Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! On Good Friday Jesus was crucified for our sins, dying in our place so that we can be forgiven. Laid in the tomb through Holy Saturday. But Easter day has arrived. The stone is rolled away! The tomb is empty! And angels bring the good news – He is not here! He is risen! Jesus is alive. Christ is risen indeed!
So how does this wonderful news make you feel? Relieved? Excited? Joyful? How does Easter make you feel?
Mark’s gospel is remarkable because, at least in the part which most people believe Mark wrote, the gospel does not include any of the resurrection appearances we find in the other gospels. Mark ends very abruptly at Mark 16:8 with just two words (in Greek). “For they were afraid”. Trembling and bewildered – for they were afraid!
These women weren’t just afraid that the apostles wouldn’t believe their story. They were afraid because of what had happened! Because dead men don’t come back to life again! Did you notice how the angel had to tell the women, don’t be alarmed. Don’t be scared.
Matthew’s gospel records the events like this.
Matthew 28:2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. ….
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
Even when Jesus did appear to the women, they were still terrified.
9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Those women were not alone in being frightened when the Risen Christ appeared to them. At the end of that same day in the Upper Room, Jesus appeared to his disciples.
Luke 24: 36 Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” 40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.
For months Jesus had been preparing the way, telling his disciples that he was going to die in Jerusalem. But time and again he had also told them that on the Third Day he was going to rise from the dead. But all the time they did not believe him. So here when Easter came the disciples were all still afraid! And we don’t blame the disciples. We aren’t surprised that they are scared. When God breaks into His world and does amazing things, we OUGHT to be scared!
Remember the Angel appearing to the Virgin Mary announcing the news that Jesus would be born?
Luke 1:28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
A virgin becoming pregnant – the child who will be the Son of God. No wonder Mary was scared. And remember the shepherds when the Angels came to tell them that Jesus had been born.
Luke 2And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”
Whenever angels appear to human beings, it’s quite usual for their first words to be “Do not be afraid!” Because God doing new things isn’t just exciting – it really is terrifying!

Remember how the disciples reacted when Jesus walked on the water.
Matthew 14:25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
And remember when Jesus calmed the storm, Mark 4:40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
When ordinary people come face to face with the power of Almighty God – no wonder they are afraid! As Mr Tumnus says to Lucy at the end of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, “Aslan isnt a TAME lion, you know!”
Even more so at that first Easter, people were afraid. Because there in the empty tomb something truly miraculous had happened. For the whole of human history one simple rule had applied to all living things. Once they have died, they stay dead. Not just human beings but all creatures – once they are dead, they stay dead! And Jesus Christ had just broken that rule! Didn’t he used to be dead? He had been dead – and now he was alive again! Jesus had risen from the dead! When dead people come back to life in horror films people get scared – that’s why they call them horror films. Jesus had risen from the dead! So no wonder the women were trembling and bewildered! Sure they were afraid – so would you be! So would I be!
Of course, fear is not the only emotion we might experience at Easter. For the women who went to the tomb, and for all of Jesus’s disciples, Easter Day had begun with deep
SADNESS
John 20 11 but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus. 15 “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Easter Day began with the sadness of grief – death is very sad! Losing somebody you love is very sad! It makes you cry! More than their personal grief at the death of a friend, the women and the disciples were sad because the death of Jesus meant the end of all their hopes. They believed Jesus would be their Saviour. But now he was dead and buried. Their hope of salvation and forgiveness and eternal life had died with Jesus on the cross.
Then when the angel announced to the women that Jesus was not dead, but alive, came another emotion.
SURPRISE
The women were completeluy taken by surprise.
6 ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. …
8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb.
The women were alarmed and bewildered, so much so that to begin with they couldn’t even tell anybody what they had seen and heard. We know the ending of the Easter Story, so we aren’t surprised. Some people even like to read the end of a book before beginning so that they can’t be surprised. But all the best stories are the ones where even when you have read them all the way through you just can’t see the ending coming! Nobody expected the happy ending of the Easter Story. Dead men DO NOT come back to life again! Everybody was surprised!
So we should not be surprised that the disciples did not believe the stories the women told. We shouldn’t be puzzled when people who don’t know Jesus for themselves don’t believe in the resurrection and don’t understand what Easter is all about! The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest surprise in history! As well as surprise, there was also
JOY
Matthew tells us
Matthew 28 8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
They were afraid, but they were also filled with joy! All the disciples felt the same when Jesus appeared to them risen from the dead.
John 20 19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Of course they were filled with joy that their master and friend Jesus was alive and not dead. More than that, we are filled with joy because the resurrection meant that Jesus’s sacrifice for sin had been accepted – we can all be forgiven because Jesus has died and has risen. And because Jesus has defeated death we will share his resurrection life. We do not need to be afraid of death. Because he lives we will live also!
Easter day is good news! The resurrection of Jesus Christ is wonderful news for all mankind. God has accepted the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. Our sins can be forgiven. We who believe share in Jesus’s resurrection life, eternal life, life in all its fullness. We don’t need to be afraid of dying any longer because Jesus has defeated death. Jesus has opened the door to heaven for everybody who follows Him. Of course, Easter is good news and fills us with joy.
But Easter is also very scary! One Good Friday after the March of Witness I was talking to a lady who said how sad it was that so many people were just going about their everyday business on Good Friday, shopping, and driving around. How sad it was they did not recognise what a special day God Friday was. She said she wished God would do something spectacular and dramatic so that everybody would know He exists – something which would mean that nobody could doubt that God is there.
But God has already done that on the first Easter! Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! That is God’s proof to the world. The resurrection is all the proof the world will get and all the proof the world needs that God exists and that Jesus really was the Son of God. More than that, the resurrection of Jesus is God’s proof that Judgement Day is coming and that God commands all people everywhere to repent, to turn away from their sins and come back to God! So the resurrection of Christ is scary. Because dead people don’t come back to life – but Jesus did! And there is God’s proof to the world that He exists, and our world which is running away from God so fast SHOULD be scared of the God they have rejected. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
We can become too familiar with the story of Easter. We know the happy ending so well that it does not surprise us or amaze us any more. If those first disciples were terrified, bewildered, frightened, then so should we be! Yes, filled with joy and excited and also surprised. But if we have understood the story properly, we, like those women who first discovered the empty tomb, will be just a little bit afraid!
We can only know the real joy of Easter after we have experienced the deep sadness at Jesus’s death and the fear and the total unexpected surprise of the resurrection!

