Six Hours That Changed History | Mark 15:33-39 | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Gospel of Mark Series)

Mark 15 beginning in verse 33. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Elohi, Elohi, lema sabachthani? Which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he is calling Elijah.

Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink saying, wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. The more I read and study the New Testament, the more I realize how much I need to read and study the Old Testament. And that includes a familiarity with the sacrifices that the Lord God instituted for his people Israel under the old covenant.

I understand that these ancient practices were elaborate protocols and fulfilled purposes for that time, but you have to understand that those particular rituals foreshadowed elements of the death of Jesus Christ. And I think it's important for us to see it that way, that those specific sacrifices were not just practical, they were prophetic. That they all pointed to this one sacrifice to come. And the more that we believe that and engage with our Bibles in its totality and make these connections between the left side of your Bible and the right side of your Bible, the more I assure you this, that your heart will erupt in praise and adoration as you see the masterpiece of God's ways. And in this short time, I wanna give you a glimpse of that.

I wanna show you in your Bibles how there's a particular sacrifice that's not often considered with what Jesus does here that was fulfilled, and it will grant a greater significance to what Jesus did on our behalf. And so we read these verses, but now I'm gonna ask you to turn with me to the book of numbers, and let's look at chapter 28 together beginning in verse one. Numbers 28 beginning in verse one. It says here, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, command the people of Israel and say to them, my offering, my food for my food offerings, my pleasing aroma, you shall be careful to offer to me at its appointed time. And you shall say to them, this is the food offering that you shall offer to the Lord, two male lambs a year old without blemish, day by day as a regular offering.

Again, there's a large catalog of different sacrifices that Israel were to honor in their worship to God. And what you and I just read here is a unique one. It's called the regular burnt offering. It says regular offering here in verse three, but when you go to verse six, it elaborates and says, this is the regular burnt offering, and here's what this regular burnt offering comprised of. It was a daily act of worship, and it was something that the priest had to honor by taking two lambs in the prime of their lives, one designated to be placed on the altar completely consumed by the flames, and then for that lamb to be replaced by another year old lamb at the evening time for the same purpose.

Now, what this sacrifice implies is this, that the altar at the entrance of this worship center called the tabernacle and later the temple would never be extinguished. That altar, that place of sacrifice would never become cold. It would never lose its fire. It was to be a continual cycle of sacrifices uninterrupted. And the purpose of this visual and even the aroma is to cause the people of Israel to remember that God is worthy of continual sacrifice.

That God demands of us and he deserves not sacrifice based on convenience, not sporadic worship, but constant. Constant. And this is what they would see and this is what they would smell. And as Christians, it symbolizes our call to surrender to the will of God. A heart posture that is to be maintained every day.

Every morning, every night, every week, every month, all the years of your life. And Paul alludes to this in Romans twelve one. You know this very well when he says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him, which is your spiritual worship. Again, let me remind you that what was unique about the regular burnt offering is that it was continuous and it was complete. All of the animal, nothing was held back, nothing was reserved.

The entire beast was made into a fragrant offering. What Paul's saying here with using these familiar languages, your bodies, your lives have that same purpose in the new covenant. Here's the key difference. You're not giving a dead offering, you're giving a living one, A living sacrifice. So we're not talking about martyrdom necessarily.

We're not talking about one event. We're talking about a lifestyle. And the same way that lamb would be placed on that altar and would burn and burn until it was replaced, your one life is meant to be set apart on the basis of His grace to be granted to Him continually without reservation, without hindrance. Now, here's the beautiful thing. This does point to a practical truth of our sanctification, but as I said earlier, it points to the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you'll find that in a parallel passage of what we just read in numbers 28. So look at Exodus now. Look at Exodus 29. And notice how this provides a distinct instruction with the same sacrifice, the regular burnt offering. It says in Exodus twenty nine forty two and forty three.

