Let me invite you to turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 23, Luke chapter 23, I'll be reading verses 44 to 49, Luke chapter 23. If you came in the sanctuary and you grabbed a Bible that was in the back, you'll find that passage located on page 831, 831. It's not at all unusual to have some regrets in life, a career not pursued, a job turned down, early years of parenting, maybe medical tests that we put off until later, or other decisions in life. Things in life that we would do over with what we know now. Some regrets may be inconsequential. They're just minor things. Others reach deep into the core of who we are and how we lived our life and choices that we've made. And some of those touch in the place of sin in our hearts. Well, Luke gives us a snapshot into the lives of certain people whose prior beliefs and decisions gave them second thoughts as they watched Jesus suffer and die on the cross. They were affected in ways that they had not expected. It caught them off by surprise. Luke, who is the author of our gospel passage that we're reading, is a doctor, and he's also an historian. And so as an historian, he is careful to make sure that he includes, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, those events that make a point about Jesus, our Savior. And so he captures these individuals and their reactions, but why them? Why did he choose these people and their reactions? When you're about to read and hear what is read here, you'll notice that the reactions are different from each other. So why did Luke include these individuals and their reactions? Maybe it's to broaden our understanding so that we might see how our lives intersect with theirs, or how theirs intersect with our lives. So as you hear this account read, ask yourself, where do I fit in in this story? Verse 44 of God's holy and inerrant word. It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And while the sun's light failed and the curtain of the temple was torn in two, 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. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, certainly this man was innocent. And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things. Would you pray with me? You tell us in your word that your word is a lamp to our feet and a light for our path. And yet we confess our absolute dependency upon the Holy Spirit to help us understand that path and to see that light that the light of the world gives to us. So we ask that you would speak to our hearts and our minds. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live life backwards? so that maybe you might start all over again? It certainly captures our imagination. I mean, who of us did not consider that kind of thought when we watched Back to the Future movies? It makes us think. It captures our imagination. But really, what would it be like if we lived life backwards? Well, we would certainly die first and get it out of the way, okay? Then we live in a nursing home and get kicked out when we're too young. We get a gold watch. We go to work for 40 years until we're young enough to enjoy our retirement. We go to college. We eat dominoes until we're ready for high school. Then we go to grade school. And then we become a little kid with no responsibility and no diet plans. And then we spend our last nine months floating, and we finish off as a sparkle in our parents' eye. And then we start all over again. Well, if only life were that simple, right? Going backwards, starting over and rewriting our story, things that we would do differently, for example, some minor things or maybe some major things in our lives, but we know that we can't, not sure that we'd want to. We can't change the past, but our relationship to the past can be changed. And that's key, what we see here even in our passage. Luke introduces us to the centurion, a spectacle-seeking crowd, and a curious-from-afar crowd. He shows how their relationship to the past has changed as they watched Jesus suffer and die. These individuals believed certain things about Jesus, and they acted according to what they believed to be true about him. Not all of their reactions, however, are commendable, but they are worth learning from. And so in our passage here, the first lesson that we learn is that no one is beyond the reach of God. No one is beyond the reach of God. The change in this centurion's life is nothing short of a supernatural miracle. As a Roman centurion, or as a Roman officer, he was in charge of a hundred people. And it was said that if you were a Roman soldier, you feared your officer more than you feared the enemy. A centurion was given authority by the Roman government to beat to beat their soldiers if necessary, and generals were given the authority to put them to death. So a centurion was no man to trifle with. He was oftentimes very stoic and very strong in appearance. He was likely present, for example, at the governor's headquarters where Jesus was stripped and beaten, where he was crowned with thorns and spat upon, and then dressed with a robe. And then the centurion would have most likely supervised Jesus' walk to Golgotha. Whether he held