Trinity Baptist Church

The Book of Mark

God Visits Calvary

Mark 15:33-41

 

We come tonight in our study of Mark 15 to verse 33

 

Verses 33-41

 

This is the moment the Lord has dreaded and sought to avoid.  This moment when He would, for the first time in His existence, be separated from the presence of God.  All of the mockery and ridicule, all  the physical suffering and pain, none of that even remotely compared to what it must have been like for the sinless Son of God to become sin.

 

And the great question that begs to be answered is “Where is God?”   There is nothing right about what is happening here.  Even from a human standpoint, everybody knows He is innocent.  He certainly was not deserving of death. 

 

And while that is true humanly, it is especially true spiritually.  Blasphemers and profane reprobates should have been the ones killed and Jesus should have been protected.  But God didn’t intervene to destroy the blasphemers or to protect His Son. And there is a tendency to believe that God wasn’t anywhere around, especially when you hear Jesus saying, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

But that doesn’t mean God wasn’t there. In fact, I would submit He was there, even in that moment when Jesus felt and experienced the absence of God.  But He wasn’t there to do what we would expect. 

In fact, He is there to do the very opposite of what we would expect because He is there, not to punish the blasphemers or protect His Son, but to punish His Son.

  

There are three main characters that make an appearance in this text.  First of all, we see

 

 

verses 33-38

 

Here we find highpoint of salvation history. This is the death of Christ. This is the long-awaited Lamb of God dying for the sins of the world. We understand the theology of the cross, but I’m not sure human words can really convey what is happening at this moment in history. 

 

To say “Jesus is dying for the sins of the world” is so matter-of-fact and simple a statement that it cannot really express all that was happening.  The details are so in adequate to capture the supernatural reality of what is happening on the cross.

 

When we read, for instance, in verse 33 that, “When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour”, it is so loaded with truth that we couldn’t begin to unpack all that it means.  And yet, there is this compelling desire, in an attempt to appreciate all the Savior did, to explore that and dig into int. 

 

 

 

By Jewish timekeeping, the sixth hour would be noon.  The day began at sunrise around 6 AM and the sixth hour was always considered to be around noon.  So we are given a time locater in the text. 

 

From our study of the other gospel accounts, we know the Lord has already spoken three times by now.  He had already said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” which informed the thief on the cross that forgiveness was available if he asked for it, which he did and received it.

 

The second time He speaks is to John and His mother.  He said to John, the Apostle, “Behold your mother,” indicating that John was going to have to care for Mary since He no longer could do that and since His brothers were unbelievers in Him.  And then, from the cross He said to His mother, “Behold your son,” meaning John would now assume His responsibilities in caring for her. He put them in the care of each other.

 

The third time He spoke, He said to the thief, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.” And sometime after that is where we intersect the story at noontime.  Now that reference to the sixth hour is not just a time marker, but it is an indicator of what should have been happening on a normal day. 

 

At the sixth hour the sun should have been and would have been high in the sky at the apex of its intensity.  The brightest light that day would have experienced would have been at this moment, and yet the Bible tells us that instead, the land is enshrouded in darkness. 

 

So what is happening?  Some would have us believe this was a natural eclipse.  Others suggest it was a satanic darkness.  But I would suggest that it is proof of the presence of God. 

 

Now our immediate response to that is to recoil and say, “That can’t be right because God is all about light.”  And that is true.  God is often spoken of as light such as in Psalm 27:1 where we read, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.”

 

But if you read the Old Testament as a Jew read and studied, then you would know that God is also associated with and identified by darkness.  In fact, the Old Testament tells us that the presence of God could be manifest light and it could also be manifest darkness.

 

So when do we see the presence of God associated with darkness?  In particular it is tied to what the Old Testament calls “the day of the Lord”.  For instance, Joel 1:15 says, “Alas for that day, )the day of the Lord) is near and it will come as destruction from the almighty.”  Then in chapter 2, verses 10-11, he goes on to describe what it will be like. 

