PALM SUNDAY
THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF CHRIST
DR. JIM DIXON
MARCH 24, 2002
LUKE 23:33-46
On July 4th, every year, we celebrate Independence Day. And at that time, we remember the War of Independence, the Revolutionary War, through which this nation was born. In that war, there were many heroes. And one of those heroes was a man named Nathan Hale. He graduated from Yale at the age of 18 and became a schoolteacher. He was athletic, good looking, and he was kind. He was gentle. He volunteered to serve in this newborn nation for the sake of our independence. He pledged his life, his treasure, his sacred honor. He died in 1776 at the age of 21, apprehended by the British and convicted of spying. He was executed. And of course, Nathan Hale is most famous for his last words, in which he said, “I only regret that I have but one life to give from my country today.”
Most historians doubt that Nathan Hale ever spoke those words because the British officer who was there at Nathan Hale’s execution recorded Hale’s final words as these: “It is the duty of every soldier to obey the commandments of his superior officer.” Noble words, but not nearly so inspirational as the words for which Nathan Hale became famous. But the truth is, we will never know. The final words of Nathan Hale and what’s true of him is true of so many people through history. With so many famous people through history, we just don’t know their last words. But we do know the last words of Jesus Christ.
We know because His death was public and there were many people there, including many people who loved Him. And they remembered His last words and they wrote them down. And so today, on this Palm Sunday, we examine what are called the last seven words of Christ. And these are really the last seven statements of Christ, the seven statements that Christ made from the cross. And it’s appropriate that we do this on Palm Sunday because Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to die.
For this He was born and for this He came into the world: that He might die for you and for me, that He might go to the cross. It’s all about the cross. So, the first word from the cross is the word of forgiveness, wherein Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Now, Jesus was beaten. He was flogged. He was whipped, lashed and scourged. He was spat upon. He was made to carry His cross. He was nailed to that cross. He was lifted up in agonizing crucifixion, but His tormenters were not satisfied. So they began to mock Him to scoff at Him. They railed at Him. They blasphemed Him. And in the midst of all of that, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
In this moment on the cross supremely we see the forgiving spirit of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And when Jesus came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the crowds shouted, “Hosanna!” a Hebrew exclamation of praise. The word hosanna literally means, “Save us please,” or, “Save us, we pray.” Perhaps the crowds wanted Jesus to save them from political oppression, from Roman tyranny. They didn’t understand that He had come to save them from sin and to offer forgiveness of sin. But if you’re a Christian, you know that, and you’ve come to the foot of the cross and you’ve asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior. You thanked Him for dying for you in your place, and you’ve heard Him speak the word of forgiveness to you. The word of forgiveness: it changes our life.
If you’ve heard Christ speak that word of forgiveness and you’ve embraced Him as Savior and you’ve experienced His mercy, it affects the way you live. You’ll never treat people the same. You’ll treat other people with mercy. You’ll treat other people with grace, with compassion, and you’ll be ready to forgive because He has forgiven you.
Now, the second word from the cross is the word of salvation. Jesus said, “Today you will be with Me in paradise. Truly, truly, I say to you today, you will be with Me in paradise.” And of course, Jesus spoke these words to one of the criminals called the penitent thief. And we know nothing about him. We do not know whether he was on the right or the left of Christ at that crucifixion. We do not even know his name.
I mean, there are many names that have been ascribed to him traditionally in Christian history, but they’re all bogus. We don’t know his name. What we do know is that he acknowledged his own sin. He knew that he was a sinner. He also recognized the sinlessness of Christ, and he made an amazing plea wherein he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And what an amazing thing for a dying man to say to another dying man. “Remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Clearly this penitent thief recognized that there was life beyond death, and clearly he recognized that beyond death, Jesus Christ would reign and rule. And he wanted to live under that reign and rule.
You see, if you’re a Christian, you’ve also come to Christ and embraced His reign and rule and you’ve received Him as King and you’ve acknowledged that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and will reign forever. And you want Him to reign over your life. Unlike the penitent thief, you have the opportunity to prove your devotion to Christ throughout the days of your life as you embrace His reign. And if you’ve done that, you’ve heard the word of salvation and you know that you are bound for paradise.
