I invite you to open the Bible again and turn with me to Mark 15, verse 33. And we only have three studies left in the Gospel of Mark. This one and the next two weeks. And there's a handout there if you want to take some notes. We're going to see three things that God does, and then one way for us to respond. So, you've got four points there. Going through these verses together, Mark 15:33-39. In verse 33, we pick it up at the sixth hour. “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.” So, the sixth hour means we're halfway now through Jesus' time on the cross. Let's just review the timeline that Mark gives us. It started in the third hour, which was nine a.m. That's when they nailed his hands and his feet to the cross, when they crucified him. And so, for three hours now, Jesus has been enduring physical agony, and he has been experiencing the hate of many who are mocking him. But it says here, “At the sixth hour.” So, the sixth hour would be at noon, in the middle of the day. That's when the darkness came over the land.

Now I don't know what you've heard about this darkness. I don't know what you've thought about the darkness before, but for three hours, in the middle of the day, from noon to 3 p.m. there's darkness over this entire area. Some people have said this is a natural phenomenon, like a solar eclipse. Well, I want to give you two reasons this can't be, as far as I understand, a solar eclipse. I'm not a student of solar eclipses; I'm a student of Scripture. But from what I know about solar eclipse, it happens on a new moon. When does the feast of Passover always happen? On a full moon. And so, the feast of the Passover is this time that Jesus is dying on the cross. It's always at the time that the moon is full, but a solar eclipse happens at a new moon. Another reason this can't be a solar eclipse is even a total solar eclipse lasts for about seven and a half minutes, when the sun is blocked. This is three hours, according to verse 33, that darkness comes over the land. So, this is something supernatural, something that God is doing from the sixth hour at noon, all the way until the ninth hour at 3 p.m., when Jesus cries out and when Jesus dies. For those three hours and the second half of his time on the cross, which is six hours total, in the second half, the three hours there's darkness. Darkness came at a time when the people did not expect. The sun was darkened at noon, and so what are you and I supposed to think about darkness? Now, as a new covenant believer, I know that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. So, I associate light with the holiness and the glory of God, and darkness I associate with our sin.

However, if you were more familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures, if you knew the prophets of old, you would know that they foretold a time when darkness would come, even in the day. In fact, it was a time known as the day of YHWH, the Day of the LORD. And so, I want to put here up on the screen Isaiah 13:9-10, and this is one of many passages I could take you to in Joel or Amos or Zephaniah. There are many prophets who describe this time as the Day of the LORD, and one of the common features about this time, well, let's just read here Isaiah 13:9-10. It says, "Behold, the day of the Lord comes. It's cruel, with wrath and fierce anger.” So, the Day of the LORD is associated as a time of judgment, often known as a Day of Wrath. In fact, do you remember when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and he was praying, "Father, remove this cup”? What cup was Jesus going to have to drink? The cup of wrath. And so, in the Day of the LORD, well, that's a time of wrath. It's a time to make the land a desolation, to destroy its sinners from it. “For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising, even, and the moon will not shed its light.” So, commonly associated in the prophets with the Day of the LORD is that the sun stops giving its light, even maybe when it's rising in the morning or even in the middle of the day. The sun will go dark, and that's kind of the idea to go along with this judgment time, this day of God's wrath.
And so, we'll turn the lights back on. Point number one, if you could write this down. I want you to “See God in the dark.” I want you to see that this darkness that came over the land, this is something that God did, and if you know about the idea of the Day of the LORD, well, God is coming to judge in the darkness. God's bringing wrath when the sun is not giving its light. And so, that's the kind of thing that we would be able to recognize if we're familiar with those prophecies. We would recognize, oh, the darkness coming in, the sun not shining in the middle of the day, that means God's bringing his wrath. That means that on the cross for those three hours, Jesus is taking the judgment for your sins. Jesus is satisfying God's wrath that you deserve.

See, judgment is one of the main things the Scripture warns us about, that judgment is coming for all. In fact, all the sins that people are doing are storing up wrath for this great day of tribulation in which God will judge the world. Even the things that you're doing, the sins that you commit, where you fall short of God's glory, the evil things that you have thought or you have said, all the actions that you have committed, they are being written down in a book. And someday, you would go before God, and you would be judged according to what you have done. And oftentimes, when it describes that judgment, it talks about darkness associated with it.

