recorded for us in Matthew's gospel, that at this time the earth shook and the rocks were split. So it's not just a mere little shake that you think of. What was that? Was that a bus going past too heavily? No, it's the earth split. These rocks split. And even the tombs, Matthew says, were opened. And something far more miraculous than an earthquake, bodies came out of the tombs. There was a resurrection of some of the saints who had fallen asleep some of those saints who had died. And these were able to observe and attest there was an earthquake. Now, earthquakes would have been terrifying, no doubt. And this centurion, as he's trying to keep his eye on the job, as he's focusing on making sure there is law and order strictly, that he's observing his soldiers, making sure they're doing the right thing, he's keeping an eye on the crowds. To have this experience when he's focused on his task must have been quite an unsettling thing. Now we know biblically speaking, as we trace the theme of earthquakes in the Bible, that earthquakes show the presence of the Lord. And so this is what is going on here. The centurion may not have realized this, just as he may not have realized from Amos 8 that the sun going dark at noon was a symbol of judgment. But we know this from what the Old Testament teaches us. Psalm 97 verse four, about God, his lightnings light up the world, the earth sees and trembles. So when the earth experiences that special presence of the Lord, that idea of him coming in judgment again, there is the earth trembling before him. It's interesting, isn't it? That the inanimate creation, the earth, the rocks, the response, to what God is doing here on this day. The centurion observed this. But then the third thing that the centurion observed, slightly different, he observed the people and the change among the crowds of people. In Luke's gospel, chapter 23, verse 48, it says this. And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts." Now we thought this morning about the crowds mocking Jesus. You can look back and you can see Verse 29, those who passed by derided him, and they said, aha, which was a way of belittling Jesus, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. They're mocking Jesus. They're misquoting him, slandering him, laughing at him. But there's somehow along the way, there's a change in heart. I'm not saying there's been a saving change, I'm not saying these people have been converted, but there has been a change in their demeanor. The mockery is gone. They're no longer deriding Jesus, no longer reviling him. No doubt they've been moved. These Jewish people who understood the significance of darkness and earthquakes, they've been moved by that. And perhaps they begin to think, are we guilty? Is there judgment? I wonder if they were afraid of judgment for themselves and for their nation. After all, what had the Jews cried out when they wanted Jesus to be crucified? They said, his blood be on us and on our children. You think of that utterly awful thing for anyone to say, to be willing to have the blood of someone on you, that is to have, that you are guilty for the execution of that person. You're guilty. If anything is wrong done to that person, that you will bear the guilt for that. And not only that you will bear the guilt for that, but your children will also bear the guilt for that. And that's what the people had willingly said. If we're crucifying an innocent man, his blood and the guilt of his blood lies on us and on our children. But there's been a change of heart to some degree, and these people go home. beating their breasts, in some sense humbled, in some sense regretting their action, perhaps in some sense feeling the threat of judgment. I don't think it's a saving change. I don't think it's conversion. But there's definitely a bit of sobriety there that wasn't there at the start of the day. The centurion observed all these things. And no doubt he marveled at them. an earthquake, hours, three hours of darkness, this change in the mood of the day, the feeling amongst the people. So that's the first thing he observed, these unusual events. The second thing is that he observed the unusual man on the cross. He observed the unusual man on the cross. The Romans knew how to execute people. They knew how to perform crucifixions. I'm sure this centurion had been involved in other crucifixions, Even if he hadn't, there were two other men being crucified on that day and he could observe what was happening with them. This one was very different from all those. And Jesus, the man on the cross, was different from how you might expect someone to react when they were being executed. And there are many ways we could consider this from, many angles we could look at it from. I'm gonna look at the words of the cross. What did Jesus say? when he was on the cross. And perhaps you know there were seven sayings that Jesus made from the cross. And these seven sayings show that he was an unusual person and the centurion would have observed this. The first few show the love and mercy that Jesus had even on the cross. The last few show the intense agonizing approach towards the end, towards his death. First of all, the first thing that he said, it's recorded in Luke 23 verse 34, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now you think about that. How many criminals are executed and they say, please forgive this person who's executing me. Please forgive these people who are mocking me. It's not a common experience. Surely they would revile in return. That's the very thing Jesus did not do. