Crucifixion was a terrible way to die. It was a torturously slow and painful death. It was designed by the Romans to be intensely difficult to experience or to watch. You did not want to give Rome any reason to consider crucifying you. It was painful enough to have spikes driven into your hands and feet, but hanging on the cross suspended that way made breathing agonizing. You had to push up on the nail-pierced feet to get a good breath, which was excruciatingly painful. To try to say something from the cross was even more difficult.
As difficult as it was to speak, Jesus spoke seven times from the cross. He obviously had something important to say each time. There on the cross, dying for the sins of the world, Jesus had some final words he wanted to say. We’re going to look at each of the seven sayings of Jesus from the cross to notice what was most important to him in his dying moments.
1. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
The first thing that Jesus took the effort to say from his cross was a word of forgiveness. The one who preached forgiveness (Matthew 6:14-15; 18:21-35; Mark 11:25; Luke 17:3-40) practiced forgiveness in an immensely difficult situation. This is a prayer to the Father asking him to forgive those who crucified him. They did not ask for forgiveness. Most of them would have mocked the idea. But Jesus still forgave them. We all think we should forgive when wronged, but we find it harder actually to do so. The deeper the hurt, the harder the forgiveness. Jesus forgave the hardest possible hurt.
Who exactly are the people Jesus is forgiving here? Is it only the Roman soldiers who had just nailed him to the cross? I believe that it was not only the Roman soldiers, but also the religious leaders who orchestrated the crucifixion of Jesus and who mocked him while he was on the cross. It was also the crowds who jeered and cried, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” But it was also the others in the crowd who watched the whole grisly ordeal in pain. But even further than that, it must include all those who had a hand in putting him on the cross. We could even say it included not only those who were involved directly or indirectly at that time, but those throughout history whose sins sent Jesus to the cross. There is room in Jesus’ forgiveness for you and me.
The reason Jesus gives for forgiving is that they don’t know what they are doing. But did not everyone involved in the crucifixion of Jesus know what they were doing? The religious leaders even calculated and insidiously plotted his death. They all knew what they were doing and are responsible for their actions. But in a certain sense, they did not fully grasp the spiritual dimensions of what was transpiring. Much of their ignorance is due to their rejection of Jesus. But they can still repent and trust in Jesus, as we see in the second saying.
2. “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
The second saying of Jesus is spoken to one of the two criminals who were crucified alongside him. There were three people crucified that day. Jesus was on the center cross, and two were on either side of him. One of the criminals began to mock Jesus for his claims to be the Messiah (Christ). In his painful dying moments, he mocks the religious claims of another person. But the other criminal rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God?” The man implies that he fears God, then takes responsibility for his crimes and the situation he finds himself in.
The man turned to Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The man recognized Jesus as the Messiah King and asked for grace to be part of his kingdom. Jesus has spent three years calling people to do that very thing. Jesus responds to his request by saying, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Today . . . with Jesus . . . in paradise. To a repentant, trusting criminal, Jesus extends the grace of forgiveness and salvation. To all repentant, trusting criminals, Jesus extends the grace of forgiveness and salvation, even to you and me. That day, that man left this world and went with Jesus to the world of paradise. A place of no more sorrow, suffering, or sin, but a place of unimaginable joy. But while still in this world, anyone can follow Jesus.
3. “Woman, behold, your son!” “Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26-27)
There were many faces in the crowd that day watching the spectacle of a crucifixion. In the pain and suffering of the cross, all those faces must have blurred together with the sweat and blood dripping down into Jesus’ eyes. But then, Jesus spotted a face he knew and cherished, a face he had known longer than any on earth. He saw his mother’s face.
There she stood, not far from the cross, with a group of women followers and the disciple Jesus loved, John. Jesus was motivated to overcome the pain and struggle to say something, and he spoke to her. His words were brief, but his point was clear. He said, “Woman, behold, your son!” She had been looking at her Son with pain for some time. Now, Jesus directs her attention to another. He says to her, “Woman!” He does not say to her, “Mother.” She was his mother, but she was more than that. She was the woman who had received the pride of place among all the Jewish women of her day. God chose her to be the mother of the Messiah. She was a humble woman, blessed above all women.
Then Jesus said, “Behold, your son!” Jesus directs her gaze from himself to John. Behold! Look! Your son! With those words, Jesus is caring for his mother’s future. He is honoring his mother. And in so doing, he is saying that all should honor her for her place in the plan of God. From now on, her son will be the beloved disciple, John.
But then Jesus turns to John to complete the transaction. He gives John his responsibility. “Behold, your mother.” “Look at this woman, John. She is now your mother.” Before, she was the mother of Jesus. Now, she is a mother to John, but more importantly, he is her caring son. Even in his pain, as life slowly ebbs away, Jesus is sensitive to human relationships and the needs that arise. He feels her pain and provides for the heart of a mother and the love of a son.