And so, the warning of the Scripture is that judgment is coming. Your judgment is coming. The judgment of the whole world is coming in the Day of the LORD. But there is good news. There is a place where judgment already came, and on a Good Friday, when darkness came over the land, the judgment of God came upon Jesus on the cross. And Jesus, he is our propitiation. That means he satisfied the wrath of God for our sins; he took the judgment for us. That's what should come to our minds when we think about the darkness that Jesus Christ drank the cup of wrath so you wouldn't have to. You can know that judgment is coming, but you can turn and look to where that judgment has already come, and you can find safety from the judgment of God at the foot of the cross of Jesus. You can find a refuge for your soul. Do you know that Jesus took your place under that darkness, when he endured the great wrath of God on the cross? That's what we want to see. We want to see God working in the darkness to judge Jesus in our place.

Now, go back to Mark 15, and you'll see what happens next. Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s a quote from Psalm 22. There are so many prophecies that are all culminating with Jesus on the cross. And if you were here last week, we went and read through Psalm 22, and all the physical pain that Jesus was in, all the people mocking him and wagging their heads and casting lots for his clothes. So, there's a lot that Jesus is fulfilling when he cries out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” That goes back to Psalm 22. But when he says it in Aramaic, "Eloi, Eloi,” “My God, my God.” It sounds like he's saying Elijah to somebody, and so you can see there in verse 35, some of the bystanders they're like, "Oh, he's calling for Elijah.” That's what they think they heard, and someone runs, and they get a sponge, and they get some sour wine, and they put it on a reed, like they're going to give Jesus something to drink. And the idea here is, wait, maybe Elijah will come and take Jesus down from the cross.

Now, Elijah, he's one of the prophets of Israel, and the lore behind Elijah. I mean this guy is a legend. He literally went up to heaven in a chariot of fire. Talk about a way to go! He didn't die. He just rode into the sky. So, of course, the legend was Elijah's going to come back. And even in the Gospel of Mark, we've already seen that when Jesus was glorified on the Mount of Transfiguration, who showed up to be there with Jesus? Moses and Elijah. And so, there's this thought, all of a sudden, that this is more of the mockery. But I think this is a sincere response to Jesus crying out, "Eloi, Eloy.” Well, maybe he's calling for Elijah. Maybe let's give him something to drink. Let's see what happens. And this happens right before you can see in verse 37 when Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.

So, go and turn with me, I need everybody to grab your Bible and go to John 19:28 because I want to go to another example. John was an eyewitness at the foot of the cross, and so in John 19:28, he describes this same moment where they offer Jesus a drink, right before his last breath, and in John 19:28, it starts a little bit differently. Instead of Jesus saying, “Eloi, Eloi, my God, my God,” and they think it's Elijah. Here, in John 19:28, Jesus says something a little different. It says, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, he said to fulfill the scripture, ‘I thirst.’” So, here in John, they're going to offer Jesus this drink in response to Jesus saying that he's thirsty, and there's a jar full of sour wine, and they get that sponge out, and they get the sponge full of the sour wine, and they put it on a hyssop branch, and they hold it to his mouth. “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said,” This is his loud cry. The last thing he says, "It is finished.” And how do you say that in Greek? What's the Greek word? Shout it out if you know. Tetelestai. One of our favorite things to know from the Greek language, it is finished. It is complete. It is done. It's paid in full. “And then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

So, I just happen to have a jar full of sour wine right here, everybody, and I've got a sponge put on a reed, and so if we were to take this jar full of sour wine and we were to pour this sour wine here on this sponge, and then we were to, with the reed, lift it up to the mouth of Jesus, you could see that that's how Jesus would get a drink, and clearly he's doing this to fulfill prophecy. And some say that the prophecy he's fulfilling is Psalm 69, verse 21, where it talks about drinking sour wine, and maybe that's the specific prophecy that was on his mind. But the truth is, when you consider passages like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, there is so much prophecy culminating at this moment with Jesus on the cross, one of the things that John brings up, Mark mentions the reed. Mark mentions the sour wine on the sponge, but one thing that John brings up is the hyssop branch, and so we have some hyssop here on the reed with the sponge, and the hyssop branch would have actually been something that would have touched the lips of Jesus as they held this up to his mouth for him to get a drink.

And if you're a Bible student, you might hear hyssop branch, and you might think of other passages where hyssop has already been brought up before, and one place that talks about hyssop is the Passover in Exodus, chapter 12, the meal that God gave his people to remember his deliverance of them out of Egypt. In fact, isn't it the feast of the Passover when Jesus is dying on the cross? And so, what do they do at the Passover? Well, they get their lamb, their perfect, spotless lamb, and they let the lamb stay with them. And then, at this certain day, at twilight everyone is going to go and kill their lamb. They're going to slaughter the lamb as a sacrifice, and they're going to have a basin with the blood of the lamb there in it. And they're going to take a hyssop branch, and they're going to dip the hyssop branch in the blood of the lamb, and then they use the hyssop branch to spread the blood on their doorpost. They put the blood above the door and on both sides of the door. And so, the hyssop branch is what takes the blood of the lamb and it puts it on the door. Well, who is Jesus when he's on the cross, according to John the Baptist? He's “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

