Latest / The Bible Study Podcast / #961 - Luke 23:26-56 – Jesus on the Cross

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#961 - Luke 23:26-56 – Jesus on the Cross · The Bible Study Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Life Audio The Bible Study Podcast, Episode nine hundred and
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  Speaker 1: sixty one. Today, The Bible Study Podcast continues the study
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  Speaker 1: of the Gospel of Luke with Luke's account of the Crucifixion.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bible Study Podcast. We're going to jump
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  Speaker 1: into Good Friday today with Luke's account of the Crucifixion,
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  Speaker 1: and then we'll see where we go from there. But
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  Speaker 1: first a word from this sponsor. The gospel writer Luke
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  Speaker 1: gives his account of the Crucifixion here in chapter twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: starting in verse twenty six. As the soldiers led him away,
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  Speaker 1: they seized Simon from Syrene, who is on his way
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  Speaker 1: in from the country, and put the cross on him
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  Speaker 1: and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large number
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  Speaker 1: of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed
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  Speaker 1: for him. Jesus turn and said to them, daughters of Jerusalem,
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  Speaker 1: do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for
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  Speaker 1: your children. For the time will come when you say,
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  Speaker 1: blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore,
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  Speaker 1: and the breasts that never nursed. Then they will say,
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  Speaker 1: to the mountains fall on us, and to the hills
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  Speaker 1: cover us, for if the people do these things when
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  Speaker 1: the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry.
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  Speaker 1: So what Luke's account doesn't cover is the torture that
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  Speaker 1: was done by the Roman guards, which is covered in
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  Speaker 1: some of the other accounts, where they put the crown
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  Speaker 1: of thorn on his heads, and they have him and
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  Speaker 1: Pilot has him scourged and brought back out. And so
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  Speaker 1: normally the criminal will carry the cross by themselves to
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  Speaker 1: the place of execution, to Golgatha, the place of the skull.
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  Speaker 1: But in Jesus' case, he was probably already pretty weak
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  Speaker 1: from what had happened so far, not just being up
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  Speaker 1: all night, but the torture that the other gospels give
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  Speaker 1: us a hint of. At this point, and when we
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  Speaker 1: say take the cross, my understanding is that the vertical
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  Speaker 1: piece tended to stay in Golgatha, And so you all
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  Speaker 1: the pictures you see of Jesus carrying the cross itself
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  Speaker 1: through town are probably not historically accurate, but that you
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  Speaker 1: would carry the cross peace. But that alone is a
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  Speaker 1: heavy piece of wood. And so they get someone else,
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  Speaker 1: and it is probably significant that they know the name
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  Speaker 1: of the person. One gets the idea that this is
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  Speaker 1: a name that Luke is using because it might be
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  Speaker 1: known to his readers. I suspect that Simon is someone
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  Speaker 1: who becomes a Christian, or may even have this point
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  Speaker 1: been a follower of Jesus. Don't know that for sure,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm not the only one who has speculated about
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  Speaker 1: those things. Continuing on, two other men and both criminals
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  Speaker 1: were led out with him to be executed. When they
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  Speaker 1: came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him
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  Speaker 1: there along with the criminals, one on his right and
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  Speaker 1: the other on his left. Jesus said, Father, forgive them,
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  Speaker 1: for they do not know what they are doing, and
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  Speaker 1: they've divided up his clothes by casting lots. So they
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  Speaker 1: get to Golgatha. Now this would be right now. The
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  Speaker 1: site in Jerusalem is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
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  Speaker 1: which is understood to be both the place of Golgatha
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  Speaker 1: as well as the place of the tomb. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't look like that these days, because they've built
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  Speaker 1: a church around the whole thing. But this would have
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  Speaker 1: been outside of the old walls. And so they go
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  Speaker 1: outside of the city walls, close to one of the
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  Speaker 1: gates of the city. The idea is that you crucify
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  Speaker 1: people so that as people are coming into the city
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  Speaker 1: they see these crucified people and know that this is
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  Speaker 1: an area where they are very tough on crime. Let's
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  Speaker 1: say the idea is that this person did something bad
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  Speaker 1: and therefore you're going to know that you shouldn't do that.
