One of the more popular news stories that we always see at the end of the holiday season is something along the lines of people who passed away during the last year. It’s a way of remembering people that have died, perhaps prematurely, or perhaps tragically. And I can think of a few this year; Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, and Jay Adams come to mind. But unfortunately, as time goes on, the memory of many of those who have passed away will grow dimmer for most of us, if not altogether forgotten with the passage of time.

There are some people though that when they died they left an indelible mark on society and in some cases upon history. There are pop icons such as Elvis, or Michael Jackson, or John Lennon that continue to be mourned in some circles. But only time will tell how much their deaths really affected history. However, I can think of at least a couple of people whose deaths did impact history in a significant way. Abraham Lincoln’s death was certainly a momentous event, as well as the death of John F. Kennedy.

However, no celebrity, or personality, or historical figure has ever had their death affect the world to the extent of the death of Jesus Christ. He was only 33 years of age. He lived most of His life in a small region called Galilee in Israel, which at that time was under Roman occupation. And yet His death literally turned the world upside down. The most widely used calendar era in the world (abbreviated as “AD”, or after death), was established in medieval times from an estimate of the birth year of Jesus. More literature, more poetry, more songs have been written about Jesus of Nazareth than any other person that ever lived. Two thousand years later and counting, His life has impacted untold millions of lives in ways that cannot be calculated. And two thousand years later, the world is still reacting to the death of Christ. No death of any person who ever lived has ever had anything close to the impact that Christ’s death has had on the world.

And so as we look at this next section of scripture I want to point out three divine reactions to the death of Christ, and three human reactions, as illustrative of the impact that Christ’s death has on the world. First let’s look at the divine reactions. The first divine reaction to the crucifixion of the Light of the World was that God caused total darkness to come upon the earth.

Jesus said in John 9:5, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” And yet the world rejected that Light, so God turned off the light of the sun in the middle of the day. Vs. 44 says that it was the 6^th hour of the day. That would be high noon, 12 o’clock. Luke says that total darkness fell over the earth until the 9^th hour, so that would be three hours of total darkness.

Interestingly, a Roman historian named Phlegon wrote that “In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, there was an extraordinary eclipse of the sun: at the sixth hour, the day turned into dark night, so that the stars in heaven were seen; and there was an earthquake.” His dating of this eclipse would put the death of Christ at 33AD. And yet since the Passover always coincides with a full moon in the spring, there is no way for a normal eclipse of the sun to occur at that time. However, it is interesting that a pagan historian wrote of a full eclipse of the sun occurring at exactly the same time as indicated in the gospels. Matthew’s gospel also gives an account of an earthquake happening at that time as well.

Now some of you may remember that Jesus said when they arrested Him the night before that this hour had been given to the power of darkness. And so we see that spiritual reality culminating in a physical darkness which fell on the earth for three hours. But there was also a historical symbolism to the darkness. Remember that this is the Passover. And the Passover was a Jewish festival that celebrated the night in Egypt when God passed over the houses marked with blood on the doorposts and visited death upon the first born of all the people in Egypt.

And if you will recall, the final plague that God visited upon the Egyptians before the death of the first born was total darkness over the land. In the historical event in Egypt the darkness lasted 3 days. At the cross, the darkness lasted 3 hours. But the correlation is obvious. The judgment of God was about to be poured out on sin, just as the judgment of God was poured out on the Egyptians in the death of their first born sons. However now, it is not that the wrath of God is poured out on sinners, but the wrath of God is poured out on His Son, killing the Son of God so that men’s sins might be forgiven. Rather than God pouring out His wrath on men and killing them as they deserved for rejecting His Son, God pours out His wrath on Jesus Christ, punishing Him for the sins we committed.

Isaiah 53 says it this way, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”

I would take this opportunity to point out something else. In last week’s message I pointed to all the references in this passage to Jesus as the King. That kingship is a thread that is woven through Luke’s account of the crucifixion that point to Christ’s divinity. But there is another thread woven into Luke’s account as well, and that is the sinlessness of Jesus. His righteousness is also a testament to His divinity, and Luke illustrates that in several comments. Pilate states repeatedly that he found no guilt in Jesus. The thief on the cross says that “we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And then in the centurion’s comments we read, “he began praising God, saying, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’” Three witnesses to His innocence.