It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you to speak to you there, there I will meet with the people of Israel and it shall be sanctified by my glory. Do you see it? This daily offering of a new lamb in the morning, a new lamb in the evening was essential for God to engage with his people favorably and intimately. That constant sacrifice created and provided a consecrated platform for God to meet with his people. That's why he was saying this is important.

In God's heart is that he would commune with his people all the day, all the time. And they had to show it on their part that they wanted that kind of intimate relationship with God by providing this sacrifice all the day, all the time. But here's where the Lord Jesus Christ is the greater regular burn offering. Because when we come to him, we realize that as a true lamb of God who is the son of God, all he had to do was make a single sacrifice. A single sacrifice that was sufficient for God to sanctify not a place, you.

Not so that he can dwell in a location, so he can dwell in your heart. Our relationship with the Lord is no longer dependent upon a daily effort to bring new lambs being slaughtered, fresh blood being poured out every morning and every night. What you have with the son of man and what he did two thousand years ago on that particular day was enough. And it will always be enough. And if you doubt that Christ fulfills the regular burnt offering, go back to what we read in the beginning of the service in Mark 15 and look at the times when Jesus was on the cross.

Go to Mark 15. We didn't read this. We read it last week, but look at verse 25 of Mark 15. This was the hour when Jesus was nailed on the cross. In Mark fifteen twenty five, we read, and it was the third hour when they crucified him.

Jewish method of calculating the hours of the day. So the third hour here equates to our time as 9AM. 9AM, is that morning or evening? Good. This is when Jesus was crucified.

He was nailed on the cross in the morning. When did he die? Go to verse 33 of Mark 50. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. Now the ninth hour, when he died, would mean that he died at 3PM.

Now that's the afternoon. And so let's pause here and think back to the regular burnt offering. A lamb in the morning, a lamb in the evening. Now I come and I read my old testament faithfully, and I read the gospels, and I realized that Jesus Christ, whom John the Baptist said, he is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, was crucified in the morning. And I'm expecting it for us for it to say, and then he died in the evening, but it says he died at 3PM.

So I got thinking. I read this earlier this past week, and I've been thinking those past few days. It seems to be like an incomplete picture of the regular burnt offering until I was out and about, and it hit me like lightning. And I pulled out my phone to my bible app and I reread what we opened with at the beginning of this sermon. Look again at verse 33.

And when the sixth hour, which is noon had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. You see what this means? That although Jesus did die in the afternoon, something supernatural occurred. This blackness blanketed the land and gave the appearance of the evening. And so in a symbolic way, we see Jesus Christ as a regular burnt offering, nailed on the cross in the morning and giving up his life under the midnight blackness during midday.

But this darkness also means something else. I find it interesting that when you recall the birth of Jesus Christ, from Luke's vantage point, we learn that it happened at night. In Luke two verse eight, we're told that it happened at night. And that night had many awesome things happening, including this. An angel of the Lord appeared to a group of shepherds out in the field at night.

But do you remember what happened when they appeared? Says there that the glory of the Lord shone around them. So at the birth of Jesus Christ, though it was at night, there was a heavenly light that blazed on the scene. And now as we come to the death of Jesus Christ, at the peak of the day, we read of this blackness covering the sky. God was behind this blackness.

This was not coincidence. This was not an act of Satan. We know for certain that this darkness that covered the whole land was orchestrated by the father. And that is more confirmed. When again, you read the Old Testament, what do you discover?

That in many places, when God causes this darkness to occur over a place, it is often equated with a readiness of his judgment. And so my personal reading, I just finished the book of Amos this week and I stumbled upon a passage concerning something that you've probably read called the day of the Lord. That might sound like an exciting title, but it's actually supposed to be a terrifying one. Because the day of the Lord is consistently something that refers to God's wrath visiting a people. And in many passages, it points to his ultimate judgment to come with his retribution against the wicked.

The day of the Lord. And let me quote you what we're told about the day of the Lord from Amos's writings in Amos five verse 20. You don't have to turn there. Just listen, please. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it?

