Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: death

It is finished.. + Death’s witnesses
The Sorrow of Souls Severed from each other

Have you experienced it — the death of a loved one?

Death pierces the flesh of those left to mourning in unspeakable ways, but most of all it severs from our soul that of another to which we have clung.

Having breathed His last some time before, Jesus’ crucified body receives yet another piercing by a Roman spear as John and others remain nearby.

.. and having come to Jesus, when they saw him already having been dead, they did not break his legs; but one of the soldiers with a spear did pierce his side, and immediately there came forth blood and water..
John 19:34-35 YLT

The Lord had loved these so much, the ones remaining at the foot of the Cross for six arduous hours, witnessing His life pouring out before them.

The Centurion in effect pierced their own hearts, severing their souls from the One they loved – Jesus, the One who loved them so much.

Witnesses to Emmanuel’s Death!

John records these events of the day of preparation and Passover feast, as we noted earlier in Crucifixion! – The Spirit of Grace, and retells the Good News to a generation near the time of his own death nearly sixty years later.

John 19:

23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his clothes between them…

25-27 While the soldiers were doing this, Jesus’ mother was standing near the cross with her sister, and with them Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary of Magdala…

..“Look, there is your son!” And then he said to the disciple, “And there is your mother!”

38-42 After it was all over, Joseph (who came from Arimathaea..).. came and took his body down. Nicodemus also ..

The short list of witnesses:
- Jesus’ mother Mary
- Mary’s sister, Salome
- Mary, the wife of Clopas
- Mary of Magdala
- The Apostle John (of course)
- (and let’s not forget) Roman Soldiers (not named here, but present)
Other Witnesses:

Although their meeting with Pilate likely took place during the time Jesus remained on the Cross, John records that two important Jewish officials succeeded in lobbying Pilate to allow Jesus’ body to be buried in the new tomb of Joseph. They may have witnessed His death and most certainly could confirm His mortal wounds.
- Joseph of Arimathea
- Nicodemus the Pharisee
What about Matthew?

The Apostle Matthew also records Jesus’ crucifixion and was, in fact, a tax collector with political connections to Roman and Jewish authorities. Matthew records earlier events of the evening preceding Jesus’ trial:

Matthew 26: Complete Jewish Bible
```
As reminder that John, Matthew and the Apostles are ALL Jewish,
I offer this cultural religious look of the CJB version of Matthews's Gospel about the Messiah Jesus (in Greek, Christ).
```
30 After singing the Hallel, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Yeshua then said to them,

“Tonight you will all lose faith in me, as the Tanakh says, ‘I will strike the shepherd dead, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you into the Galil.”

59 The head cohanim and the whole Sanhedrin looked for some false evidence against Yeshua, so that they might put him to death. But they didn’t find any, even though many liars came forward to give testimony…

Matthew 27: Early in the morning, all the head cohanim and elders met to plan how to bring about Yeshua’s death. 2 Then they put him in chains, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor…

The Apostle Matthew seemingly was present not only in Gethsemane, but for Jesus’ trial by the Jewish officials who condemned their Messiah. Matthew also tells the horrific story of Jesus’ scourging.

27 The governor’s soldiers took Yeshua into the headquarters building, and the whole battalion gathered around him. They stripped off his clothes and put on him a scarlet robe, wove thorn-branches into a crown and put it on his head, and put a stick in his right hand. Then they kneeled down in front of him and made fun of him: “Hail to the King of the Jews!” They spit on him and used the stick to beat him about the head.

Add to the list of witnesses:
- The Apostle Matthew
Matthew adds detail of other witnesses to Jesus’ crucifixion:
- a man of Cyrene named Simon
- a Roman officer & other Roman soldiers at Golgotha
32 As they were leaving, they met a man from Cyrene named Shim‘on; and they forced him to carry Yeshua’s execution-stake. When they arrived at a place called Gulgolta (which means “place of a skull”), they gave him wine mixed with bitter gall to drink; but after tasting it, he would not drink it…

54 When the Roman officer and those with him who were keeping watch over Yeshua saw the earthquake and what was happening, they were awestruck and said, “He really was a son of God.”

There were many women present

55 And many women were there watching from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee while caring for Him.
```
Matthew's Gospel helps clarify who some of these women were and their importance to the Christ Jesus and His beloved friends.
```
56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

Miryam of Magdala (or from Magdala)

Miryam the mother of Ya‘akov and Yosef, or James and Joses in some translations of common Hebrew names. She is Mary, wife of Clopas and sister of Mary, widow of Joseph.

He also confirms the presence of James’ and John’s mother.

Mark, referring to these same three women gives her name, Salome. Due to the importance of family in Jewish tradition she may also have been a sister of Mary, therefore confirming her sons James and John to be not only Jesus’ closest Disciples but also His cousin.

Why do the Apostles mention these women?

Because the women would survive as witnesses even as all of the Apostles but John were martyred for their witness of Jesus as the Christ and resurrected Messiah of God.