That innocence of Christ needs to be emphasized, because unless He was the spotless, sinless, Son of God, He could never be the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world. 2 Cor. 5:21 says, “[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” So God illustrates the pouring out of His wrath on sin by this total blackout for three hours.

The second divine reaction to the death of Christ was to tear the veil of the temple in two. If you will recall, the common area of the temple was separated from the Holy of Holies by a curtain. Only once a year was the high priest allowed to enter it in order to make atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews 9:6 tells us that the high priests could only enter there by the blood of a sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. And so God was illustrating by tearing this wall of separation in two from top to bottom, that a new way has been made to be reconciled to God through a better High Priest, and through a better, final sacrifice.

Heb. 9:11-15 “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”

So God tore the Holy of Holies veil from top to bottom, signifying that Christ’s death had torn down the wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles, and between God and man, that Jesus had instituted a new way to be reconciled to God for all men, that all who believe in Him might be saved. According to Ephesians 2:15, “by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”

Now lest you think that God tearing the veil into was a minor thing to mark such a momentous occasion, you should realize that this signified the total destruction of the system of Judaism as practiced at that time. Sacrifices and offerings have been discontinued ever since. Just 35 years later the temple was completely destroyed, set on fire and not one stone left standing upon another. The whole legalistic system of Judaism was overturned and has never recovered in 2000 years. By tearing the veil in two God made that announcement that afternoon, disrupting the priests who were trying to fulfill their Passover obligations, by slaughtering thousands of lambs that could never take away sins. But Jesus by one sacrifice took away the sins of millions of people who would come after Him.

The third divine event that happened that afternoon on the cross was what might be called the final breath. I don’t know how many of you have witnessed the final moments of death of someone. But if you have, you might have noticed how a person often seems to slip away; the breathing becomes more shallow, the organs and functions of the body began to shut down, and soon the breaths begin to become spaced further and further apart until the last breath is not repeated any more. Their life ebbs away from consciousness to unconsciousness to finally gone.

That is not the way Jesus died. Death on a cross was expected to be a long drawn out affair. It was designed to be tortuous, painful even to breathe. And as the hours go on, the body grows so weak that it cannot push itself up enough to speak, or even to gasp for air. It becomes a sort of suffocation. Many years ago as a lifeguard, I was once trained that suffocation whether in the water or on land usually was indicated by a person being unable to speak or cry out. And so the guards and everyone familiar with the process would have expected after a few hours the victim would be hardly able to breathe, much less able to speak, and their body would shut down to the point where eventually they would expire.

But what we see depicted here is not Jesus succumbing to death by strangulation or suffocation or even his faculties shutting down, but He voluntarily gives up His Spirit, and God takes His life from Him. Don’t forget, the soldiers and the priests might have been the human agents that carried out the crucifixion, but it was the plan and purpose of God to give His life as a sacrifice for sin. In John 10:17-18 Jesus said, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

Jesus wasn’t put to death, He rendered Himself to death. He submitted Himself to the purpose and will of God by offering Himself as a sacrifice for sin. Look at vs. 46, “And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT.” Having said this, He breathed His last.” I believe God took Jesus in that moment, just as Abraham had depicted in the offering of Isaac on the altar, raising up the knife to slay his only son, and being saved by a ram placed there by God in the thicket. Now in this hour, Jesus who had the power to save His own life, who no nails could possibly hold on a cross if He did not allow it, submitted His Spirit to God the Father, to do His will, and the hand of God came down at that instant and pierced His only begotten Son in His heart and killed Him, so that He might demonstrate His love for us, even while we were yet sinners.

So in that context, consider the final cry of Jesus on the cross. Vs. 46, He called out with a loud voice, going out not with a whimper, but with a cry of victory. John 19:30 tells us more of what He said. He cried out “It is finished!” which is one word in the Greek; tetelestai- which literally means paid in full. This wasn’t the cry of a defeated victim of a failed Messiah, this is the cry of a winner, victorious because He had lived a sinless life, submitted in all things to the Father, in obedience even unto death, and by that death paid in full the debt of sin we owed. And having said that, He breathed His last breath. He relinquished His life to death.