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  Speaker 1: And that's significant because above Jesus, they're going to put
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  Speaker 1: a sign, and usually that sign should be what is
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  Speaker 1: the crime that this person is accused of, because you
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  Speaker 1: want to go up there and say, as I'm coming
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  Speaker 1: into the city, oh, this person is a thief, I'm
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  Speaker 1: not going to be a thief. This person led a rebellion.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to lead a rebellion. And we know
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  Speaker 1: a lot about crucifixion because this is not the only
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  Speaker 1: time it happened. In fact, during the slave revolt of Spartacus,
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  Speaker 1: if you've ever seen that old Kirk Douglas movie, that
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  Speaker 1: was a real thing that happened. They crucified between Rome
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  Speaker 1: and one of the next towns, over a thousand different people,
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  Speaker 1: so that as you were walking between these cities, just
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  Speaker 1: after body, they are nailed to a cross. Again as
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  Speaker 1: a reminder to other people, don't cross Rome. This is
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  Speaker 1: what they do now. In this case, Jesus, it says,
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  Speaker 1: was crucified with two thieves. Are two criminals in this version,
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  Speaker 1: one on his left and one on his right. And Jesus' words.
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  Speaker 1: We pay a lot of attention to the words that
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  Speaker 1: Jesus says from the cross, Father, forgive them, for they
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  Speaker 1: don't know what they are doing now. The reason, one
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  Speaker 1: of the reasons why we pay attention to the words
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  Speaker 1: of Jesus is easier to understand if you understand crucifixion.
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  Speaker 1: So crucifixion, I said last week, was intended to be torture.
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  Speaker 1: It was intended to take a while, and to be very,
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  Speaker 1: very painful. They would usually tie or nail your hands,
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  Speaker 1: and then probably nail your feet, one on top of
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  Speaker 1: the other to the vertical portion, and you would slump
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  Speaker 1: down on your hands. And the problem is that in
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  Speaker 1: that place you couldn't breathe, and so to catch a
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  Speaker 1: breath you would have to push yourself up on the
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  Speaker 1: nails in your feet to be able to breathe. And
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  Speaker 1: you can imagine, well, I don't know if you can imagine.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if I can imagine how painful that
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  Speaker 1: would be. So Jesus, we understand, pushes himself up on
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  Speaker 1: the nails in his feet, and with that breath he takes,
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  Speaker 1: he offers forgiveness. As you can see why we say
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  Speaker 1: those words that Jesus is speaking on the cross, there's
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  Speaker 1: not a lot of them, it's not the Sermon on
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  Speaker 1: the Mount, but they are significant because it would be
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  Speaker 1: very hard for Jesus to say anything, and so he's
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  Speaker 1: using this precious breath, this hard earned, painful breath, to
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  Speaker 1: offer forgiveness. Forgive them, Father. They don't know what they're doing.
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  Speaker 1: It says they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
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  Speaker 1: If you read Matthew's version, Matthew is going to pay
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  Speaker 1: attention to how a lot of these things have to
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  Speaker 1: do with the prophecies that were made about Messiah in
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  Speaker 1: the Old Testament. Because Matthew is writing his version for
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  Speaker 1: the Jews who know the Old Testament, while Luke is
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  Speaker 1: writing for the Greeks and those of us who are gentiles.
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  Speaker 1: And so Luke doesn't get into why this is significant
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  Speaker 1: because his audience wouldn't know. The people stood watching, and
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  Speaker 1: the rulers even sneered at him. They said he saved
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  Speaker 1: others let him save himself if he is God's Messiah,
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  Speaker 1: the chosen one. The soldiers also came up and mocked him.
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  Speaker 1: They offered him wine vinegar and said, if you are
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  Speaker 1: the king of the Jews, save yourself. There was a
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  Speaker 1: written notice above him which read, this is the king
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  Speaker 1: of the Jews. Now remember I said that notice should
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  Speaker 1: say what your crime is, and that's the crime that
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  Speaker 1: they put on there. And the other gospels point out
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  Speaker 1: that the Jewish leaders have a hard time with that sign,
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  Speaker 1: and they say it should say he said he was
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  Speaker 1: the king of the Jews. And Pilot says, I have
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  Speaker 1: written what I have written, And this is Pilot's last
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  Speaker 1: chance to get a dig at the Jewish leaders. Here
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  Speaker 1: here is your king. But the soldiers are mocking him,
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  Speaker 1: The leaders are mocking him. Everybody seems to be mocking
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  Speaker 1: him and saying, clearly, if this is the son of God,
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  Speaker 1: if this worths the son of God, he wouldn't let
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  Speaker 1: this happen. This is what Paul says when he talks
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  Speaker 1: about we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block for the
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  Speaker 1: Jews and folly for the gentiles. How is it that
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  Speaker 1: Jesus could be the son of God and yet here
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  Speaker 1: he is dying on a cross. Now, of course, our
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  Speaker 1: understanding is is that's exactly the point that he's dying
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  Speaker 1: there in our place, so that we don't have to
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  Speaker 1: He's dying a death for all, a sacrificial lamb for sin,
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  Speaker 1: so that we don't have to pay the price for
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  Speaker 1: our sin. But you can understand, while the people standing
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  Speaker 1: there watching this happen are thinking, clearly, this guy was
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  Speaker 1: a fake. Clearly this guy isn't the son of God.