I mentioned this to you to highlight that when this unusual darkness overshadowed Calvary, it signaled that God's fierce judgment was ready to be unleashed. For three hours of darkness, from noon till 03:00, there was a spiritual transaction that was taking place that none of us can explain or even conceive with our imaginations. God showed up on Calvary and he was performing a work on his son who willingly chose to become the sin bearer of humanity. And so shattering was this experience to the son of God that he voiced his lament by quoting the first part of yet another old testament prophecy, Psalm chapter 22. Do you see it in verse 34?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Pause. In what way did God the father forsake God the son? Definitely not the Son of God separating himself from the nature of God. Definitely not Jesus Christ temporarily disconnecting himself from the essence of divinity.

Nor is this forsaking this is so important because I believe many people misunderstand this. Nor is God the father forsaking this experience that the son was lamenting and echoing from David in Psalm 22, indicating that God the father was absent from this moment. Now instead, he was present but in a different way. God was very much present, but he was present with his terrifying judgment. In other words, when Jesus is lamenting, why have you forsaken me?

He is vocalizing that he has tasted the separation of the father's comfort and warm affection. The intimate communion that he's always known has been veiled. And it was so agonizing to him that he said it with a loud cry. I want you to imagine this for a moment. We've been studying the trial of Jesus, the torture of Jesus, and now the crucifixion of Jesus, And we got glimpses of what he endured, the slander, the spitting, the slapping.

And what do we find in Jesus? A silent lamb. There was no outburst, but when it came to this darkness, when it came to the father judging our sin on the son, he cried. He cried with misery, agony, pain. An old minister observed it rightly when he said that at the earliest infancy, Jesus suffered at the hands of men.

The earliest phase of his ministry, Jesus suffered at the hands of Satan. But when it came to the cross, Jesus was destined to suffer at the hands of God. That's what we're witnessing here. The Lord Yahweh chastising his anointed shepherd. We're witnessing that and strangely, though this is inconceivable, we somehow behold a beauty in it.

And that's unfortunately not the case for many who witnessed it firsthand. Notice how some interpreted Jesus' words in verse 35. And some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he is calling Elijah. What are you talking about? They misinterpreted the words of Jesus, Elohi.

And they began to think to themselves, oh, he's calling upon the prophet Elijah. Now why would they come to that conclusion? They came to that conclusion because they were familiar enough with their own scriptures that Elijah was transported to heaven, he didn't die, and that Malachi promised that before the day of the Lord would come, before God would come and clean up the whole world, before judgment would arrive and he would establish his kingdom, Elijah would go forth as a forerunner. And so in their mixed thinking, they're thinking, okay, he's calling upon Elijah. He claimed to be Messiah.

He claimed to be the son of man. So maybe Elijah's gonna show up. And I thought, how did you mishear him? Because again, it says there in verse 34 that he cried with a loud voice. He didn't whisper it.

He didn't mumble it. He cried it with precision. He cried it from the depths of his heart. And so you might be surprised. How did they hear Elijah?

I'm not surprised, actually, after meditating on it. Why? Because think about the hearing of most of the people throughout Jesus' ministry. The things that he said about himself, the things that he taught, how it was misunderstood, how it was misapplied, how it was missed altogether. Do you think it'd be any different as they come to the final moments of Christ's life?

They misheard it. They misinterpreted it. You know, I was looking at this and I thought to myself of a verse that we studied many months ago in the book of Mark. Jesus, in one of his teachings, said something that we apply to our entire sermon concerning our relationship to God's voice and his word. Can I remind you as we're ready to wrap up the book of Mark in a few weeks, look at Mark four twenty four and remember what Jesus said in one of his teachings?

And he said to them, Mark four twenty four, and he said Jesus said to them, pay attention to what you hear. It's possible, even for you to say, in love I say this, for you to be hearing, but not paying attention to what you're really hearing. I wanna be surprised if some of us are thinking about laundry, food. Why do you think Jesus said pay attention to what you hear? Because it's possible for us to be hearing but not really listening.