Congratulations! You have won a wonderful prize! The holiday of a lifetime. Celebrating 110 years since Captain Scott’s doomed expedition to the South Pole, Arctic Enterprises will take you and two friends on an all expenses paid holiday in the Arctic circle, for a whole month just a few miles from the north pole! You’ll see polar bears. You’ll see the Northern Lights. You’ll see snow. Quite a lot of snow actually
And you have won unlimited spending money! Although to be fair, there aren’t any shops in the Arctic so there won’t be anything to spend your money on! But it’s the thought that counts
So who will you choose to take with you on this holiday of a lifetime. You can have two members of your family, or your closest friends. Decide for me right now – who are you going to take with you? Decided? Good.
So here you are in the Arctic on your holiday of a lifetime. We promised you snow – but I am afraid you are getting even more snow than you expected. An Arctic blizzard is raging outside your igloo. You and your two friends are trapped inside. You have just got in touch with Arctic Enterprises. And there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you have seven days of food for the three of you! The bad news is that is seven days of minimum rations. In that extreme cold if you don’t eat that minimum ration each day then I am very sad to say that you will die. And I have some more good news and bad news for you. The good news is that help is on its way! But the bad news is that the blizzard is so bad that the caterpillar snowmobile with more food will take ten days to reach you.
So what are you going to do? Help is ten days away. But you and your two closest friends have only seven days of minimum rations left and then you will inevitably die. What are you going to do?
I first told that story almost forty years ago. Rob was the first person to answer. He was a policeman, on the staff of the police training academy in Hendon. Rob had just been on the front line of the Brixton riots. Rob was a strong and very brave man. I asked the question – what would you do? Rob answered very honestly. “We all know what we ought to do – but how many of us would have the guts to do it?”
You probably know the story of Captain Scott’s polar expedition. Still 400 miles from safety, the party was suffering with frostbite, snow blindness, hunger and exhaustion. One of the group was Laurence Oates. He was struggling with an old war wound and almost unable to walk. To give his companions a better chance, on 1th March 1912 Laurence Oates walked out of the tent into the blizzard. His last words were, “I am just going outside and may be some time”.
Would you do it? Would you give up your life to save the lives of your family or your closest friends? I’d like to think that I would. But if it came to the crunch, would I?
If you take nothing else from this morning , I want us all to realise that it was just as hard, just as difficult and as painful, for Jesus to give up his life for us as it would be for you and for me to choose to die to save our friends. This is how we know how much God loves us.
Romans 5 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is the supreme demonstration of God’s love for fallen human beings. And if we want to know just how much God’s love cost Him, we can look to the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus’s most intimate time of prayer and deepest communion with His Father.
Mark 14 32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,’ he said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’
Luke’s Gospel helps us to appreciate even more just how much of a struggle that time of prayer in Gethsemane was for Jesus.
Luke 22 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
So in the Garden of Gethsemane we see the depths of God’s love for us, and also Jesus’s example for us of prayer and obedience, however much it costs, however much it hurts.
Mark 14 35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’

Abba, Father, take this cup from me
Jesus prayed, “Abba, Father.” In the whole history of Israel nobody before had dared to address Almighty God in such an intimate fashion. Not “Our Father God Creator of Heaven and Earth” nor even “Our Father who art in heaven”. But “Abba”, “my Father.”
“Everything is possible for you.” Jesus recognised that God is Almighty. God is omnipotent. God is able to do ANYTHING He chooses. ANYTHING that fits in with His Divine will and eternal purposes. ANYTHING consistent with His Divine Character of love and holiness.
“Take this cup from me.” Jesus had talked to his disciples about this cup before. He had said to James and John,
Mark 10:38 38 ‘You don’t know what you are asking,’ Jesus said. ‘Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?’
That cup would be the cup of suffering.
Mark 10 33 ‘We are going up to Jerusalem,’ he said, ‘and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him.
Those events which Jesus had foretold were now less than twenty-four hours away. That cup of suffering would include:
Physical pain; few people in history have endured such as much agony as Jesus was going to do in the final hours of His life.
Death; Ezekiel 18:20 tells us, “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” But Jesus was without sin. Jesus lived a perfect and sinless life. Jesus did not deserve to die. Yet He did die. He died for us, in our place. Jesus said,
John 10 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
So Jesus would experience death. But more than that. Jesus was preparing to take upon Himself on the cross,
All the guilt of sin.
2 Corinthians 5 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Message In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.
So on the cross Jesus was going to take upon Himself the death penalty we deserve to pay for our sin. The prophet Isaiah foretold this about God’s suffering servant.
Isaiah 53 4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 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.
6 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.
This was the cup of suffering Jesus would have to drink. In the Old Testament “the cup” was often a symbol for God’s wrath.
Isaiah 51 17 Awake, awake! Rise up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes people stagger. …
20 …. They are filled with the wrath of the LORD, with the rebuke of your God.
Ezekiel 32 ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: ‘You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup large and deep; it will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much.
33 You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, the cup of ruin and desolation,
The cup of God’s wrath. On the cross Jesus was going to experience the full force of God’s anger against sin and the full weight of God’s judgment. There on the cross Jesus would discover what it meant to be cut off from God. The consequence of sin is spiritual death, separation from God who is the source of all life and light and beauty and goodness. On the cross Jesus would be cut off from Abba, My Father, and cry out
Mark 15:33 “My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me?
This is the cup Jesus was going to drink. The cup of physical pain and of death. The cup of guilt for sin and the wrath of God. This was the cup Jesus longed to be released from. That is how much it would cost for Jesus to set us free and bring us life. Jesus really didn’t want to die!!
Amazing love, O what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me.
My debt He pays and my death He dies, that I might live.
Jesus really did not want to die, any more than you or I would want to. But nevertheless Jesus prays: “Abba Father, take this cup from me,
Yet not what I will but what you will.
Jesus’s desperate plea to escape the cup of suffering was not granted! His deepest heartfelt prayer was not answered. God’s answer was NO! There was no other way we could be saved, so Jesus chose to give up his life for us. That shows us just how much God loves us!
At the same time we are reminded that
Serving God will not always be easy.
Christians can have two wrong ideas about suffering. The first wrong idea is that “God never asks us to do anything which is too difficult or too costly for us.” That is one of the devil’s lies. We have no right to assume that our lives will be any easier than Jesus’s life was. Or any easier than the lives of the first Christians, persecuted and so many martyred for their faith. We have no guarantee that our lives will be any easier than those of our brothers and sisters in the suffering church even today. If God did not spare His own Son Jesus Christ, but gave Him up for us, we should not dare to imagine that we will be spared?
Then the second wrong idea is this. Some Christians think, “Jesus has suffered in my place so I won’t have to suffer at all.” That is another of the devil’s lies. Jesus has suffered for us, but He then calls us to follow Him on the Calvary Road. Jesus calls us to deny self, to take up the cross daily and to follow Him. Jesus calls us to be obedient as He was obedient, whatever the cost. The idea that the Christian life is all health, wealth and prosperity is completely mistaken. Sometimes Christians will get ill. Sometimes they will be persecuted. Jesus was. Sometimes they will die. Jesus did!
God didn’t take that cup of suffering away from His beloved Son, and God won’t always take the cup of suffering away from us. But the Father did give the Son strength to obey. And
God WILL give us the grace to do His will.
The answer to Jesus’s prayer was that He was given the strength to do the Father’s will. Yet not what I will but what you will. Jesus came to the point of saying that He WOULD be obedient, He WOULD carry out God’s will whatever it was going to cost, however much it would hurt.
There are many things which God calls us to do which are not easy.
• To worship God and serve only Him;
• To turn our backs on sin and live Holy lives;
• To trust God in the dark times;
• To love our enemies and forgive others who have hurt us most deeply;
• To live lives of love as Jesus did, loving others as much as He has loved us;
• To tell everybody the Good News that Jesus saves, however difficult that can be.
Following Jesus in these ways is often difficult. The privilege of new life in Jesus Christ brings with it the responsibilities of discipleship and witness. In so many areas of life we need to come to that same point of unconditional obedience that Jesus did, “Not my will but yours be done.” Whatever it costs. However much it hurts. And when we are obedient, God will give us the strength to do His will. Even though, as Jesus said,
The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
In the Garden of Gethsemane what a dramatic contrast there is between the perfect obedience Jesus showed and the weakness and disobedience of every other human being who has ever lived. The disciples had such good intentions but even before the cross, even before the trials, even before the arrest, they all let Jesus down.
37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Simon,’ he said to Peter, ‘are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’

Jesus’s disciples and closest friends could not even stay awake to pray with him. Keep watch. Like the sentry guarding the palace or the sailor on watch as the ship sails through rocky waters. Keep watch – because there’s danger ahead. But one by one the disciples fell into temptation. As Jesus was arrested we read everyone deserted Him and fled. The disciples were no different from us. When temptation comes we often don’t do any better than they did. Even Peter would go on to deny three times that he even knew Jesus. But we deny Jesus when an opportunity comes along to tell other people about our Saviour and we remain silent. Even when we DO come to the point of saying, “Not my will but your will be done” we often still fail to do the right thing. We all have this battle going on inside us all the time. Even when we want to obey God we disobey him time and time again. We take the easy way out and give in to temptation. All because, the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Jesus knew all about this struggle we face. That was the battle He fought in Gethsemane. The temptation to take the easy way out. To run away from the cup of suffering which he would have to endure. Jesus knew all about our inner struggles. He was tempted in every way as we are, but the difference was He never sinned. He prayed, “not my will but your will be done” And He DID drink that cup of suffering to the bitter end! That is how much God loves you and me!
May God help us all to follow Jesus, obedient even to the point of death, doing God’s will whatever it costs, however much it hurts.
PRAYER

REFLECTION – a song written by a friend and mentor Dave Sewell called “Any other way”

If there’s any other way, Father,
To bring the world back to you and to give men freedom,
If there’s any other way, Father,
Please tell me so!

