The Gospel of Luke – Jesus Died and is Buried 1 Luke 23:44-56 06/13/2021
We are told that Jesus’ crucifixion began about 9 AM on the morning of Passover. It was between the hours of 9 AM and Noon that Jesus was nailed to the cross and mocked by His accusers, executioners, and fellow condemned ones.
Luke tells us that when the sun was at its highest and brightest in the sky, DARKNESS fell over the land. Not shade or shadow nor even gloominess… DARKNESS. The absence of light, and it lasted for 3 hours, until 3 PM.
What if any significance might this hold? None of the Gospel writers tell us what happened during this 3-hour period other than the DARKNESS, but there are some clues if we take a step back from this scene to consider other revelations given in God’s Word.
1st: In the O.T. God often associated Himself with darkness. In the minds of the Jewish people, sudden, unexplained, unnatural darkness had been a sign of ______. See Gen 15:12; Ex 10:21-22; Ex. 19:16
2nd: In the O.T. DARKNESS of a supernatural kind was associated with ______. See Joel 2:1-2, 10, 30-31; Amos 5:20; 8:9; Zephaniah 1:14-15
When it comes to God The Father pouring out His wrath on God The Son, we tend look at the totality of Jesus’ trial, torture, crucifixion, and death as the timeframe in which it happened.
But could it be that it was during this 3-hour period of DARKNESS that The Father was doing that work through The Son?
Prior to DARKNESS: Luke 23:34 – Jesus called on God as Father. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.
The Gospel of Luke – Jesus Died and is Buried 2 Luke 23:44-56 06/13/2021
After the DARKNESS subsided at 3 PM: Luke 23:46 reveals that Jesus once again calls to God as Father. …“Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!”
Prior 3 PM, just before the DARKNESS passed– Matthew records Jesus calling out to God, but in this cry Jesus does not use the term Father, but Elohim: “My God, (Elohim) My God, (Elohim) why have you forsaken Me?” Matthew 27:46
Could it be that during the 3-hour period of darkness, 12-3 PM, that was the time in which ALL of ______and ALL of ______for it, was poured into and upon Jesus?
See Isaiah 53:3-5
Many have puzzled over how God The Son, who is ONE with God The Father, could be forsaken by The Father…
…and yet in that 3-hour period The Son was not filling the place of The Son, but of the ______…
…and The Father was not responding as a Father, but as a ______, meeting out all of the punishment that sin deserves…
…and in that 3-hour period when the DARKNESS of God’s Presence and Judgement fell upon Jesus, because He is the Infinite Son of God, He bore ALL ______and ALL ______leading to His statement…
It Is Finished! John 19:30
No one took Jesus’ life from Him. Having made the full atonement for sin, Jesus ______His physical life and departed from His physical body.
The Gospel of Luke – Jesus Died and is Buried 3 Luke 23:44-56 06/13/2021
Sin had broken man’s ______and God was dead serious about helping man understand the ______that lay between He and them.
Just before Jesus gave up His Spirit, having immerged from the DARKNESS of God’s judgement for sin, the massive curtain that stood between The Holy of Holies and The Holy Place was torn from top to bottom without human hands.
The Significance: Two things define the significance of this moment.
1. It signified the end of the age of Law, the end of the sacrificial system, the end of an exclusive Priesthood, the end of Judaism as it had been known. 2. It signified that the chasm between God and man had been bridged and that man, through the bridge of Jesus Christ, could access God directly. Other than Jesus, there was no further need of a mediator
By Christ, sinners can ______the mercy and grace of God unto salvation and the saved become ______in their own right, with Jesus as our High Priest leading us into the worship and service of God.
See Hebrews 6:10-20; 10:19-22
The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ built the bridge for sinners to cross over into His righteousness and provides a new relationship with God, becoming dearly loved Children and Priests under the High Priest, Jesus.
The Gospel of Luke – Jesus Died and is Buried 4 Luke 23:44-56 06/13/2021
In a fascinating twist of irony, Joseph of Arimathea, one of the Sanhedrin comes to claim Jesus’ body, and lay it to rest. Joseph’s action was a fulfillment of Messianic Prophecy. See Isaiah 53:9 God had a man waiting in the wings, a member of the Sanhedrin who had NOT gone along with the diabolical actions of the others.
How could the Sanhedrin have known that their wicked plans to desecrate the body of Jesus would be turned upside down and that one of their own would bury Him in His own tomb?
The plans of the wicked are many, and carefully designed. God, however, knows their plans in advance and is able to turn ______on its head for ______.
It’s one thing to have such power as to overwhelm the plans of your enemy… its quite another to have such wisdom and power that you can do it from WITHIN the plans of your enemy.
That is the story of the fall and of redemption. God foreknew the entrance of sin into His creation, and He foresaw the condemnation of death it would bring. Using His infinite wisdom and power He worked through the fall, through its death and through its condemnation to provide a way of escape.
What Satan, sin and sinful men planed for destruction, God turned into redemption and today that redemption is available to anyone who will turn to Christ in FAITH and REPENTANCE.
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