And that comes with ramifications. And with all the horrors that took place on Calvary, let me add this one, the irresponsible hearing of these bystanders. You're saying why? Why are you making it so extreme? I'm making it extreme because of their lack of hearing led to their lack of understanding that prophecy was being fulfilled right before their eyes.

Psalm 22 was being realized, and here they are thinking, oh, Elijah might come. And here's what I did. I studied this the other day, and I step back, reading this passage, meditating on it, putting it together. Lord, may it never be so of me that as I read your word or hear your word that I miss what you're really saying. I don't want that to happen to me.

I don't wanna miss what you really reveal about yourself. I don't wanna miss about what your prophecy say about the future. I don't wanna miss about what you demand of me as a Christian. I don't wanna misinterpret anything. I don't want my preconceived notions, my ideas, my distractions to get in the way of what your mouth is saying.

I'm telling it to me. Now, I telling it to me the other day, now I'm telling it to you. I don't wanna miss what your word has to say when it's preached, when it's read, when it's when it's heard. I don't wanna miss what you're doing in the world. I don't wanna miss what you're doing in my life.

I don't wanna be blind and deaf to to all that you might be conveying, but because of whatever reason my ears are caked and I can't really perceive it and so I miss it. Behold, he's calling Elijah and then something happens in verse 36. Someone ran and filled with a sponge, sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink saying, wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. That seems like a random act, but it's not when you compare it to John's account. John tells us one of the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross, two simple words, I thirst.

When you compare, you realize that Jesus said, I thirst, and John tells us to fulfill scripture, yet another prophecy. He said, I thirst, and this man ran to fulfill that need. And before you think that this is a ray of mercy in a very dark and gloomy and evil sight, Mark tells us and clarifies the real reason why he went through all this trouble to help Jesus with his thirst. He said it. Right?

Wait. Let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. It wasn't to quench his thirst. It was to satisfy his curiosity or even to mock him. And again, it's amazing how any part of the Bible can provide practical application and instruction, and it's no different here.

I look at this and I realize that as dark, again, as everything has been reading Mark 15, it gets even darker even in this one act. The depravity of man is so vile. And it shows us what you and I are capable of unrestrained, unhinged. If the Holy Spirit doesn't harness our hearts, we can even look at opportunities to provide mercy and charity and seize it instead to make it about us. To satisfy selfishness and carnality in the flesh.

You have a man who provided drink, and you think, that's nice of him, but in reality, he just wants to see a show. Lord, I don't want to ever ever look at potential opportunities to do good in your name and manipulate it for my sake, whatever that sake is. That's why Romans twelve nine, the Holy Spirit tells us believers, let love be genuine. Genuine. And he could have said love.

He said, no, no. It's possible to love with laces of hypocrisy. It's possible to love and it's polluted. Only the Holy Spirit and his word can decontaminate our love and make it pure, holy. Let love be genuine.

And regardless of this person's motive, you know what Jesus does? In order to fulfill scripture, he plants his dry lips on that dirty sponge, and he takes a sip. And after he takes a sip, we read fulfilling Psalm sixty nine twenty one. We read that he made a loud cry and then breathe his last. Now I can assure you that when Jesus made this loud cry, it wasn't a screech of agony.

It wasn't a taunt of anger because John tells us what was behind that loud cry, three words that you know very well, it is finished. And he didn't whisper it the way I just did. He thundered it with triumphant authority. Oh, I wonder what that sounded like. It is finished.

That was strange for somebody who was suffering crucifixion because your lungs were collapsing. You were losing breath. You were dying of exhaustion, and yet this is just another idea to confirm that Jesus was completely in control. It is finished. What was finished?

The achievement of atonement. The complete obedience of Christ that would make our salvation necessary was complete. The suffering that he needed to endure to make the payment for your sin and mine was done. The fear that mankind has suffered with concerning death has been put to an end because of his death. And the uncertainty of our entrance into eternal life has been solved forever.

