Jesus chose His words carefully.
When He hung on the cross, suffering through a horrific punishment He did nothing to deserve, He didn’t waste His final breaths. He spoke words that echo throughout eternity, forever shaping the way we view and receive His sacrifice.
Luke 23:34 records the first of the seven final sayings of Jesus on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Just five days earlier, on what many now call Palm Sunday, people crowded the streets of Jerusalem, welcoming Jesus to the cries of, “Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!”
Days later, He looked down on another crowd at the foot of His cross harshly shouting, “Crucify him!”
His response to their outcry was the opposite of what many of us might have done. Jesus asked God to have mercy. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” His words reached far beyond the bloodthirsty people at His feet to us, today.
While it was our sin that ultimately subjected Jesus’ life to the relentless beating, mocking, and torture of the cross, it was the forgiveness Jesus issued in the midst of His torment that has the power to forever transform our lives.
His forgiveness, if you receive it, extends beyond your deepest hurts, regrets, and failures.
To receive this great gift, we first have to see exactly how far His forgiveness reaches.
All of us have sinned and fallen short of living a perfect life. But we have the hope of forgiveness. Forgiveness that breaks the power of those sins. No matter who you are, where you have been, or what you have done, Jesus forgives you.
Unconditionally.
As Jesus hung between two criminals, one mocked Him, hurling insults upon Him. “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
Jesus could have escaped this scene of torment and humiliation, but in that moment, He chose to obey the purpose He came to fulfill. There was no option for Jesus to do what the criminal asked of Him in Luke 23:39.
You see, it was impossible for Jesus to save Himself if He was going to save us.
In the pressure of everyday life, you may cry out for God to save you. However, Jesus longs to do more than rescue you from dire circumstances. He wants to save your soul first.
The other criminal hanging on a cross next to Jesus recognized Him as the Messiah, the saving King. And in his dying breaths, he made a simple request for salvation: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42).
Jesus did more than remember.
He said in Luke 23:43, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” This is the second of his final sayings that have meaning for us.
This was a firm promise that Jesus was guaranteeing the thief a place in heaven, with Him.
When Jesus says, “I will remember you,” He’s working on our behalf.
He hung on the cross on behalf of our sins.
He endured the wrath of the cross so we would never have to stand before such judgment without a redeemer.
Jesus chose to remember you, and has guaranteed a place in eternity with Him.
As Jesus hung before a tortuous, merciless crowd of hecklers, He was abandoned by nearly everyone that had once benefited from Him.
Though His love never left them, His people left Him.
Yet as Jesus looked down from the cross, He saw two familiar faces standing amongst the crowd – His mother, Mary, and His disciple, John.
Upon seeing them, Jesus issued His final words to them.
When Jesus said, “Here is your son … Here is your mother,” He showed His passion for relationship, particularly the kind He desires with His people: close, caring, intimate. This is the 3rd of His final sayings.
Many people hide from these types of tight-knit relationships because they may fear, “If people really knew me, they’d never accept me.” But God really knows you, and He has already accepted you.
The relationship God wants to have with you is not based on anything God needs from you. It is based entirely on what you need from Him.
When Jesus looked down and saw how close His mother had drawn to Him, even as He died a horrific death on the cross, He took the time to make sure she would never be alone.
Jesus knows the state of your heart today. He knows if you are trying to push through any pain or insecurity. He knows if you feel like everyone else has left you. He knows exactly what you need, and He is with you, desiring to be in close, caring, intimate relationship with you.
Then just after making sure two people He loved would not be alone, Jesus had to face being forsaken by His Heavenly Father.
Until that moment, Jesus had spent every waking moment of His life fully connected to God.
Every word His Father gave to Him, Jesus spoke. Everywhere Jesus went, His Father was there.
But when Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He felt the weight of separation from His Father. The greatest agony He could ever experience unlocked the greatest opportunity Jesus would have to show His love for you.
As Jesus neared death on the cross, He was forsaken so you wouldn’t have to be.
We are not promised a life free from abandonment. People will abandon us, just as the disciples abandoned Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Occasionally, the pain of our circumstances can cause us to look around, wondering if God has abandoned us as well.
While there will be moments where you feel far from God, Jesus’ death on the cross forever guaranteed that you will never be separated from Him. The moment Jesus felt apart from His father ensured that you would never have to spend a moment apart from Him.
Throughout His life, Jesus lived in direct connection with God and had access to the source of all life. So when Jesus gasped, “I thirst,” from the cross, His sense of need may have seemed contradictory to the limitless resources He could have tapped into as the Son of God. That is the 5th of his final sayings that we look to.
Even in expressing His physical thirst, Jesus never spoke or acted without reason. While these words were uttered in distress, it was in His greatest distress that released His greatest purpose.
When Jesus declared His thirst in John 19:28, He was fulfilling the prophecies in Psalm 22:15 and 69:21. And while He spoke of His physical need that needed to be quenched, it brings to mind our spiritual thirst He knew would forever be unmet without Him.
Much like the Samaritan woman Jesus encountered in John 4, your soul will thirst for fulfillment every single day. But when you face moments of distress, the enemy will present an endless array of options for you to quench your thirst.
The enemy wants you to thirst for greater things in your life.
Through His death and resurrection, Jesus offers the only true solution to your distress: Himself.
When Jesus died on the cross, His love fulfilled your every need once and for all.
Then, with Jesus’ dying words in John 19:30, He flipped the script on human history.
When Jesus said, “It is finished,” the enemy was ready to celebrate the ultimate defeat of evil over good. But what the enemy intended to be a cry of defeat, Jesus used to speak eternal victory over death.
Once and for all, Jesus used His final words to issue us the victory of saying, “It’s not what I can do; It’s what He’s already done.”
• No longer would you have to get your act together to come into the presence of God.
• No longer would you have to strive under your own effort to earn God’s love.
• No longer would you have to follow a detailed set of rules and regulations to earn your spot in Heaven.
The triumph of the cross does not come by human effort. The victory of Jesus is received where your trying ends.
Jesus will never love you any more than He does right now. He’s not waiting for perfection before He’ll accept you.
Jesus has already done everything you need to experience Heaven.
Faith is not about a bad person becoming good; it’s about a dead person becoming alive.
When Jesus spoke His very last words in Luke 23:46, His life on Earth ended. But His eternal reign in our lives was just beginning.
The seven cries of Jesus from the cross, when paralleled with the way Jesus appeared to the travelers on the road to Emmaus after His death, invite us into our own Seven-Mile Miracle.
By focusing on the significance of Jesus’ final words, and the way he broke the bread in the presence of the two travelers in Luke 24, you can gain unique perspective on who Jesus is, what He has done for you, and how He wants to reveal Himself to you every day.
“Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” Luke 24:35
Just as Jesus took the bread in His hands, He takes you from a place of uncertainty and brings you into a life of faith, hope, and security.
Just as He blessed the bread, He blesses you and favors you with a new life found only in Him.
Just as He broke the bread, He allows you to be broken to increase your dependency on Him.
And finally, just as He gave the bread to His disciples, He gives you to the world for the sake of His glory.
I heard a preacher point out one time how, no matter what was happening to the bread, it never left Jesus’ hands. And when He finally reached out to give the bread to his companions, they saw His nail-scarred hands and their eyes were opened to see Jesus as the risen Lord.
You too have been reunited with the One who is the resurrection.