The word paradise is a Persian word. It was borrowed by the Hebrews and by the Greeks, and they transliterate this word into their language. Originally, the word paradise referred to an enclosed park. And the Jewish people used it in reference to Eden, the garden of God. Jewish theologians began to use this word paradise as descriptive of the part of Hades where the righteous were kept after death. In Jewish theology, Hades, the keeping place of the dead, had two places: Tartarus and paradise. Tartarus was for the wicked and paradise for the righteous. By the time of the crucifixion of Christ, throughout the Hellenized world of Jesus, the word paradise had become synonymous with heaven. And surely that’s what Jesus is promising here today: “You’ll be with Me in heaven.” And as believers in Christ, having heard the word of forgiveness and the word of salvation, we know the day we die, the moment we die, that day we will be with Him in paradise. This is the blessed hope.
The third word is the word of relationship. And Jesus spoke this word to His mother and to His friend John, as Jesus entrusted them to each other saying, “Behold your son,” and, “Behold your mother.”
The Bible tells us that from that day forth Mary went to live with John and John took care of her. We’ll never know what Mary was thinking as she stood there looking up at her son on that cross. Perhaps she flashed back to her earliest memories—to the stable, to the manger, to a bed made of cow hay. Maybe she flashed back to their flight to Egypt, and she remembered how she’d been able to protect her Son from the edict of the king. Perhaps she wished she could protect her Son this day. Maybe she remembered the time when she searched frantically throughout the city of Jerusalem thinking Jesus was lost, and then she found Him in the temple when He was only 12. Maybe she thought back to their home in Nazareth. Maybe she remembered laughter around the meal table. Maybe she could picture Him working in the carpenter shop with her husband Joseph.
We’ll never know what she was thinking, tot in this age of the world. But we do know what Jesus was thinking in that moment on the cross. He was thinking of His mother’s safety and her provision. I mean, in the midst of His agonizing pain, in the midst of the torture of crucifixion, He was thinking of His mother and of His friend and He entrusted them to each other with this word of relationship. And I can tell you, Jesus understood what was really important. See, we live in a crazy world. I read some time ago (you may have read this too) in the newspaper about a break in at a department store in the city of Chicago in Illinois. This was a major department store and these two guys broke into the department store in the middle of the night at about 2:00 AM And the crazy thing was they didn’t steal anything. They didn’t take anything. They were just in a mischievous mood. And according to the newspapers, what these two guys did was they just went around and they switched all the price tags throughout this department store. They just went around throughout the department store switching all the price tags and they took a $395 camera and they put that price tag onto a $5 box of stationary and vice versa. And they took a $5.95 paperback book and they put that tag onto an outboard motor. And they did this all over the department store, just switching the values. And according to the newspapers, the next morning the department store opened and it took them five hours of business before they realized what they were dealing with. It took them five hours to realize what had happened.
Of course, some of the outlandish prices were recognized and caught by the salespeople. But many things went unnoticed. Some people got incredible deals. Some people were shafted. Some people got great deals, but some people got bad deals because the values were confused.
We live in a world like that. Someone has switched the values. People don’t seem to know the relative value of things. The price tags have all been switched. And I believe Satan has done that. I mean, he has just conflicted the morals and values of our society and people live and die and they don’t seem to know what’s important. We live in a crazy culture where people think the most important thing is advancement at work and attaining some high title in the workplace. Or they think the important thing is the size of their paycheck—the amount of salary they’re able to earn—or perhaps the size of their bank account. Or they think the most important thing is the pleasures they’re able to enjoy and pursue.
It’s all a lie. It’s all vanity. What’s really important in this life is relationship—first of all our relationship with God and then with our families and then with our friends. Jesus recognized that even on the cross. And so, we have this word of relationship.
The fourth word is the word of abandonment. “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?” “Eloi, Elio, Lama Sabachthani?” And some of the crowd thought that He was referring to Elijah. They didn’t understand. Today, many people do not understand the meaning of this statement, “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?” As Christians, we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and we affirm His deity, but we cannot possibly fathom who He truly is. We cannot possibly fathom the relationship He has enjoyed with His Father for all eternity.
The night before Jesus went to the cross as recorded in John’s gospel, the 14th chapter, Jesus said to His disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t even know where You’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me. If you had known Me, you would’ve known the Father. Also henceforth you do know Him and you have seen Him.”
Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father. We’ll be satisfied.” Jesus said, “Have I’ve been with you so long Philip, and you do not know Me? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?”
Those are incredible words, and time and again throughout Christ’s ministry He said, “I and the Father are one.” And the night before He went to the cross, He prayed the high priestly prayer, recorded in John chapter 17. And in that prayer, He spoke of the love which He shared with the Father before the worlds were made. And in that prayer, He said these words: “Father, I have glorified Your name on earth, having accomplished the work which You’ve called Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory which I shared with You before the worlds were made.” Have you read those words in John 17? What an amazing prayer. What amazing statements.