It is the same reason that some Jews, even some of the house of Herod, became believers in Christ. And gentile Romans in every major city would call Jesus Christ Lord by the time John writes his Gospel.

John 19:

40 They took Yeshua’s body and wrapped it up in linen sheets with the spices, in keeping with Judean burial practice.

41 In the vicinity of where he had been executed was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been buried. So, because it was Preparation Day for the Judeans, and because the tomb was close by, that is where they buried Yeshua.

παρασκευή +++ All must remember the Sabbath

There they buried Jesus, His body taken from the Cross on the Day of Preparation for the Passover.

“And it shall be from new moon to new moon
And from sabbath to sabbath,
All mankind will come to bow down before Me,”
says the LORD.
Isaiah 66:23 NASB
```
To be continued...
```
```
Page TWO - Please click Page 2 below for the questions.
```
Pages: 1 2
November 13, 2020
CRUCIFIXION! – The Pangs of Sin
So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified.
John 19:16 NASB

Tarrying on the road of Suffering

“Father, the hour is come,” the Lord Jesus had prayed in a most personal prayer just hours before.

Then in the darkness of Gethsemane Jesus had asked Peter, “Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?”

It it the Cup of the Blood of His suffering; some by scourging just witnessed, when 39 times Jesus had NO SIN to confess.

“Crucify ben ‘elyown ‘elyown,” they had shouted; CRUCIFY the SON OF GOD!

And shortly Jesus will cry out from His final pain:

“ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”
Mark 15:34 NASB

What Father remains silent on suffering?

And what Man must suffer silently for sin?

Crucify! Crucify!

John 19:17 They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha.

Hours before: Sanctification of the Sacrifice

Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You, just as You gave Him authority over all mankind, so that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:1-3 NASB – The Son’s High Priestly prayer

The Pangs of Death

‘I feel your pain,’ some must have mocked toward Jesus at His suffering the 39 lashes of scourging. No one ever truly feels the pain of another’s suffering.

But for His dear friends the Apostles the Son of God had assured:

“A little while, and you no longer are going to see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”
John 16:16 NASB

Jesus had not dwelled on His prophesied suffering. Yet by the scriptures perhaps the Disciples denyingly sensed what He must suffer this day.

Isaiah 53:

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

The Apostles did not want to believe all of it, but to them the LORD revealed the Son embraced by the Father’s right arm.

For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

They also grew up near Him and even though some knew Jesus’ family, they were not attracted to Him until by Him they were called. In these three years Jesus became their Lord, Teacher and beloved friend.

He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Jesus was despised by the ruling council and leading Jews. The Disciples continually witnessed the Jews hatred for Him.

Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:4 NASB

John 8:

Temple officials had previously despised and did not esteem Him. These Jewish scholars had never believed His message or the Prophets.

21 Then He said again to them, “I am going away, and you will look for Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”

25 Then they were saying to Him, “Who are You?”

These politically powerful religious officials most likely asked this mockingly, as they did while striking their blindfolded Messiah during the mockery of a trial before Caiaphas High Priest of the Jews and later in the presence of Pilate.

‘Who are YOU to talk of God or teach us the Law?‘

So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and I do nothing on My own, but I say these things as the Father instructed Me.
John 8:28

And the Apostle John adds this witness then in his Gospel:

30 As He said these things, many came to believe in Him.

Many believers will follow Jesus Christ in a victorious procession to the place of worship, but only a remnant remains following a captive King to the Cross of Calvary.
Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com

The Pangs of Pain

Returning to Jesus’ metaphor of suffering, He prophesies this day to His Apostles:

John 16:

20 Truly, truly I say to you that you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy!

As the Disciples had scattered as sheep from the wolves, surely they did not recall this at the time of Jesus’ arrest, trials, scourging and crucifixion.

Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come;

but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.

22 Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one is going to take your joy away from you.

And why this suffering? – SIN!

The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!

..Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, Cursed are you..

And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.” – Genesis 3

The Prophesy of Christ’s Suffering

But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 NASB

..

‘By oppression and judgment He was taken away,‘ prophesied Isaiah in the generation of Uzziah king of Judah. It was more than seven centuries Before Christ.

Isaiah, by the mouth of the LORD, indicts those who falsely convict Jesus.

They have just sent innocence to the Cross as the Substitute Lamb of Sacrifice for their own transgressions (sins).

‘And as for His generation,
who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people,
to whom the stroke was due?
Isaiah 53:8 NASB

The Good News of John:

1:¹⁰He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

¹¹He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

מֵעֲמַ֤ל נַפְשֹׁו֙ יִרְאֶ֣ה יִשְׂבָּ֔ע בְּדַעְתֹּ֗ו יַצְדִּ֥יק צַדִּ֛יק עַבְדִּ֖י לָֽרַבִּ֑ים וַעֲוֹנֹתָ֖ם ה֥וּא יִסְבֹּֽל׃
Yeshaiya 53: WLC

²⁹.. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

And now sinners take the sinless Sacrifice to the altar of the shedding of Blood.

