We are back in Mark Chapter 15 this morning, but before we get into that, if you already have your Bible open there, I encourage you to stick your finger there and turn back to 1 Corinthians Chapter 1. 1 Corinthians Chapter 1, we'll be reading verses 18 through 25. 1 Corinthians Chapter 1. Beginning in verse 18. The Apostle Paul writes, For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through his wisdom did not come to know God. God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed, Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness. but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Now based on that passage, what we know to be true from scripture and through observation as well, one thing that is clear, is that through all of human history, right up to this day, with all of the knowledge, all of man's wisdom, all of the information that has been accumulated, and even in this day now with artificial intelligence, people have not been able to find their own way to God. No man has discovered a route other than the one that was made by God through the cross of Jesus Christ. Through all the wisdom of man, no one has discovered a way to know God outside of Jesus Christ. Oh, this idea of God coming into the world and dying on a cross a couple thousand years ago, and that somehow affects me today, that sounds ridiculous to the world. Maybe on the level of a children's fairy tale. Maybe a little less believable than a cow jumping over the moon. The idea of this man that died on the cross all those years ago having eternal significance for me sounds foolish. And yet when we examine the cross of Jesus Christ in scripture, there is much about it that is beyond our ability to comprehend. God's wisdom that we cannot even comprehend. in the wisdom of God, what we need to know is clear. We clearly need to know about the cross of Jesus Christ, even if some of the specific details of it are beyond our ability to comprehend. It's not ideal that we have had a two-week detour out of Mark chapter 15, but that's how it has worked out the last couple weeks. Hopefully as Jared read the whole passage of the cross for us, he will remember what we looked at last time we were in Mark 15. Jesus was on the cross for about six hours. We've looked at the first three hours of Jesus being on the cross. The primary thing that we saw in those first three hours was how Jesus continued to be mocked by man as he was dying. with those large spikes driven through his hands and feet that commentators tell us were very much like those railroad spikes we have laying all over here. If you could imagine being driven through your hands and your feet, Jesus hanging on that cross. There was no human way of surviving this. And since all those people standing around the cross were convinced that Jesus was just a man, They were certain that this was His end. And they couldn't even let Him die in peace. They mocked Him. They wanted this to be the worst possible death it could be. That's why they wanted Him crucified. They didn't ask permission that they could stone Him. They didn't just take Him out and stone Him without permission. They wanted Him to suffer. They wanted Him to be cursed by God. They wanted Him to be crucified. And they mocked Him as He was. Now, they didn't realize it, they didn't intend it, but they were fulfilling Scripture. This was going exactly according to God's plan. Now, I've said this a few times as we've been working toward this passage, but we are stepping down. We're getting lower and lower with each verse, descending into the deepest, darkest pit of the worst sin there could be. The worst thing to happen in all of creation for all of time. At least as far as what man was doing. What Satan thought he could accomplish. From God's perspective, this is what had to happen. It had to get this bad. This was God's plan. We've arrived at the bottom in the verses we're looking at this morning. Mark 15 verses 33 through 39. This is how bad it gets. Now the last thing that we looked at last time was that the chief priests and scribes, they're mocking and taunting Jesus, saying he saved others. He cannot save himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe. We talked about how the only power they could conceive of is selfish power. That's the power that would be used to get the possessor of that power out of trouble. Now that's the only power they could understand because that's the kind of power they had and the kind of power that they, how they would use that power if they had it. If I were the Son of God, if I were the King of Israel, I'd bring myself down off that cross. I'd teach everybody a lesson who was against me. They had no idea how much power, how much strength it took for Jesus to stay on that cross. Because the worst is yet to come. And He knew it. He knew this was getting worse. In verse 33, it says, when the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. Now the sixth hour, in their terms of counting time at that time, it was noon. So when the sun is the highest, the brightest, it became completely dark. And it lasted until three in the afternoon. Now this was not an eclipse. Some have tried to claim that it was, to try to explain it away as just a coincidence of some easily explained natural occurrences. This was not an eclipse. Eclipses don't last for three hours. Eclipses don't happen when there's a full moon, but the Passover celebration always happened during a full moon. This was not an eclipse. It didn't just get kind of cloudy. When Luke describes this event, he says, the sun was obscured, according to New American Standard. The sun's light failed, is how the ESV and the Christian Standard Bible translates it. The sun was darkened, says King James and New King James. NIV says the sun stopped shining. How is it possible for the sun to stop giving light? That's what Luke said happened. The sun stopped giving light. How is that possible? I don't know. I don't know how that's possible. But according to scripture, that's what it did. This was supernatural. This cannot be explained away by just