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. At one level, we can remark on this simply that Jesus practiced what he preached. He was no hypocrite. Jesus had taught, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Pray for them. Pray for people who hate you. Pray for people who are mean to you. That's a hard thing for us to do. It's the very thing we don't want to do. The very thing we want to do is to return tit for tat, don't we? To respond in kind. If they've hurt me, I want to hurt them. Jesus says, no, instead pray the best for them. Pray, yes, that they may repent from it, but pray for their best interests. Pray for them. These people who were involved in crucifying Jesus, these people who were involved in mocking him, I think in many ways were blind to the magnitude of their sin. They should have known they were sinning. Their consciences surely must have been pricked to some level, that they were doing something wrong. But the magnitude of their sin, I think they were ignorant of. The Lord of glory, whom they were crucifying. And Jesus is praying that they would be forgiven these sins of ignorance. Every sin brings guilt, even sins of ignorance. Don't think that just because you don't know something's wrong, that it doesn't matter. Ignorance is no excuse. That's what sometimes people plead. You're caught doing something wrong. Oh, I didn't know it was wrong. I didn't realize. Well, that's no excuse because God sees and God knows and there's an absolute standard. You're either on the right side of the law or you've transgressed the law. Ignorance is no excuse. And so Jesus prays for forgiveness because of this sin of ignorance. And by so doing, Jesus Purposefully, because Jesus is in control of what he's doing and saying, he purposefully fulfills Isaiah 53 verse 12. He made intercession for the transgressors. That's something Jesus will continue to do as the high priest. As we read earlier on from Hebrews 7, he ever lives in heaven to make intercession for us. He's able to save to the uttermost because he is this intercessor, this high priest in heaven. It's a wonderful thing that this centurion would have observed that Jesus did not respond in kind, but pleaded for mercy for those very people who hated him. The second saying Jesus said from the cross from Luke 23 verse 43, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Now you remember the context of that. We considered the two robbers this morning who both mock Jesus. But somewhere along the way, one of these robbers had a change of heart. He rebukes the other for mocking Jesus. He admits, we deserve to die. We are guilty. But this man has done nothing wrong. He recognizes the inscription above the cross that this is the King of the Jews. And he turns to Jesus and says, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus grants that request today. Truly today, you will be with me in paradise. Jesus was on the cross. Physically speaking, he was weakened. He had bled so much blood. He was exhausted. Physically speaking, he was at the lowest ebb. And yet he is not powerless to save. The son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. And he's emphatic in what he says here. He emphasizes it truly. This is the truth. This is the honest truth. It's God's truth. You will be with me in paradise this very day. Because Jesus knows that at death, the soul is returned to its maker. Body and soul are separated for the very first time at death. It's an unnatural experience. Not one of us here has experienced it. Your soul has always been joined to your body. But at the moment of your death, the two will part from one another. Your body will remain here on Earth. And we've all perhaps seen, or most of us have seen, dead bodies. We know there's an emptiness. It's a corpse. It's not just devoid of life. It's devoid of a spirit. It's devoid of a soul. That's because the soul is already returned to its maker. And Jesus confirms that, that this man is going to die, but his spirit will enter into heaven. The man had a simple faith. He didn't have hours upon hours or weeks upon weeks or years upon years of theological instruction. He had a very limited amount of knowledge, but he put his faith in Christ. And that's what made the difference. And Jesus gives mercy and grace. The centurion saw that. At a time when most criminals would be thinking only about themselves and where their next breath's gonna come from, are they gonna be able to keep breathing? This man on the cross gives grace to the person beside him. The third saying from the cross, Jesus