If there’s any other way, Father,
But to take all the sin of the world on my shoulders,
If there’s any other way, Father,
Please tell me so!

For I know that the cross will be hard to bear
And I know I will have to be strong.
And the jeers of the crowd and the heat and the thirst
And the pain will go on and on.
But it isn’t the pain of the cross that will be
The worst thing I’ll have to bear.
But to know as the sin of the world rests on me,
That for the first time in my life, You won’t be there!

So if there’s any other way, Father,
To bring the world back to you and to give men freedom,
If there’s any other way, Father,
Please tell me so!

If there’s any other way, Father,
But the cross and the shame and the pain and the dying,
If there’s any other way, Father,
Your will be done. Your will be done.

‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! (Luke 24:5-6)
Is there life after death? Can we really go to heaven? Only somebody who has died and returned to life can answer those questions. And here is the glorious message of Easter! The wonderful good news that after dying on the cross on Good Friday, Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Easter Day! Jesus Christ is alive. And because He has died and is now alive again JESUS can show us the way to heaven.
On that first Good Friday, Jesus was crucified. He was dead and he was buried. Sealed in a tomb by a great seven ton boulder! But then on the Sunday when a group of women went to the tomb, strange things were happening.
24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
The stone was rolled away. The tomb was empty! Dead men don’t walk! But Jesus wasn’t there! The tomb was empty! And then there were the two angelic messengers.
4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?
The women had come to a graveyard. They were expecting to find the dead body of Jesus to pay their respects and to anoint the body. Instead there is this incredible message.
“Why are you looking among the dead for one who is alive?” What a wonderful, amazing statement! That Jesus who had died was alive again!
6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’
The New Living Translation puts it this way.
“Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!”
That had been God’s plan from the beginning. Jesus had told his disciples he would return to life again. But they hadn’t understood him. The truth was too wonderful to believe! But now, just as he had promised, the angels announced that God had raised Jesus from the dead! It was a story too fantastic to believe! Even the disciples did not believe the women at first – it seemed like foolish nonsense. But Peter went to the tomb and found that everything was as the women had said. The stone was rolled away. The tomb was empty. Jesus’s body had gone. The grave clothes were left behind folded tidily.
The body of Jesus had disappeared. The disciples didn’t take it – they were as surprised as anybody that the tomb was empty. The Roman authorities didn’t steal the body. The Jewish leaders didn’t steal the body. If they had they would have just produced the body again and stories about Jesus rising from the dead would have ended before they started. Jesus’s body had gone! But then we have more than the account of a few women about the message from the angels to assure us that Jesus was alive again. During that day Jesus himself appeared to Mary Magdalene, and to the apostle Peter. He appeared to two of His disciples as they walked along the road to Emmaus. And that evening He would appear to all of the apostles.
Luke 24 36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples many times. They didn’t make up those accounts. Most of them died horrible deaths for proclaiming that Jesus was alive and that they had seen him. We can believe their testimonies.
Jesus had died. But then Jesus was alive again. And that means we don’t have to be afraid of death. Because Jesus’s resurrection opens the door of heaven for us! Listen to these wonderful promises Jesus made to His disciples.
John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. …. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.
So now we know that there is life after death. We know what happens after we die! Jesus has prepared a place in heaven for everybody who believes in Him, so that we can be with Him in glory forever. We KNOW there is life after death – and we know the way to heaven. It is in Jesus who is the way and the truth and the life. Jesus is the way to God.
However evil we are – however much we have hurt God and rejected God, however many of His laws we have broken, we can be forgiven. NO-ONE is too wicked. Our sins may be very great – but God’s mercy is greater! If a thief dying on a cross next to Jesus can be forgiven, so can we!
What amazing love of God! Even a prisoner on death row, or lifelong sinners on their death beds, can cry out to God and find forgiveness and assurance of all the blessings of heaven. The door of heaven is open to everybody who admits that they need saving and asks God to save them!
Jesus Christ is alive – He is risen from the dead. And because he lives, we will live also. That is the good news of Easter. “Why are you looking among the dead for one who is alive?”
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!

What was the happiest day of your life? Was it a special birthday? Perhaps the day you met the person you were going to marry, or your wedding day? Was it the day you got your first job? Or the day you retired? What was the happiest day of your life? For Jesus’s disciples, that is an easy question to answer. The happiest day of their lives was the first Easter Day – the day Jesus Christ rose from the dead! There is one emotion which we find again and again in the Easter story. One feeling which overwhelms all the others – and that is JOY. When the disciples found out that Jesus had risen from the dead, they were filled with JOY!

MATT 28:5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

So the women were filled with joy, and soon afterwards so were the apostles.

John 20:19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

5 The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: “He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.” Now I have told you.’
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

They were frightened. They were surprised. But most of all they were filled with joy!
Luke 24:36 Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” 40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 …. they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement!
Of course the disciples were filled with joy when they saw that Jesus was alive again. They had been right there with Him when He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. They had waited outside as Jesus was put to trial first before the High Priest, then before the Roman Governor Pilate, and then again before Herod the King of the Jews. They had watched from a distance when Pilate washed his hands as he sentenced Jesus to death. They had watched Jesus carrying his cross along the Via Dolorosa. They had watched as Jesus was nailed to the cross. They had watched every minute of his agony hanging there for the three hours it took for Jesus to die. They had watched as the spear pierced his side and blood and water flowed out. They had watched as the dead body of Jesus was taken down from the cross and sealed in the garden tomb. Their teacher, their master, their friend had been crucified, dead and buried right before their eyes! All their hopes and dreams were ended when the dead body of Jesus was sealed behind a seven ton boulder.

So of course the disciples were filled with joy when they knew for certain that Jesus was alive again. He had died. Now he was alive. Of course they were overjoyed! It had made no difference that Jesus had already told his disciples everything that was going to happen to him. They had not understood then. When Jesus was crucified it was inevitable that they would weep and mourn and grieve. Only when Jesus rose from the dead would his disciples be joyful again.

JOHN 16:19 Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, ‘Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me”? 20 Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22 So with you: now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

On Good Friday Jesus Christ the Son of God was crucified. But now on Easter Day Jesus had risen from the dead. So now the disciples would rejoice!!

And in the same way we also are filled with joy because
Jesus is alive!

We love Jesus. We are sad because he has died. And only one thing can take that sadness away. The certainty that Jesus is alive!

Four friends were talking about death. One of them asked the other three, “When you are lying in your coffin and people are mourning you, what would you like to hear them say about you?” The first man said, “I’d like to hear them say that I was a fine doctor and a great family man.” The second man said, “I’d like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and a teacher who had really made a difference to his pupils’ lives” The third man replied, “I’d like to hear them say, ‘Look, he’s moving! He’s not dead! He’s ALIVE!’”

People who don’t love Jesus may not care when they hear that He rose from the dead on that first Easter day. But the more we LOVE Jesus, the more thrilled WE will be that He is not dead but alive forevermore! The Cross was not the end of the story of Jesus. Easter Day was the new beginning!

