Good Friday

And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. Mark 15:24

In Mark 15:24-37 Mark is like a news reporter giving the details of Christ’s death in a few soundbites of explanation. They crucified him at 9 AM the third hour on the Roman clock. The word crucified includes all they did to get him up on the cross.

They made him carry the cross until his strength gave out and Simon of Cyrene was forced to finish the job.

They stripped him of his clothes.

They pushed his shredded, bleeding back against the wooden cross.

They stretched his arms out on the cross piece, held his hands to the wood, and nailed them down.

They placed his feet together and drove a spike through them into the wood.

They tilted the cross up off the ground, dropped it into the base support with a thud, and a terrible jolt to the Savior’s broken body.

And having done all that, they watched as Jesus suffered there, high and lifted up.

The Roman soldiers ignored his suffering to gamble for his clothing. The sounds of their dice game, ironic considering the terrible tragedy playing out above their bowed heads, bowed to view the results of their casting lots not to the King of glory. They ignored the fact that their eternal destiny hung up on the cross. They bowed their heads to temporary pleasure.

Mark adds another detail in verse 27, he was crucified between thieves, one on his right hand the other one is left. The thieves were crooks, criminals, transgressors, evildoers, malefactors.

“Look,” people could say, “there, right in the middle of the transgressors that’s Jesus. We always thought he was a good man, all the stories and testimonies we heard were about his goodness, but there he is numbered with the crooks.

This too was ironic, UNLESS you knew about the prophecy.

Eight hundred years before Jesus was crucified in the midst of these wicked men, Isaiah had predicted, prophesied, that Messiah the anointed Savior sent by God, would be numbered with the transgressors.

Mark tells us that the cross was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

But there was a little more to the prophecy (Isaiah 53:12) that Mark did not include in his recounting of the story of the cross. Here it is. Isaiah had been moved by God’s Spirit to prophesy that the Messiah - “he bared the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Intercede means mediate. And when we hear that Jesus made intercession for the transgressors is easy to think of 1 Timothy 2:5; “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

He died so that when anyone who believed in him stood before his Father, God the father in heaven, Jesus could say: “Father, accept this one who believes in me. I died for her. I died for him. I carried their sin. I suffered the punishment of your wrath against sin. I am there one mediator.”

That is how a person gets saved, forgiven of their sins, by trusting in Jesus as their own personal Savior.

There are no other ways of salvation. There are no other saviors. There are no other redeemers. There is no co-Redeemer. There are no other doors into heaven. There are no other religions that can save.

He is the one, the one and only, mediator tween God and humanity.

If you believe when he died,he died for you,

if you believe when he died, he saved you from sin,

if you believe when he died, he made you God’s child,

then you are born from above, and you belong to the Lord for all eternity.

While he was dying to accomplish all this Mark tells us (15:29-31) there were others there not throwing dice, but throwing insults of Jesus.

You were going to tear down the temple, and rebuild it in three days. Start by coming down from the cross come on save yourself. Come down from the cross.

The religious leaders who were there mocked him-“He saved others; himself he cannot save.”

One translator translated the word for mock as jested. You could get the sense they were joking from that. They knew he couldn’t come down from the cross so they joked about it.

But they had the wrong idea about why he could not come down from the cross. They thought the nails held him there, and he could not break their hold on him. They thought he could not come down due to physical restraints. They were woefully wrong.

Jesus could not come down from the cross because our sins, YOURS AND MINE, held him there. He could not be our Savior without bearing our sins, our judgment, our punishment, for not being the kind of people we should be: pure, sinless, perfect is God’s eyes. Jesus could not come down from the cross because dying for us was the only way to make us pure and sinless in the eyes of God.

So he loved us enough to give his pure and holy life on the cross  so that we could give him our sinfulness and have his life instead.

The mocking continued (Mark 15:32) “Let Christ the King of Israel  descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.”

They had forsaken him, those on Skull Hill who refused to believe in him as Savior, and the spiritual darkness in their hearts clouded over the execution place.

Then after Jesus had been hanging in agony God sent the physical darkness at noon that covered the whole land, and in the dark Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (15:34)

For the first time, and the only time, in all eternity, God the Father had not been in full intimate fellowship with God the son. He had turned away when Jesus became sin for us, and Jesus felt alone, abandon. We can never understand what happened, except to know this was the greatest agony Jesus ever experienced, and he took it on himself for us, as our Redeemer, our one mediator with God the Father.

If you have a Bible, or can print out this passage Mark 15:24-37, turn to it, or print it out, then read, and think about it, and see if you can sense the great thing Jesus has done for you. For us!

Then just a few moments later (Mark 15:37) “Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.”

He died.

He was nailed and crucified-he did not deserve it.

He was placed among the transgressors-he did not deserve it.

He was scorned and mocked-he did not deserve it.

He gave up the ghost and died-he did not deserve it.

But he went to that cross, and suffered it all because he loved us.

Have you ever thought about Jesus, and his death upon the cross in any serious way?

Have you ever realized he died for you personally? For you! For your sins!

Today is a good day to do that. It is a day of salvation to all who will trust Jesus to save them. It is your day of salvation if you will throw yourself upon him believing he paid for your sins. Will you trust him right now.

Come to Jesus.

He will save you,

If you trust Him.

Then start reading the Bible, and start going to a Bible teaching church.