Over the past 5 weeks we have looked at 5 spiritual disciplines that can make all the difference in our lives. Each discipline can be done alone or with others, and when they are an ongoing part of our life, they shape us to look more and more like Jesus. We have called this series The Walk because if we walk this path, we will walk with Jesus and like Jesus, we will be more faithful to God no matter what circumstances we face. These practices give us the strength and courage to face all things with confidence so that we can say with boldness, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
It was these 5 spiritual practices that shaped Jesus' life and gave Him the strength to remain faithful during the most agonizing and painful moment of His life, His death on the cross. While today we remember the arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem at the time of the Passover, and the excitement people felt at His presence because they hoped He was going to be the Messiah and bring in the kingdom of God, we also remember that the excitement soon turned to betrayal and Jesus found Himself sentenced to die on a cross.
Crucifixion is one of the most painful ways to die. We often say that the nails pierced Jesus' hands and feet, but the nails were actually driven into His wrists as a nail in His hands would not have been able to support the weight of His body. The feet of the condemned would have either rested on a small wooden platform, or the ankles would have been nailed to the sides of the cross. To breathe, the person would have had to push up with their feet which would have caused excruciating pain all throughout the body.
I had never thought of this before, but because of how difficult it was to breathe, when someone hung on a cross, they usually never spoke; it would have been too painful to get air in your lungs to say anything. But Jesus did speak, not once or twice but 7 times. There are 7 recorded words of Jesus we find over the 4 gospels and each time Jesus spoke it must have caused great pain. If Jesus went through all this pain to utter these words, it is important for us to both hear and understand them.
We are going to read these words today and what we are going to see is that the 5 spiritual disciples we have been looking at not only shaped Jesus’ life, they shaped His final words. I want to invite you to say these words with me.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Mark 15:34
This first word we hear from Jesus is a prayer. In fact, 3 of the 7 words we hear from Jesus on the cross were prayers. The reason we hear Jesus pray on the cross is because prayer had been an ongoing part of Jesus’ life. Jesus prayed at common times like before meals. We heard Him pray when He fed the multitudes and served the Passover meal. He prayed at crucial moments of His life like the night before He chose His 12 disciples. There was another crucial moment when the crowds wanted to make Jesus King but He knew this was not the moment and that there was another road He needed to walk. Jesus also prayed in moments of crisis, like in the Garden of Gethsemane when He knew Judas would betray Him, Peter would deny Him, and His most faithful friends would abandon Him.
Prayer was an ongoing rhythm of Jesus’ life and prayer is one element of worship. We pray when we come together, and we need to pray when we are alone. We talked about praying 5 times a day to help prayer become part of the rhythm of our lives. Jesus probably prayed more than 5 times a day and the power of His prayer life was so evident that His disciples said, teach us to pray, and He gave them the model of prayer we know as the Lord’s Prayer. Prayer and worship was one of the disciplines that shaped Jesus so that now, in a moment of real suffering and pain, He prayed.
The words of Jesus' prayer, however, came from the scriptures.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? Psalm 22:1
Jesus knew the scriptures so well that their words became His prayers, and Jesus knew the scriptures so well because His life was spent reading and reflecting on them. Throughout the gospels we hear Jesus quote from the book of Deuteronomy 8 times, from the Prophet Isaiah 10 times, and the Psalms 13 times. The message of scripture shaped Jesus' life. He was the good shepherd from Psalm 23 and Ezekial 34, and He was the suffering servant that the prophet Isaiah said would be the Messiah. Reading and reflecting on scripture was so much a part of Jesus’ life that He continued to find strength and comfort in the scriptures on the cross.
Another prayer of Jesus on the cross that comes from scriptures was
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Luke 23:46
This is another quotation from the Psalms and in many ways these first two words, which are prayers, need to be read and prayed together. As much as Jesus felt forsaken and abandoned by God in this moment, ultimately, He knew that God was still there to receive His spirit. Taken together, these 2 prayers remind us that even when we feel abandoned by God, even when God seems far away because of our sin, or the suffering we see or experience, or because of our doubts and questions, God is still there.
If you feel forsaken by God, or that God is simply not there for you, Jesus knows your pain. He knows what it’s like to feel isolated, alone, and abandoned by everyone and yet He took the effort from the cross to remind you and me that God is still with us. His hand will sustain us, support us and save us. With confidence we can also pray, God, into your hands we commit our spirit.
The third spiritual discipline we looked at was serving others and in order to serve others we need to see the needs of people. From the cross Jesus saw the need of 2 specific people, His mother and His best friend, John. From the cross, Jesus looked down and saw the pain and anguish of His mother and knew that she was going to need help and support. Jesus also looked into the eyes of His best friend, John, and saw the same sorrow and pain, so He asked the two of them to care for each other in the days to come.
Woman, here is your son… Here is your mother. John 19:27
In a moment of intense pain, Jesus reached out to care for His mother and for a man who was like a brother. What does care for your family look like? Last year I learned a lot about what caring for older parents looks like. It looks like time and patience and sacrifice. It looks like setting aside our own wants and needs to make sure our parents are cared for physically, emotionally and spiritually. Only 1 of the 10 commandments comes with a promise and that is: Honor your father and mother… so that it might go well with you.