Christ was raised to life on the third day! He was dead. Then he was alive again!
Remember the wonderful poster with its simple slogan. “Didn’t He used to be dead?” The answer is, YES, Jesus did used to be dead, but now He is alive! That is why we are filled with joy!!

We are filled with joy because
Jesus shares His resurrection power with us

Christ’s resurrection is the key to living the Christian life, it is the power we need to live the Christian life! Romans 6:4-5,

4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Jesus gives us eternal life, life in all its fullness. And that life is nothing less than the resurrection of life of Jesus pouring into our own lives, the power which raised Chirst from the dead helping US to live a new life, to reign in life, to be victorious!

We are filled with joy because
We will live forevermore in heaven with Jesus
Christ’s resurrection is our guarantee of life beyond death and the happy certainty of Heaven – Philippians 3:20-21
20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Our share in Jesus’s resurrection is not just for this life – but forevermore in eternity in heaven. A preacher at a funeral service was trying to explain the hope of heaven to his congregation. He pointed at the coffin, “the shell remains,” he said, “but the nut is gone!” We share in the resurrection life of Christ. Because HE lives, WE will live also! That is our Christian hope of heaven.

1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

So how is Easter making you feel today? We are joyful because Jesus is alive – not dead. We are joyful because his resurrection power is poured into our lives! And we are joyful because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s guarantee to us that when we die we will continue to be with him in glory forever. That is why we are joyful!

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

An inexpressible and glorious joy – that’s the joy which Easter brings us! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!
It was dawn when the two Marys went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’s body. Nobody could have imagined what they would find. The stone sealing the entrance had been rolled away. The tomb was empty. And then there was an even greater surprise. An angel appeared to them
5 The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.
This is the heart of the Easter message and the heart of the Christian faith. 6 He is not here; he has risen!
Jesus had died on the cross for the sins of the world. But death could not hold him. God the Father raised Jesus back to life again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Didn’t he used to be dead. Jesus is no longer dead. He is alive forevermore.
The women were afraid. No surprise there. Almost every time when angels appear, people are afraid! And almost every time the angel has to say, “Don’t be afraid.” But that was not the most scary thing to happen on that morning. The message the angel brought was even more terrifying. Because there has been a universal truth through all of human history – dead people stay dead. Occasionally by God’s power there have been very rare exceptions to prove the rule. Jesus had brought Lazarus back to life again. But the general principle still holds – dead people stay dead. Jesus did not! God raised Jesus back to life again. Almighty God broke into history and turned the ordinary way of things upside down. No wonder the women were scared. If the event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ does not fill us with awe and wonder and at least a little bit of the fear of God then we just haven’t understood the enormity of what took place on that Easter morning.
But the women were also filled with joy. No surprise there either. They were so happy that Jesus their Rabbi and their friend was not dead but alive. But more than that, the resurrection demonstrated that Jesus’s death on the cross had been an acceptable sacrifice for sin. Sins could be forgiven and the barrier of sin separating human beings from Almighty God had been removed. The curtain in the Temple which kept mere mortals out of the Most Holy Place where God was especially present had been torn in two from top to bottom. And even more than that, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead had opened heaven to all believers. Jesus would share his victory over death with all his disciples. Because he lives, we will live also! No wonder the women were filled with joy.

And then the Risen Jesus himself appeared to the women. And they worshipped him. And that was entirely appropriate. The only one worthy of our worship is Almighty God. And by rising from the dead, Jesus proved to the whole world that he is indeed the Son of God, God the Son. When Jesus appeared to his disciples, the apostle Thomas would also recognize this truth and proclaim, “My Lord and my God.” On the Day of Pentecost Peter preached in Acts 2:32 “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this. Now he is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:4 that Jesus “was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The resurrection proves that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, the Son, King of Kings and Lord of Lords! No wonder the women worshipped Jesus.
So let us celebrate on this Easter Day. Jesus our Saviour is risen from the dead. May we respond with awe and wonder at the greatest miracle in history. May we be filled with joy as we receive the wonderful salvation Jesus has accomplished for us. May we bow down and worship – for Jesus is our Lord and our God. Thine be the glory, risen conquering son. Endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

It was a few weeks after Jesus rose from the dead. Peter took some of the other disciples out fishing. Perhaps they just wanted to do something ordinary and mundane. Maybe especially Peter felt a sense of failure and he just wanted to get back to doing what he knew he was good at – fishing. In any case they fished all night but didn’t catch anything. Until early the next morning a stranger on the shore gave them some strange advice. Cast your nets on the other side of the boat. They did and immediately caught more large fish than their nets could hold. It is no surprise that it was the disciple that Jesus loved, the apostle John, who first recognised that it was Jesus. Jesus called them to the shore and cooked them breakfast.
And then it was the time of reckoning. Peter had been the natural leader amongst the apostles. But then on the night before the crucifixion outside the high priest’s house Peter had denied Christ three times. By a fireside Peter had denied being a disciple. Now beside another fireside, what would Jesus say?
We know the story so well. There were no words of rebuke. No words of condemnation or disappointment. Just a simple question.
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
That is the only question that matters. For Peter or for any of us. Do you love me? Do you love Jesus?
Jesus knew everything about Peter – just like he knows everything about all of us who let him down and fall short time and time again. And here is the wonderful point of this story for all of us, miserable sinners. Our God is a God of second chances. Peter doesn’t need to apologise. God is ready to forgive him. Like the prodigal son, or the woman taken in adultery, God forgives before they ever repented. No confession of sins here – just the simple question – do you love me? That is grace! Amazing grace.
No matter how far any of us have fallen, whatever we have done wrong, God can restore us. By Christ’s death on the cross for our sins, even we can be justified. God can make it “just as if I’d” never sinned. And so Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?” Because in the end that is the only thing that matters! Do you love me? How much do we love Jesus?
But actually Jesus asks just a little more of Peter. “Do you truly love me more than these?”
That question could mean at least three things.
Do you love me more than you love these boats and these nets? Do you love me more than you love your job and your livelihood? Do you love me enough to leave your job and your family and everything which is familiar, just to follow me? Do you love me more than these?
Or the question could mean something else. Do you love me more than you love these other disciples. Your brother Andrew. Your business partners James and John. These other friends you have made since you have been following me? Do you love me more than you love everybody else.
Then the question could have a third meaning, Do you love me more than these other disciples love me? Because that is what Peter had rashly claimed on the evening before Jesus was crucified.
Matthew 26:33 Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”
34 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”
35 But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”
At that point Peter believed that he loved Jesus more than any of the other disciples did. But then Peter had discovered just how wrong he was. So Jesus is asking him, do you really love me more than all these others love me? You were the one who promised if everybody else let me down you wouldn’t. Yet you were the one who denied that you knew me, three times, even in front of a little servant girl. Do you love me more than these?
Yes Lord, you know that I love you.
Three times Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” For each occasion Peter had denied Jesus, he has to declare afresh his devotion to Jesus. “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.”
And with each response Jesus gives Peter a job to do.
Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep. Feed my sheep.
This is the ministry Jesus commissions Peter for. To lead the church. And it has three parts.
Feed my lambs. To nurture new-born Christians, feeding them on pure spiritual milk.
Take care of my sheep. Tend the sheep – take care of the whole flock of God.
Feed my sheep. Feed established Christians on spiritual solid food.
Feed and take care of the flock. Jesus entrusts Peter with caring not only for the sheep, the established believers but also for the lambs, the newly born. And I also think there is significance in Jesus commanding Peter twice to feed the lambs and the sheep and then once to tend the sheep. That is a reminder that the Christian Minister cares for the flock principally by feeding them, by leading them to pasture, by teaching them the word of God.
As Peter had denied Jesus three times, so Jesus draws out of him three declarations of love. In that way Jesus reinstates Peter as chief of the apostles and commissions him to lead the Early Church.
But in all of this we have glossed over the most important point of this passage for Peter, and for us. For this, without the aid of a safety net but with the assistance of PowerPoint, we are going to venture into the world of New Testament Greek. There were a number of words in Greek which we translate as “love”, and we find two of them in this story.
AGAPE – God’s kind of love, charity – the original New International Version translates this word as “truly love”
FILIA – brotherly love, friendship – NIV translates this just as “love”.
Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” (NIV84)
The first two times Jesus asks Peter do you love me with agape love, God’s kind of love. Peter replies, you know that I love you with filia love, brotherly love, friendship.
The third time Jesus changes to the word Peter has been using, and asks him, do you love me with filia love. To which Peter says again, Lord, you know that I love you with filia love, with friendship.
J.B.Phillips translation renders this most effectively.
BEST – JB PHILLIPS:-
Q “Do you love me?”
A “You know I am your friend.”
Q “Do you love me?”
A “You know that I am your friend.”
Q “ARE you my friend?” (Are you really my friend? Are you even my friend?)
Peter was deeply hurt because Jesus’s last question to him was, “Are you my friend?”
A “Lord, you know I am your friend!”
Why does this Greek matter? Because Jesus asks Peter for God’s kind of love, sacrificial love, the kind of love Christ Himself had shown on the cross just a few weeks before. But Peter was conscious of how much he had failed by denying Jesus three times. So Peter is open and honest enough to say, I can’t promise you that kind of self-sacrificing love. I can only offer you human love, friendship, brotherly love.
So Jesus asks again, can you offer me God’s kind of sacrificial love?
And Peter answers again, I can only offer brotherly love.
So Jesus asks – can you even offer me that kind of friendship? And that’s why Peter was deeply hurt at the change of wording. But Peter insists, “Yes I can. You know I love you with filia love.”
And Jesus accepts that. What God looks for is agape love. Sacrifice. That we love one another with exactly the same kind of agape love that Christ showed on the cross when he died for our sins. Jesus demands agape love – and deserves agape love. Jesus demands and deserves that we love him enough to take risks for him.
But Jesus will accept filia love, brotherly love, friendship. When we can’t love him in the same way as he loved us, to the same extent that he loved us, Jesus accepts that. He demands agape but accepts filia – from Simon Peter and from us today. That is the amazing grace of God!
But Jesus also has a warning for Peter. Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. 18 I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
Following Jesus carries a cost. Peter would lead the Early Church and preach the gospel but Peter would be crucified just as Jesus had been. Jesus invites us to love him more than everything else, and to love him more than we love anybody else. And Jesus calls us to follow him, whatever it costs.
So the simple question Jesus asks each one of us is the same as the question he asked Peter.
Do you love me?