Now those are the three divine responses to the death of Christ presented here. Let’s look briefly at three human responses which are also depicted in this passage. And perhaps it would be appropriate to consider them as representative responses of all men to the death of Christ. The first response is that of the centurion. Luke tells us in vs. 47 that “when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent.” Now that is not all that he said, as we will soon see. This centurion would have been the officer in charge of the crucifixion squad that had taken Jesus from Pilate’s court, through the city streets, laid hold of Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross, and then nailed Jesus to the cross. These soldiers would have been the very ones who gambled over the division of His clothing while He suffered on the cross. They would have been the very ones that Jesus prayed for as they were pounding nails through His hands and feet, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

And I will suggest that Jesus’ prayers are always answered as evidenced by the centurion’s remark. Jesus prayed that they would be forgiven, and the only way for forgiveness of sins is to recognize that Jesus Christ is the righteous Son of God and confess Him as Lord. And I think that is what is seen here. It’s interesting that this man, if he was saved, and I think he was, was a Gentile. The temple veil had just been rent in two, signifying that the way to God was made possible for all men, not just Jews. And now here is this Gentile, announcing that Jesus was an innocent man, even a righteous man. But as I said, there was more that was said by this man and the other soldiers. Matt. 27:54 tells us “Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

I think this man and possibly the other soldiers who crucified Jesus were saved in response to the prayer of Jesus for them. And the evidence for that claim is that they said He was the Son of God. If you remember when Jesus asked the disciples some time earlier, whom do men say that I am? Simon Peter answered Him and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” And remember Jesus said unto Him in Matt. 16:17, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

I believe these pagan soldiers, cruel, heartless men that nailed the hands and feet of Jesus to the cross were convicted by God through the events of this day that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. And believing in that fact, they received life in His name. They heard His words, they heard His prayers, they saw the darkness from God and the earthquake that accompanied it, and they saw the way He gave up His life of His own volition, and they believed that He was the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah.

I believe these cruel soldiers are set first as an example of God’s desire for all that are exposed to the testimony of the cross. God is not willing for any to perish. Jesus said, If I am lifted up, I will draw all men to me. If these men could be saved – Gentiles, cruel soldiers, pagans – then anyone can be saved. In those hours by the cross of Jesus they were transformed by the power of God to believe and be saved. This is what Christ died for. This is God’s purpose for everyone who is impacted by the cross. Even 2000 years later the salvation of Christ is still effective, still available for you and everyone that hears the gospel so that they may be saved.

But there is a second group of people also there that day that witnessed the cross. They saw what the soldiers saw. They are described in vs. 48, which says, “And all the crowds who came together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, began to return, beating their breasts.” Beating the breast was a common ritual associated with grieving. I cannot help but think of the people represented by the crowds, without thinking of the millions of people who have some sort of intellectual comprehension of the historicity of the cross, perhaps even sense the tragedy of the death of an innocent man, and yet they fall short of salvation offered through the cross. It is possible to be impacted by the cross in some way but not accept the gift of salvation offered through the cross. The people in this crowd went away beating their breasts. They were mourning the death of a good man, even an innocent man. But they failed to understand that this Son of God died on the cross in their place, so that they might be saved.

There is a difference between the reaction of the centurion and the crowds. The centurion saw the death of Christ and said, surely this was the Son of God. And then very significantly in vs. 47 it says he began glorifying God. He began praising God. Why? Because God revealed to Him that Jesus was dying for him. I don’t know how. But I know that a pagan would not normally praise God that the Son of God was just killed unless God showed him that it was for his benefit. Because Jesus died, he was made righteous through faith in Christ. That is the reason to praise God about the death of Christ. But this crowd, they see that Jesus has died and they lament perhaps the cruelty of Rome, they lament that a good man in whom they had once hoped for social reform was now dead. They go away sad. But they aren’t changed by His death. They don’t praise God for it. They see nothing to rejoice in. They go back home sad. They go back to their lives without any hope.