 

 “The earth will quake, the heavens will tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness. The Lord utters His voice from His army, surely His camp is very great, for strong is he who carries out His word. The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome and who can endure it?”

 

 

 

 

Then in the same chapter at verse 30 we read, “I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth. Blood, fire, columns of smoke, the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”

 

All of that is referring to the final day of the Lord, that day in the future when God brings judgment upon the earth. 

 

We find it again in Amos chapter 5, verse 20, “Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light? Even gloom with no brightness in it.” In chapter 8 at verse 9, “It will come about in that day, declares the Lord God, that I will make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight.” In what day does the Lord do that? “In the day of divine judgment.”

 

In Zephaniah chapter 1, “Near is the great day of the Lord,” verse 14, ‘Near and coming very quickly. Listen, the day of the Lord, the day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble, and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.”

 

So consistently, we find these prophets speaking of cataclysmic events of divine judgment being times of darkness and from that we can see this truth emerges that tells us darkness is the expression of God’s presence in judgment.

 

By the way, that is why hell, which is everlasting place of divine judgment, is a place described by Jesus as a place of outer darkness, where there’s weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth in eternal unrelieved blackness.

So what we see here at the cross as this darkness falls across the earth from noon until three o/clock in the afternoon is that hell came to as God unleashed the full extent of everlasting punishment on His Son.

 

This was the cup that Jesus anticipated in the Garden.  This is why it was such a revolting anticipation that made Him sweat drops of blood, because in those three hours, think of it, Jesus suffered the eternal hell of all the people through human history who would be saved. He bore all their eternal punishments together and did it in three hours.

 

So if the sinner in an eternity of punishment can never pay the price of his own sins, how could Jesus, in three hour, receive the full eternal wrath for all the sinners who wouldn’t believe? Only because He is an infinite and eternal person. His capacity for everything is limitless and eternal.

 

So what we find here in verse 33 is not an indicator of the absence of God.  It is, in fact the proof of God’s presence.  It is God in full and final judgment of sin. It is in those three hours that He bore in His body our sins. It is in those three hours that He was made sin for us. It is in those three hours that He took the curse. And at the ninth hour, it ended.

 

And it is there that Mark records the fourth statement of our Lord. 

 

Verse 34

 

The very first thing He said after the darkness ended was what we read in this verse. How are we to understand that? What does that mean?

With Martin Luther, we say, “God forsaken of God!  Who can understand that?”

 

After all, didn’t we just say that this darkness was the proof of God’s presence?  So why does Jesus say what He says?  I’m convinced that what our Lord is expressing is an emptiness in His spirit that desires the comfort of God. 

 

And in that moment, He knew God was there in the punishment, He had experienced it in a very real way.  But when the punishment ended, where was God? When He might have expected comfort and compassion and sweet fellowship in the unimaginable incomprehensible exhaustion of just having suffered the eternities of hell, in that moment He says, “Where is God?”

 

And in that moment of fulfilling the prophesy of Psalm 22, it isn’t that God isn’t there in the punishment, it’s that He’s saying, “Where are You in the comfort?”

 

And perhaps in that statement, the only time in the New Testament that Jesus ever referred to God in any other way except “Father”, amplified and accentuated by the fact that He cried with a loud voice, in that moment we find an even more graphic reminder of hell.  Not only is hell the full measure of God’s punishment, but it is also absent of any comfort.   It is punishment without mercy, without comfort, without compassion, without sympathy, without relief? That’s what hell is.

 

 

 

And when we say that Jesus took the full measure of God’s wrath, He did it, not just in the punishment and pain, but without any mercy and with the absence of any divine comfort. 

 

And to confound our understanding of what is happening there all the more, we read

 

Verse 35

 

Now keep in mind, they’ve just experienced this unusual darkness at noonday.  They emerge from that to this eerie cry from the cross as Jesus expresses His distress at the absence of God’s comfort, and yet, they immediately return to the comedy of the moment. 

 

Why would they say that?  After all, they knew what He said.  He said it in a loud voice and He spoke it in their language.  They understood perfectly what was spoken.  But they use the sound of the word to make fun of the Lord. 

