April 5, 2020 Sermon - It Is Finished... Father, Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit

IT IS FINISHED FATHER, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT JOHN 19:30; LUKE 23:44-46 THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS, PART 6 APRIL 5, 2020 PALM SUNDAY, YEAR A CROSSROADS / PERRYVILLE UNITED METHODIST CHURCHES, MO FACEBOOK LIVE SERVICE # 3

INTRO. Carol and I recently watched The Pilgrim’s Progress movie that I have mentioned on Facebook. The main character is named Christian, and he is on a journey to the Celestial City - heaven! Near the end of his journey, he has just one more thing to do to get to heaven. He must die. Jesus, standing there with him, explains it to Christian. He must go through death to get to the next world. Death is found by jumping into this great raging wall of water. Christian has a companion, Hopeful, who jumps right in with no hesitation. But Christian holds back. He doesn’t know if he can go through with it. Jesus is encouraging, but Christian is still reluctant. He is reminded of his family he has left behind that he hopes will follow him on his journey to heaven. Jesus asks him, “Do you want them to follow you this far and not complete their journey?” Gaining his courage, Christian jumps into the river and arrives at heaven. As Jesus suffers on the Cross, nearing the end of his journey, he shows none of the reluctance of Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress. You can sense the accomplishment, of wrapping up things in this life. As Jesus cries out, what is finished?

I. HIS SUFFERING WAS FINISHED. Jesus was born to die, and so his life was one of suffering. Throughout his journey in our world, Jesus knew what it meant to suffer. We could argue that his time on the Cross was his greatest suffering of all, but his life was filled with burdens to bear. In Isaiah 53:4, it is said of Jesus, “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering.” You see, the suffering he experienced was ours. He took it upon himself. All through the Old Testament, we see the suffering of the sacrifices that were offered up in worship to God. We see in many of the Psalms and in a number of the prophecies predictions of the sufferings of the Messiah that would be fulfilled in the life and death of Jesus. And now, at the Cross, we see that his suffering is finished. And the suffering of Christ should move us. It should shake us and bring us to tears. So often, it does not! Dorothy Sayers, a well-known British author a century ago and a devout Christian, said, “It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear the story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all” (IllustrationViewer). I beg of you, this is a time to be shocked! We live in a difficult day, but it is nothing compared to the sufferings of Christ. In Oklahoma City, where Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building, “168 empty chairs are placed in the location where each person sat when he or she died. Beyond that memorial and across another street is a statue constructed by St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. The statue’s powerful image represents a tall, white-robed Christ. He stands with his back to the busy street and the place where the federal building once stood. The representation of Christ faces a brick wall in which there are 168 empty spaces - one space for each person who died. With bowed head Jesus faces that symbol of loss, covers his face with one hand, and weeps. In (our) suffering..., in whatever ‘Why, God?’ we ask, we cannot forget one important truth: Jesus Christ weeps with us” (IllustrationViewer). His suffering is finished, but Jesus has not forgotten our suffering. 1. his suffering was finished

II. OUR REDEMPTION WAS FINISHED. In Christ, we are freed from the penalty of our sins because it has been paid by Christ. Sin no longer has power over us; we are free! Can you picture that? It is finished! “There is an old legend about three men and their sacks. Each man had two sacks, one tied in front of his neck and the other tied on his back. When the first man was asked what was in his sacks, he said, ‘In the sack on my back are all the good things friends and family have done. That way they’re hidden from view. In the front sack are all the bad things that have happened to me. Every now and then I stop, open the front sack, take the things out, examine them, and think about them.’ Because he stopped so much to concentrate on all the bad stuff, he really didn’t make much progress in life. The second man was asked about his sacks. He replied, ‘In the front sack are all the good things I’ve done. I like to see them, so quite often I take them out to show them off to people. The sack in the back? I keep all my mistakes in there and carry them all the time. Sure they’re heavy. They slow me down, but you know, for some reason I can’t put them down.’ When the third man was asked about his sacks, he answered, ‘The sack in front is great. There I keep all the positive thoughts I have about people, all the blessings I’ve experienced, all the great things other people have done for me. The weight isn’t a problem. The sack is like sails of a ship. It keeps me going forward. The sack on my back is empty. There’s nothing in it. I cut a big hole in its bottom. In there I put all the bad things that I can think about myself or hear about others. They go in one end and out the other, so I’m not carrying around any extra weight at all.’ What are you carrying in your sacks?” (IllustrationViewer). In Christ, we can let all the evil, all the bad go, because he has taken it all away. When I came to Christ, I knew what it was to carry the burden of my sin and guilt. I knew I could not get rid of it on my own. I could not deal with it because it was overwhelming my life and controlling my eternal destiny. But in Jesus my redemption was finished and, thank God, I am free. 1. his suffering was finished - 2. our redemption was finished

III. HIS MISSION WAS FINISHED. In life and in death, Jesus was on a mission. He was dedicated without reserve, 100%, to this mission. And when he died on the Cross, he knew his mission was accomplished. He came into this world to fulfill that mission, he lived his life to fulfill that mission. He died to fulfill that mission. And, as we will hear next week, he rose from the grave to fulfill that mission. Praise God! This mission of salvation was for all the world, and that includes you and me. This mission that Jesus had meant he was in submission to the will of God his Father. His love of his mother and earthly father, the excitement and friendship of his disciples, the constant distraction of his enemies, the struggles he went through in life, the agony of Gethsemane and the Cross - nothing took away his focus on the mission that he had to accomplish. And his mission was finished in this grand procession through the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. When we come face to face with death among our family and friends, we sit in a funeral home or stand by a grave side as questions run through our minds. Why did they have to die? Did they suffer? Is there anything beyond the grave? Will I ever see them again? We struggle with death is because it seems so final and yet so unfinished. But as we see Jesus on the Cross, everything that happens and is spoken, they all come together and cry out for all time, “It is finished! Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” 1. his suffering - 2. our redemption - 3. his mission was finished

CON. You know, there is so much of life these days that Jesus never lived here on this earth during his time here. Computers, the Internet, cell phones. None of that. Automobiles, airplanes, railroad trains. Nope. Microscopes, microwaves, the Coronavirus. None of those things at all. He lived a life that was free of all the accumulation of stuff in our modern times. Yet he is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God for every day and every time, back then and now. Jack Kelley, a newspaper reporter, was in Somalia in East Africa during a famine. It was terrible. The photographer with Kelley had a grapefruit, which he gave to a boy who was obviously starving. The boy was so weak he couldn’t even hold the grapefruit, so they cut it in half and gave it to him. He picked it up and walked away from them, but they followed. He came to a little boy lying on the ground who looked dead. It was his younger brother. The boy with the grapefruit kneeled down next to his brother, bit off a piece, and chewed it. He opened up his younger brother’s mouth, put the mashed up grapefruit in, and worked his brother’s jaw up and down. The older brother had been doing that for the younger brother for two weeks. The reporter drove home that night thinking, “I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he said, ‘There is no greater love than to lay down our life for somebody else’” (IllustrationViewer). Jesus came into our world because he had no greater love. Because he finished everything he came to earth to accomplish, because he showed that greater love, we are able to show that love too, and because of Christ, we can live!