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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Seven Last Words: “You Don’t Have to Die Alone”

A Sermon Series on the Last Words From the Cross
The First Word: "Father Forgive"  from Luke 23: 32-34
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
First Sunday of Lent, February 21, 2010

Our hearts were saddened by the Olympic tragedy on opening day, when a Luge rider from the country of Georgia was killed in a horrific accident.  It didn’t help matters when a couple of days later, even before the body was sent home, the Olympic organization claimed the tragedy was not because of the track, but due to rider error.   

If anybody needs consolation rather than explanation, it is the family that loses their loved one.   And if the death comes slowly, so does the dying person.   If anybody needs to hear words of care and comfort, needs to have the human touch, or to receive physical, emotional and spiritual support, it is the dying person.  

But Jesus had none of it.   He had no comforting words, only ridicule and mockery.   He had no touch of compassion, but only a sponge of sour vinegar stuck up to his mouth from the end of a spear.  Even though Scripture says his Mother and the disciple John were there, they were only allowed at the very last moment.  Jesus did not even feel God’s presence.   Both Mark and Matthew tell us the one overwhelming word from the cross was: “My God, why have your forsaken me!”

This is the word all of us can understand.   The greatest worry or dread any of us have is to be knocking on the door of death and discover no one is there.  I’ll never forget a nightmare I once had.   It was early on a Saturday morning.   Teresa and just gotten up to start breakfast and I drifted back to sleep.  Then I dreamed I was dying, unable to breathe, and I attempted to cry out to her, but I couldn’t.  Finally I woke out the dream, but had the worse feeling.   It wasn’t dying that frightened me, but it was dying alone not being able to tell anyone.  That was the nightmare.

Whatever was the great nightmare of the cross, whatever kind of pain Jesus endured, the greatest pain was not the nails, the beatings, the blows, nor the spear.   Even the graphic depictions of physical agony in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” does not compare to the pain of abandonment, rejection and the loneliness Jesus experienced.  Later, the last gospel put everything in perspective, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not…”   This was the pain behind the pain and brought out the great cry of “why” from the cross.

The “why” found in both Mark and Matthew makes Luke’s interpretation much more astounding.   Luke wants us to see something else.   Listen to how the great New Testament Scholar, Raymond Brown, explains Luke’s agenda:
“Only in Luke, does Jesus heal the ear of the servant who came to arrest him.  Only in Luke does Jesus reconcile Pilate and Herod.  Only in Luke does Jesus stop to express compassion for the daughters of Jerusalem.   Only in Luke will Jesus extend grace to the criminal crucified with him.  And it should not be surprising, that only in Luke does Jesus give his first word from the cross as, “Father Forgive them, for they know not what they do…”
                                                              
But before we can see what Luke sees, and hear his first word from the cross, we need to see the cross as it was seen by the watching world.   Before we can see that Jesus was where God wanted him, we need to also see, right at the very first, that the devil also had Jesus right where HE wants him.

WHERE THE DEVIL WANTED JESUS
I know what we believe about the cross---that it was God’s will or that God brings our redemption through the cross---but for a few moments today, I want you to suspend your beliefs and see the cross not as tragedy before it was victory. 

At the cross, the devil finally has Jesus where he wanted him.   Think back to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the temptation Jesus endured in the wilderness.   In Luke chapter 4, we read that Jesus was “led by the Spirit” into the wilderness and was “tempted by the devil” for forty days.   This was no picnic, because we are told Jesus became very hungry and the devil tempted him to turn stones in to bread (4:3).    However, Jesus refused, quoting Scripture saying “Man shall not live by bread alone” (Deut. 8:3).   

After this, the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world “in a moment of time.”   “I’ll give you this all this authority and the glory of them.  If you will worship me, it will all be yours,” the devil explains.   Again, to this second temptation, Jesus quotes Scripture: “You should worship the Lord and him only shall you serve.”  (4:8).    

Jesus tries to scold the devil into leaving, but there is one more trial.   The devil leads Jesus to Jerusalem, sets him on the top of the temple roof and says, “If you are the Son of God, jump off.”  The devil shows he can quote Scripture with the best of them and he quotes Psalm 91 saying “the angels will look after you” and you won’t even stump your toe.   Jesus responds for the third time from Deuteronomy: “Don’t tempt the Lord your God.”   