And so, when they took that sour wine and they lifted it up to the mouth of Jesus, and Jesus drank of that wine, surely his blood that was flowing from his head with the crown of thorns would have gotten on the hyssop, the blood of the lamb. In fact, when you think about the doorpost at the Passover, when you put the blood up above the door and into the sides of the door, well, let's look at the cross. Where is the blood on the cross? The blood would be where the head of Jesus is, kind of above the cross beam, and then the blood would be to the sides where they've nailed his hands. And so, even where the blood of the lamb is put on the wood would have been similar from the door to the cross. Can you see the Lamb of God? The Passover lamb is a picture that God gave his people while they were in Egypt, through Moses, all the way back in Exodus, hundreds of years before they would ever hold the hyssop up to the mouth of Jesus, and Jesus would fulfill the picture of the Passover lamb during the feast of the Passover on the cross.

And so, you can see much was finished, much was accomplished, many prophecies were fulfilled in that final moment. But go back to Mark chapter 15, everybody. Grab your Bible and turn back there with me and look at verse 37, because whether it's about Elijah coming or whether it's about Jesus being thirsty, after they give him this sour wine to drink, is the moment that he dies. And Mark writes it in a very deliberate way in verse 37, when he says that “He uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.”

Oh, let's go back over here because I forgot to say something important about the Passover lamb on the cross, and so again we get the get the lights back on over here because John, he's down there at the foot of the cross, and John, he observes something that happens even after Jesus breathed his last, because it's the Passover and because the Sabbath is coming, these other two criminals, the one on either side of Jesus, see they hadn't died yet. Jesus dies first, and so John, he watches as they come and break the legs of the criminal on one side of Jesus. Now, why would they break his legs, everybody? Because when you die on the cross, you die by what? Shout it out if you know. Asphyxiation, severe oxygen deprivation. You die because you run out of breath, you run out of air, and you have to keep lifting yourself up to get that air, to get that breath in your lungs to get that oxygen. And so, if we come and we smash your legs and break your legs, guess what? Then you can't lift yourself up anymore and keep getting those breaths, and so you're going to run out of oxygen and you're going to die. And so, they need these criminals to die because the Sabbath's coming. They got to get them down from the cross, and so they break the legs of one on one side, and then they go over, and John watches them break the legs of the one on the other side, and then they come to Jesus. And do they break his legs? No, they don't, because Jesus has already died.
And if you go back to Exodus 12, you will see that one of the key things about the Passover lamb is not one of his bones shall be broken. Well, they broke everybody else's legs, but they didn't break the legs of the Passover lamb because Jesus had already died. Now, that's very important that we reviewed that because look at verse 37. When Jesus gives a loud cry, if you're able to shout out to tetelestai, it is finished, paid in full. If you can shout out and people can hear you speak, well, then, what do you still have a lot of if you're making a loud cry? You still have a lot of air, if you have the ability to really make a loud cry like that. And so, when it says that Jesus gave a loud cry and then he breathed his last, we can see that Jesus, he's choosing to die. It's not like he just ran out of air and then he died. It's like he gave his life.

Let's get this down for number two. We want to “See how Jesus Chose to Die.” See, he could have kept going. He could have had more air. He possibly could have lasted as long as the other criminals. In fact, sometimes people lasted six hours. Seems like long enough to me. Three hours of darkness and wrath. That seems like plenty to me. But apparently, people could last for a long time on the cross, if they could keep lifting themselves up to breathe. And so, there's a distinction that I think is important for all of us to observe about what Jesus did when he was on the cross. It's not like Jesus was overcome by death. It's like Jesus willingly surrendered himself to die. He gave his life after he had accomplished all of the prophecies being fulfilled, after he had endured all the physical agony and all of the hate, and after he had endured the very wrath of God for our sin, he could shout tetelestai, and he gives his last breath.
Turn with me to John, chapter 10, verses 17 and 18, everybody. I need everybody to grab your Bible and listen to the words of Jesus, because he tells us about this beforehand, and he wants you to think about it a certain way. In John 10:17-18. Follow along as I read. He says, "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.”