the large nails, whether he positioned Jesus on the cross, or he swung the hammer, we simply don't know. But as Jesus was there on the cross, Suffering he and the other soldiers offered him bitter wine. They put an inscription over his head. They divided his garments and Then they proceeded to mock him While he was suffering while he was dying But this centurion He was only doing his job Just his ordinary job, just like any other crucifixion, like any other day of the week, he was doing his job. And so this centurion simply watched and he waited. When Jesus breathed his last, something changed. Luke reports that this centurion praised God, saying, certainly this man was innocent. The Gospel of Mark reports him also saying that this man was the son of God. Not the kind of statements that you would make in front of your soldiers, by the way. Not a kind of statement that you would make in public because you could be punished for admitting that Rome got it wrong. you could be punished and stripped of your authority. And so there was a lot at stake for this centurion to stick out his neck in public and especially in front of the fellow soldiers who joined together mocking Jesus as he was dying on the cross. Now we don't know this centurion's inner turmoil, that he felt or the degree of regret for his participation in the cruel treatment of Jesus, but he was an officer, stoic, most likely, so he had to maintain his composure. But can you imagine for one minute the weight of guilt that he was feeling to have been responsible to crucify the very son of God? He couldn't change what he had done. The past is over. But his only hope was that his relationship to the past could be changed. No longer thought of, I was that then, but I am this now. That was his only hope. Maybe hope sprung eternal when he heard the prayer of forgiveness that Jesus prayed for his enemies. Maybe it was the promise of paradise that Jesus made to the thief on the cross. Or maybe it was the peaceful way Jesus committed his spirit to his father in heaven. Whatever it was, the centurion was convinced that this man was innocent, that he was, in fact, the son of God. And his death changed him. You know, you and I should always remember that Jesus, that our Savior went through the darkness to save us. The tearing of the temple curtain from the top to the bottom dramatically shows how Jesus himself has opened heaven's gates for us. God can turn his enemies into friends. And He can bring the most hardened sinner from darkness into light. He can do that. Maybe this is where you are this morning. I don't know. But maybe this is where you are. The regrets that you have in your life are being exposed as sin against a holy God. And maybe, maybe you're seeing this for the very first time in your life. It's different today. The burden and weight are more than what you can bear. And you want so much for your relationship to the past to be changed. not just for change sake, but because his death is affecting you in ways that you had not expected. You are seeing Jesus die on that cross for you personally. And you wonder, is there any hope for me today? No matter what your past, no matter what regrets that you have or decisions that you've made in your life, you are never beyond the loving reach of a savior who wants to forgive you and who wants to remove the weight of that sin off of you from him and from yourself as far as the East is from the West. That's eternity that he takes our sins and casts them away. The East never meets West and the West never meets East, it's eternity. He wants a relationship with you, dear friend, because he loves you. This morning, you find yourself in the boots of a centurion. If so, repent of your sins and confess that Jesus is the Son of God. Do it today, for salvation is of the Lord. Do it today. When we go on to the next group of people that Luke wants us to give attention to, and that is the spectacle-seeking crowd, the spectacle-seeking crowd responded differently than how the centurion responded. And so Luke shows how the cross of Jesus exposes the guilt of our sin. And so Luke, in our passage, mentions crowds in the plural, more than one. There's different groups, different crowds that are present. Other gospel accounts call these crowds bystanders, if you read some of the other gospels. They had gathered for a public spectacle, much like a hanging, for example, in the Old West. And they wanted to see a spectacle. They were common people. They were also Jewish leaders, chief priests, scribes, and elders of Israel. They were all there. And they were the same ones that other gospel accounts record as saying, as mocking Jesus, saying, he saved others. Why can't he save himself? And they would shout to him, save yourself if you're the son of God. Come down from that cross. And then amazingly, as some of the other accounts show, they wagged their heads in disgust as they looked upon the suffering and dying Jesus. So much for our so-called king, they must have thought. Now we can get on with our life. And so their reaction after Jesus dies really throws us for a loop. They didn't go as far as the centurion in praising God, but