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SERMON:
Matthew 27:45-46 (ESV)
45 Now from the sixth
hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth
hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”
that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
▬
Prayer is simple
thing. In catechism class we describe prayer as “a heart to heart talk with
God”. A hymn writer once described prayer as, “the Christian’s vital breath” – meaning
that frequent prayer shows faith to be alive, just as continual breathing shows
the human body to be alive.
The ability to speak
to our heavenly Father at any time, in any place, about any thing, and to know that
we are heard and will be answered in the best way possible – that is precious.
When has prayer been
most precious to you?
Perhaps you were in
mortal danger, and it was impossible for anyone else to hear you. Perhaps someone
you love was great danger, and it was impossible for you to do anything to
resolve the situation. Or perhaps you have found prayer most precious over a
long period of time. A time when you toiled under some ever-pressing burden,
and only found relief by praying your anxieties to God and trusting His promise
to answer.
▬
During His earthly
life, prayer was very important to Jesus. Before the Son of God became human,
He had existed in eternity in a perfect relationship with God the Father and
God the Holy Spirit. When God the Son because human, He very naturally
continued to communicate with His Heavenly Father.
When the Son of God
became human, communication with the Father became more important than ever.
Because now the Son of God was experiencing human life in a broken, sin-filled
world. Now the sinless One was being tempted on a constant basis. And if He was
going to offer His own soul to rescue sinners from Hell, then He needed to
remain perfectly sinless.
And so during Jesus’
ministry, we often see Him sneaking away to pray to His Heavenly Father.
▬
As Jesus drew closer
to the cross, and to the climax of His earthly suffering, He continued to pray.
At the Last Supper
Jesus prayed for His disciples, that they would be kept from temptation in the
hours to come. That their faith in Him would remain, and the Devil would not
triumph over them.
In the Garden of
Gethsemane, Jesus prayed with such deep tension in His soul over the coming
battle, that blood forced its way into His sweat and fell in great drops on the
dirt.
Prayer was Jesus’ instinctive
reaction to everything. When the soldiers finally drove the nails home through
His hands and feet, Jesus prayed for the soldiers saying, “Father, forgive
them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
▬
But prayer wasn’t
just important for Jesus, He also instructed His followers to pray.
The same
communication the Father that Jesus had, He wanted His followers to experience.
The Bible tells us
that Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, even giving them a model prayer to
use. We call it the Lord’s Prayer and still us it today.
Through the apostle
Paul God instructs us to…
“pray without ceasing,”
(1 Thessalonians 5:17).
That is, to be just
like Jesus, constantly speaking with God.
In Philippians 4,
we are told that instead of worrying, we should unload our cares on God through
prayer.
“Be anxious for
nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let
your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6 NASB).
Here we learn that
our communication to God isn’t to be like so many childish prayers, merely asking
for things that we want. As Christians, our prayers are to also express our
thanks and praise to God for all the blessings that we have received from His
gracious hand.
The unbelieving world
around us sees prayer as a last resort, or as merely a psychological exercise
that offers relief for some. But the Bible tells us that prayer is much more
than “talking to an imaginary friend”. Through prayer we connect with our
powerful Creator. Through prayer His power flows into our lives. In James 5,
it says…
“…the prayer offered
in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and
if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your
sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The
effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much” (James 5:15-16 NASB).
Jesus encouraged His followers to speak to
God as their own Father, noting that if sinful human fathers know how to give
good gifts to their earthly children, then our Heavenly Father will certainly
give even better gifts to those who ask Him in faith. (Matthew 7:11)
▬
But, the Bible reveals that there was
a time when Jesus’ prayer fell on deaf ears. As Jesus hung on the cross of
Calvary, the Father withdrew from the Son. And that precious line of
communication that had existed from eternity – was severed.
As Jesus hung crucified in the supernatural
darkness of the first Good Friday, at around three o’clock, He cried out in a
loud voice, saying…
“…My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 ESV).
Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, an ancient
Psalm which predicted how Christ would suffer on the cross. But Jesus wasn’t
just quoting the Psalm, He was experiencing what it described. He was feeling
what separation from the Father meant. He was literally suffering Hell in my
place, and yours.
We know that Jesus wasn’t just being dramatic,
because the Bible says that the full penalty for our sins against each other
and against God, is separation from God and all His goodness. And the Bible
also tells us that Jesus suffered the full penalty for our sins. And so even though
we can’t comprehend how it could be, we know with certainty that the Son of God
was truly cut off from His Father when He cried out these words.
This is something that we have never even
come close to experiencing. No matter what pains we’ve felt, or what horrors
have invaded our minds in our darkest hours, none of us have experienced a
complete severing from God’s goodness from our lives.
But Jesus did.
The connection that the Son had enjoyed
before the universe was made, the connection which had been so precious to Him
in the garden of Gethsemane and through everything He had suffered to this
point – that connection was now gone. He now felt the full weight of Mankind’s sins
being heaped on His soul, with NO ONE to help Him bear it. No one.
▬
When Jesus finished drinking the cup of our suffering
down to the very bottom, He asked for a different drink. With the suffering of
His soul complete, Jesus now asked for some meager draft of relief for His
body. And with His mouth moistened, He said,
“It is finished” (John
19:30 NKJV).
With the work of salvation complete, He once
again entered into communion with His Heavenly Father, and cried out in a loud
voice what would be the final words of His earthly life,
“Father, into your
hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46 ESV).
And then He died.
And here is the point. Because Jesus
suffered the complete punishment for our sins, our debt of sin has now been
paid. All
who trust in Christ’s promise of forgiveness are ushered into intimate
communion with the Father. Like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, we can now
talk to God as our own Father, knowing that He smiles down at us, not as
sinners who deserve His wrath and anger, but as sinners declared saints through
His Son’s cross.
▬
And to help us grasp the significance
of Jesus’ death, the Father gave a sign to the world that His sacrifice was
accepted.
In just a few days Jesus would be raised from the dead to show He had done His
Father’s will and the debt of sinners was truly paid. But at the moment of
Christ’s death the Father gave a lesser sign, a preview of things to come. God
tore the Temple veil in two from top to bottom.
In the Jerusalem Temple, the veil was a huge
curtain that separated the most Holy room of the Temple from the rest. That room,
called the Holy of Holies, represented God’s presence with His people. All year
long it would lay in darkness until the one day when the High Priest would
enter it to offer a blood sacrifice for the people’s sins.
But now, that huge curtain was torn open. Now
light flooded into that room showing that the way to God had been opened to all
by Christ’s suffering and death.
No more High Priests would be needed, and no
further blood sacrifices. It was finished.
▬
As followers of Christ, we often close
our prayers with the phrase, “in Jesus’ Name”. We pray this not because we’re
praying FOR Jesus, but because we are enabled to pray BECAUSE of Jesus. We know that the Holy
God doesn’t hear the prayers of faithless sinners. But through simple trust in
Christ, sinners like you and I are declared cleansed and forgiven. Through
faith in Jesus we are given the gift of open, unhindered communication with God.
Because Jesus was cut off, we are invited in.
This is why we pray, “in Jesus’ Name”.
▬
So pray, dear followers of Christ! Pray to the
Lord constantly! Bringing your sins to Him each and every day, and know that you
are forgiven because of Christ’s cross. And remember that the precious and powerful
gift of prayer is ours, only through of Jesus.
Because Jesus was severed from the
Father and was not heard, now we are forgiven and heard, when we pray in His
Name.
Amen.
The peace of God
which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus.
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