Did you ever have a nickname? As a teacher I was known as “Mr T” obviously after my striking resemblance to the actor who played B.A. Barracus in “The A Team”. A number of the Apostles had nicknames. James and John were the Sons of Thunder. Simon was given the name Peter, Petros in Greek, or Cephas in Aramaic which means Rocky – the Rock. John modestly refers to himself throughout his Gospel as “the disciple Jesus loved” and since later editors did not change that we can assume that is how he was known in the Early Church. Judas was known as the traitor and we still refer to a traitor as “a Judas”.
The apostle Thomas was known in Greek as Didymus, “the Twin”. But through the history of the church he has been known by another nickname. “Doubting Thomas.” But that might not actually be accurate.

Back in John 11 Jesus had been informed that his dear friend Lazarus had died.
John 11:11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
16 Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Some people are naturally lively and bouncy. They are the life and soul of the party all the time. Some people are not like that. Some people are naturally thoughtful – some people might even describe them as morose or gloomy. The donkey Eeyore. Marvin in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Toby Zeigler on the West Wing. I prefer to think that the apostle Thomas was like that. Thoughtful.
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Thomas wasn’t being pessimistic but realistic. He knew and accepted that when Jesus returned to Jerusalem it would be for the last time. Thomas knew that opposition from the Pharisees was increasing and that they would plot to kill Jesus. Jesus had been warning his disciples of that fact – but perhaps only Thomas had been listening.
(Jesus) then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. (Mark :31-32)

Going to Jerusalem would be a death sentence for Jesus. And Thomas realised that when Jesus went up to Jerusalem, those who were travelling with him would also be in danger. Jesus would tell the disciples as much only a few weeks later.
john 15:18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

So Thomas was not being cynical or deliberately negative when he said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” He was being a realist. He knew exactly what going up to Jerusalem would cost Jesus, And Thomas already recognised what the other disciples were soon to discover, just how much being a disciple of Jesus would cost them all!

God doesn’t want superficial enthusiasm. God wants us to be honest. To tell it like it is. And God wants us to think deeply about things and to think things through, just as Thomas did. Like when Jesus makes wonderful promises to his disciples about the happy certainty of heaven.

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
This all sounds very nice to us who are Christians today. We can look back on Jesus’s death and resurrection and see how Jesus has opened the door of heaven for all of us believers. But listen to these words again and imagine you are one of the disciples hearing them for the first time – while Jesus is still alive and with them.

2 In my Father’s house are many rooms;
Very nice – but where exactly is “My Father’s House” – that wasnt a name the Jews in Jesus’s time would have used for heaven. The Jews were too much in awe of God to even use his Name. Only Jesus dared refer to God as “my Father”. So “my Father’s house” wouldn’t mean anything to Jews. And “God’s house” or the “Lord’s house” would have only one meaning – the Temple in Jerusalem.
Jesus himself uses the word house in that sense when he is driving the money-changers out of the temple.
Matt 21:13 “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers’ ”
The only other time Jesus used the phrase “My Father’s house” it was as a boy when Mary and Joseph lost track of him and found young Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem. And then “my Father’s house” definitely referred to the Temple.
Luke 2:49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
So here in the Upper Room, we find Jesus talking about his Father’s house, and all the disciples are just sitting listening quite probably not understanding a word of what Jesus was saying.
And Jesus goes on, “I am going there to prepare a place for you.”
OK – a place in the Father’s House – a room each in the Temple?? Sounds weird. But carrying on,
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
So Jesus is going to travel somewhere and arrange somewhere with a dozen rooms or so for all of the disciples to be together and stay with him. Then he will come back and take us to this place. Fine, no problem. We don’t need to know where this place in “his Father’s House” is because Jesus will come and take us there. And then Jesus says,
4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
One or two of the disciples might have been looking a bit puzzled at this point. Most were probably still politely nodding their heads pretending to look wise, not wanting to let on that they really hadn’t a clue what Jesus was talking about. That is the point at which Thomas pipes up.
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Hang on a minute Jesus. You’ve lost me. Your Father’s House. Where’s that? The Temple in Jerusalem. Somewhere else? What on earth are you going on about??

I don’t think Thomas was being awkward or obtuse or especially thick here. I think he was the only disciple brave enough to ask the question which was on everybody else’s lips as well. Because he really wanted to understand. He wanted this vital truth spelled out. Just exactly where was Jesus going? What was this place Jesus would take them to so they could be with him? And out of that question comes one of the most significant and profound statements in the whole of Scripture. If Thomas had not asked, we would never have heard the wonderful answer.
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.
His Father’s house Jesus is talking about is not the Temple. It isn’t a physical place at all. To be in the Father’s House is to be in the very presence of God. And Jesus Himself is the way there, the truth and the life and the only way any one of us can come to God – through Jesus. It’s a good job for us Thomas asked his question!

