037 - Finished

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. You know, when Jesus was a baby, a holy man came to Mary and said, and a sword will pierce even your own soul, that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. Today, we'll talk about that, Jesus on the cross, on More Than Ink.

Good morning and welcome. I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim. And we're sitting here at our dining room table, and we left off last week in the middle of the events at the cross. But now, today, we're actually a week after we've celebrated the resurrection, and we're kind of, you know, Easter. We've been there, we've done that.

We flipped to the back page and found out who did it. We never get past the cross, as we said last week. The significance of the cross stands at the center of all history, when God touched down and saved us by the death of His Son. So we're still in John 19, and we're just going to pick up the text on the cross. And even though we're outside the Christian calendar, per se, you need to come to the cross often to see what goes on here, because this is where it all took place.

Yeah, so you remember last week, we left off with Pilate saying, hey, what I've written, I've written. I put a sign up that said, behold, this is the King of the Jews, and he put it in every common language, so no matter where you were coming from or going to, you knew who this guy was. That Pilate is used by God to basically serve notice to the world, in three different languages. That this is a king who dies. Yeah, and that's going to be the discussion in Jerusalem that week. Not about Passover, it's going to be, they said he was the King of the Jews. I mean, what's that all about? So we're going to get there next week. Yeah, just fascinating.

That's a fascinating thing. 23 is where we're picking up today in chapter 19 of John, so why don't I start, and we'll just jump in there, verse 23. So when the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments, divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, and also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, it was woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, well, let's not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be, and this was to fulfill the scripture, which says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

So the soldiers did these things. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. And when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. And then he said to the disciple, behold your mother.

And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. Okay, let's stop there. Yeah, got to stop there. So there's the soldiers at the foot of Jesus at the cross, and they're dividing his clothes. Can you believe it? Well, and this is something over which he would have had no control. Nope.

Right? Nope. But it is a fulfillment of prophecy. It's very specifically stated, actually, in Psalm 22. And we encouraged you last week to go back and read Psalm 22 and watch for the things that were fulfilled at the cross.

Yeah, I have that verse right here in front of me, Psalm 22 18. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. Right, so they're throwing the dice to see who's going to get this. Pretty accurate. This garment, which by the way we're told, it was woven in one piece so that it could not easily be torn. And that actually is a description of the tunic of the high priest.

Yes, that's right. Whose we're told that that garment was woven in one piece and had a binding around the neck to prevent it from being torn. And that's in Exodus 28. If you take time to read the garments of the high priest described in Exodus, you'll see some wonderful things there that point to Jesus.

We won't take time to do it now. Who is our high priest? Yeah, it's just one of those little flags waving that tells us this book Exodus that's written by Moses a thousand years before or earlier than that, and here at the time of Jesus we're seeing those words fulfilled. Yeah, I think it's one of the greatest aspects of biblical exploration. If you get your hands around reading both the Old Testament and the New Testament, which is a great habit to do, all of a sudden these little discoveries just start jumping out to you and you say, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. That description sounds like what they said about Jesus' tunic when he was on the cross. I mean, could it be that there's a connection being made about our high priest? Well, and if you are newish to Bible reading, maybe you don't realize that very often in your New Testament there will be some sort of indication that the Old Testament is being quoted.

In most of the editions that we use, it's in all capital letters, but that might not be that way in every edition. Or here, John just says explicitly to fulfill the scriptures in case you missed it. But sometimes you have to go hunting for where that is, and there should be a cross-reference in your... Yeah, so if you're new to Bible reading, in your Bible layout, on the page layout, there's usually a center column reference or a side reference. There's this little strip that has tiny little letters, and it's got different Bible verses, and it's got little footnote connections to the verses you're reading in the center of it. Those will take you to these places.

I mean, people have already made those connections, and so you do well if you look at one of those. Hey, there's a little letter on this verse. I wonder what they're talking about. And you look in the side column reference or the center reference and it says, well, go to Psalm 22, and you swoop over to Psalm 22, and you read and you go, oh, wow.

This is so important in understanding a book like the Bible and understanding its unity, that one of the key things we need to apply is to allow the Bible to interpret itself. And so always track down those cross-references, especially if there's a question in your mind. Well, where is that, and where did that show up before? Yeah, yeah. So God has laid this, it's almost like a giant jigsaw puzzle in a way that you can delight in discovering these things. And a lot of people have spent their whole lives discovering these things. And it also brings us back to the point we made last time, that the crucifixion is not just an accidental train wreck.

Right. It wasn't just this horrible thing, horrible accident. It was predicted and it was determined by God, and there it is, and it's been talked about hundreds of years before. And John says specifically, so the soldiers did these things because it had been prophesied that they would. Yeah, they just had to. And crucifixion was unknown in the time when Psalm 22 was written.

