Good Friday April 2, 2010
Luke 23:46 A Good Way to Die
Dear fellow redeemed,
For many watching the crucifixion of our Lord, I’m quite sure I know what the thinking was.
“This is no way to die!”
* As we picture the scene, it may also bring to mind the ongoing debate between pro-lifers and pro-choicers. As you know, people have very different beliefs about death, and very different ways of dying; especially when one’s suffering becomes quite intense.
* But have you ever thought about what makes Christ’s death so different?
After exclaiming: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” we’re told, “he breathed his last.” What shall we make of this?
* Simply put, the death of our Savior was not your ordinary death.
He didn’t die because he had no other choice but to die.
* He died because it was his choice to die!
Really! But hold on a second! Jesus isn’t the only one who dies by choice, these days, is he?
* Not in today’s world of modern thought.
I speak specifically of this world’s mercy-killing promoters; what some will refer to as pro-deathers, and I mean no disrespect - using the term myself.
* In any event, such people believe it’s a person’s choice to die when he desires to die, if in his opinion his life is no longer worth living.
* In other words, pro-deathers do not believe God alone should decide the timing of one’s death. That would make our God inhumane; lacking understanding and compassion.
* Okay. But now why did Jesus choose to die?
It wasn’t because he was tired of waiting for his Father to make the choice for him, or because his Father had some warped inhumane sense of justice.
* He chose to die, rather, so that as the world’s substitute he might deliver us from of our sins. He wasn’t trying to get out of something, that is. His choice was to save us.
Well, today’s pro-deathers may say that we’re all entitled to our religious beliefs.
Still, they don’t believe Christ’s death offers much relevance when it comes to our own death.
* Speaking of normal people, such as you or me, we die because we have no power.
We grow weak and old, and lose control what happens to our ailing and failing body.
* And that’s just not right in the opinion of today’s pro-deathers.
But there is a way in their opinion where we can make a meaningless death a good death.
* The problem is, pro-deathers choose to assert a power that doesn’t belong to them.
To make more sense of just how far off they are in their thinking, we give consideration to Christ’s power, which is none other than God’s power.
* The truth is, Christ has power not simply to give life, where he raises the dead to life.
He also has power over life. Being God himself, the timing of one’s death is in his hands.
* And so, Jesus demonstrated that he was the Lord over life in his own death.
Consider the opening words of our text: “Jesus called out with a loud voice.”
Dying, he still cried out loudly, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
* Now, that was astonishingly unusual.
Ordinarily, a dying person gives up his tired soul with a weak, soft groan.
He has no more power to speak and cry aloud.
His strength fails. The powers of his life fades away.
And eventually his pulse stops and his heart quits beating.
But Christ’s death could not be described in this way.
* He did not die from exhaustion.
Nor did he die because of his countless pains or his unimaginable agony.
* No, even as he died, he still gave evidence of his power.
By uttering his last words with a shout, he revealed to the world that he indeed was God’s Son and had power over life and death.
He was the Lord of Life, and could have stopped his death had he chosen to.
* Therefore, he didn’t die because he had to die.
He died because he wanted to die and had the power to die.
* Jesus had said earlier about his life: “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” As the Lord of life he had the prerogative to lay down his life any time he hose, and to raise it again.
Well, if some pro-deathers claim to believe in God, as I imagine they do, they may very well agree that only God has the final say about death.
* They may also agree in most cases that suicide is wrong.
“We should not encourage people under normal circumstances to seek an exit from this life, but in every case possible remind our loved ones that their life has value.”
* But then they’ll go on and say that the time may come when one’s life has no value to any one; not to their family, not to their community, and least of all to themselves.
They are simply suffering needlessly and may have even become a burden to those trying to care for them.
* In such cases pro-deathers believe we may assist a loved one in their desire to die.
In fact this makes death is beautiful in their view; having a chance to die with dignity.
This problem, to tell you the truth, extends far beyond our culture’s pro-death movement.
Many people today try to take the edge off death by hiding the reality or effects of death.
* We see this, for example, in many of the traditions surrounding the funeral.
What would you say is the main responsibility of the mortician?
* Some might think that it’s to beautify death. We glance at the body lying in the casket and comment “Doesn’t she or he look nice?”
* And if the makeup job is at is usual best, we may even have a difficult time believing that the body we see before us is really dead.
* But what’s the real purpose of an open casket; to help the loved ones accept their loss; to give them chance to say “good-bye?”
* We’d be better served to regard the open casket as our chance to come to grips with our own sin. We recognize that death is the result of our sinful nature.
* The open casket should be sobering reminder not only that we shall all die someday, but also that we need to be delivered from death.
A lot may cross people’s minds when they see the face of an acquaintance who now lies dead before them.
* When the disciples saw the corpse of Jesus taken from the cross, they might have lost all hope of seeing him again.
* But they should have known better than to regard his death as we regard other deaths.
For while it is true that your typical death can only remind us of our sin, our frailties, our imperfections and, yes, our own death, Christ’s death reminds us that such dying is not the end.
* And that’s why we can truly speak of a beautiful death.
It happens to be the death of our Lord Jesus who died in order to save us.
* And so does his death make our death beautiful. Every death is beautiful when a sinner dies trusting in the blood of his Savior and looking forward to his new life with Christ.
And so are we alerted to yet one more difference between pro-deathers and believers.
* Those trusting in their own means of death die with no hope, whereas those trusting in Christ’s death, have every reason to hope.
* Very simply, Christ’s death means that our own death can no longer separate us from God.
Our sin, you see, which had caused our separation was heaped upon the body of Christ.
So that our sin might no longer be our problem or concern, Christ made it his problem and concern - up until the moment he died on the cross.
* This was the death he chose. By dying our death, he wanted us to know that we were truly forgiven by the Father and without sin in his sight.
* As Paul writes to the Colossians: “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”
Reconciled to God! . . . Holy in his sight! . . . Free from accusation!
* When all is said and done, God’s death makes your death and my death very different than the typical death.
* Unlike nonbelievers who die like cattle with no thoughts or hopes concerning tomorrow, the Christian can die with the certain hope of eternal life.
Everyone of us can die knowing that the sting of death has been removed.
* “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”
* What a comfort: to have our fear of death taken away!
Meanwhile, we don’t concern ourselves with those who try to hide or decorate death.
* Instead,
we commend our souls each day to our faithful creator and Father saying, “If
we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.
So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”
* And when we see our final day approaching we permit God’s Word to be heard from our lips, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Amen.
May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.