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  Speaker 1: Otherwise this couldn't be happening. It's understandable. It's wrong, but
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  Speaker 1: it's understandable. But one of the criminals who hung there
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  Speaker 1: hurled insults at him, aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself
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  Speaker 1: and us? But the other criminal rebuked him, don't you
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  Speaker 1: fear God? He said, since you were under the same sentence.
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  Speaker 1: We are punished justly, for we are getting what our
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  Speaker 1: needs deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then
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  Speaker 1: he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus answered him, truly, I tell you today you will
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  Speaker 1: be with me in Paradise. So Jesus, as he is
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  Speaker 1: there with a sign that says King of the Jews,
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  Speaker 1: only one person is recorded to believe him, and that
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  Speaker 1: is the other person who is pushing up on his
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  Speaker 1: feet with the nail in them to silence the other criminal,
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  Speaker 1: and saying, we are getting what we deserve. Jesus, remember me,
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  Speaker 1: remember me when you come into your kingdom. Those words
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  Speaker 1: were equally difficult for him to say, as it was
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  Speaker 1: for Jesus to say today, you will be with me
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  Speaker 1: in Paradise. The Death of Jesus. It was now about noon,
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  Speaker 1: and darkness came over the whole land until three in
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining, and the curtain
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  Speaker 1: of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out
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  Speaker 1: with a loud voice, Father, into your hands, I commit
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  Speaker 1: my spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last.
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  Speaker 1: The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said,
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  Speaker 1: surely this was a righteous man. When all the people
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  Speaker 1: who had gathered to witness this site saw what took place,
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  Speaker 1: they beat their breasts and went away. But all those
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  Speaker 1: who knew him, including the women who had followed him
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  Speaker 1: from Galilee, stood at a distance watching these things. So
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  Speaker 1: Jesus dies, his last words being Father, into your hands,
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  Speaker 1: I commit my spirit. But there are other things that
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  Speaker 1: are going on portents, as it were in the heavens.
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  Speaker 1: Darkness is coming over the land as Jesus is hanging
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  Speaker 1: there on the cross for three hours. Darkness is coming
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  Speaker 1: over the land, which is got to be a little
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  Speaker 1: scary if you're there and you were just mocking this
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  Speaker 1: guy and saying you are clearly not the son of God.
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  Speaker 1: And yet something weird is going on right now. And
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  Speaker 1: then as Jesus dies, Luke mentions that the temple curtain
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  Speaker 1: is torn into And that seems like such a weird
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  Speaker 1: thing to talk about because we're not at the temple,
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  Speaker 1: we're outside the city. Why is he talking about drapery?
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  Speaker 1: But that temple curtain is the curtain that separates the
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  Speaker 1: holiest of holies in the temple, where the understanding is
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  Speaker 1: the presence of God. God dwells from the people, and
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  Speaker 1: only the high priest could come into the holiest of holies,
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  Speaker 1: and then only once a year, covered by the blood
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  Speaker 1: of the sacrificial bull, because we are unclean and we
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  Speaker 1: could not be in the presence of God with our
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  Speaker 1: sin or we would die. And so the high priest
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  Speaker 1: was covered with this blood of the sacrifice. But now
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  Speaker 1: Jesus has become that sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice that all
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  Speaker 1: those other lambs and all those other bulls were just
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  Speaker 1: a pretaste of, as it were. And so because Jesus
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  Speaker 1: has died, that separation between us and God is torn asunder.
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  Speaker 1: That we can now come, as Paul will say boldly,
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  Speaker 1: before the throne of Grace. And so that's why Luke
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  Speaker 1: mentions this. It is significant. And then it's interesting that
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  Speaker 1: as they see Jesus die, as the sky has been
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  Speaker 1: dark for three hours before he dies, the centurion, who
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  Speaker 1: was probably one of those who is mocking him earlier, says,
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  Speaker 1: surely this was a righteous man. And all the other
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  Speaker 1: people are walking away beating their breasts. That is a
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  Speaker 1: sign of regret, a sign that something they're not rejoicing,
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  Speaker 1: that this Jesus has died. And it says all the
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  Speaker 1: people gathered, well, these are the people who were mocking
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  Speaker 1: him earlier, except for the at a distance, which is
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  Speaker 1: some of his followers, including the women who followed him,
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  Speaker 1: who are watching these things, who are watching the crucifixion.