So that description, which is so clearly a crucifixion, and Isaiah 53 also, is again demonstrated to be prophetic. Yeah. It's interesting too that if someone dies, you divide their clothes amongst you, you divide whatever they own. So what's odd is that you would simultaneously both divide all their clothing and then cast lots for them. Why not just divide up the clothing and be done with it? Well, because this was a thing, this was a recognized garment of value. Exactly.

So no one could have predicted that they would be doing both. Because essentially Jesus owed nothing. Yeah.

Had nothing. Yeah, so this is a full familiar. So let's go to the women standing at the cross and John nearby.

I love the personal nature of this. None of the other gospels tell us this level of detail. And standing nearby. He's with Jesus' mother, Mary, and Mary's sister, we don't have her name, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

So these are the women who had drawn near to Mary the mother of Jesus in her incredible grief and shock. And Jesus at this point is still conscious enough to give thought to his mother. He's the firstborn son and it's his responsibility to make sure that his mother is cared for. And so he does that. Right to the end. He essentially, as he's dying, entrusts her care to his closest friend.

Yep, yep, yep. You know, if I was in the throes of my last breaths of dying, I'm not sure I'd be that coherent. But he's fulfilling his duty as a son and he's caring for Mary. Well, and he's everything Jesus does, as he always lived, but here in these hours on the cross, everything he does and says is deliberate, consciously, mindfully chosen. Because just in the next breath, well we haven't read it yet, but John says knowing everything was now finished. John is always emphasizing through his gospel that Jesus knew. He knew. Yeah, again, not an accidental train wreck, not a surprise to Jesus.

He knew it was coming. You know, I always have fantasized, and this is kind of a strange thing, but with the advent of Mary coming to live with John for the rest of her life, probably. And there's speculation about how long that lasted. Some people think that when John went off to Ephesus that Mary went with her.

Yeah, there's actually good tradition to that. Yeah, but I mean, wouldn't it be interesting to be in their living room with John asking Mary questions about Jesus? Wouldn't that make a great... Oh, about his childhood, do you mean? Yeah, a great kind of short story or something. I mean, it's all speculation. It is.

But I've always wondered about how much of the early parts of John's gospel was gleaned through his living room conversations with his mom. I mean, that's just a fascinating kind of prospect. I just sort of think about that. Anyway, well let's move on. We're going to run out of time. We're going to run out of time.

Yeah, okay, so 28. So after this, after entrusting his mother to John, this is verse 28. Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished.

And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Oh, yeah. Okay, so he said some other things from the cross, but John has just zeroed in on these couple of things. Right, right.

The living water himself being thirsty, which again, Psalm 22 describes, my tongue is cleaving to the roof of my mouth. That's right, yeah. Right. That's right. And this has a really explicit prophecy in Psalm 69, and I brought it up so I could read that. It says, now listen how close this is.

This is a song they sang, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. Well, that's pretty straightforward. Yeah. Wow.

So again, if you're reading around the Bible and you happen to come across this in Psalms and you read that and go, wait a second, that's what happened with Jesus. Was this a prefiguring of what was going to happen? Yeah, it was.

Just to give you another little drop, you know, the little penny drops in the machine, you go, wait a second. Everyone knew this was going to happen in heaven. It was a surprise to us.

Yeah. But isn't it interesting that John says, now Jesus, knowing that everything was now finished. So that tells us that the other things that he said from the cross, the direct quote from Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, which the other gospels tell us about, that he knew. He had spoken all of those things, so he's aware now it's done. Everything has been finished. And remember back in Chapter 13, John had said, Jesus, knowing that he had come forth from God and was going back to God, knowing that everything was going to unfold the way it did, knowing what he knew, he did what he did.

And so again, John's giving us this little insight, Jesus, knowing it was accomplished, says it's finished. He died voluntarily. He willingly walked into it. They did not take his life. He laid it down. Yeah, and if you analyze the interactions with Pilate, there's just so many places Jesus could have stopped the forward progress of this thing. Yeah. But he doesn't.

But he doesn't. And he says it's finished. Very famous word, tetelestai, means it's finished.

And lots of speculation. Well, what's finished? Well, everything's finished because when you get to the cross and the crucifixion and the payment for the price of our own sins, the whole purpose is finished. The one sacrifice for all time. Yeah, it's done.

Yeah, once for all, for everyone. It made me think as well, too, if you go back, again, if you ever read Daniel, during the time of the Babylonian captivity and Daniel's taking it, there's a lot of interesting prophetic things that Daniel talks about. But one, he talks about the Messiah Prince, the Messiah Nagid. And he talks about the Messiah Prince and the timing of the coming of the Messiah Nagid. Right.