It is OK with God if we want to understand things. Even if everybody else in the room is nodding as if they all understand every word. Even if everybody else does understand, if you don’t it’s ok to be the one to ask the awkward questions. It’s ok to demand answers.
Some people talk about “Blind faith”. For some people faith means “believing things you know aren’t true.” But that concept of faith is mistaken. Faith simply means trusting God. Putting our trust in God’s love and justice and almighty power. Relying on God not to deceive us or let us down. That kind of confidence in God is never “blind faith”. Faith is allowed to ask questions. Faith is allowed to demand answers. Faith is allowed to ask for evidence. Faith is even allowed to ask for proof!
So we come to the passage from which Thomas the Twin got his reputation as a doubter. Jesus had been crucified. And then He had risen from the dead! He had appeared to Mary in the Garden. And then he had appeared to the all of the disciples in the Upper Room – well not all of them because one was missing.
John 20:24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
It doesn’t surprise me that Thomas was not with the disciples when Jesus appeared the first time. They were finding comfort in each other’s company. I am sure Thomas preferred to be alone with his own thoughts as he struggled to make sense of all that had happened.
25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
This was not the kind of “stubborn refusal to believe” which God criticised the Israelites for time and again in the Old Testament. This was honest questioning. And before we get too hard on Thomas, remember how all the other disciples had reacted when Mary Magdalene told them that Jesus had appeared alive to her on the first Easter morning. None of them had believed Mary until Jesus had appeared to them in the Upper Room on that evening.

Some people talk about “taking things on faith” or “taking a leap of faith” or “taking a leap into faith”. This is what Thomas refused to do! Because the story of Jesus being alive again, Jesus rising from the dead, Jesus appearing to the disciples, was just too incredible, literally too unbelievable! Even the testimony of Mary and of the other apostles wasn’t enough to convince Thomas that Jesus was alive. Even though he had been travelling around as one of the twelve for three years, their word wasn’t enough for him. They had all watched Jesus being nailed to a cross. They had seen the spear pierce his side and the water and the blood gush out. I am sure they had been watching from a distance as Jesus’s dead body was laid in the tomb and the stone rolled over the entrance. The idea of Jesus being alive again was totally impossible! So Thomas needed proof! Thomas demanded proof! And it is a demonstration of the grace of God that the Risen Jesus appears to his disciples one again just to give Thomas the proof he needs.

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas had his questions – and Jesus answered them. We aren’t told whether Thomas actually did out his finger in the holes in Jesus’s hands or his hand into Jesus’s side. It’s my guess that he didn’t need to. It was enough for Thomas to see Jesus with his own eyes and hear him with his own ears.

And then it is Thomas who is the very first disciple who puts all the pieces together and reaches the inevitable conclusion. It is the questioner Thomas who first makes this amazing declaration of faith.
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

The purpose of questions is to find answers. And after Thomas had asked all his questions he found all the answers he needed – and much much more. It was Thomas who first realised the incredible implication of the resurrection of Jesus – that the one who had died and then rose again was more than just a poet and a peasant and the son of a carpenter. If Jesus was alive again, that means that Jesus is indeed Lord of all. The resurrection was the proof that Jesus was not only the Son of God but truly God himself. Jesus had been telling the truth when he said, “I and the Father are One”. (John 10:30)

It is ok to ask questions. We need to remember that when we have questions ourselves. When the simple answers we once believed don’t satisfy us any more we need to allow ourselves to look for better answers. We shouldn’t feel guilt or failure if there are things we don’t understand. We should press on to find and prove for ourselves the truths which other people may be happy to accept on faith. And we need to give each other the freedom to ask questions. After sermons and especially in Bible Study or Draw Near to God we need to explore our faith and stretch our faith. We need to encourage each other rather than criticise each other if somebody feels the need to ask awkward questions.

God isn’t afraid of our questions. He has the answers – even though there are some answers we will never be able to understand in this life or even in eternity. God welcomes our questions. And we need to remember that especially as we share our faith with others who are not yet Christians. Things which we take for granted about Jesus and the resurrection and the fact that He was truly God as well as completely human. We believe these things but we must never forget that they are not obvious to everybody. Thomas couldn’t believe in the resurrection even when the disciples all told him. He demanded proof.

And we should be ready to explain the proof we have for the resurrection. Proof like the empty tomb – nobody ever found Jesus’s body. Proof like the eyewitness testimony of all the apostles and others, most of whom went to horrible deaths as martyrs for preaching that Jesus was risen from the dead. As they faced the cross or the stake or the fire, not one of them changed their story and said, “ok – it was a lie – we made it up.” The proof of the changed lives of those apostles, and countless millions of believers since. Proof in the difference Jesus makes in the lives of people today – even people like you and me.

But we should also expect that many people will need more proof than we can ever give them. Some, like Thomas, will demand to meet the risen Jesus for themselves.
“Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
And that is fine. Because God welcomes our honest questions. And if anybody is sincere about wanting to encounter Jesus Christ and experience the difference Jesus makes for themselves, God will deal with that. God won’t let them down!

“Doubting Thomas” – no, that’s not correct. Thomas the disciple with honest questions – yes.

John 20 28 Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
29 Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’
John 20 continues, 30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
God wants us to have confidence in what we believe. He wants us to be as certain as Thomas was that Jesus is risen from the dead. God wants us to know just as much as Thomas knew that Jesus is indeed Lord and God. MY Lord and MY God.

JOHN 20 17 Jesus said (to Mary), “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

“My Father and your Father.” Jesus came to reveal God as Father – the Christian name for God is Father and the Christian name for believers and followers of Jesus is “children of God.”
–J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973/1993), 201-202 wrote:
“You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.
For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God.”
Jesus was the Son of God. As He grew up Jesus came to realize he had a unique relationship with God the heavenly Father which no other human being has.
John 6: 45 “Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46 No-one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
So Jesus realized that His ministry was to Reveal God the Father to human beings – to share His unique experience of God with us. And Jesus refers to God as Father 109 times in John’s Gospel!
John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
John 14: 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know a my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me;.
SPEAKING the Father’s WORDS
John 12: 49 For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 … So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
John 15: 15 I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
DOING the Father’s WORKS
Jesus did not do all his wonderful works of salvation in his own strength or according to his own plans. As a faithful and obedient Son, He simply did what His Father commanded.
John 14: 31 but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
Jesus did not do his miracles in his own strength but in the power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
John 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.
Here is a little parable. The Son was the Father’s apprentice. Jesus learned from Joseph how to be the carpenter in Nazareth. So also Jesus learned from His heavenly Father the works of the Godhead. Whether giving life, or acting in judgment, the Son only did what the Father did. Because in himself Jesus was indeed God.
John 10: 30 I and the Father are one.”
The whole reason that Jesus the son was born and lived and died so that we could know God as our Father and become God’s children.
John 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
So we can have a relationship with God as God’s children. And the proof of this comes in Jesus’s words to Mary in the Garden after the resurrection
John 20:17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
My Father AND your Father – my God and your God. Christians know God as our Father – like the father of the Prodigal Son who welcomed his lost son back home with rejoicing.
Luke 15:23 ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Jesus came to reveal God as Father. Jesus’s relationship with God as His Father is the pattern for our relationship with God as our Father – knowing the Father and doing the Father’s will. And all this is possible because Jesus is alive today – risen from the dead!

JOHN 19 28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

IT IS FINISHED! What is finished? Let me unpack that phrase for you this morning. What was finished? As we have worked our way through John’s Gospel we have seen Jesus talk about his death several times.

Back in John 10 Jesus talked about the Good Shepherd who saves his sheep by dying for his sheep.

JOHN 10 11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Jesus is clearly looking forward here to his death on the cross on behalf of his disciples, his sheep.
14 ‘I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.
Amazing love, O what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me. My debt He pays, and my death he dies, that I might live.
17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life …. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
The Jews didn’t crucify Jesus. The Romans didn’t crucify Jesus. No created human being could possibly have laid a hand on the Son of God, the creator of the world, if Jesus Himself had not chosen to lay down his life out of love for us all. The Good Shepherd saves the sheep by giving His own life for ours.

