Daily Devotional — April 10, 2020

you who are married, I hope you and your spouse are communicating well during this time of extended togetherness.

Chris and I are managing fine, I think, but probably need a little bit of help in understanding one another.

The other night she asked me if I would help clear the table. Well, I needed quite a run -up, but I did eventually clear the table.

Yeah, okay, well, enough of that. Today is, like I said, it's Good Friday, and a day to be thinking about some things that are more serious.

And so I want to read for you a passage from Luke chapter 23, and it's the last events of Christ on the cross that began at noon on Good Friday.

It says, It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, when the sun's light failed, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands

I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. Now, when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised

God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent. And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.

And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

I want to share with you a devotional reading from a new book that Sinclair Ferguson wrote this year.

It's entitled To Seek and to Save, and it was the reading for today, Good Friday, from that particular passage.

He writes, Jesus' third word from the cross recorded by Luke is, Father, into your hands

I commit my spirit, following which he breathed his last. For Luke, this is not only

Jesus' final word from the cross. It is also the last clue he gives us to the inner significance of what is happening at the skull,

Golgotha. On the road to Jerusalem, we have eavesdropped on many of Jesus' encounters with others.

But only one of them parallels this moment. Here we have the consummation of what took place at Gethsemane.

Here, as there, it is his own father whom Jesus encounters. While he refers to him frequently in this gospel, there are only three places where Jesus addresses the father directly.

In Gethsemane, our Lord's human will had struggled to submit to the will of his father, for his holy soul necessarily shrank from the implications of drinking the cup the father was giving him.

There, he was being asked to be willing to do what he could not desire to do, namely, to drink the cup of the wrath of God and experience the terrible sense of abandonment that would result.

But here, the same holy Savior is confidently committing his spirit into his father's care.

What has happened? What has changed between the desperate plea in Gethsemane and this confident declaration at the skull?

Luke gives us two clues. Clue number one. In the Roman Empire, the day began at 6 a .m.

It was now about the sixth hour, noon, the time of day when the sun was ordinarily at its zenith.

But not today. For the next three hours, the land was shrouded in darkness.

Luke records this as a fact, but there can be no doubt that he also sees it as a sign, an event with deep significance.

The heavens became opaque and impenetrable. For a brief season, creation itself seemed to be thrown into reverse gear and God said, let there not be light.

His face no longer shone on the earth. More to the point, the Aaronic blessing, the

Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

That Aaronic benediction had ceased to function. Jesus' experience was the reverse of that of David who was able to say, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me.

Nature itself put on the dark clothes of mourning as Christ the creator was put to death by sinful men and on the cross came under the curse of God.

Clue number two, Luke records another event. The massive curtain of the temple was torn in two.

Rending a garment was a sign of grief, of death, and of mourning. Was God rending his temple garments at the death of his beloved son?

Perhaps, but more than that, he was de -consecrating the

Jerusalem temple. The temple curtain was now no longer the barrier between God and man.

Not only the temple veil, but the flesh of Christ had been torn to create the new and living way into his presence.

Jesus' work was completed. So now he called out with a loud voice of triumph and joy,

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Was he still meditating on the

Psalms? If so, he was now well past Psalm 22 .1,

my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and had reached Psalm 31 .5,

into your hand I commit my spirit. But more than that, he was now calling

God, Father, again. Luke adds simply, and having said this, he breathed his last.

Jesus' obedience to his Father and his suffering had a passive dimension. He was crucified by the hands of wicked and cruel men, but he had been also actively obedient, obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

His work was now finished. It was time to go home to the Father. He breathed a sigh of relief and committed himself into his hands.

At the foot of the cross, the soldiers in his execution squad did not notice that Jesus had died.

They had been too interested in casting lots to see who would win his clothes and joining in the general abuse of him to care about what he said.

But not so the centurion who commanded them. He observed what had happened and said, certainly this man was innocent.

And his response? He praised God. And so should we.

And why? Well, let me leave you with the words from the prophet Isaiah that explains prophetically what

Jesus was doing on this cross that gives reason for us to praise. Isaiah 53 verses 4 through 10.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted.

Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent.

So he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.

And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Lord Jesus on that Friday afternoon gave up the spirit and he did so to bear our transgressions, to bear and deal with our iniquities.

Why would we praise God? Because of all that our Savior has done for us on this day.

I trust you're praising and giving thanks to the Lord today for this gracious gift, this gracious sacrifice of Jesus on that cross in our behalf.

He was bruised for our iniquities. Let's give thanks to him today and then carry on about the day's responsibilities.

Our Father and our God, we are grateful today that Jesus, our

Savior, bore our sins in his own body on the cross. He took your wrath upon himself, the wrath that we rightly deserved.

He took it upon himself. And having borne the weight of it all and the burden of it all and the pain and the anguish of it all, he could cry, it is finished.

And we're grateful today that indeed it is. Now, Lord, I pray bless us with these thoughts and fill our minds with the truth of that glorious sacrifice and work of Jesus.

On this good Friday, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right.

Well, may the Lord bless you and I trust you look forward to resurrection Sunday. I'm thankful that Jesus who died and was placed in that borrowed tomb did not stay.