Notice, he says in verse 18, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” He hears Jesus announcing ahead of time. He doesn't want you to think that anybody took his life; he gave his life. See, don't be deceived. These Jewish religious leaders, these chief priests and elders and scribes, yeah, they got what they wanted when Jesus died. But it's not like they were in control. No, it wasn't even the Roman governor or the Roman centurion or these Roman soldiers who mocked Jesus and mistreated him and had their way with him. No, the Romans weren't even really in charge. No, there was only one who decided when he would die, and that he would die. And Jesus laid his life down voluntarily, willingly, and the plan was always that he would take it up again. And that's what we're going to talk about on our 2nd Easter service this year in two weeks. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. He laid his life down; he took his life up again. That's what the Father sent him to do, and he was willing to submit to the Father, to be obedient to the point of death. Yes, even death on a cross.

Death didn't take Jesus. Jesus laid his life down. Can I get an amen from anybody on this? Jesus chose to do this willingly for you to offer his life as the sacrifice, as your substitute, to die in your place. That's what's amazing about Jesus, the way he breathed his last. And this is something the centurion is really going to pick up on. The centurion, I would imagine he's seen a lot of people die on the cross, and he's seen our natural instinct for survival to kick in, to keep preserving your breath, to stay alive as long as you can. And so, Jesus intentionally breathed his last when Jesus gave his life. I'm praying that some of you will have the same response of the centurion. God brought some of you here today to open your eyes to see Jesus on this cross, and maybe you'll talk to someone after this service in the tent outside, or maybe you'll come forward to the front, maybe you'll be like this Roman centurion when you see what Jesus did. Oh, it changes the way that you think.

But see, before we get to the Roman centurion's response, there's one more thing that Mark wants to show you that God did. God did the darkness. Jesus, He laid down His life. But go back to Mark 15 and look with me at verse 38, because as soon as it says, “He breathed his last,” it's like we switch locations, and instead of being at Golgotha, the place of the skull where these three crosses are, it's like we go over to the temple, and something happens in the temple at the moment that Jesus breathed his last. You can see in verse 38 it says, "And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” Now this might not mean as much to us as it would mean to the Jewish people, and we're blessed to have some Jews who believe in Jesus here at our church. Many of us might be Gentiles from other nations, but the Jewish people they understood the temple, and they would have understood these massive tapestries at the temple. Particularly, there was a curtain, the one that I think that tore here, there was a curtain within the temple that separated the most holy place from the rest of the temple. I'm talking about the holy of holies. I'm talking about the place where the Ark of the Covenant was, that represents the very presence of YHWH, the glory of God himself. See, there was only one man on one day of the year who could go into the holy place, and that's Yom Kippur. If you've ever heard of it, that's in Leviticus 16. That's the Day of Atonement. See, every year in Israel, on a certain day, the high priest would dare to go beyond the curtain, and there were sacrifices that he had to do to have the blood of the sacrifice. There were washings he had to do to be cleansed. There was incense he had to make sure it was filling up the whole holy place. And then one man on one day of the year would dare to go beyond the veil and enter into the curtain, into the holy place of God. And so, what Mark wants you to know is that at the very moment that Jesus died inside that temple, this massive curtain that would go all the way from the ceiling to the floor, that would be of such a thickness and interwoven material that no man would have the strength to tear this curtain, that veil all of a sudden tore from the very top at the ceiling of the temple all the way down to the bottom, as if to say that the holy place has been opened by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. And so, Mark wants you to see who just tore the curtain in the temple. God just did something at the moment that Jesus died.

So, let's get this down for point number three, if you are taking notes. You want to “See the holy place is open.” See the holy place is open. I hope that today your eyes are being opened to see God was doing a lot, the darkness and the wrath, Jesus giving up his life, laying it down, and now the tearing of this curtain. Clearly, something significant just happened that has now impacted the way people can come into the holy presence of God.

Everybody, grab your Bible and turn with me to Hebrews, chapter 10, Hebrews 10:19-22. I want everybody to grab your Bible and to turn there because the writer of Hebrews, he's addressing the Jews, and they would have understood the significance of the Day of Atonement and the High Priest and the Holy Place. And this passage here, Hebrews 10:19-22. Look at this, everybody, with me. This is great commentary on what you and I should think about the curtain in the temple being torn from the top to the bottom. It says in Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 19, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus.” What an amazing statement to the Jew! This would have been a mind-shattering reality. How can these things be? Anyone could go into the holy place. Wow! And it says you can go there with confidence. You can boldly go into the holy place. And what's the way that you have access? What's the way that you can enter? It's the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God. His pure, righteous blood has paid a redemption for sinners like us, so you can now go into the presence of God. Wow!