some merely natural events that just happened to coincide with this particular time. God did this. This is one of the many things that happened at the cross we can't comprehend. How can the sun just stop shining? I don't know, but it did. Mark says that this darkness fell over the whole land. Now that could mean the whole land around Jerusalem where this was happening. Or it could mean everywhere that the sun should have been shining became dark. Now considering what's happening here on the cross and what seems to be the case of the sun stopped giving light, my assumption would be that it got dark everywhere. And it was dark everywhere because this was a time of God's judgment against man's sin. And this is serious. Darkness goes along with God's judgment. When Jesus came into the world, it was said the light appeared. Jesus is the light. The light came into the world. This was good news. The ability to see has come and Jesus came. But now there's darkness. God's judgment against man's sin. You remember when God was judging the Egyptians to free his people from the Egyptian bondage. God sent a plague of darkness. It says there that the darkness was so thick that it could be felt. I think that's the kind of thing that's happening here in Mark 15. That darkness in Egypt came right before the death of the Passover lambs. This is happening just before the death of the Passover lambs. The Bible also describes hell as a place of darkness. And hell is a place of darkness because it's a place where souls are separated from God. There is no light. There is no comfort. There is no blessing. There is no grace. There is no hope given by God. There's no light, only His wrath. It's darkness in hell. The sun stopped shining for those three hours that day because God's wrath was being poured out upon His Son for our sins. What Jesus dreaded so much in the Garden of Gethsemane, remember that He was grieved almost to death. What caused Him to sweat drops of blood, it was this. He knew this was coming. This is what he dreaded. He is now on that cross, drinking the full cup of God's wrath. There was no light to shine on earth because the light was being extinguished. Something that's interesting, a detail that's not given in this passage or in any of the Gospels, There are no words recorded of anything that was said by anyone during those three hours. Now I don't know if that means the whole earth was silent during that time, but maybe it does. Those people that were out there scattered around outside of Jerusalem, and suddenly the lights go out, They had no idea where they were. If it was absolutely completely dark, they just had to stand there and wait. We know Jesus on that cross, he suffered alone, in total darkness and in silence, with no help, no comfort, and suffered in a way that's beyond our ability to comprehend. When you think about, my sin alone makes me deserving of an eternity in hell to pay for my sin. Your sin alone makes you deserve an eternity in hell to pay for your sin that you've committed against a holy God. The price that Jesus paid through that suffering on that cross is sufficient to pay for all the sins committed by everyone whose sins are deserving of an eternal punishment in hell. What Jesus suffered there was far beyond the physical pain of those huge nails. It was far beyond the scourging that He had had to endure and was still feeling the effects of on that cross. It was far more than that crown of thorns. When it became dark on that cross and God's wrath was being poured out on him, only an infinite being such as Jesus is could suffer to the extent that Jesus suffered on that cross. It's beyond my comprehension how one man could suffer to that extent. The price Jesus paid for our sins to be forgiven is beyond our comprehension. We've been talking about how high that price is that Jesus had to pay. When we get here, we can't even understand it. How high that cost was that Jesus had to pay for your sin. There's more. It gets worse, verse 34. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now as we have been working our way through Mark and we've seen Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, perfect, holy, Coming to to serve coming to rescue man from their sins Jesus being rejected by the world The world that he created that's bad Jesus being rejected by his own people that the people of Israel the ones who he had given so much blessing They rejected him it's sad that they would do that Jesus being abandoned by his friends, the disciples, more concerned about themselves than they were about Jesus, they all run away. That's bad. But suffering the rejection and abandonment, being forsaken by God the Father, that is far worse than we can comprehend. How is this even possible? that God the Father would forsake God the Son. When you think about trying to get specific about what was happening here, and we're talking about the Trinity, there is only one God, one God who exists in three persons, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There has never been any sort in any way of division or distance in the Godhead. There's never been any part of the Trinity turning away from another part of the Trinity. As you think about the details of specifically what's happening here on the cross, I couldn't even begin to explain the technical details of God the Father forsaking God the Son, partly because I don't understand it, but secondly, out of fear of blasphemy. misrepresenting the Trinity. I don't understand how this can be that the Father forsook the Son. I don't understand how this can be God dying on the cross, God suffering the wrath of God. I may not comprehend it, but I believe it. It's what the Bible says. Somehow, in some way, there was some kind of, I don't know if you can even use the word separation, but somehow, between the Father and the Son, as the Son became our sin-bearer, the Father poured out His wrath on His Son. Somehow, in some way, the Father turned away from the Son. Now the fact that this is incomprehensible should show us the severity of sin. That this is what it took for