4. “I thirst.” (John 19:28)
Jesus was the God-man. He was God incarnate. Jesus is truly and fully God, and truly and fully man. Jesus was, in every sense of the word, except for sin, human. He had to be human to be the mediator between God and men. And it was necessary, as a mediator, to die for the sins of the world. As a man, Jesus suffered as all men do; He felt the searing pain of crucifixion as any person would. Like all crucifixion victims, Jesus experienced the loss of blood and bodily fluids that precipitated an unquenchable thirst. Feeling that thirst deeply, he cried out, “I thirst.” The thirst was so great that he expended the effort to verbalize his thirst. He’s asking for something to quench his thirst.
But this cry of great thirst is more than an acknowledgment of Jesus’ humanity. It is an intentional fulfillment of prophecy, as the text in John clearly states. We read in Psalm 69:21, “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” This is the cheapest wine reserved for the crucified to show some tiny twisted pity. We also find the prophecy in Psalm 22:14-15. Psalm 22 is an amazingly detailed account of what Christ endured on the cross. In verse fifteen, we find these words describing the intense thirst Jesus experienced, “my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.” Jesus fulfills even the minute details of the prophecy about him.
But the thirst of Jesus has an even deeper meaning. It has a spiritual meaning. The one who now thirsts physically is in that act of thirst, fulfilling what is necessary for those who experience spiritual thirst. Those who thirst for the Lord find the quenching of that thirst in Jesus. As he told the Samaritan woman at the well, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
5. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34)
After Jesus was on the cross for three hours, God got the attention of everyone in Jerusalem. At high noon, when the sun was at its highest point, darkness covered the whole land for three hours. The Father shrouds Golgotha, the Skull, with darkness as he judges the sins of the world on his Son. At the end of three hours, Jesus cries out what is called the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
As God was pouring out the sins of the world on Jesus, he was drinking the full cup of the wrath of God against them.Jesus is quoting Psalm 22:1, the great Psalm of the cross. Jesus is experiencing and expressing the intense feeling of divine forsakenness. The Father forsook the Son to provide salvation to the world. Paul relates this divine forsakenness in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He who knew no sin, became sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” Jesus became sin. He bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24).
The great paradox of the cross is that while God forsook Jesus to give salvation, he did not utterly forsake him, in that the Father was with Jesus to endure the cross and with him in the resurrection. God highly exalted Jesus in the resurrection. Jesus was forsaken by the Father so that we would not be forsaken but redeemed.
6. “It is finished.” (John 19:30)
As Jesus’ life draws to a close, he has an announcement to make. That announcement is to give clarity and meaning to what has happened in the crucifixion. This marks a point of completion. There are three levels of completion expressed by the words “It is finished.” The first is simply that the time of suffering is over. It is over, finished. The purpose and extent of his suffering are complete.
Second, Jesus says his mission is finished, complete. What he came into the world to do is done. The father gave him a work to do and he has done it with perfect obedience. Sin is paid for. The captives will be set free.
And finally, the plan of God for the redemption of the world is complete. The divine decree from all eternity is completed in time at the cross. The resurrection is still to come, but it is an assurance because the cross is finished. Salvation is completed, and Satan is defeated.
7. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
When the work of the cross is all said and done, Jesus voluntarily gives up his spirit to the Father, and as the true man, Jesus now experiences the full range of life with death. The simple reality of death is that the spirit leaves the body. The way Jesus dies shows the life he lived. It was a life of total dependence on the Father. “Into your hands” means the total dependence of complete trust. Throughout his life, Jesus had trusted the Father completely. When you’re trusting in God’s hands, you’re in the right place. Jesus faces death with faith. It is an act of surrender.
We read in Psalm 31:5, “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” These are the words of David, but also the prayer of the Son of David, Jesus Christ. He is safe and secure in the Father’s hand. Jesus is redeemed from the power of the evil one. God is faithful. Jesus was faithful to the Father. The Father is faithful to Jesus. He can die in the knowledge that God is with him, and he is with God.
Conclusion
The cross was the greatest act of self-sacrifice in all of human history. In those six hours, Jesus was giving himself for the sins of the world. But during that act of sacrificial dying, Jesus was caring for others. He was caring for his enemies when he forgave those who had crucified him. And in that selfless act, he was caring for all who were watching and hearing. The impact of that statement must have been overwhelming on those who saw it and heard it.
Then Jesus was caring for one man who had made a huge mess of his life. A man who, in his last dying moments, repudiated all his previous sins and turned to Jesus with repentance and faith.
But Jesus’ dying concern went even further. As his life was ebbing away, Jesus cared for his mother by giving the responsibility for her to his closest friend. His focus was not on himself but on her. But also think about what Jesus was doing. As he cared for all those who were there that day, he was also caring for all of us down through the years. All of us who needed forgiving, who had made a mess of our lives, and all of us who were in the grip of grief needed someone to care for us. No greater love has any person demonstrated than Jesus did for all humankind.