instead they went home and they beat their breast, their chest. They beat it. Luke uses a very graphic expression of self-reproach in our passage. It's an exaggerated show of sorrow and fear. I like what one commentator says about this crowd. They came to witness a show. They left with feelings of woe. I want you to remember that this crowd shared the same ancestral heritage as Jesus. He was one of their own. They went from shouting crucify to chest beating. When you think about it, it must have been awful. for them what they were living with in their souls. Went home and they beat their chest. It's not any stretch of the imagination to think that these people must have been filled with such enormous guilt. They must have said to themselves over and over again, we did this? What were we thinking? Regret can be very powerful. in our lives. But their response, according to Luke, ends with deep regret and deep remorse. But that's all. You would like to see the story end with, and like the centurion, they began praising God. But we don't read that, probably because it didn't happen. Feelings of intense regret and remorse that we might have in our own life and even self-reproach can never ever be a savior for us. Getting caught or being exposed can grieve us to the point of deep sorrow and anguish, but it doesn't save us. It can lead us to the savior, but in and of itself, it saves no one. It doesn't matter how intense you are in your grief. The Apostle Paul tells us that godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. Regret and remorse don't have to take us down a dead-end street. It can lead us to the one who died and was buried but is alive and lives forevermore. And many of you have experienced that sweet savor of salvation and how God had rescued you and saved you. The story of the spectacle-seeking crowds reminds us that there is no sin that is beyond the compassion and power of Christ to atone. Even though his suffering and his dying exposes our hearts, who we really are deep inside our own sin, there is still and there will always be hope in the cross of Jesus Christ. And so the safest place to deposit your sins, the regret that has been exposed as sins in your own life, the safest place to deposit our sins is not in our subconscious mind, nor in working off our guilt through good works. But the safest place to deposit our sin, every single one of them, is found in Christ alone. To give all of them to Him. Have mercy, O Lord. Are you among the spectacle-seeking crowds today? Maybe you're one always looking for some miracle, something sensational, something worthy of front-page gazette news, something that just might justify your indifference or mockery of Christ. Oh, the irony that's here. The crowds came looking for a spectacle on the cross. And yet the cross would become the power of God to save the very people who have been indifferent and even at times hostile to the one who was hanging on the cross. Are you standing in this crowd this morning? Do you find yourself there? The Apostle Paul reminds us that the cross is scandalous or folly to those who are perishing. But to those who are being saved, it is the power of God unto salvation. If you are here and you are seeing the beauty of the cross and the glory of the cross, that's good news for you. Because God is at work. Whether you have not bowed the knee to Christ or you have been a Christian for many, many years, there is nothing greater than to glory in the cross of Christ. As agonizing as it was, even as our Savior hung and died on that cross, it is the glory of God for our salvation. It's the only way. And so, my friends, let me ask you, do you glory in the cross of Christ? When Wednesday comes, Lord willing, this coming week, will you glory in the cross of Christ? When news comes of an illness or something that happens, will you still glory in the cross of Christ? Oh, the sweetness of finding yourself standing in the shadow of the cross every day of your life. Oh, the glory that comes. The last group that Luke mentions is quite interesting. This last group were the curious ones, looking at the suffering and dying Jesus from a distance. They were looking at it from afar. And so, putting together the Gospel accounts, we learn that following Jesus requires courage and complete trust in Him. Courage and complete trust. You notice in verse 49 of our passage, Luke says, and all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things. The question is, who are these acquaintances? Kind of a surprising word. We don't read that too often in the scriptures, but Luke includes this word. Who are those acquaintances? Were they Jesus' other disciples? Perhaps, but unlikely. The other gospel writers don't shed light on them at all. Matthew and Mark tell us that many women look from afar but say nothing of acquaintances that Luke uses in our passage. It could be that the acquaintances might be the many women that Matthew records or the other women that Mark writes about. It's a lot involved with the different gospel accounts when you put a picture together, but we really don't know. But Luke does seem to want us to know that in this crowd