I’m afraid that there are a lot of people today that believe that Jesus lived, believe that He died on the cross, that may participate in certain rituals commemorating His death, and yet they remain unsaved. They have no hope of their salvation. They continue to work at their religion, continue to confess their sins to priests, to try to appeal to dead saints for help, yet ultimately they die without a real hope, a real assurance of their salvation because they never understood the finished work that Jesus did on the cross for them and appropriated that salvation for themselves. They have seen this spectacle of the gospel, and yet left the greatest gift of all unopened under the Christmas tree, the robe of righteousness that Jesus bought for them with His own blood. They left it there, and never put it on by faith in what Jesus had done for them.

And that leaves us with the final group of people depicted there at the cross in this passage. And that is the women and acquaintances of Jesus who stood off at a distance.   First, I would point out that they were standing at a distance. You know what’s sad about these people? I think that they are believers. I think they are Christians. But I think they are put off by the cross. They are put off by the suffering that is there. And so they stand as far away as they can and still be able to see what is going on.

I think a lot of modern day disciples are like these folks. They stand as far away as possible and still be able to say that they are there. They want the least amount of Christianity possible and still be saved. They don’t want to come all the way to the cross. They appreciate what Christ did for them there, but they want nothing of the cross for themselves. I feel confident though that as those true believers continued in their discipleship after the resurrection they become familiar with the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. Because I think that is the path to maturity that all believers must trod if they are going to follow Christ. Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

So their association with the sufferings of Christ would come in time. But on this day, they wanted to stand as far away as possible. I wonder how many of us might have our discipleship characterized like that? We want to do as little as possible and still be in. We trust in the grace of God but then presume upon that grace to do little or nothing in service to the God who saved us. Our lives are never characterized by any sacrifice of our own. We are more than content to let Jesus do all the suffering alone, while attempting to reap the benefits of both heaven and the world.

There is one small clue in Luke’s description that portends what God will do with these people, these acquaintances that stand far away from the suffering of the cross. Luke says that they were “seeing these things.” They were eyewitnesses of His suffering. Peter would say many years later in his epistle, in 2 Pet. 1:16, “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”

I think God used the eyewitness of these hesitant disciples to ultimately turn the world upside down. They were hesitant then, fearful even, but when they witnessed not only the death of Christ but His resurrection, then they received confidence in their own immortality. They surrendered their grip on the present world and in that new found confidence in the next they went out in the power of the Holy Spirit as witnesses to their communities, their cities, their countries and to the ends of the earth proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I think that is what God intends for all of us hesitant disciples who are fearful of associating with the cross of Christ. I think God wants to impact first of all your life with the vision of the cross, so that by your consecrated life you can impact others with the message of the cross. But to do that I think that you have to surrender your life to the cross, taking up your cross daily and following Jesus. How do you do that, you ask? Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

That is what it means to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. To join in the fellowship of His suffering. That we might use our bodies for the sake of the gospel, just as Jesus did, submitting Himself to the will of God, even through His death. That we might be holy, even as He is holy. That we might live righteously, so that others might not stumble over us, but rather see the light of Christ in us.

This world is in darkness, held in the power of darkness. But through the power of the cross we can live our lives in such as way as to fulfill the command of Jesus found in Matt. 5:16; “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

What is your response today to the death of Christ? Are you saved by the power of the cross as the centurion? Can you praise God for the death of Christ as a substitute for your sins? That is God’s purpose for all men, that they would be saved by the death of Christ.

Or is your response to Christ’s death like the second group? Have you turned away from the sacrifice made there? Have you seen this spectacle of the gospel and turned back to the way of the world. Have you no hope in life after death? What a tragedy that would be, to see all of this great love of God for you manifested on the cross and yet walk away without the salvation purchased there by Christ’s death.

Or are you one of His followers, but standing as far away as possible from the suffering of the cross? Are you trying to hold onto the best of both worlds, neither in or out, perhaps a secret disciple, or a fearful disciple? I hope that the impact of Christ’s death on the cross will compel you to love God with all your heart and soul and strength, forsaking the world and present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service of worship. Let us pray.