Look at what he goes on to say in the next verse. You're entering this holy place by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain. That is, through his flesh. See, the sacrifice of the body of Jesus on the cross, as soon as he's dead, the curtain is torn. It's like there's a new and living way to God. That Jesus, in his death, he has opened up access for you to go and be with God. In fact, look at what it says in verse 21 that Jesus is your “great priest over the house of God.” So, clearly, it's taking this old picture from the old covenant, and it's showing us now a greater way with Jesus in the new covenant, that the high priest, only he could go in there, and he had to do the blood of these sacrifices, and he could only go in there one day of the year. But now you can go in there at any time because of the blood of Jesus, and Jesus he is your priest. He always lives to save to the uttermost. He's always available to make intercession. Jesus is the one who can stand in the presence of God on your behalf. He can claim you as one of his people, and he can bring you into the holy place because of his blood, because of the sacrifice of his flesh.

No, it turns out that the death of Jesus on the cross changes everything. That now in the new covenant we can go to this place with God. Look at verse 22. I hope this verse will inspire you today. Hebrews 10:22 says, "Let us draw near with a true heart, with full assurance of faith.” The idea is that we, all of us who believe in the death of Jesus on the cross, we can draw near to God. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? I hope you do prepare your heart when you come to worship here together as a church, as the assembly of believers, but I hope you also know that you don't have to go to a place, and you don't have to be there at a time. That because of what Jesus did on the cross, we can all now draw near to God.

And see, this goes back to Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman in John 4. She talked about how they worship at the temple, but the Samaritans they had a place on a mountain there in Samaria, and Jesus, he takes her away from you need to worship at this place or you need to worship at this time, and he says that the Father is seeking worshippers, those who will worship him not in a place in time, those who will worship him in spirit and in truth, those who will draw an ear to God and give God their whole heart. That's what God wants from every single one of us. He wants our heart. He wants who we really are in our souls. He wants us to offer ourselves, our souls, our bodies as living sacrifices, to give him his worship. See, that's what you can do if you believe in Jesus. You don't need a priest. Jesus is your priest. You don't need a place or a day you can draw near with a true heart. Is this good news for anybody? You can be bold because of his blood. You can remember that that curtain was torn and that holy place is open for everybody. The holy place is open for business, and the business is worship. The business is giving your heart to God with full faith.

See, because of this new covenant, all of your sins can be cleansed, all of the evil can be washed away, and you can now come with a new heart that God gives you, where he puts his Spirit within you, and you can now come and draw near to God. What's the promise? If we draw near to God, he will draw near to us. So, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded, and come give God what he really wants: your worship, your heart. Do you regularly think that because Jesus died on the cross, I can draw near to God? Look at how it describes it here in verse 22. It says, "With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water…” See, this is clearly using the Levitical language of what the high priest would do on the Day of Atonement, because he would have to offer these sacrifices, and he would have to sprinkle this blood for the sins of the people, and he had to do these washings to make sure that he was clean when he went into the presence of God. And so now it's saying, yes, but your evil conscience, it says, your heart can be sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.

So, your conscience is when you know you've done wrong. Your conscience is meant to accuse you. It's meant to show you that you're guilty, that you should be ashamed of what you did, and so you bring this guilt and this shame. You bring this awareness of your own sin, and you come before God. And if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us from our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We can have our hearts cleansed. Is that good news for anybody? How about your body? Maybe you feel like you've done things with your body that you know were wrong, you shouldn't have done, and you feel guilty about it. You feel ashamed about it, and it says your bodies could be washed with pure water. Your bodies could be washed as white as snow, as if the sin had never even happened because it's been completely forgiven. It's been blotted out. It has been erased. And now, a sinner like you can come into the holy place, and you can worship God with all that you are, because your heart has been cleansed from evil and your body has been washed with pure water, all because of the blood and the flesh of Jesus. Can you have a heart that is right with God? I wonder, do you draw near? Is Sunday morning the only time you worship, or do you remember the curtain is torn? Do you go behind the veil? Do you go into the holy place at whatever space and whatever time you want? Do you draw near to God and say, "God, thank you, thank you for what you did in the darkness to judge your son. Thank you for your son, what he was willing to do, to lay down his life. Thank you that you tore that curtain so that I could see the holy places open for a sinner like me. Thank you, Father. I bless you. I give glory to your holy name. How could someone like me be in Your presence like this? I worship You.”

So, we don't need a priest. Jesus is our priest, and he's gone before us. He's made a new and living way, and you can draw near to God with a true heart of worship. That's what Jesus accomplished on the cross. That's what you're supposed to see, this massive tapestry tearing in half. You're supposed to see the Ark of the Covenant beyond it, and you're supposed to know that you have been invited to draw near, let us draw near to God in worship. Let us respond to what he has done on the cross with praise. Let this be a week of more worship at this church than we have ever done before. Not just together, but even in the secret place, in the holy place between us and God. Let there be worship as you draw near to him.