Then in John 11 Jesus explained that his hour had arrived
The hour which Jesus had been anticipating every day of his life was getting very close indeed. It would be a vital hour not just for Jesus but for the whole world, the whole of humanity in every age.
John 12 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.
The judgment of the whole world would hang on that one hour. That hour would bring hope to the world facing the judgment of God. It would be the hour when the devil was finally defeated and the grip of evil on the world would be broken.
But for Jesus it would be the hour of his departure – the hour Jesus had to leave the world.
John 13:1 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
So for Jesus this would be the saddest hour, the hour he would be leaving – the hour his life would end – the hour the Son of God would give His life as a ransom for many – the hour Jesus would give up his life. The hour Jesus would show the full extent of His love by dying on the cross. The most important hour of Jesus’s life would not be all the times he spent with his disciples, but the hour he said goodbye to them. Jesus later compared it to an hour like childbirth.
John 16 21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22 So with you: now is your time of grief,
It would be a critical hour for the world. Like the hour of a new birth. The hour when a new era and a new age would spring into being. And afterwards there would be joy, but at the time during the birth there would be only suffering and pain and grief. This was the hour Jesus had been preparing for all through 33 years.
The hour to be lifted up
John 12 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
It is bad enough to anticipate a visit to the dentist or a hospital appointment, or an exam or an interview. Imagine spending 33 years looking forward to your death. And not just a quiet peaceful slipping away, but the terrible agony of being crucified. Being rejected by your own people, betrayed and deserted by all your friends, falsely accused, unjustly convicted, mocked and tormented and finally lifted up nailed on a cross to die.
Being lifted up reveals who Jesus is
John 8 28 So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
In a mysterious way, his death on the cross will reveal that Jesus really was who he claimed to be – the Son of God. “I and the Father are One.” The cross is the supreme demonstration of God’s love for the world. And that is why the cross is the symbol of the Christian faith. People are not drawn to Jesus by his words or his miracles alone, but especially by His death on the cross.
John 12:31 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
Being lifted up brings salvation
Jesus said this to Nicodemus.
John 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’
Jesus was recalling events which happened to the Israelites as they were wandering in the wilderness. The bronze snake on a pole was a symbol of salvation. Moses lifted it up, people looked at it and trusted in God and they were healed. So for us the cross of Christ is the symbol of salvation. As we look to it and put our trust in all that Jesus accomplished by dying in our place, so we are saved.
Nobody except Jesus expected that the Messiah, the Son of God, would have to die. Only Jesus realised that it was essential for him to choose to go to the cross, willingly, to die. Because the hour to be lifted up was also,
The hour to be glorified
John 12:23 ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
The hour when the Son of man would be glorified would be the hour in which he died! Here was the principle we see in nature, the seed which dies in the ground in order to produce a harvest, the caterpillar which dies to become a butterfly, the “seed principle” that life only comes through death. That would be the hour in which Jesus would be glorified. The hour He died. Sometimes we think of the resurrection as the point at which Jesus was glorified. But it is the moment in which the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies which is the moment of glory. The death of the seed in the ground may not seem as beautiful as its life in the flower, But the death is essential if more seeds are to follow.
John 12:23 ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

It was in the hour of his death that Jesus would be glorified and that God would be glorified. That was the hour he had come for. Not for the triumphant entry on Palm Sunday. Not even in His glorious resurrection. But in His death. This may be hard for us to appreciate. For us Jesus’s suffering and death seem to be a total defeat. But Jesus is telling us that it is His DEATH which brings victory over the devil. It was Jesus’s DEATH which paid the penalty for sin and frees us from the powers of sin and death and the devil. Jesus’s death is his glorification.

Right at the beginning of the Gospel, John the Baptist had foretold that sacrifice for sin. John testified that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. But the most important message John brought was this.
John 1 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Jesus was the Son of God. But most important, Jesus came to be the Saviour – to set people free from the penalty and the punishment of their sins. Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The title, “The Lamb of God”, would have reminded any Jew of at least three parts
of the Old Testament and each of those tell us something about the ministry of Jesus. Firstly, the Lamb of God is a reminder of the Passover Lambs – the lambs which were sacrificed so that the Israelites would be spared when the angel of death passed through Egypt and the Tenth Plague killed every firstborn child and animal. Only the children of the Israelites escaped and that was because they had sacrificed a lamb and smeared the blood of the sacrifice on their doors. That was what persuaded Pharaoh to let the people of Israel leave Egypt. In echoes of the Exodus, the Lamb of God brings salvation and freedom to God’s chosen people.

Secondly, the Lamb of God would remind any Jew of the lambs which were sacrificed on different occasions for the forgiveness of sins. Two lambs were sacrificed every day at the Tent of Meeting, making a way for people to meet with God. But then also on the Day of Atonement, just once a year, only one man, the great High Priest was allowed into the most holy place in the Temple, the Holy of Holies, to present this sacrifice for sin. This sacrifice of atonement dealt with all the sins of all the people.

But then there was a third understanding of the Lamb of God in the Old Testament. The Jews did not understand its significance, but this would become very important in the ways that Christians understood the ministry and especially the death of Jesus. This was the Lamb of God in the prophecy of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah chapter 53. Seven centuries before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah looked ahead to this individual, and even compared him to a lamb.
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
This servant of God would be rejected and ultimately sacrificed, which is exactly what Jesus foretold many times about his own life and death
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
But this sacrifice was God’s way of dealing with the sins of the world.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
And this sacrifice by the Lamb of God indeed took away the sins of the world
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

The sacrifice of the omnipotent Father is as great as the sacrifice of the helpless Son. God’s deity is divided! The Holy Trinity, God the three-in-One, is split apart by OUR sin as Christ the Son shares our rebellion and separation from God the Father!

And at the end of all this we find Jesus saying just one word, which translates into English as, “It is finished!” What did Jesus mean by those words?

Not “I’m finished” but “IT is finished”
Not “I’m done for”, not “I’m done in”, but “It is done”, “I’ve done it!”.
It is completed. It is accomplished. It is finished!!

Jesus’s death on the cross was God’s plan of salvation. That is what was completed – THAT is what was finished! The cross was all part of God’s master plan for salvation. But we can only understand the cross if we see it in cosmic terms. There on the cross Jesus was dying for sin – paying the penalty WE should pay for our rebellion against God, for our disobedience and pride, taking on Himself OUR punishment. That is what was finished as Jesus died. That is what was completed!

Looked at in terms of “the shortness of time” the life of Jesus ended in failure. But looked at from the perspective of the vastness of eternity” the cross wasn’t failure – but success! It wasn’t defeat but victory!!! The cross was the ultimate victory over sin, over death, over the devil. It is finished! It has reached its end. It is completed.

I hate paying bills – but there’s a tremendous satisfaction in handing over the money and seeing that stamp “paid in full”. They used to have tax bills in Jesus’s time, and they used to write over the bills in Latin “consummatum est”, or in Greek “tetelestai” “paid in full”. And that’s what Jesus cries here on the cross. “Telelestai”, “paid in full”. With sin’s account settled, our debt of guilt was indeed wiped out! It is finished!

This is the great difference between the Christian religion and every other religion in the world. Every other religion can be summed up in just two letters but the Christian faith needs four!
Every other religion says ‘DO! D_O. Do this, do that, do the other and you will find salvation”.
But Christianity says “It is DONE! D_O_N_E. It is accomplished. It is finished!”