And it's very specific. And he uses this word, finish, in that it just dawned on me where he says, you know, there'll be 70 weeks until the finish of transgression. Yes. Oh, oh, oh, I'm looking for that verse because it's so amazing.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah, so it is finished in many ways. It's a finish.

It's the end to the problem of the transgressions as well. Oh, here it is. Just like Daniel 9, somewhere. Daniel 9, 24.

24, okay. And I listened to this because actually I was using this in Bible study the other day and talking to some women about what the significance of the mountain, the holy city, the place where God placed his name. So this is Daniel 9, 24. Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city. Now, we're not going to get into the 70 weeks. That's not our purpose here.

More than today, yeah. But listen to what God says is going to happen there. This is amazing. Seventy weeks for your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, seal up the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. All of that was taking place on those hours on the cross. An end of sin, an atonement, the anointing of the holy place with the blood of the eternal lamb. When you read the crucifixion, there's more going on than meets the eye here.

Oh my gosh. And when you read it in the context of Daniel 9, yeah, it's the end of transgression. It's the end of sin. End of sin.

The problem of sin. Yeah. Just astonishing.

It's astonishing. He's not just saying my life is finished. He's saying that the problem of sin that separates man from God has been taken care of and the work that needs to be done is finished. And Jesus did that work, not us. Yeah, and Paul says in Colossians 2, 14, you were dead in your transgressions. In 13, in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all our transgressions.

Now listen to this. Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, he's taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. There's the picture. Our sin, our transgression was nailed to the cross when Jesus died. Yeah. In fact, what's nailed to the cross in this particular example is the charges against Jesus.

Right, the charges. But were we in his place on the cross, which is where we should have been, what would be nailed over our heads would be our sins. And they've been nailed to the cross on top of Jesus' name there and they've been taken care of. The picture is just profound.

The picture is inescapable. We need to move on. Oh, I know. We need to move on.

We move into a section that only John talks about when we get to verse 31. Since it was the day of preparation, again, he tells us time is of the essence here. The clock is ticking.

Tick, tick, tick. They've got to get this done before the sun goes down. And so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and the other who had been crucified with him.

So those guys were still alive, by the way. But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead and they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness. His testimony is true and he knows that he's telling the truth that you also may believe. For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken. And again, another Scripture says they will look on him whom they've pierced.

Well thank you, John, for alerting us to the fact that there's prophecies being fulfilled. Again, the Lamb of God, none of whose bones of that sacrificed lamb were to be broken. Right. And that was a prerequisite of the Passover lamb in Exodus. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm alluding to. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That was a big, big deal. If you read through Exodus, you read the first Passover, you prepare a lamb to be sacrificed and none of its bones are to be broken. That's Exodus 12. That's Exodus 12, 46. Yeah. Exodus 12, yeah.

None of his bones. Yeah. So you put those connections together. Oh my goodness.

And thank God for side references in your Bible page that tell you that. You know, that would have been a question in their minds like, why not? Why? Why not? Why not? Yeah. Right.

Why not? Because God was laying down the picture. But in order to fulfill that prophecy, you also have to remove any doubt that he actually died. Right. He was really and truly dead. So we need to make sure of that so that's why they pierced his side.

So that's really important because there's a lot of people out there that say, well, he, you know, he didn't really die. Best out. Something. And he was swooned and woke up again in the cool of the tomb.

But you know that Romans knew how to kill people. Yep. Right.

And that upward thrust from the spear that then the clear separation of the blood plasma and the red blood cells coming out, that indicated his heart had stopped beating the blood long enough that the blood had separated. A lot of medical speculation on that these days, which is pretty cool, actually. It's not speculation. Well, I was going to say, yeah, that's medical research.

It's documentation. Yeah. Yeah. But I've always found it fascinating in 35 where John's basically saying, hey, you know, it's me. I saw it. I'm bearing witness here. This testimony is true.

He knows that he's telling the truth that you also may believe. He was really dead. I saw this, man. I saw this. Yeah.

I saw this for myself and I'm writing it down for you right now. Well, and I think it's Mark's gospel that tells us that when they went to Pilate and asked for the body or asked for the legs to be broken, he said, what, are they – asked for the body. Well, are they dead already? And he asked for the centurion who said, oh, yeah, he's dead. They knew death. They knew he was dead.

Yeah. Everyone at the time knew he was dead. That was not the question. We raise that now 2,000 years later. No one.

No one. No one survived crucifixion. That's in contradiction to what the people on the spot saw and witnessed. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Well, we need to move on. 38? Yeah.

Let me read 38 for us. So after these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him permission. So he came and he took away his body. And Nicodemus also – remember him?