It is finished. And when he made this cry, something supernatural happened. You think how much more can happen? Well, we read what happened. Just like that midnight at midday, as one preacher put it, There was another act of God where Look here at verse 38, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

The bible is so specific. From top to bottom showing that it was God who ripped that veil. What is this curtain all about? Well, for hundreds of years, when God called the nation of Israel to build that worship center that we referenced earlier, there was this thick veil that separated the people from the most holy place where God resided and manifested his glory, and that barrier served as a constant reminder that our sinfulness separates and alienates us from enjoying the fullness of God's presence. That's what the priest saw, that's what the people understood and it it was there.

It was there always, always, always. And only one time of the year could the high priest enter in for a few moments, representing the people of God. And now what we see here is, which I find so fascinating because throughout the years, all the lambs, all the bulls, all the goats, all the birds that were slaughtered, in the millions, how much blood did they accumulate? How much blood did they sprinkle? It didn't shred an inch off that veil.

And yet when the Son of God shed his blood, it ripped that veil like a piece of Kleenex. That's what God was after all along. Now, we have entrance into his presence. And listen to this, it's not about just us going into the Holy of Holies. That's a symbolic picture.

It's the fact that God who reside in the Holy of Holies now moves out and lives in us. What accomplished that? The blood. And now God is committed to find his home, which he did, in his temple, which is the church. Not this building.

Buildings are wonderful. We gotta meet somewhere. You and I collectively, the temple of God where the Holy Spirit dwells, and God is committed to making us his permanent address until we meet him for face to face and enjoy him without any interference for all eternity. That's what we're in. That's the new covenant.

But more than the the entrance, the symbolic picture of us now having God, God having us, we see here with the ripping of the veil, the cancellation and nullification of the old covenant and the inauguration of the new covenant. We don't need temple sacrifices anymore. We don't need to shed anything. What he has done is enough now. And so what we have here is the inauguration of the new covenant.

There is now a new way in in which we relate to God, in which we worship God, in which we are grafted into the program of God. And since this time, millions have been joined. Millions have been adopted into this wonderful covenant. Do you think that this temple veil ripped and nobody noticed it? I have we touched on this a few weeks ago when we were talking about the power of the gospel in one little part of the sermon where even Pharisees were saved.

Do you remember we talked about that briefly? And that's found in Acts chapter six verse seven. You don't have to turn there, but let me remind you that we're told early in the church, the church movement, it says, and a great many priests became believers. I wonder how many of those priests were in the temple witnessing that veil tearing. I I wonder how many saw it, and it registered.

And they were ready to receive Jesus as their Messiah. The veil tore from top to bottom, but priests were not the only one who were saved. We read of an individual in verse 39. This is our last verse before we break bread. And when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God.

He was a centurion. He was not just an average soldier. He supervised hundreds of soldiers. We have right to believe that this centurion was part of this whole process, Christ's trial, his torture, his beating, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion on the cross. He witnessed everything.

He witnessed the patience of Christ, the elegance of Christ, the dignity of Christ. He heard every word that he uttered from the cross. And the cherry on the top is that when he died the way he died and the earthquake took place and the rumblings happened and the fear and and all of these things accumulating, it dawned on him, this man was the son of God. Here's why this is so massively important in connection to the gospel of Mark as one unit. Mark records us by the spirit, yes, but also strategically by the spirit.

This is the first time, funny enough, we're at the end of the book, and this is the first time that through human lips, this precise confession was made that Jesus was the son of God. The father proclaimed it at his baptism. He reaffirmed it on the mount of Transfiguration. Demons said it on many occasions, but through the lips of a person, it occurred for the first time here at the cross. And through whose lips?

A gentile. This was the Son of God. Now last week, you and I remembered that this was not the only person who at this time made a saving confession. There was a thief on the cross, remember? And he learned from his own blasphemies that he was a sinner from his past life realizing that he was very close, touching distance to the savior of the world, and he said, would you remember me when you come in your kingdom and Jesus confirmed today you will be with me in paradise?