are those who are simply acquainted with Jesus. They are not true followers of him. And we know that that's the case in many of the stories of the life of Christ, that some started following Jesus, but then it was too hard, and so they turned away and walked away. Apparently, the mother of Jesus was close enough to hear her son say, woman, behold your son. The Apostle John apparently was close enough to Jesus' cross that Jesus could say, behold your mother, referring to Mary. And I think that Mary stayed with her son to the very end. She was a mom. She loved her son. who is also her savior as well. Joseph, Jesus's earthly father, was nowhere to be found. The other women with Mary must have moved afar at some point. But why? Why did they move at a distance from the cross? Were they afraid that the Roman soldiers might arrest them? Were the visuals and sounds of a dying man just, it was too hard to stomach for them? Were they not fully committed? It's really hard to know why they moved away. But scriptures, the accounts make it clear that they were at once up by the cross, but then they moved away. They moved back. The spectacle-seeking crowd ran to their homes in grief. The acquaintances and many other women stepped back to watch from afar. But Jesus' disciples were MIA, missing in action, nowhere to be found. And so as Jesus was suffering and dying, you have the centurion and other soldiers. You have Jesus' mother and a few other women and John, the beloved disciple. That's all who were there who were close to Jesus. Time and time again, we see the courage and fortitude of women when bad things happen. There they are. They're here at the cross. They were first at the tomb. They're always there, dependable, supporting, always weeping and encouraging. They give evidence of hearts that are filled with love and compassion for people. And so men, me, you here in this room, the women here, that is to say our wives, our mothers, our grandmothers, single women, widowed women, they are powerful examples of love and commitment and sympathy and dependability that Christ Church needs if we are to be an effective witness to Ann Arbor and the surrounding areas. They're essential to our maturing in Christ. We need them. Their wisdom must never be taken for granted. And to you young girls that are here, there are a number of young girls who are here, all right? Proverbs calls you polished cornerstones in the making. Polished cornerstones, what's that? Polished cornerstones? Think of a marble pillar or a post that sits under the roof of a building that's strong and it holds up the roof and it keeps the roof from collapsing. That is a polished cornerstone. It is a picture of elegance and strength. Probably never thought of that, but that's how God describes young girls in the book of Proverbs. You may not think of yourself as that, but that's how God describes you. I know that oftentimes the teenage years can be described as tumultuous and rebellious, but they don't have to be at all. Not when you see yourself as a polished cornerstone in God's eyes. And some of you boys who are here, you might be asking, well, what about me? What about us? Well, Proverbs calls you plants grown up. But that's for another time. So there are many lessons that we can learn in Luke's account of the death of our Savior, of Jesus' suffering and dying for the very people that Luke mentions in the story, and people that he does not mention in the story, like you and me. We can't change the past. We can't live life backwards and start all over again. But our relationship to the past can change when God is at work in ways that we don't see visibly. Sandro Botticelli, the Italian Renaissance artist who lived a long life of painting as well as a sinful life, painted a picture of Christ that was called the Man of Sorrows. But he painted the eyes with such a penetrating look that he had to cover those eyes. He could not bear to look at Christ's eyes even though he painted them. One day a preacher came to him and said, you need to uncover those eyes and let the penetrating look do its work. And so Botticelli, he did, and what work they did. They looked right into his heart, exposing regret and guilt of the way that he lived his life. And so, he began making reparations to all whom he had wronged. He then went around, he bought all the canvases that he had painted that might suggest evil desires and evil thoughts. And so for many, many days, he tried to repair the guilt that he was experiencing, the remorse that he was having, but he found no inner peace with what he tried to do with his guilt. One night, while he was on his knees, alone, His regret and his remorse led him to repent of his sins against the one that he painted. And he trusted Christ and his righteousness to save him. It was then that peace and joy for the first time, which had been so elusive to him, filled his soul and changed this artist from sinner to saint. Whatever your regrets, whatever your sin, they are best given to Christ, whose eyes of compassion are always upon you. For even now, we can still hear his words on the cross saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.