Bearing shame and scoffing rude, In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood: Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Lifted up was He to die, ‘It is finished!’ was His cry:
Now in heaven exalted high: Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

THE SEVEN LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS
LUKE 23 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’
When Jesus’s life was almost at an end, when the pain was worst, Jesus didn’t pray for his mother Mary watching nearby. He didn’t pray for his dear disciples Peter James and John. Jesus didn’t pray for the church which would come into being as a result of His death.
At that moment of agony instead we find Jesus praying for His enemies. And not praying in revenge that God’s judgement and punishment would fall on those who were torturing and executing Him. But praying for their forgiveness!
“Father forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”
Jesus is praying for those who were torturing and murdering him. Praying not that they be condemned and punished, but that they be forgiven. Father forgive them!
False accusations. Condemnation for speaking the truth. Rigged trials. Unjust imprisonment. Misunderstanding. Jealousy. The innocent dying while the guilty get off free. Good men doing nothing! “Father forgive them.” LUKE 23:34
Flogged, crowned with thorns, and mocked. Bystanders, chief priests, elders, teachers of the law, soldiers, Pilate, even his own disciples lettting him down – “lone and friendless now he climbs the cruel hill!” Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing,
J.C. Ryle, the famous Anglican Bishop of Liverpool expressed so well, “While the blood of the greatest sacrifice started to flow, the greatest of all high priests started to intercede.”

Isaiah 53:12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

LUKE 23 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’
42 Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’
43 Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’

Scourged and mocked, nailed to a cross, crowned with thorns, on the point of suffering an agonizing death, here we see Jesus speaking some of the most wonderful words he ever spoke. Not to the religious leaders, not to his own disciples, but to a complete stranger, the criminal hanging on the next cross.
“I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” LUKE 23:43
The story of the thief on the cross reminds us that the only person God cannot forgive is the person who will not ask for forgiveness. However evil we are – however much we have hurt God and rejected God, however many of His laws we have broken, we can be forgiven. NO-ONE is too wicked. Our sins may be very great – but God’s mercy is greater! If those very people who crucified Jesus can be forgiven, so can we! If that thief can be forgiven, so can we!
Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see
I’ve quoted before, “Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.” John R. W. Stott
When we sin – receiving the punishment we deserve would be justice. Not getting what we deserve would be mercy. But getting what we don’t deserve – eternal life, the hope of heaven, the gift of the Holy Spirit, getting all these blessings we dont deserve – that’s what the Bible means by grace.
When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day’s pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award–yet despite that he receives all these and much much more – that is God’s unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the grace of God. We could never earn or deserve our salvation – it’s all of grace! Praise God!
And that’s what this thief receives – amazing grace!
I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.
You – you singular – the repentant thief. Only he is saved, and for no other reason than that he asked to be saved. In his hour of need he reached out to Christ and Christ answered his prayer. He feared God! He recognised he had done wrong and that he deserved his punishment. He recognised Jesus’s holiness and he recognises Jesus as King! And this thief cries out for help. Jesus, remember me
Not the labour of my hands Can fulfil thy law’s demands.
Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone. Thou must save, and thou alone.
Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling.
Naked come to thee for dress. Helpless come to thee for grace.
Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me Saviour or I die.
Here is the scandal of grace. That a prisoner on death row, or a lifelong sinner on his death bed, can cry out to God and find forgiveness and assurance of all the blessings of heaven. Today you WILL be with me in Paradise.
JOHN 19 25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing near by, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ 27 and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
There on the cross, almost on the point of death. Jesus is still thinking not about himself but about his mother Mary. He entrusts her to perhaps his closest disciple, the disciple whom he loved, the apostle John.

MARK 15 33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).
Jesus was rejected by His own people as a blasphemer. He was condemned by the Romans as a dangerous rebel. He was deserted by His closest friends. But more important than all these rejections, on the cross God the Son felt the full reality of being abandoned by God the Father. Mark’s Gospel chapter 15 verse 34 records Jesus’s cry of dereliction from the cross. “My God, my God, why did You abandon me?” (Mark 15:34) Why have you forsaken me?
Here is an experience of complete rejection. These were not just feelings of apparent desertion, but the reality of total abandonment. The Son had come to reveal God as the heavenly Father. Jesus had shocked traditional Judaism by daring to teach His disciples to address God as Abba, Daddy. But on the cross for the first time in His life Jesus cannot pray “My Father” but only “My God”. Why have you deserted me? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me? Why have you handed me over? Given me up? Betrayed me? WHY have you forsaken me? How those words would have pierced the Father heart of God!
These words as Jesus was on the point of death give us a glimpse into eternal realities. As Jesus was suffering on the cross something very profound was happening deep within God Himself. Martin Luther put it this way. “Christ saw Himself as lost, as forsaken by God, felt in His conscience that He was cursed by God, suffered the torments of the damned who feel God’s eternal wrath, shrink from it and flee.”
In his book “The Crucified God” the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann explains the cross this way. “It was a deep division in God Himself, insofar as God abandoned God and contradicted Himself. The Son suffers in His love being forsaken by the Father as He dies. The Father suffers in His love the grief of the death of the Son.”
So the cross of Christ was just as hard, just as painful, just as heart-breaking for the loving Father as it was for the obedient Son. Any father would suffer handing his son over to such agony and desolation. God the Father was not an aloof spectator at Calvary. The Father was looking on with grief and tears that the world could only be reconciled and redeemed at the inestimable cost of alienation from His only beloved Son.
Amazing love, oh what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me!
My debt he pays and my death He dies, that I might live!
The sacrifice of the omnipotent Father is as great as the sacrifice of the helpless Son. God’s deity is divided! The Holy Trinity, God eternally three-in-One, is split apart by OUR sin as Christ the Son shares our rebellion and experiences our separation from God the Father!
“Christ was without sin, but God made Him to BE sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God!” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
In place of rejecting us – God the Father rejects his one and only Son. The Son who was one with the Father from eternity, before space and time were created. The Son who from the very moment of his human birth lived in unbroken fellowship with God. The Son who was always the delight of God’s heart. There was absolutely nothing in the Son to cause the Father to turn His back on Him. Yet there on the cross that is what happens. The Son of God is hung up to die, forsaken, abandoned, rejected.
Again Moltmann helps us to understand. “The suffering in the passion of Jesus is abandonment, rejection by God His Father. Jesus humbles Himself and takes upon Himself the eternal death of the Godless and the Godforsaken, so that the Godless and the Godforsaken can experience communion with Him.”
“My God my God, why have you forsaken me?” “Why have you abandoned me?” THAT is how much it cost God to bring us back from hell! THAT is how much God loves you and me! Give thanks as we remember just how much it cost Jesus to die for us.
JOHN 19 28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’
Somebody has commented, “Who would have thought that the one who came as a source of living water for all men would one day suffer from thirst?” Simple words reminding us that Jesus of Nazareth was 100% human. Everything he suffered on the cross was as agonizing for him as it would have been for us.
JOHN 19 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’
Jesus was the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. He was lifted up to defeat the devil and set human beings free from the grip of evil.

John 12 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
John 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’
Jesus was the seed sacrificed so that there could be a harvest.
John 12:23 ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
And Jesus died as the Lamb of God.
John 1 29 John (the Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
The Lamb of God is a reminder of the Passover Lambs, sacrificed so that the Israelites would be spared when the angel of death passed through Egypt and the Tenth Plague killed every firstborn child and animal. The Lamb of God was also the sacrifice made once a year on the Day of Atonement to take away the sins of the people. And seven centuries earlier Isaiah had foretold a Lamb in his the Song of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
But sacrifice of the Suffering Servant was God’s way of dealing with the sins of the world.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
And though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
And this sacrifice by the Lamb of God indeed took away the sins of the world
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
That was what was happening on the cross as the Son of Man was giving his life as a ransom for man. And at the end of it all we find Jesus saying just one word, which translates into English, “It is finished!” Not “I’m finished” but “IT is finished.” Not “I’m done for”, not “I’m done in”, but “It is done”, “I’ve done it!”. It is completed. It is finished!! God’s cosmic masterplan of salvation has been accomplished. The lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world. The price is paid!
And so we come to the end of the story of the life of Jesus Christ with one final abrupt saying.
LUKE 23 44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.

THE END