That thief was not just a thief. He was a Jewish thief. So even in the the final moments of Christ's mission, the culmination of his work, when Jesus is dying, you know what happens? A Jew gets saved, a gentile gets saved. What's the lesson?

Here's the lesson. Whether you're a Jew in this place or not a Jew, whether you are a hardened police officer or a crazed criminal, if you're a murderer or a blasphemer, no matter who you are, as we behold the cross, we are being told emphatically, Jesus will forgive you. No matter what you've done, here's where I'm ending. No matter what you have done, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, is ready to wash you with his blood. Delete your debt of sin.

Make you his own. Live in your heart. Shepherd you throughout your life until you meet him face to face. So there's a time coming where his unfiltered presence will shower over us for all of eternity, but my constant prayer, knowing these truths, have been experienced in my life, believing that this book is true. Lord, help me experience your glory, your power, your presence as much as is possible on this side of heaven.

And that's a prayer that God faithfully answers in many ways. Do you have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ? Do you do you do you behold how prophecies have been accomplished, how the person of Christ is undeniably attractive and unlike anybody else in all of history? After what you've heard week after week after week, you see, this man, after all these events, made a conclusion. This man was the Son of God.

Can I ask you, what's your conclusion of Jesus? Does this only confirm to you that he is indeed the son of God? Are you still doubting? Or are you among the blasphemers who still mock? You know, it's amazing when Jesus will be buried, and we're gonna study that soon, and when he raises from the grave, you actually find out that the Pharisees who realized that that tomb was empty still didn't believe.

They conspired and they paid off some of the soldiers telling people, make sure that you let people know that the disciples took them away. It's amazing how our hearts can be hardened despite all the proof before us. But I am I'm closing here before we open this table to ask you, please, if you don't know him, be confirmed in that conviction. Have certainty to why you'll deny Him. Don't be indifferent with your soul.

Challenge your skepticism. And if you even seek him in your skepticism with an honest heart that wants to know the truth, with your limited understanding, God is so gracious to lead you and make himself known to you. And I pray that every person here would walk out knowing that their names have been written in the Lamb's book of life. I pray that your soul is saved. I pray that you know this Jesus of whom I believe and I preach unashamedly.

As we come to this table to eat, we are remembering his body and his blood. And we're gonna sing in a moment and go straight to the table, and pastor Ben is gonna lead us in giving thanks for the elements. But it is my duty to ask you that if you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, that you respectively reserve yourself from participating. This is, this is something like Jesus instituted for his church, for those who believe in the message that I just So if you put your faith in Christ, you're coming here to remember it's not because of what I've done. It's not because of what I've shed with this blood or any other person's blood or any other animal's blood.

It's because of his blood. That's what you Okay. So listen, let me tell you something. We're celebrating today. This is a celebration.

So, come to this table happy and hold those elements with joy. He died for me. So if you if you don't believe in that message, I pray that you would, and when you do, you can you can join this table. But if you don't, just watch. And what you're watching is people lining up coming to take these elements, proclaiming by way of drama, I'm saved by his grace.

Believer, if you believe this message but your heart is not lined up with the gospel way of life, you bring more joy to your master by repenting and reconciling with those that you haven't reconciled with instead of taking of this. So I ask you to reflect on your own life. But let me also say that Jesus is not looking for perfection to get to this table, or none of us are welcome. But if there's something that you are justifying that you know is sin, that's what he means by warning us in first Corinthians. If you know it's sin but you're holding on to it, let go of it before you take any of this.

But believer, also, if you are conscious that you're a sinner, we all are, but you know in your your heart of hearts, I I wanna live holy. I I want to live a repentant life. Come, come, come, come. This is for you. Praise team, can we come, and can we worship?

We're gonna sing reflectively, and then we're gonna partake. Take this time now as they come and prepare it. Don't worry about who's beside you, and just prepare your heart to worship the Lord with his ordinance. Shall we do that? I'm gonna join you here.