You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.
This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Pastors Johnathan Hernandez and Gary Schick.
Garry Schick
It is Friday. A good Friday? Yes, and a great Friday. The Lord went through something horrific for us on this day.
Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, wow!
Garry Schick
We have at Emanuel the Passion of the Christ tonight at 7:00. Not one for kids and not one for popcorn, but a very authentic---a movie showing of what Jesus really did. The whole movie, a couple hours long is those six hours on the cross pretty much. I mean, it starts actually with the trial. Well actually it starts in the Garden of Gethsemane, but it hones on pretty quick on what he--and leading up to the cross.
Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah.
Garry Schick
Hey Jonathan, as we are in just this really precious time, today, Good Friday. As listeners are listening, we're coming right up, well, at 9:00 is of course the time he was crucified, isn't it? Yeah. So from nine until three, he was on the cross. So today, maybe we'll just be a little less conversational than the last couple weeks, although we are going to still go back and forth just because we have kind of a lot we want to include today. We thought it would be a neat idea to talk about some of the scriptures that Jesus fulfilled when he died, buried, and rose again. And in fact, you may remember on Easter Sunday as the day's getting late, he appears to two on the way to Emmaus. And while they're going, they're confused, they're sad, they don't understand why Jesus is gone. And by the way, "it's been three days and some of our women had come up with this crazy story about him rising from the dead and we don't know what to think." And so before he reveals himself to them, he just opens up the scriptures and is beginning with the law and the prophets and the Psalms. And so we actually have a little bit from, and certainly not everything, but from the law, the prophets and the Psalm. And for just one verse from the law I've taken. We don't often think of Genesis as part of the law, but it is, it's part of the five books of Moses. It's the foundation of everything. And really a cornerstone, Genesis 3, that is when humankind falls into sin. That is when, not only death comes into the world, but also God's promise of a savior. We read in Genesis 3 as God is cursing Satan for leading Adam and Eve to sin. Verse 15, he says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman. Between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head. You will strike his heel." Now, it's kind of a poetic thing, but literally Jesus, his heel is pierced and his hands as well, and Satan's head is ultimately crushed by what Jesus does. By the way, speaking of the movie, The Passion of the Christ, what I really love in that movie is while he's in the garden of Gethsemane, they show the serpent showing up, and Jesus just stamping on it. You got to wonder, what was Satan thinking? "I've got the victory. He's on the cross." No, you just lost Satan! He just paid the price for sin. And then moving to the Psalms, one of the most beautiful and heart wrenching Psalms is Psalm 22. When Jesus cried out from the cross, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It was a heart wrenching cry. It was that moment when God the Father and the Son, there's a division there because Jesus has our sin. But he is also quoting the Psalm, which is the Psalm that ends in triumph. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from the words of my groaning?" And what a lesson to us, when we are going through our darkest hours, to cry out in prayer because guess what...our God is listening. But that's not where it ends. Psalm 22 has a lot more. If you move on to verse 14, it says, "I import out like water. All my bones are out of joint." I think we forget, when they hoisted him up on that cross, one of the things that would happen is that cross would fall into the hole that was dug for it to stand there. What would it do to Jesus? It would wrench his bones out of joint. "My heart is like wax." They're going to pierce his heart, aren't they? Verse 16, "A company of evil doers encircles me." Of course they did. They encircled him. They mocked him. "They have pierced my hands and feet." Well, actually, you are going to talk about that one, weren't you, Jonathan?
Jonathan Hernandez
Well, you already started.
Garry Schick
I'm sorry. But then in verse 17, he goes on and says, "I can count all my bones. They stare and they gloat over me." Were you going to take up verse 18? Why don't you take it? You got it?
Jonathan Hernandez
No, my phone didn't load.
Garry Schick
Okay, I've got it. I'll read it. "They divide my garments among them, and for my clothes, they cast lots." Of course this, they did even before they pierced him. So he was physically pierced, his hands and feet. They did gamble while he was hanging on the tree. They took his garments, the soldiers, and they gambled over them who gets what? So it's just some horrific things that Jesus suffered. But I guess what's comforting is it was all written down before it came to be. Not one thing did he suffer that was not in the foreknowledge and even the plan of God. Part of what he would endure out of great and deep love for us on this day. Alright, I think you're going to pick it up at Isaiah 53 from the prophet. So moving from the Psalms to the prophets.
Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah. So Isaiah 53:7 talks about, "he was oppressed and he was afflicted and yet he opened not his mouth; and he was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before the shearer is silent. So he opened not his mouth." And what an amazing thing for him to be able to endure what he does. And not, I mean, in John 1:29 it says, "the next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, 'behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." You start seeing a lot of the stuff unfolding. You see him, like I said, walk through that whole process of being beaten, all of that. And yet it's like, "but yet you're God. You could have stopped all of this, right?" And yet He is like, "no, there's a purpose to all of this. There's a reason why all this is going on." Isaiah 53, where'd you go? 14. It says, "just as many were astonished at you. And so was more than any man in his form, more than the sons of man." This brutality of these soldiers, what they did to him. I don't know how they could do that to someone. Obviously, this was their job and I don't know if they enjoyed it or not, but it just wasn't good. And we know that this was, obviously, this is what had to have happened. God had the purpose. He knew what was going to happen, and He knew all that.
Garry Schick
Yeah, it's just absolutely amazing. Well, and they did enjoy it, unfortunately, because after they finished surging him, they took him in and beat him up some more. That wasn't part of what they had to do. But they mocked him. They put the robe on him and the crown of thorns.
Jonathan Hernandez
The crown of thorns.
Garry Schick
But you're right. And even Pilot was amazed. "Aren't you going to answer these charges?" And all of this is a fulfillment, as you said.
Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, it's just crazy to look back at that and think about his willingness to do it because he knew the purpose.
Garry Schick
So the last one that I have is Psalm 16. And so most of what we've talked about so far is about what he endured on the cross, but the resurrection is there too. And in Psalm 16, it's a great chapter, but verse 10 says, "for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy one see corruption." Well, who's David talking about there? David? And actually Peter points this out. I think he quotes this very verse in the book of Acts. He says, "we know that David is in the grave and his body was corrupted through the process of decay. Only Jesus Christ doesn't decay in the grave. Only Jesus Christ rises forever more." So I know it's good Friday and it's a mournful day. It's a somber day. It really is. Our day of atonement, when he paid the price for our sin. Saturday is kind of a solemn day. He was in the grave and talks about that too. He talks about, as Jonah was in the heart of the fish, that is a symbol. It's a real thing. It really happened. But it's also symbolic of the fact that Jesus would be in the tomb. But Easter morning, he will not be found there. And we tell the story every year about those women heading to the tomb, but they weren't coming to a sunrise service. They were coming to take better care of a corpse that had been hurriedly put in a grave. Was there anything further, Jonathan?
Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, I mean, just you can look through each of these portions of scripture and these prophecies that were prophesied about the crucifixion; the resurrection in each of those, and just really spend some time in those. I mean, Psalms 22:18 about the garments being split. And then in John 19:24, the fulfillment as we see that happen. Isaiah 53, like you said, we could walk through each and every one through that, about him being oppressed and afflicted. And like I said, it's just amazing just how God has these things in the Old Testament. And then we see that fulfillment happen throughout some of these different events throughout the Bible.
Garry Schick
And Isaiah 53 even tells us the reason why, "all we like sheep have gone astray." Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Let's just take a moment to just give thanks for God's goodness, his mercy. Well, I just wish good things to you and your family during this special weekend.