addresses to his mother and to the apostle John. It's recorded for us in John's gospel. Jesus looks at his mother and he cares for her. He's a son that loves his mother. Woman, behold your son, signifying John. And to John he says, behold your mother. This idea that Jesus is concerned about his mother after his death. He's concerned about her welfare. And so he puts the two together. The widow's God, that's who our God is. He's concerned. about widows and about orphans. It's interesting that in Luke chapter two, the Spirit of God had predicted that Mary would suffer particular grief. It says there, a sword will pierce through your soul also. That Mary would have her soul pierced with grief. And Jesus knew this. He knew what this would do to his mother. And so he provides for her. A centurion would have watched this. and been astounded. This is a man, he wouldn't have realized the significance of the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother, but he would have seen it and thought, this is strange. So those are the first three sayings which all show that grace drips from the lips of Christ. That's who he is, he's a loving person, he's merciful, he's gracious. And then we move into the other four, and they take us really into the last part of Jesus's suffering on the cross. This is where everything is intensifying. The fourth saying on the cross, it's recorded for us here, at the ninth hour, at the end of the darkness, he says, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's verse 34. Jesus is the son of God. He always has been, and he always will be. And as a member of that Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he knew that beautiful love and communion, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Even when he was on earth, he enjoyed that wonderful, beautiful communion. His father said of him, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. He knew what it was to have the Spirit of God upon him beyond measure. But at this point, as the agony of the cross intensifies, he cries out that God has forsaken him. And why? Why have you forsaken me? It shows us really that the physical pain of Jesus was not the most important thing. The two robbers on either side of him were suffering similar Not the same, but similar physical pain. But Jesus is suffering in his soul. He moves on then, and I think these ones all come in quite quick succession to one another, because it's after the hours of darkness. It was darkness from the sixth hour to the ninth hour. At the end of the ninth hour, at the end of the darkness, he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And then he then says, I thirst, John 19, verse 28. The Lord of glory needs a drink. He needs refreshment. He was truly human. And I think it's a thirst, not simply because he is a human and any human would have been physically thirsty at this time, but it's because of the effect of God's hand being heavy upon him. Psalm 32. It says, for day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as in the heat of summer. We know what it is when it's summer, when it's warm, and we're like, oh, I need a drink. I'm very thirsty. But this was not simply the thirst from a hot day. It was not simply because he hadn't had anything else to drink. It's God's hand being heavy on him in judgment, punishing him for the sins of his people. That's what he's experiencing. Jesus had never experienced judgment from God like that. Never at all, because he had never sinned. He never knew the experience that we feel if you've ever been unrepentant of your sin, and you felt the Spirit of God striving with you and convicting you. He's never felt that experience, because Jesus had no personal guilt. But he felt the hand of God on him, crushing him, because it was the will of God to crush him because of our sin. Then Jesus said the sixth saying, it is finished. John 19 and verse 30. This idea of completion, what is finished? You might ask, Jesus was meaning his work, his work of atoning for the sins of his people, his work in making reconciliation for them, the price of redemption, it is finished. He's quoting there from the last words of Psalm 22, that Psalm which begins, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And it ends with that idea, it is finished. And then very quickly after that, the seventh saying, Luke 23 verse 46, father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. A direct quotation from Psalm 31 and verse five. And it shows to us here that Jesus did not simply die because it was a physical death. This is the consequence of crucifixion. His life was not taken away from him, but as we saw this morning at the Lord's table, that he willingly, voluntarily gave up his life. It was his to give up. It was his to offer. No one could take it from him. And he gave it up at the time when it was right, when it was finished, when the judgment was enough. You see? So after feeling that being forsaken of God, after feeling the hand of God heavy upon him so that he thirsted. And after being able to say, it is finished, then Jesus