What I learned was that honoring my father and mother at this stage of life means serving and at times going out of my way to meet their needs, but all of that came with a blessing, a blessing of peace, and love, and grace. How is God calling you to care for your parents? And notice that what Jesus did from the cross was to call all of us to care for the parents of others. Mary had other children, but she asked John to help care for her.
In the life of the church, we are called to help care for the parents of others and the children of others. How can you help care for older parents in the church? How can you help care for children and youth in the church? The church is a new family, a spiritual family, and in this family, we are called to serve one another. The spiritual discipline of service can be practiced right here and there are lots of opportunities for us to do just that.
If you want to help care for parents, contact LeAnn Showers and she can partner you with a person or a facility where you can visit and care for older people. Or you can connect with people at home and make sure they aren’t forgotten. To work with children, contact Jeff Pilger. Our VBS is coming up soon and we always need crew leaders who will care for children during the week.
The other act of service we see in this moment of Jesus’ life is found in the cross itself. What Jesus is doing on the cross is an act of service for all humankind because He is taking on our sin and paying the price for it. One of the scriptures that shaped Jesus' life was a section of Isaiah known as the suffering servant passage. In that section, we hear about what the Messiah was going to be like.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:4-6
This is what Jesus was doing on the cross. He was serving us by paying the price for our sin. Serving was so much a part of Jesus' life that His final act was itself an act of service. What we need to remember is that Jesus calls us to take up a cross and make service an ongoing part of our own lives.
From the cross Jesus is also sharing His faith and giving witness to the love and grace and mercy of God.
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. Luke 23:34
From the cross Jesus looked out at all those who had betrayed Him, abandoned Him, condemned Him, ridiculed Him, taunted Him, denied Him, and rejected Him and He offered them grace and mercy. They didn’t deserve forgiveness, but Jesus forgave anyway. It is such a powerful witness to God’s mercy and love that someone close by heard it and asked Jesus to forgive him.
Jesus was crucified between two thieves, or bandits, and while one of them taunted Jesus, the other asked for the forgiveness he had just heard Jesus offer others. He said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus, the kindness and mercy you have shown to others, please show to me. And Jesus replied…
Today you will be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43
When Jesus looked at the dying man on the cross next to Him, or the crowd that surrounded Him, He was also looking at you and me. Some have said that when Jesus looked out from the cross He was looking through the corridor of time and right into our eyes and offering forgiveness to us and to all who turn to Him. Today this forgiveness is yours and mine and like Jesus, we can remind people that God’s grace and mercy and love is for them as well. God so loved the world, everyone, that He gave His one and only son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Today we can be with Him in paradise. We can also give witness to this work of Jesus and make a difference in the life of others.
So we come to the final spiritual discipline we talked about and that is giving and generosity. Generosity isn’t always giving our money, sometimes it is giving something more difficult than money, like grace and mercy and love. It is these harder gifts that Jesus gave so generously from the cross. In one of His final words, Jesus said,
I thirst. John 19:28
Physically, Jesus had to have been thirsty, but He also says this because He has literally just poured out everything He had for others. His cup is empty. He gave all He had because generosity and giving had been an ongoing part of His life. He gave until He had no more to give and then He said His final word.
It is finished. John 19:30
In the Greek, this is just one word, tetelestai, which means Done. It means: Mission Accomplished. Victory. Once Jesus gave all He had, His mission was done. The price of sin had been paid in full and there was nothing more that was needed. His generous and gracious giving was all that was needed then and it is all that is needed now.
There were 5 spiritual disciples and practices that shaped Jesus’ life: worship, scripture, serving, giving and witness, and from the cross each one is seen in what Jesus does and heard in one of His final words. At a time of intense suffering and pain, it was these 5 spiritual practices that gave Jesus the strength and power to stand firm and walk the painful road to the cross.
With His final words, Jesus reminds us that these 5 spiritual disciples need to be part of our personal daily walk and part of our walk of faith together. When we walk in these disciples, we will be able to endure all things and find the courage and power to do all God calls us to do, even carry a cross. This walk of faith, this walk of Jesus, will make all the difference in our faith and make all the difference in our life.
Next Steps
The Walk - 5 Practices from the Cross
The seven last words of Jesus:
1. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Mark 15:34
2. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Luke 23:46
● Why do we need to pray these 2 words together?
● When have you felt forsaken?
● How can worship help you know God is still there?
● What scriptures can be part of your prayers?
● Take time this week to read and reflect on these last 7 words of Jesus.
3. Woman, here is your son… Here is your mother. John 19:27
● Who is Jesus asking you to serve?
● How can you serve your parents or children this week?
● Contact LeAnn Showers if you want to serve older members of the church.
● Contact Jeff Pilger if you want to work with children and youth in the church.
4. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. Luke 23:34
5. Today you will be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43
● Who needs to hear this message of forgiveness and grace? How can you share it with them?
6. I thirst. John 19:28
● Jesus emptied himself and gave all He had.
● What is God calling you to give? How is God calling you to empty yourself for Him and others?
7. It is finished. John 19:30
● Nothing more is needed. Thank God for His gift of salvation and new and everlasting life.