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  Speaker 1: Probably our understanding is from the Gospel of John, including
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  Speaker 1: Mary his mother. The burial of Jesus. Now there was
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  Speaker 1: a man named Joseph, a member of the council, a
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  Speaker 1: good and upright man who had not consented to their
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  Speaker 1: decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea,
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  Speaker 1: and he himself was waiting for the Kingdom of God.
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  Speaker 1: Going to Pilot, he asked for Jesus' body. Then he
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  Speaker 1: took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth, and placed
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  Speaker 1: it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in
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  Speaker 1: which no one had yet been laid. It was preparation
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  Speaker 1: day and the Sabbath was about to begin. The women
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  Speaker 1: who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and
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  Speaker 1: saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.
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  Speaker 1: Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But
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  Speaker 1: they rested on the sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
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  Speaker 1: So it doesn't say in Luke's account, but this is
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  Speaker 1: late on Thursday evening, getting close to that point at
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  Speaker 1: which it will become Friday. So in the Jewish understanding,
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  Speaker 1: sabbath begins when it gets dark eyes on Friday night. Technically,
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  Speaker 1: within the law, it's when it's so dark you can't
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  Speaker 1: tell a black thread from a white thread. So when
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  Speaker 1: it gets dark, that's the beginning of Sabbath, and so
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  Speaker 1: there is preparation done in a hurry here to take
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  Speaker 1: Jesus's body down and to put it in a tomb
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  Speaker 1: before the Sabbath starts, and the women are getting ready
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  Speaker 1: to anoint the body, but they can't do it on Saturday,
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  Speaker 1: on the Sabbath day, and so they have to wait
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  Speaker 1: till Sunday, and so they get back to wherever they're
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  Speaker 1: staying start preparing spices to come and annoy Jesus. But
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  Speaker 1: they run out of time on Friday night, and so
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  Speaker 1: they have to wait for one day, and then they
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  Speaker 1: will come back on Sunday morning when the Sabbath is over,
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  Speaker 1: to anoint his body and to say goodbye. At least
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  Speaker 1: that was their plan. Now we don't know a lot
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  Speaker 1: else about Joseph of Arimathea. Obviously, there are all sorts of
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  Speaker 1: legends about him catching the blood of Jesus in a cup,
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  Speaker 1: which is the holy grail. That is non biblical. It
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  Speaker 1: is unlikely that that happened that would get in the
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  Speaker 1: way of the execution. And there were a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: soldiers standing there at the foot of the cross as
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  Speaker 1: part of the lore of the Holy Grail, and again
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  Speaker 1: probably no truth to it at all. But what we
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  Speaker 1: do know about him, he's a good man. He's a
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  Speaker 1: good and upright man, and he dissented with the decision
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  Speaker 1: of the action. So he was one of those members
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  Speaker 1: of the Sanhedrin who voted against condemning Jesus, but he
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  Speaker 1: was overruled. Now think of the courage that it would
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  Speaker 1: take to vote against that decision. People are so mad,
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  Speaker 1: they want to kill this guy, and you're standing up
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  Speaker 1: for him. But also think of the courage that would
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  Speaker 1: take to be associated. Remember, Peter has already fled and
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  Speaker 1: denied him three times, but even in what looks like
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  Speaker 1: his defeat and his death on a cross, Joseph is
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  Speaker 1: willing to associate himself with Jesus and take him into
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  Speaker 1: what is probably Joseph's tomb that has been prepared for
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  Speaker 1: him for when he dies, and he gives this tomb, well,
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  Speaker 1: it turns out he only rents this tom to Jesus
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  Speaker 1: because Jesus isn't going to stay there. But we'll get
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  Speaker 1: to that next week. For now, that ends this episode
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  Speaker 1: of the Bible Study Podcast. If you have any questions,
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  Speaker 1: send an email to Chris two x at gmail dot com, or,
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  Speaker 1: better yet, leave a comment on this episode at the
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  Speaker 1: Bible Study podcast dot com, and as always, thanks so
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  Speaker 1: much for listening. I want to take just a second
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  Speaker 1: to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership
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  Speaker 1: with us on this podcast. If you go to lifeaudio
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