could give up the ghost, give up his spirit and die voluntarily. It was his, his action, not the action of the Roman soldiers. And the centurion observed all this. He seen those first three sayings that show that this is a man of love and mercy and grace. to pray for forgiveness, to say to someone, you'll be with me in paradise, to be concerned for his mother and the disciple whom he loved. But then to see these last four sayings come in quick succession, showing the intensity of the agony, but that something more is going on than physical suffering. The centurion saw all this. This is a unique death. And furthermore, when the time came, when the Jewish leaders are saying, look, we need to get this process hurrying on, these criminals need to die soon, because don't you know tomorrow's the Sabbath day, and they cannot be left hanging up like this? And the centurion orders his soldiers to go and break the legs of these criminals to speed up the process so that they really will die quickly. And they come to Jesus, and what do they see? This man's already dead. Is that possible? How can he be dead already? The other two men are not dead. How is it? The soldier takes a spear and sticks it into Jesus' side and out comes blood and water. Proof that Jesus was dead. That cannot happen. It cannot happen unless there has been death already. There's a lot of debate about what that all means. I think in one sense we can say the heart of Jesus was ruptured. As Psalm 69 verse 20 says, Reproaches have broke my heart. Remember, the Psalms tell us something more than the Gospels tell us about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The Gospels present the facts. They give us a true account of the words of Jesus. The Psalms take us to Jesus's emotions and feelings when he was upon the cross. Reproaches have broken my heart. Sometimes we talk about being heartbroken. Jesus knew what that meant. to a far greater depth than we ever can. The centurion observed the unusual events of this day, and the centurion observed this unusual man on the cross. He had never in his life seen anything like it before. No events like this day, earthquakes, darkness, and no man who at the time of his death was saying all these things. And so that leads us to the verse that we're considering, verse 39. And when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way, in this way, in this manner, he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the son of God. And as we saw earlier on from Luke 23, verse 47, he also said, certainly this man was innocent. We can take the two things together. There's not a contradiction there. Sometimes people very simplistically say, well, Matthew and Mark say this, but Luke says something different. That shows the Bible can't be trusted. They can't get these details right. That's a very simplistic way of looking at it. The centurion obviously said both. Truly this man, this man is innocent, and he is the son of God. Both go hand in hand together. Jesus is innocent. Jesus is righteous. In other words, the centurion was recognizing that Jesus did not deserve to die. Now, I don't know how much of the preceding day he had been involved in, how much of the trial he had observed, how much of the mockery he was involved in. It's quite likely he was involved in the mock coronation of Jesus before leading Jesus out to be crucified. He was aware of the accusations. Of course he was aware. Jesus was condemned to die. He wasn't just going to crucify him. He was going to know why. This man is condemned to die. Pilate has sentenced him to death. This was a man, presumably, who had executed other criminals before. And as a Roman and living at that time, he didn't have the same sensibilities that we have. We might feel this is a bit of a hard job But people who were public hangmans, they got used to it. And they got hardened to it. And they got used to doing the things that no one else would want to do. This was a man who was hardened to crucifixions. He didn't go home crying at night because of the things he had done. He was used to it, most likely. And it's very unlikely that he would come to the conclusion, this man is innocent. And yet he does. He recognizes it as a fact. Jesus is altogether righteous and free. Now, how far he meant that, we don't know. We don't know exactly what he meant by that. But we certainly know that he hid upon truth. And we know further than that that Jesus is not simply free of the accusations. He's free. of what he was condemned for, but that Jesus is actually sinless, undefiled, and separate from sin, as Hebrews 7, we read earlier, shows us. Jesus never once sinned against God. He never once broke any of the commandments, not even the least of commandments. There is no sin that is small, but we sometimes think of small sins. But Jesus never even broke what we would consider a small commandment, a small sin. He was perfect, completely. It's hard for us to imagine that, and yet that is what the Bible shows us. And this centurion sensed some of that truth by observing the unusual man on the