 

They knew the Old Testament taught in Malachi 4 verses 5 and 6, that when the Messiah came, Elijah would be present.  So they pick up right where they left off three hours ago in their ridicule of the “messiah”, twist what He says and use it as an opportunity to ridicule the Lord by saying, “Listen!  The Messiah is calling for Elijah.”

 

And the ridicule is continued and intensified in

 

Verse 36

 

 

 

Let’s get Him drunk and prolong His life a little bit.  Let’s see if Elijah shows up!  It’s just more of the same.  Then in verse 37 we have these very simple words,

 

Verse 37

 

Notice again, it was a “loud cry”.  He didn’t die because He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t die because He was out of strength. He cried out, He screamed with a loud voice. In John 19:28 we are told that what He said was one word. “Tetelesti, it is finished or accomplished”.  With that, Luke tells us He said, “Into Your hands I commit My Spirit.”

 

And then Mark tells us, verse 37, He “breathed His last.”   Now with that, Mark tells us, in

 

verse 38

 

As you know, there were two rooms or divisions in the Temple, separated by this curtain.  On one side was the Holy Place and on the other, the Holy of Holies.  No one could enter the Holy of Holies except for the High Priest, and he could only enter once a year on the Day of Atonement to sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat, on the Ark of the Covenant to make atonement for the nation of Israel. 

 

So everything regarding salvation is symbolized in that observance.  The sinner’s separation from God is seen in the curtain.  The necessity of blood for the remission of sins is represented through the blood of the lamb that was slain.  There is no access to God without a High Priest who is qualified to enter into the Holy of Holies.  

Everything the Old Testament required for the nation of Israel to be forgiven is found in this one concise location.  

 

And at the moment Jesus died at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, it all came together as He paid in full the penalty that was necessary for all who would ever believe.  The Old Covenant was abolished. The temple was nullified. The priesthood was voided. And all sacrifices became pointless because the only true and saving sacrifice had been offered.

 

And to substantiate that, God Himself grabbed hold of that temple curtain and ripped it into two pieces.  By the way, that couldn’t have been done by man, and besides that, there wasn’t a man alive who would have attempted it if it was possible because ti would have menat death. 

 

It had to be done by God. In fact, it was God’s exclamation point on the death of His Son. And what it said was, “The way into the presence of God is wide open for anyone.”

 

What does the death of the Lord Jesus accomplish? It is, at the same time, the end of the Levitical Priesthood, the sacrificial system, the temple and the Holy of Holies and the initiation of the reality of salvation to everyone who chooses to enter God’s holy, glorious presence through the blood of Jesus Christ. 

 

And at precisely the moment of three o’clock in the afternoon, when the priests began to slaughter tens of thousands of Passover lambs so that people could eat the Passover meal that evening, at that very hour, God Himself killed a Passover Lamb Himself. 

Now Mark doesn’t tell us, but Matthew does, that there was another miracle that happened at the time the veil was torn. Matthew 27:51 says, “The earth quaked, and the rocks were split.”

 

Accompanying the death of Jesus and the tearing of the veil was an earthquake powerful enough to split rocks.  And by the way, earthquakes in Scripture are very often, like the darkness, associated with the Day of the Lord. 

 

And for the Jews who were paying attention that day, they should have known what they were witnessing. 

 

And according to Matthew 27:52 and 53, there was another miracle that day at that time as graves were opened because or the earthquake.  And eventually,  Scripture says, after His resurrection, those bodies of the saints which slept, arose and went into the city of Jerusalem and appeared to many. 

 

So, the veil is torn, the earth begins to shake, earthquakes take place, and graves are opened as Jesus dies on the cross. 

 

So did God show up at Calvary? Without a doubt!  He showed up in the darkness. He showed up in the earthquake. He showed up in the ripping of the veil and He showed up in opening the graves!  He made His presence known to anybody who wanted to acknowledge it, so much so, as we’ll see next week, a Roman centurion who witnessed it all, looks up to Jesus and proclaims Him to be the Son of God. 

 

Let’s pray.