Now, go back with me to Mark, chapter 15. We get to our final verse. We see God in the dark. We see Jesus giving up his life, and now that over there at the temple, the curtain has been torn, and we have access to the holy place. Now I don't know if this Roman centurion could hear any curtain tearing, or if he could see it. I don't think so. If it's the inside curtain, so there's a. A lot of speculation. What did this Roman centurion know about the curtain? Maybe he knew nothing. Maybe word came to him. I don't know. But what I know is this Roman centurion, he would be in charge of some of these Roman soldiers. He would be the one overseeing this whole crucifixion. In fact, when Pilate wants to make sure that Jesus is dead because Jesus died quickly. He died quicker than the other criminals. He died quicker than Pilate expected because he gave up his life. And so, who does Pilate call? If you come back next week, Pilate's going to call this Roman centurion like he's responsible for all of this. Is Jesus dead? And the Roman centurion’s going to say, yes? He's dead. And the Roman centurion, he didn't have a high regard of Jesus when this began. No, he was fine with his soldiers mocking Jesus. Hail, King of the Jews! He was fine when they put the purple cloak on him and they mocked him with the crown of thorns. When they beat him up, he didn't have a problem with any of that when they cast lots for his clothes, but now something has changed in this Roman centurion's thinking. Look at what it says in verse 39. It says, "When the centurion who stood facing him,” so notice how Mark wants you to see that this centurion was looking at Jesus. He's watching Jesus die on the cross. Here's an eyewitness, and because he's the Roman centurion, he doesn't come from the whole Jewish prophecy of the Hebrew Scriptures. He doesn't know the tales of the Messiah. He doesn't know the promises of what is to come. He is just witnessing Jesus on that cross, and notice what it draws our attention to when he saw that in this way he breathed his last. See, by the time you're the centurion, by the time you're in charge, I would imagine you've been to a few executions by crucifixion. You've seen a few people die on the cross, and you've seen them desperate. You've seen them trying to hang on to life for as long as they can. You've seen them trying to keep breathing, and then you see this man, and you see that he's not in panic. He's not in fear. No, in fact, he's using his air to shout out, “It is finished.” It is done. It's been completed, and he doesn't seem like he's afraid of death. He seems like he's a willing participant.

And when the centurion sees that, he says that truly this man is “the son of God.” What an amazing thing for a Roman soldier to proclaim! See, this is something that God did in this man. God revealed to him who Jesus really is. God opened his eyes, and he saw Jesus in a way he didn't even know Jesus moments before. He saw that Jesus is not just a man dying on a cross; Jesus is actually the Son of God. Has God opened your eyes to see that Jesus is his Son? Have the blinders been taken off so you could see not just even what Jesus did when he died for us and took that wrath on that cross? Can you see who Jesus is? That he is God's Son, and he did receive this charge to lay down his life from his father in heaven. Wow, it's so amazing. Whenever God reveals to someone who Jesus really is, when their eyes are opened, and it happens to this Roman centurion, and his proclamation is recorded down for us that he saw Jesus is the Son of God.

I'm praying that some of you will see Jesus is the Son of God here today. Oh, there are a lot of people who will say Jesus is the Son of God on a Sunday morning at church, but who's really had their eyes open? Who really knows Jesus Christ? See, that's what happens here. Wow, that's God's son. God sent his Son to come and die on that cross. See the revelation that Jesus is the Son of God is one of the most important things that you could ever come to learn in your life. In fact, it's the major theme in the Gospel of Mark. Everybody, grab your Bible and go to Mark, chapter 1 with me. Mark, chapter 1, verses 10 and 11. If everyone can turn there with me, because these are meant to be the bookends of the Gospel of Mark. Right after the curtain is torn. And the Greek word there for the curtain being torn, schizo, is only used one other time in the entire Gospel of Mark. So, in chapter 15, the curtain is torn, and then the centurion proclaims Jesus is the Son of God. Well, in Mark, chapter 1, verse 10, this is right after Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River, it says, "When he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being” what everybody” “being torn open,” schizo. So here it's the skies that open up, whereas in Mark 15 it's the curtain of the temple that's torn. Well, here it's the heaven’s torn, and the Spirit is descending on him like a dove. The Spirit wasn't actually a dove; it was just coming upon Jesus like a dove might come down. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my beloved” what everybody? “You are my son, with whom I am well pleased.”

So, we're supposed to see the heavens tear, and hear God say that he's his Son, and then we're supposed to see the curtain tear and hear the centurion say, yeah, for sure, He's “the Son of God.” And we're supposed to close the book of Mark, and we're supposed to know Jesus is unique. There is no one like him. He is the one and only Son of the Most High God. He is one with the Father, and the only way that any of us will ever come to know God is we must come through Jesus, his Son.