They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.
John 19:17-18 NASB
```
To be continued...
```
November 4, 2020
Jesus – The Last Prayers of Gethsemane
“Drink from it, all of you;

for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins…”

After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Matthew 26:27b-28, the words of Christ Jesus to the Apostles; v.30 NASB

Departing for Death

The Lord blessed the Apostles in an upper room of Jerusalem in a High Priestly Prayer, institutes the Last Supper with the Twelve, reveals Judas as the one who will betray Him and finally departs the City of David one last time for Gethsemane with the eleven chosen Apostles.

As we learned previously from John 18 in Jesus Leading Toward Gethsemane, the Gospels provide witness of much detail about this time of Jesus. All of this so far has happened in one day, mostly in the evening and what follows in the darkness of night.

Although we have looked back mostly through John’s eyes, tonight we will fill in some detail from the other Gospels.

Prayer before DEATH~

Can any consequence common to man be any more daunting than facing death?

The Messiah Jesus had known every temptation to men of dust except that which as we flee death denies our mortality.

This night as the Son of Man and His eleven Disciples leave Jerusalem they are all certain that the Lord will be betrayed to death.

Matthew 26:

³¹Then Jesus said to them, “Tonight all of you will fall away because of me, for it is written:

I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.^[b]

³²But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”

Denial of Death’s Near Approach

Matthew, John and the others must have wondered, yet known in their hearts, what Jesus now prophesies. The Messiah must die – the Christ they know may be mortal! (For Jesus has already told them more than once.)

Certainly Jesus is not going to Galilee this night of all nights just two days before the Passover festival. The Disciples would have dismissed it and the ‘after I have risen’ part seemed far into the future.

Peter however, brash leader anointed by Jesus who must later act in absentia for Christ, reacts boldly before all.

Peter told him, “Even if everyone falls away because of you, I will never fall away.”
Matthew 26:33 CSB

In essence Peter states: “You can count on me!”

Sure, you do that to comfort your friend and so do I.

How do you respond to the questions at death’s door?

Like Peter, would we feign faithfulness to a dying friend we cannot accompany through death’s door?

We all know how it turned out when push came to shove by a charcoal fire a few hours later. Peter slinked away from confession of his love of Jesus while the Lord was accused falsely.

His fellow Apostle, Matthew records that in response to Peter, Jesus prophesies his three denials.

Mark 14:

The first Gospel writer and apostolic scribe, John Mark, later records what may have been Peter’s post-resurrection confession:

31 But Peter kept saying insistently, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!”

Mark adds reactions of the other ten as well:

And they all were saying the same thing also.

Let us not forget our tendency to ‘follow the leader’ when a bold representative speaks of some cause from which we will likely fall away by our faithlessness.
Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com – regarding Peter’s denials of Christ Jesus

Luke 22:

28 “You are those who have stood by Me in My trials…

31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

33 But he said to Him, “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!”

What do you about Jesus?

Is this YOUR witness for Christ Jesus? ” — “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!”

Will you really do it…

Or like Simon Peter, will you shrink back from your defense of the Lord when Jesus is under attack by the world’s accusers?

Jesus’ plea in Prayer

Mark:

32 They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.”

Their dear friend who will soon die asks them to be with Him.

Luke:

40 When He arrived at the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

Matthew:
```
(who had been to this place with Jesus several times)
```
37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed.

Then He said to them,

“My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death…

“… remain here and keep watch with Me.”

39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying,

“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me…

… yet not as I will, but as You will.”

Luke
```
The agony of imminent death!
```
43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly:

… and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground…

45 And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow…

Reaction to sorrow..

STRESS! The terrible personal confrontation of DEATH!

The Lord Jesus reacts to it by praying more intently.

And the Disciples, even His closest three friends on earth?

Well… they failed their dear friend when He desired their understanding and compassion most.

‘The flesh is weak..

Jesus’ Disciples fall into a resigning sleep at the prospect of complete change — the Sacrifice, ending the life of their beloved friend.

Matthew
```
& the others, awakened from sleep..
```
40 And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter,

“So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?
```
I must confess: Rare is the hour I do not fall asleep 
while praying for a time.
```
The Lord Jesus continues with caution to His friends:

“Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

42 He went away again a second time and prayed…

Mark:

39 Again He went away and prayed, saying the same words.

40 And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to answer Him.
```
Do you know what to say to Jesus when you fail Him in prayer?
My guilt grieves me in my severe shortcomings in prayer.
```
41 And He came the third time, and said to them,

“Are you still sleeping and resting?

It is enough; the hour has come…

.. behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.

42 Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!”

Luke:

47 While He was still speaking, behold, a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them…

John :

3 Judas then, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

So Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them,

“Whom do you seek?”

They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.”

He said to them,

“I am He.”

So when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground.
John 18:6 NASB
```
To be continued...
```
What to you have to say about Jesus?

Please comment here on what you have to say about prayer.

How can I pray for you, dear friend — beloved brother (or sister) in the Lord?
September 8, 2020