Christ shared glory and love with His Father before the worlds were ever made, and He went to the cross. And for a moment in time, that union—which theologians have tried to describe through the doctrine of the trinity or the tri-unity and the whole concept of the hypostatic union—for a moment in time was in some sense broken because the sin of the world was vested upon the Son of God. Your sin, my sin, all the sin of the world, the Bible tells us, was put upon Jesus as He was on the cross dying in substitutionary atonement.
He became sin for us, and he experienced the break with His Father that sin brings as He took upon Himself the sin of the world. This is a mystery. “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?” And the intimacy He had enjoyed with the Father in some sense, in that moment on the cross, was broken. I don’t believe for a second it was the physical pain that made Him cry out this statement. It was the spiritual pain. The union was in some sense severed in that moment, as He became sin for us, taking the sin of the world upon Himself, He cried the word of abandonment.
Well, the fifth word is the word of distress: the simple statement, “I thirst.” You know, I shared with some of you many years ago how I had played in a golf tournament at Glenmore Country Club and it was a fundraiser for Christian ministry. And I was in the golf cart with my brother Greg. I was driving, and I know this is hard to believe, but somehow I crashed the cart. I kinda ran it into a wall. And as I did that, I got my thumb caught between the cart and the wall and it cut the top of my thumb—a deep cut—and it began to bleed. And my brother Greg said, you know, we should go back to the clubhouse and get a band aid. You should take care of that.
Well, I get back to the clubhouse… you need to understand, I don’t have many spiritual gifts, but I do have the gift of fainting and I have fainted a number of times in my life. I’m there in the clubhouse and I’m bleeding. And you know, they’re trying to get the band aid. And somehow I just pass out. I mean, everything spins and I just pass out. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I’m coming to, everyone’s gathered around me and there are two paramedics and I hear one paramedic say, yes, some guys are like this, they can’t take anything. Some guys are like this. They can’t take anything. They just pass out at the drop of a hat. And it was just as I was coming to that he was saying this. Then they said, “Hey, are you okay?” And I said, I need some space. Because they were all gathered around. And they said, well, you know, we think we better put you in the ambulance and take you over to the hospital. We need to make sure that you’re okay. You may have had a heart attack and not know it.
So they put me in the ambulance. All this for a cut thumb. And they hooked me up to the IV and they put those electrodes on me so they can do the EKG thing. They get me to the hospital and they wheel me into the hospital with a little cut on my thumb. And you know, as soon as we get in there, the nurse that attends me is a member of the church. And it’s embarrassing, you know, because I cut my thumb and passed out.
They called Barbara at home. And you know, it’s not, “Jim’s at the hospital. It’s not an emergency, it’s not serious, but he’s at the hospital.” And so Barb and Drew come over to the hospital not knowing what to expect. And Drew comes in to see his dad, you know, and, you know, I guess he was younger then. He viewed me as kind of macho. And here I am with a cut thumb in the hospital. And I tried to explain to him that most dads with such an affliction would probably be in critical care, but I have to admit that in that moment I felt like such a wuss. I mean, I felt so embarrassed.
It is true that in certain circumstances I am kind of a wuss. I’m sure that’s not true of you. I’m sure many of you have endured incomprehensible pain. I know many of you have. And you’ve gone to the hospital for good reasons, many of you. And you’ve sustained serious illness, disease, injury, and you’ve had serious surgery and you endured it. The pain, the loss of blood. But whatever you endured, it was nothing compared to the pain that Christ had on the cross. Whatever’s happened to you, whatever surgery you’ve had, whatever pain you’ve experienced, nothing compared to the agony that Christ experienced on the cross. The agony of crucifixion is said to be the greatest of all forms of torture in the world known to the world—incredible torture and a complexity of physical realities that produced even thirst. I mean, the thirst that Christ hadn’t crossed was not a normal thirst. It wasn’t the kind of thirst you have when you haven’t had your eight glasses of water a day or the kind of thirst that Jesus experienced at Sichar, where he spoke to the woman at the well near Shechem asking for a drink of water. No, this was an incomprehensible thirst that comes from a loss of bodily fluids and a complexity of physical realities that produce this inordinate thirst. And he cried out, “I thirst,” and is just a small part of His distress, just a small part of His distress. And He experienced that distress for you and for me.