Three times the devil struck.  Three times Jesus resisted.  And after the three temptations were over, Luke gives us a word that no other gospel writer gives.   Luke tells us that when the devil completed the series of temptations he left Jesus “for a season”, or as the Greek says “achri kairos”: “until another time” (4:13).  Until what other time?   

In the gospel story we know what “until” means.  After Jesus rejected the devil’s offer and refused to bow down to him and receive the kingdoms of the world on Satan’s terms, after that moment the devil did everything in his power to make sure Jesus gains no kingdom, has loses all power, and gains not one tangible thing and has not one single true convert nor any person or disciple who will stand by him in the end.   “Until” means the devil will be back and he will have Jesus just where he wanted him.   And that is exactly how the tragedy of Jesus unfolds “until” the crowds finally all left, “until” the Jewish leaders all turned against him, and until even Jesus’ own disciples deny him.   Since Jesus would not bow, the devil vows to break Jesus.   On the earth it is the devil, with the upper hand.   Listen to how John 6: 66 (interesting chapter and verse) reports the devil’s returned.   “Because of this (his teaching) many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.”   So then, Jesus turns to his twelve and asks,   “Aren’t you also going to go away?” (John 6:67).  They responded “Lord to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life?  …You are the Holy One of God” (6: 68-69).   Then listen to the revealing question Jesus asks next: “Did I not choose you, the twelve?  Yet one of you is a devil.” (6:70-71)  Of course, Jesus is speaking of Judas Iscariot who betrayed him, but what I want you to see is that here is the where the “until” really begins.   The devil has returned with a vengeance and the sheep are scattering.  Everyone will eventually go away.  Jesus will be completely forsaken and he will die alone.

This is just where the devil wanted him.   Though Jesus’ ministry started with all kinds of healing, preaching, and with big crowds following him, at the end there is no healing, no power, and everyone has forsaken him.   Since Jesus would not bow, he will have to break.  The devil will do whatever it takes to make sure Jesus dies a lonely, isolated, and cruel death.  So, when come to the cross, in all the gospels, everything looks like it’s going more according to the devil’s scheme, rather than God’s plan.   Jesus would not live according to the devil’s terms so Jesus’ will have to die on the devil’s terms.   It is the mockers around the cross who give us the best commentary on how everything looked.   Right in the middle of the very people Jesus came to save, it looks as if he will save no one and that he cannot even save himself.

But of course, this is a very hard, sad, tragic way to see the cross, isn’t it?   We’d much rather look away from such a terrible view.   We want to quickly drape the cross in white or gold or lift it up as victory rather than defeat.   But at first the cross was not victory.  At first the cross was the worse situation imaginable.   At first the cross was frustration, failure and fiasco.   This is how all the eyewitnesses first saw the cross.   We need to see this too.   We need to see and feel what the cross was before we can rightly hear the words from the cross.     

WHERE THE DEVIL WANTS US
Why do we need to see the cross this way?   Why do we need to see this that Jesus’ cross of death and rejection is exactly where the devil wanted him?  

We need to see the cross this way because life can seem this way.   It can seem like evil has the upper hand.   It can seem that life is going more according to devil’s schemes, than according to God’s plans.  It can seem that no matter how hard we try, how much good we do, and how much we try to bring about positive change in our world, the most negative still can happen.

Think about those Baptist missionaries who wanted to do good by helping orphans in Haiti.   All, but two of them, have finally been released after a couple of harrowing weeks in a hot, sweltering, and dirty Haitian jail.  Perhaps they made some technical mistakes, but they thought they were doing what was right.   But how quickly, even the good we do can be turned against any of us.   How quickly evil can break out, grab hold and take our breath away.  

Also think about those people in the faculty meeting at the University of Alabama-Huntsville last week.    When the vote of faculty denied Biology teacher Amy Bishop tenure, she turned on her most innocent colleagues and shot them dead.  She even turned to fire upon one of her friends, who was trying to talk her out of it pleading for her to think of their children and grand children.  “Please don’t do this!”  The Woman pulled the trigger again.  But this time the gun misfired, but not until three people were dead.   

Or think about Winton-Salem police Sergeant Mickey Hutchens, recently fatally shot while on duty just before his retirement, or think about all the other innocents who are attacked by evil, especially the most vulnerable in our society---the very youngest children who are increasingly being abducted, abused or murdered each year.   How quickly, evil can invade and gain the upper hand in our own world.  Within an instant, it can seem that the devil can have any of us, exactly where he wants us.   Even for those who claim innocence, and especially for those who try to do what is right and good, evil keeps raising its head against us and has power to win.

