Jesus' Crucifixion: Control, Trust, and Transformative Power

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The third element we might simply refer to as the grand finale because that is surely what it is, a total blackout, a divine vandalism, and a grand finale. Jesus called out with a loud voice. Now you will notice that each of the gospel writers make something off this, and of course they should. [00:00:58]

Crucifixion was routinely a long gradual loss of strength and consciousness. Whatever strength the victim may have had in the initial moments of their pain, if they had breath in the early hours to hurl abuse at their captors, to shout down from the cross, to engage in conversation, that would very quickly go away. [00:01:20]

And as the various functions of their body began to close in on them and close down, then their ability to think properly, their ability to process information properly, and certainly their ability to have breath to convey properly and definitely loudly would be going from them. That's the point the gospel writers is making. [00:01:48]

And what we have here is the fact that Jesus is not going out with a whimper but he's going out in full possession of his faculties. Indeed it appeared as though he just came to a point where he decided that it was time for him to leave. He came to a point where he decided that his work had been accomplished. [00:02:28]

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. After all of the darkness and all of the dereliction, all of the pain, all of the suffering, all of the forsakenness, here we find him in closest communion with his Father once again, entrusting himself into his care. [00:03:00]

Incidentally, that is death for the Christian. What you fear most you won't experience. You'll fall asleep in the arms of Jesus, and you're waking up and you're in your own room. Well, this was very unsettling, total blackout, divine vandalism, and what a grand finale. [00:04:24]

The onlookers are described in verse 48, working our way back up the text. All the people who had gathered to witness this site, the crowd, the folks who had wandered down the via dolorosa, the people who had maintained their interest in this event are now beginning to drift away. [00:07:35]

The crowds realize as well there's nothing much left now, just the taking down of the body perhaps, although that was no foregone conclusion. For a criminal, many bodies were left to be eaten by the birds, they were swallowed by beasts, they decayed. [00:07:58]

And the centurion, seeing what had happened, incidentally will you just notice all the emphasis on seeing and watching in these few verses. You go back down to 49, they were watching these things, the final phrase, you go up to 48, all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place. [00:10:38]

The thing that is most striking here is the fact that the one who makes the best declaration out of the threefold reaction is not someone with a background in Old Testament studies, not even a Jew, certainly not a disciple, but the one who makes the best of all reactions is a Gentile army officer. [00:11:55]

And here once again, in the events of the drama that has unfolded in this amazing scene, what the Jewish leaders have denied and what the disciples have failed to grasp, an ordinary soldier at some measure understands, doesn't he? I mean he does better than any of the rest. [00:12:56]

The focus of revelation in the Bible, the focus of God's disclosure in the Bible, which comes finally and fully and savingly to us in the first of his son, the focus is not Bethlehem but Calvary, and any attempt to articulate Christianity that begins and ends with the incarnation. [00:17:01]

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