In it we see His humanity. You know, in church history, there have been those who have refused to believe in the deity of Christ. There have been those who have refused to believe in the humanity of Christ. There were cultic groups like Gnostics and the Docetists who denied the humanity of Christ. They thought if Jesus was really human it would make Him weak. Don’t make that mistake. Jesus Christ was really human. If He were not human, He could not take your place on the cross. If He were not human, He could not take my place on the cross. He could not die on behalf of humanity, were He not human.
He died for you and for me, and experienced distress for you and for me. The word of distress. The sixth word is the word of triumph. “It is finished.” And we don’t normally think of those words as triumphant. It is finished. I mean, just earlier this week, the CEO of Ocean Journey made the announcement that Ocean Journey is basically finished. It is finished. $63 million in debt, 8,000 animals that are going to have to be relocated, and more than a hundred employees that will be dismissed and released. They had anticipated a greater public response. They’ve had 3 million people go through the Ocean Journey experience since the doors were open, but they had anticipated 6 million. The revenue has not been sufficient to cover the expenses and carry the costs or carry the debt. Even as we’re gathered here this morning, there are people trying to rescue Ocean Journey, but most people think it is indeed finished. And it’s not triumphant. I mean, when the CEO of Ocean Journey said it is finished, it wasn’t victorious. It isn’t a triumphant statement.
But when Christ makes this statement from the cross, it is triumphant because of the meaning of the Greek word. The Greek word is “tetelestai.” And this word means “it is complete.” He’s done what He came to do. He has shown us the Father, He has established His church. He has died in substitutionary atonement. It is finished. It is complete. And indeed, the word tetelestai was actually used throughout the Greek world to cancel debt. When debt was paid, it was stamped on parchment when the payment of debt had been completed and fulfilled, paid in full— tetelestai. And in a sense, that’s what Christ cried out from the cross: paid in full. The word of triumph. The temple curtain was torn in two, the curtain that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies, the curtain that separated mankind from the presence of God was torn in two. We now have access to God, opened up in victory won. The word of triumph: it is done. It is completed; it is finished.
Well, finally, there is the word of reunion, the last statement of Christ from the cross. “Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit.” You know, amongst theologians, there is a debate as to whether or not man by nature is trichotomous or dichotomous, whether we are three part beings or whether we are two part beings. Are we body, soul, and spirit—soma, psyche, pneuma? Or are we just body and soul/spirit, where soul and spirit are synonymous, meaning the same thing? Are we trichotomous or dichotomous?
Well, part of the problem is that in the Bible the word soul and the word spirit, the word psyche and the word pneuma, are used in a variety of ways. And this creates theological complexity and confusion. Personally, I believe we are trichotomous. But what’s most important to understand is this: you have a physical aspect to your being and you have a spiritual aspect to your being. You have a material side to your being, to your personhood, and you have an immaterial side to your being and personhood. And when you die, they are separated, the spiritual from the physical, the immaterial from the material. They are separated at death. Your soul and spirit leave the body.
You know, you’ve all heard the German word gesundheit. Sometimes people use that word when someone has sneezed or they say, “God bless you” when someone has sneezed. In the Middle Ages, people actually believed that when someone sneezed that for a brief moment their soul and spirit left the body. And that’s why they say God bless you. That’s where that expression came from, because they actually believed that when you sneezed your soul and spirit left the body for a brief second and your soul and spirit was in danger and that it was vulnerable to Satan, to the evil one. God bless you. But of course it’s not. Your soul and spirit only leave the body at death. And are you ready for that? Are you prepared for that? Are you prepared for your soul and spirit to leave your body?
You know, pastors do funeral and memorial services. Through the years I’ve done many. Most of our memorial services are now done by our pastoral care department with John Patterson. I’ve also done many committal services out at the graveside at a cemetery. Pastors do committal services. And when they lead a committal service, they commit the body to the earth dust to dust, ashes to ashes. But at a committal service, the pastor commits the soul and spirit to heaven, to the presence of God. And yet theologically that’s kind of bogus, because, first of all, the soul and spirit’s already left the body. It left in death. And secondly, a pastor doesn’t have the authority to commit a soul or spirit into heaven. I don’t have that authority.
Now, in a sense, only God has that authority. And in a sense, only you have that authority. Because you must commit your soul and spirit to God. I can’t do it for you, and you can’t do it for someone else. You must commit your soul and spirit to God. If you want your spirit and soul in His hands, as Jesus said in this last word, you must make that decision. So, this morning, as we conclude this Palm Sunday service, I want to give you a chance to do that, to take care of your soul and spirit and ultimately your body through the resurrection that you might receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, so that these last words of Christ won’t be in vain in your life. Let’s close with a word of prayer.