Isn’t this the greatest dread any of might have in life?   That in spite of all that we’ve tried to do; in spite of what we done make our life successful, it isn’t.  In spite of all we’ve done to make our marriage or relationships work out right; they don’t. And in spite of all we’ve done to keep our family healthy, and raise our children, they turn out having their own mind and nothing goes according to plan.  No matter how good or right we try to be, things can still go wrong, and sometimes terribly so.  “Whatever can go wrong, does go wrong.”  We do our best, pray the hardest, and still things fall apart.   We pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” but it still keeps coming faster and in stronger ways.   The devil doesn’t let up, and sometimes he seems to be the only one getting the job done and the people he does his best number on are those trying to do the most good.

This is what happened to Jesus, isn’t it?  Who would doubt that he did everything right?  He lived perfectly by the Father’s will.   He loved those that needed love, and he worked to change those who needed to be more loving.   Jesus played life by the highest rules, if anyone did; but that was part of the problem.   Who wants to be around “Mr. Goody Two Shoes”---the one who is so good, he made the rest feel bad?   So, after Jesus crossed the devil one last time, the devil worked in every way he could to get Jesus exactly where he wanted him---on the cross, dying, lonely, defeated, and soon to be dead.  

How do you feel when life comes down on you, hard---real hard?    This is where the devil had Jesus and where he wants us, too.   He wants us to feel as if the good we do, the life we’ve lived is worthless, useless, and that when we get to the end, we will have nothing to show for everything we’ve done, the love we’ve shown, or life we’ve lived.   The devil has nothing, so in the end he wants us to have nothing.   He wants us to come to the point where we say, “What’s the use?”  “What good has it done?”  “What do we have but sorrow and defeat?”  “The Hell with it!”  This is the voice of devil in the ear of Jesus and he will whisper the same to us: What good are you?  What good can you be?  Give it up!

William B Spofford has a poem suggesting what should have been Jesus’ first word from the cross, especially after all they had done to him and as it all turned out: 
“From the Cross-Throne, 
He could see all the kingdoms of the world----
            And so, the last temptation came; Let them Go, God, they ain’t worth it!!

When life is the way it is, and people are the way they are, perhaps the most fitting word from his cross and from our all our own crosses, should be: “Let them go, God…they ain’t worth it!!  
I know people, you know people, even good people who have been hurt so bad in life that this is now the attitude of their own lives.   Two people are in a marriage and the wounds are so deep, that they say to the other….”they ain’t worth it?   Or a person is hurt is betrayed by someone and the pain is too great, “Let them go…they ain’t worth it!    I’ve see parents say this about their wayward children, and sometimes children say this about their own parents.  I’ve seen people say this to God, when a tragedy has entered into their lives----when they lost their health, lost their fortune, or they’ve lost their loved one.  When evil comes upon them or undue hardship, they have decided to let God go, saying “God ain’t worth it!    I’ve also heard people say this about the church, when the pain of staying together becomes too much to bear.  “Let them go, God…they ain’t worth it.  And excuse my English, but the truth is that sometimes this is exactly where we all are: “they ain’t and nor are we.  

Sometimes, the world comes crashing down and life doesn’t seem worth it.  “Let me go, God….I’m not worth it!!   This is exactly where the devil wants us.   This is where he wants our marriages, our relationships, our churches, and it is where he wants our world.  He is on a suicide mission of death and destruction.  The devil wants us to feel just like that man who flew his plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas last week.  “It ain’t worth it!  Satan wants us to feel like a suicide bomber who says, “they ain’t worth it” and neither am I, so we’ll both die.  This is what the devil came shouting at Jesus and he still comes whispering and sometimes shouting out in this world.   He wants us to ask ourselves, “what’s the use” and that life as it is for us  “ain’t worth it!”

WHAT THE DEVIL CAN’T HAVE
Did you see the beer commercial from the Super Bowl, where a group of scientists are working and one of them peers into a telescope and sees a large meteor rushing toward the earth.  “We’re all going to die!”  So, what does everyone do?   They break out the beer and begin to party.  It’s the best they could think of doing in that moment.  Not praying… not making things right with each other, not doing whatever could or should be done, but when the end was near, they just wanted to party up to last second.  