Yeah. Back in Chapter 3. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus, bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as was the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden. And in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had been laid. So because of the Jewish day of preparation, tick, tick, tick, tick, since the tomb was close at hand, tick, tick, tick, tick, they laid Jesus there. Wow. Who would have ever guessed? Isn't it interesting that these two guys come back into the story, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus?

Yes. And Joseph of Arimathea had been a believer, but secretly – Mm-hmm. For fear of the Jewish leaders. And there's nothing secret about the fact that he went to Pilate and asked for the body. Right.

Right. Something about the death of Jesus propelled him from secrecy into public ownership. That's why Nicodemus came at night. And Nicodemus was well placed in the Jewish leadership. And here he is.

Nicodemus lugging this jar full of spices. Right. Right. So they became public in their love for Jesus. What incredible courage. You see very few people here with this kind of boldness and courage, except for maybe Jesus' mom and her friends and these two well-placed guys who had a lot to lose.

A lot to lose. Well, and Nicodemus was actually a member of Sanhedrin, wasn't he? He was. He was a highly placed religious leader. He was one of them who would have been part of the decision-making process. But I think one of the Gospels tells us, but he wasn't there.

Yeah. Probably because they knew. Because they knew. And it was all of his – He would never have agreed. It was all of his co-workers in the leadership that were out there crying, crucify him.

Crucify him. Yeah. So this probably, we don't know, but this probably cost them greatly. So this had to be done fast, late in the day. They had to finish it before the sun went down on this high holy day.

And you've got to wonder where Mary would have been, because this would have been the job of the family, to take care of the body. Yeah. That's right.

That's why this is so unusual. And it just grabs my heart. If you have lost someone, someone you love has died, especially in a violent, unexpected manner, you know how important it is to reckon the body as dead. It's a big deal. Right. To come to terms with that, and one of the things that we've kind of lost in our culture is this closeness to the dying process and the death and the actual caring for the body of our dead. And so I'm thinking that that must have been part of that sword that pierced Mary's soul.

Right. Like Simeon had said to her, that even in his death – Simeon said that at the beginning, yeah. She couldn't even get close until later.

Yeah, I've always wondered whether Mary herself had come to Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus and said, can you do this for me? Can you do this? We're away from home.

I can't do it. That's all speculation. Yeah, we don't know. But the family would be the natural people to take the mystery on this, and they're not. And also another thing that would have been natural is they would have taken Jesus' body and buried him in the family tomb, which for Jesus was either in Bethlehem or Nazareth. But they were away from home. But they were away from home, and time was wasting. And so it says, right near where the crucifixion took place, they saw a tomb that had not been used in a garden.

And so to be expeditious, they put him there. And we know it was owned by Joseph of Arimathea. And this also satisfies a bunch of prophecies. Who would have ever known? Who would have ever predicted? Yeah, with strangers in his death. It just doesn't make any sense.

Well we're out of time. I would recommend to you as a little bit of homework, read Zechariah 12.10. That's one of those little side comments in your reference that you'll see about him being pierced.

It's a marvelous, it's a marvelous patch. I'm not even going to read it for you. I'm not going to read it. No, no.

But look it up. Zechariah 12.10 talks about being pierced. And actually it's really good news about the fact that even though Jesus died at the hands of the Jewish leaders, a day is coming when they'll look upon him whom they have pierced.

I won't, no more, no more plot spoiler. Just go take a look. Zechariah 12.10. It makes a lot of connection with what we looked at right here. And go back and read the other gospel accounts.

Oh yeah. Of the crucifixion, what took place during those hours on the cross. Because it will fill in the whole story. Luke gives us some other details, but Luke is the careful historian at a little bit of emotional distance.

John was close enough to touch. And so when he says, I saw this and I'm telling you this so that you may believe the Lamb of God was truly slain. I've borne witness to you and my testimony is true.

I saw with my own eyes. So before you go into John 20, imagine the devastation, the emotional devastation in the people's hearts who welcomed him on Palm Sunday with great adulation about here's the King of the Jews, blessed be he who comes to the name of the Lord. Less than a week later and all of a sudden all of those hopes, all of those aspirations are dashed because without question, and no one's questioning it, this man Jesus is dead. And they're heading into the Sabbath, this high holy day when all of this great celebration was taking place, but they are in profound grief and shock. And they cannot by Jewish law do anything but hold still for the morning of the third day. What a hard weekend.

And the Lord Jesus, like he did with Lazarus, lets them go through it. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very hard. If you can get yourself into that skin, if you can walk in their shoes for a second before you get to chapter 20, then what transpires in the resurrection is just extraordinarily good news. Extraordinarily good news. But this is a tough weekend right here. After a day and a day and a half in the dark, not knowing. And just grieving. So hard.

Those poor guys don't miss. We thought he was the one. So anyway, I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're with us and we pick up the story of chapter 20 next week on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. There it is. There it is.