Let's get this down for point number four: “The only way to the Father is to confess his Son.” You have to make the good confession. You have to say, along with the Father, speaking through the torn heavens, or along with the centurion speaking after the torn curtain. Truly, this man is the Son of God. I remember the first time I ever went to Israel. I had never been in a foreign country like this. I was in full tourist mode, super long plane flight. Just got out of the bus with the rest of the tourists, and we're standing on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the glorious city of Jerusalem, and it is awesome. And it's like, pinch me, I can't believe I'm here. And the tour guide that took us to that spot, he was pumped up about being in Jerusalem. He was on one that day, and he's like, "I want to say it, and I want everybody to know it, Jesus is the Son of God. And then he just shouts it over the valley, from the Mount of Olives up to the Temple Mound. This man just shouted as loud as he could, Jesus is the Son of God, and I'm just like I don't think we should be saying that that loudly, because I can't even fully tell who the Jews and the Muslims are yet at this point. All right? This is a whole new habitat for me, and I'm hearing a lot of different languages, and I'm seeing a lot of automatic weapons I'm not used to people carrying as they go by me on the street, and I'm not sure who's going to shoot who here at any moment. I'm not sure we should be shouting when the Jews don't think he's the Messiah, and the Muslims don't think God has a son. I don't think we should be shouting, "Jesus is the Son of God” this loudly on our first day in Jerusalem. I'm not sure this is a part of protocol along with the tour, right? And he looks at us, and he says, "Will you shout it with me? Will you shout it like he's going to come back right now. Will you shout from a mountain in Israel so loudly that he can hear you?” And he's just laying it on thick. And I will tell you that I let loose with everything I have in my being, and I shouted like I didn't care who heard it, because I know it's true. And the one that I want to hear it is the one who reigns over all the people. Jesus really is the Son of God. Can you see it? Can you see it by faith? Because the guy who saw Jesus die, he saw it, and he said it. And the whole point is that you would see it here today. That you would see what the Father is doing to give his Son, and what the Son is doing to give his life that you would see the eternal story of the Father and the Son. That is the purpose of the cross.

So, where was this cross? Well, you're thinking, well, it was at Golgotha, outside the city of Jerusalem. Yes, but Jerusalem is a city on a hill. In fact, I was on the Mount of Olives. Well, there are multiple mounts that come together to make up the city that is known as Jerusalem, and specifically the cross was on a mount called Moriah. In fact, if you're reading through Chronicles with us right now, we're going to finish 1 Chronicles, we're going to start 2 Chronicles in our reading this week, and we're going to come to Second Chronicles, chapter 3, verse 3, where Solomon, the son of the famous King David, it says, "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord, near the temple in Jerusalem.” Where? On Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David his father. So, if you've been reading through Chronicles, you're reading this story of a father who has this idea, King David. We should build God a temple. We should build God a place of worship. We should build God a most holy place where we can draw near. And so he brings the Ark of the Covenant, but God says, "You're not going to build the temple. Your son Solomon is going to build it.”

And so, David takes all of the resources that he's given, and all of the plans that he's prepared, and he gives the instruction from the Father to the Son. Son, you're going to build the temple of God, and it's going to be at the place that David told him about-the place where the Lord had appeared to his father, at the place that David had appointed on the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. Maybe you read about the angel of the Lord coming to judge, and how, by God's mercy, the angel of Yahweh it stopped at a particular place on Mount Moriah, the place where the temple was to be built. And so, this moment between the Father in heaven and His Son Jesus, well, it has even a history going back to King David, the Father, and his son Solomon, but the history goes back even further than that. It goes all the way back to the book of Genesis, chapter 22, back to Abraham when God said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. Moriah goes all the way back to Father Abraham, and Father Abraham, you know that God made a great promise to Abraham, a covenant with him, that he would make of him a nation, and he would give of him a land, and that through the line of Abraham, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. But you know, even after that promise, how old was Abraham when his son Isaac was conceived? 100 years old. So, he had to wait a long time for his son, his one and only son, his son whom he loves. And now God says, as Isaac is growing up, He says, take your son and go sacrifice. Make him an offering for me. Where you're going to go on a three-day’s journey away? Where? To this mountain, to this place called Moriah, the same place where Jesus is dying on the cross, the same place where Solomon built the temple, where long before that Abraham's walking there with his son Isaac, and his son says to him, hey, where's the offering? Where's the animal we're going to kill as the sacrifice? And Abraham knows that God told him to kill his son as a sacrifice. And what does Abraham say to his son Isaac? The Lord will provide a sacrifice. I always thought it was so terrible for God to ask a father to kill his son, and it took me a long time in my life to understand that the Father in heaven was not asking Father Abraham here on earth to do anything that the Father in Heaven wasn't going to do himself, because it was on Mount Moriah, not too far away from the temple that Solomon built, not too far away from where Abraham raised the knife to kill his son Isaac, and God did provide an animal in the bush as a sacrifice, instead. And what did Abraham name that place? What did he name Mount Moriah? He said, "On this mount it will be seen. On the mount of the Lord it will be provided.” Something will happen here. Abraham said, and David knew something would happen there. That's why he had Solomon build the temple.