Then, when the last second comes, it is only a little pebble that comes down to pop up against the lens of the telescope.  The scientist looks down on the floor at what was only a smoking pebble and with joy exclaims, “We’re going to live!”    Just another reason to keep the party going!   The message is clear: whatever life brings you, whether it is death or life, just face it with a party.  This is the certainly a conclusion possible in our age and many take it.   “Eat, drink, be merry, (and get rich), for tomorrow we die.”   Life is not worth anything, so let’s party.  Let’s live it up and grab what we can, until at last we die.   What gives life more value than that?   

Jesus lived for something else and died for something more.   I don’t know what Jesus saw when the devil took him up on the mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world.   Maybe Jesus saw beyond all the glitter and gold, all the power and prestige, and said in his heart, “That’s not worth it!”  Bowing down to the devil might have brought Jesus heaven on earth, but Jesus believed all the kingdoms of the world weren’t worth it bowing his heart to the devil and short term success.   But if the kingdoms of the world weren’t worth bowing his heart to the devil, was worth resisting the devil.   The kingdoms of the world weren’t worth it, compared to what?  What is worth it?  Isn’t this what we all come to cross to see?

What makes life worth our pain, worth our hurts and worth not surrendering our hearts to the evil in the world worth more than harboring hate and evil in our hearts, is what Jesus saw, even at the intersection of the worse place in the world.    What Jesus had saw and held onto even at the cross, was better than anything else the devil or the world had to offer.  It is what makes even the “hell” of our hurts and pains in life worth going through, and the peace and purpose of heaven worth waiting on, the dream and hope of God and working toward?   What Jesus held onto when there was nothing else to hold onto, made every blow the devil aimed at him bearable, until that moment Jesus found himself, as the song says, “safe in the arms of God.


What makes it all worth it, even on the day when life seems worth nothing at all?   What can we hold on to, when there is nothing else?    This is the problem Russian writer Dostoevsky was writing about in what is probably the greatest book ever written, outside the Bible.   In “The Brothers Karamazov,” there are two main characters, Alyosha and his brother Ivan.  Ivan is the agnostic.  He doesn’t believe in anything anymore.  He is troubled by the problem of evil in the world.  He sees how quickly the world can go wrong.  He can't believe in God anymore.  His word over and over to Alyosha is, “Let it go, it ain’t worth it!”   Ivan has sees all the problems in his mind, so Ivan believes in nothing.   


Alyosha, on the other hand, is guided more by what is in his heart than what is on his mind.     Alyosha doesn’t have all the questions answered, not does he dwell on all the evil like Ivan does.   To Ivan Alyosha doesn’t see anything right, but even in all his ignorance about the world, Alyosha has something in his heart that Ivan has lost.   The one thing Ivan has lost and can’t make happen is what Alyosha still has.   Alyosha has love.   Alyosha loves God and he loves his brother, even his brother who doesn’t love God, nor loves anyone.   Ivan sees everything for what it is, but he has lost the ability to love.   But his brother, Alyosha, believes and loves to the very end and Alyosha wonderfully loves his brother Ivan deeply.   Finally, in this story, which is one of the greatest stories ever told, Ivan melts under Alyosha's love.  The only thing that makes life worth living is not what we know or figure out in our head, but the only thing that has any value at all is the love we have in our hearts.  Love is the only value that makes life worth living, even when all hell breaks loose. 


When you love, no matter how hard the devil tries, he can’t have you.   The devil can have everything you’ve got---your riches, your health, your body, and even your mind.  But the one thing the devil can’t have, unless you give it to him, is your heart.   Only you decide what will happen with your heart.  Only you will decide who to give it to. 


And this is how it was with Jesus.  This is what Luke wants us to hear as the first word from the cross.   When the devil has Jesus exactly where he wants him and has set everything against Jesus, he wants Jesus to die alone.   The devil takes everything from Jesus he can take, but there is one thing he can’t take.   Even when Jesus is dying all alone with the world against him, Jesus refuses to die with hate, hurt and pain as the main thing in his life.   


Now, though this first word from the cross, which is a word of love and forgiveness to those who are killing him, Jesus is no longer alone but he now brings the world close.   Even in this world that can be overtaken with so much hell and hate, Jesus is determined to open his heart, and to keep it open toward faith, hope and love.   There nothing all the demons in hell can do to stop the one who keeps their heart open to God’s love.  This is the same love that overcomes.  It overcomes any evil, and makes life, death and all the pain in between worth it too.   Amen.   

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