our sin to be forgiven. When we look at what it did to our Savior on the cross, we cannot think of sin lightly if this is what sin does. We cannot think of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ lightly if this is what it took for us to be forgiven, and He did it. Sometimes you'll hear an unbeliever say something like, I tried praying to God once, God or whatever the higher power is that's out there, and I asked Him to fix this problem in my life, and He didn't do it. And so I have no use for Him, if He's even there. There's this common idea in the world that if there is a God, He's just supposed to give us everything that we want when we ask Him. But consider what we read in somewhere like Isaiah 59 verses 1 through 3. Isaiah 59 verse 1 says, Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save, nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. And your sin, your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity, your lips have forsaken falsehood, your tongue mutters wickedness. If someone prays to God and says, do this for me, and he doesn't do it, and they don't know him, it's not because God can't do it. It's not because God can't hear. It's not because he's not there. As Isaiah says, it's your sin. If your sin is still on you, your sin has made a separation between you and God. And as long as your sin is on you, God's not going to hear your prayers. He's not going to answer your prayers. There is no way you can have a relationship with Him. That's what sin does between you and God. Now remember Jesus on the cross. He became sin for us. I don't know what kind of separation there was, but because of our sin being placed on Jesus on that cross, Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Think about what sin does. Think about Jesus on that cross taking that sin on him for us. Look at what our sin did to Jesus. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As that darkness was apparently just beginning to lift, around three o'clock in the afternoon, as Jesus cried out those words, the people around him who heard what he said, they didn't understand it either. Look at verses 35 and 36 of Mark 15. When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, behold, he is calling for Elijah. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink, saying, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down." In the Aramaic language that Jesus was speaking, the words for God and Elijah were kind of close, Eloi and Eli. It's possible that they misunderstood or misheard what Jesus said. And they thought he was calling for Eli, Elijah. Some commentators believe, however, that they knew what Jesus said. He was quoting Psalm 22.1, and it would have been kind of hard to miss that for them. But this was actually more of these bystanders mocking Jesus. So biblically and in their traditions, there were connections between the coming of the Messiah and some prophecies about Elijah. Oh, so you're still claiming to be the Messiah. Are you the King of Israel? Okay, now, oh, now you're calling for Elijah. Okay, that fits. Well, let's hang around here. Let's all share a drink. Here, Jesus, have a drink. Let's wait for Elijah to show up. It could be. They're mocking Jesus. Mocking His claims of being the Messiah. And now we're going to wait. Okay. Elijah should come now, if you're who you say you are. And again, their thinking is that the only good outcome, the only possible good outcome for Jesus would be for Him to come down off that cross. And so, hey, if Elijah's going to show up, then maybe He'll help you off that cross. I know I'm not going to, but if Elijah comes, sure, let him have at it. They didn't understand. Jesus couldn't come off that cross until he'd completed what he went there to do. Verse 37, it says, and Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. According to John, in John 19, 28, Jesus' last cry was, it is finished. When Jesus breathed his last, It was because he was done with what he came to do. The Romans, nor the Jews, killed Jesus. He wasn't a victim of their really bad decisions. He chose to do this. And he chose when he would die. And he wouldn't die until everything that he came to do was finished. God's wrath had been satisfied. The penalty for sin had been paid. And it would be applied now by grace through faith in Him. It was finished. There was no more work to be done for man to be forgiven and to come into a right relationship with God It was finished as Jesus died. Now many people haven't been satisfied with that, thinking there must be something more. There must be something for them to do. I must give something for you to do. There must be some amount of good works, some amount of penance for sin, or maybe purgatory to suffer some for their own sin. There's got to be something else. But all of that disagrees with what Jesus cried out from the cross, he said, it is finished. There was nothing left for anyone to do but to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Obviously, his resurrection comes into this, we'll look at later, but all the work needed to be done for sins to be forgiven, to open the way to God, was done. It was finished. As proof that what Jesus accomplished on the cross was finished, look at verse 38. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Now that veil of the temple was a great, big, thick, very strong keep out sign that covered the entrance into the Holy of Holies in that temple. We've talked about this before, about there being just these several different layers of courts and chambers of that temple area. There's a court of the Gentiles, the outermost region that anybody could go to. Just inside of that was the court of the women, where Gentiles were not welcome, but any Jew, including women, could go into. As you keep going in, it was more selective of who could come in closer. and who had permission to go past those barriers into the next section. All those gates, all those walls, all those curtains were there to separate the innermost room of the temple, the Holy of Holies. That was the place where the representation of God's presence and God's holiness dwelt. Only once a year, And after a lot of preparation, ceremonial washings, and especially sacrifices of animals for the sins of the high priest himself were made. Only then could only the high priest enter on that one day, do what he had to do, sprinkle the blood, make atonement for the sins of the people, to cover for their sins so that God would tolerate them for one more year and then get out of there. That was it. But other than that, keep out. You can't come in here into God's presence with your sin still on you. But because of what Jesus finished on the cross, that big, thick, very strong veil was no longer needed. And now anyone would be free to enter into God's presence through Jesus. Hebrews 4.16 even tells us that because of Christ, we are to draw near with confidence. No Jew had ever drawn near with confidence before. No high priest had ever entered into the holy place with confidence before. We are to come through Jesus with confidence. Hebrews 10, 19, therefore brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, It was when Jesus shed his blood on that cross, that veil was torn miraculously from top to bottom. This was God saying to man, the old covenant is done. It has been fulfilled and completed by Jesus. And it is being replaced by the new covenant, which is superior and was inaugurated by Jesus's blood. That curtain was no longer needed to separate man from God. The temple was no longer needed. It wasn't even finished being built yet. But they could have stopped. They didn't need it anymore. Those sacrifices were no longer needed. The priests at the temple, as soon as they had enough light back to start in, they were busy sacrificing Passover lambs. They could have stopped. They didn't need to do that anymore. those lambs weren't needed. The commands, the ceremonies of the Old Covenant, it's not needed anymore. Because Jesus finished His work through the cross. Now keep in mind, that though we are talking about some wonderful, positive things right now that were accomplished through Jesus' death on the cross, right now where we are in Mark, Jesus has just died. Because this is so incomprehensible, how God the Son could actually die. Many have tried to explain the whole thing away. Islam teaches that it wasn't actually Jesus that died on that cross. He was rescued from that and someone else died in his place. The Gnostics taught this this whole scenario about the separation between the flesh and the spirit, and the spirit is good, the flesh is bad, and that being the case, then Jesus couldn't have actually come in the flesh. He couldn't have suffered in the flesh. There was something else entirely going on there at the cross. Jesus didn't really die there, they say. But the Bible clearly says Jesus is God in human flesh. Jesus really died on that cross. Now I can't comprehend every specific detail of that. I can't explain it all to you because I don't know. But it's true. That incomprehensible death. There's something about it that became clear and immediately influential. One individual who was there, verse 39. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the son of God. Now being a centurion meant that he was in charge of a lot of other soldiers. He was pretty high ranking in the Roman military. It would have taken him a while to get to that position. Now that means that this man would have been involved in a lot of battles. He would have seen a lot of deaths. In this position he was in, he would have seen a lot of crucifixions. There is something very different about this one. He had been there and heard the accusations made against Jesus, like that he had claimed to be the Son of God. He had heard the people mocking, but he also heard Jesus pray for their forgiveness. He had been there, he saw and heard one of the thieves on one of those crosses repent and receive forgiveness from Jesus. He was there, but he didn't see anything for three hours when the sun stopped shining. That had never happened before. Matthew tells us that when Jesus died, there was a great earthquake. It shook so hard it split rocks apart. That had never happened when someone died on a cross before. And then, how it always had happened before, someone hanging on a cross, It would get weaker and weaker until they just couldn't lift themselves up anymore to breathe. And eventually, over time, they would suffocate. Jesus didn't die that way. He still had plenty of air. Because he cried out, it is finished. And he just died because he decided to. Nobody ever died like that before. And all of that together was enough to convince this battle-hardened soldier, truly this man, was the Son of God. Now it's interesting being here near the end of the Gospel of Mark, that that's how Mark starts this Gospel in chapter one, verse one. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And he shows us how he is the Son of God. Finally, somebody saw it. God the Father declared Jesus to be the Son. Chapter 1, verse 11 at His baptism. Chapter 9, verse 7 at the Transfiguration. This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him. Demons have recognized Jesus as being the Son of God in places like chapter 3, verse 11. This is the first time in the Gospel of Mark that a man has made this profession. According to the religious leaders of Israel, the only way there could be any good for Jesus The only way they would believe in Him would be for Him to come down off that cross. But the real eternal good was accomplished as witnessed by this centurion through Jesus staying on that cross and dying there. There is so much about this account that is incomprehensible about the suffering of Jesus on that cross. What we need to know is clear. Jesus is God. He is the Son of God. He shed His blood and died on that cross. With our sin on Him, He paid the penalty that we deserve. We started in 1 Corinthians. We're going to conclude in 2 Corinthians 5, verses 18-21. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses against them and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.