And what happened was the father, he sacrificed his son, his one and only son, his son whom he loved, the father who perfectly loved his son, and the son who did everything to please his father. A love so perfect that the Father will offer His Son as a sacrifice for your sins, and the Son will lay down his life to take your place. And now you are invited into that story, into that relationship. Now you are offered eternal life to know God the only way you can know God, through his Son, Jesus Christ. And I can tell you, as a pastor in Huntington Beach, I hear people complain about God all the time. I hear many people commenting about what God has not done for them. I hear many people saying, "Well, why didn't God come through for me when I needed this? Why did God allow this bad thing to happen to this person that I love? Why did God allow this evil thing to take place in my life?” Many complaints about what God should have done or what God didn't do. Well, I would like you to see what God actually did. Has he offered you the greatest gift that he had? He gave the one that he loves. He gave his one and only Son, and he met your deepest need, the need of all your sin, your sin that was separating you from him, and he gave his precious, pleasing Son as a sacrifice for you, and his Son was willing to do it. His Son intentionally stopped breathing for you, and now here you are complaining about what God should be doing in your life. Have not your eyes been opened? Can you not see? Look at what he did do in your life. He did the greatest thing that's ever been done. He gave his Son, and Jesus, the Son of God, the perfect Lamb, redeemed you from all of your sin, so now you could be a son or a daughter of God, adopted into his family forever. That you could now know the perfect love of the Father, that you could now please the Father because He's pleased with you because you're in Christ.

Can you see what God did for you? I wonder how many days you waste in your life not seeing what God did for you on the cross. I wonder if you came here today, and up until this moment, you've never really seen what God did for you with his Son Jesus. That a father would give his son, oh, that would be terrible to ask a father to give his son. Yes, that is what happened at the cross, where your sin was judged on Jesus. Your death, Jesus laid down his life to take your place. That's what happened here. And let us draw near to worship God for what he did for us, and if you realize I've never really seen what Jesus did for me before, I've never really believed that Jesus is the Son of God, and your eyes are being opened. Please don't leave here today without talking to someone about this. Let's not have the Roman centurion be the only one who saw what happened when Jesus died on the cross. Let me pray for us right now.

Father in heaven. I want to thank you for bringing us here today. Thank you for bringing us to this part of the Gospel of Mark. Thank you for giving us a glimpse through the eyes of the Roman centurion, where he witnessed that Jesus intentionally laid down his life; no one took it from him. He gave, and that's because you, Father, gave your son as a sacrifice, as an offering, as the lamb. So, Father, we just want to confess that many times we're complaining about what you didn't do, and we're not looking at what you did do. And we ask that you would forgive us, Father. I pray that you would save people here today, that you would open their eyes, and that today would be the day that they can see who Jesus is, that they would trust in him, that they would turn from their sin in repentance, and they would believe that Jesus is the one who saves me. And God, I pray for my brothers and sisters that you've adopted into your family because of what Jesus did on the cross. What manner of love is this, Father, that we could be called children of God? Father, I ask that you would forgive us, that we have access to the holy place, that you've opened up a new and living way through the flesh of your Son, that we could be bold to come before you because of his blood. Father, I just confess many places and many times where we could have drawn near, and we weren't thinking about you, we were thinking about ourselves and our own little lives. And God, we want to say to you right now how sorry we are because we see how you were thinking about us. You were thinking about us when you told Abraham to go to that place. You were thinking about us when David was going to have his son build that temple, and you were thinking about us during those three hours of darkness when Jesus took the wrath for our sin. And so, Father, please forgive us for not thinking about you, because you clearly have been thinking about us, and so we draw near to you now, and we confess our sins. We draw near to you now, and we ask you to cleanse our evil hearts. We ask you to wash our bodies with pure water, and we draw near to you with true hearts and full assurance of faith. And we worship you together in this place and this time. We give you our hearts with spirit and truth. We are overwhelmed with what you gave in your Son Jesus. We're overwhelmed that he gave his life, and we say thank you, O our Father. Thank you for giving us your Son. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.