cross. But not only did he say that Jesus was innocent, he also said that Jesus was the Son of God. Now again, with this, it's hard to know how far he meant that. He hit upon some truth, whether he got the whole truth, we don't know. Did he mean Jesus is the son of God as we mean it? That therefore he is fully God? He is the second person of the Trinity? I don't know. It could also be translated this man is a son of God. That's a possible rendering of it. But even if it is that, the interesting thing is that that was a title for the Roman emperor. Ever since Caesar Augustus, there was that Roman title, the Latin phrase for the son of God or a son of God. And when the emperors died, they were proclaimed sons of God. And here is a man who has died, a man who was not even a Roman citizen. He was not the emperor, not in his life. And yet this centurion looks at him and says, son of God. Son of God. The same sort of thing that would have been professed about Augustus in some years after this, just a handful of years after this, when Tiberius would die, they would proclaim him son of God. For a centurion to say this about another man, a condemned criminal who was sentenced to death by a Roman governor, it was nearly treachery for him to say something like this. And yet he does. I wonder if the centurion had spent some time looking at that inscription above the cross, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. And he thought, yes, this man is a king and he is the son of God. These are accurate words. Jesus had been tried by the high priest and they'd asked him, tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God. And Jesus, who was honest, admitted it, it is as you say, and the high priest had torn his clothes. No doubt this centurion would have known of that trial before the high priest. The Jewish leaders hate this man because he claims to be the son of God. And now the centurion says, truly, this man was the son of God. Now church tradition teaches that this centurion goes on and becomes a Christian. I don't know if there's any truth in that or not. I would love that to be the case. But it's interesting, isn't it? We began on Thursday looking at Simon of Cyrene, and I gave you a bit of biblical reasoning why we could say Simon most likely went on and became a Christian. We saw his wife and his sons and so on. What we considered this morning, the mockers. We know for certain that one of those mockers became a believer. that thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. And perhaps it was the case that this centurion who was at the foot of the cross observing the whole thing, perhaps he also became a Christian too. Because the gospel will go to Rome, the gospel will go to the Gentiles, and they will be saved. But the question for us is what do we do with Jesus who died on the cross? We have to make an assessment of who he is. This centurion observed all the events of that day. You may say, well, I've never observed them. I'm thousands of miles and thousands of years removed from the whole situation. It's got nothing to do with me. But you've sat here in this meeting tonight. And I've told you about Jesus Christ, the son of God, who died upon a cross. And you have to reflect on that. You have to reckon with that. You have to deal with that. And you have to think and assess for yourself, who is this man? And I say, who is this man deliberately? Because he's not dead. Who was this man? That would be simply me asking you a historical question. Who was Abraham Lincoln, someone who died a long time ago? Who is this man? Because this same Jesus rose from the dead, and he lives. He was seen by people on earth, and he's in heaven today. Perhaps this centurion got to know of that. Because remember, the Roman guard was outside the tomb. Remember, they were there. Some soldiers were there when Jesus rose from the dead. And perhaps this man who recognized the innocence of Jesus and that he was the Son of God, came to know that Jesus not only died as the water and blood showed, but that also he rose again from the dead. But what's your assessment of Jesus, who is the Christ? You see, your whole life, your whole eternal life, your whole eternal destination depends on what you do with the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he? And what does he mean to you? And is his suffering, does it mean anything to you? Or as Lamentations says, is it nothing to you, you who pass by? Is it nothing to you to consider Jesus dying? Does it not move you in the least bit to consider Jesus dying on the cross? Or is it everything to you that the Son of God would take on human flesh so that he could suffer, so that he could give himself in the place of sinners? This is what Jesus came to do, an innocent man, a righteous man, the son of God, who was not compelled to do this, but willingly he did it. And therefore we can have life through him. Bless God for this plan of salvation. Bless the son of God for willingly going through this, that we may have this redemption that we so desperately needed because of our sin. Amen.