Text: John 19-20

My purpose for this message: Fortify Christians’ faith, and rock unbelievers’ disbelief through fulfilled prophecy in Jesus’ death & resurrection.

Delivered: April 4, 2010 (Easter)

 

It is Written

PRAY.

Last week the FBI arrested members of a Michigan militia for plotting to kill policemen.  Professing Christians, they believed an apocalypse was coming and that they should be the ones to start it this month.

No wonder people confuse Christians and suicide bombers.  Rosie O’Donnell claims that Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam.  Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling who has received death threats from supposed Christians, said, Fundamentalism is, 'I will not open my mind to look on your side of the argument at all.  I won't read it, I won't look at it, I'm too frightened.'   That's what's dangerous about it…  In fact, fundamentalists across all the major religions, if you put them in a room, they'd have bags in common!  They hate all the same things…

Because I would never pressure—let alone threaten someone to convert to Christ, I object to being lumped together with fundamentalist Muslims.  On the other hand, in some ways I am like them.  Maybe more like them than some Protestants and Catholics.  A devout Muslim believes Islam is the ONLY true faith; that’s what I believe about Christianity.  I’m a fundamentalist Christian—not a zealot with a death wish, but convinced of what the apostles were convinced of; believe what Augustine believed, Jerome, Jan Huss, Calvin, Luther, Billy Graham: that because God inspired this book, it’s true.   The gospel of Easter is only true if the Bible is. 

And the Bible says that what happened on that first Easter weekend was the defining event in history—God’s Son executed and raised from the dead.  This morning we’re going to look at some notes on the weekend, made by an eyewitness.  FIND John 19-20.  (Share your Bible with a neighbor if needed.) 

In these 2 chapters, John mentions 5 fulfilled prophecies made centuries before about the Messiah.  Seeing them should fortify you with faith.  For those without faith, I pray that they will at least disturb your unbelief.  Admittedly, fulfilled prophecies don’t prove Christianity is true (nothing does), but they are good evidence.  

John writes this again and again: It is written, it is written.  He’s reminding his early Jewish readers that the events he witnessed, they and their ancestors had already read about many times in their Old Testaments. 

 

1.     They’d gamble for Jesus’ clothes.  John 19:23-24  [Psalm 22:18]

As soon as the chapter opens, blood flows.  Governor Pilate knew Jesus was innocent, but also knew that releasing him would infuriate his citizens.  He ordered the soldiers to flog Jesus, which they did, plus beat him up, then took him back to Pilate.  Still hoping for some middle ground, the mob warned the spineless governor that by releasing Jesus he’d appear to be soft on sedition. 

So Jesus was crucified beneath a sign, King of the Jews.  On the ground below, something bizarre was happening—something incongruent with what was taking place several feet above them.  READ 19:23-24.  …that Scripture might be fulfilled.  What Scripture?  Guys are drawing straws, rolling dice, playing cards to see who gets Jesus’ undergarment.  What Bible verse saw that?

READ Psalm 22:18.  King David was also a prophet, and 1000 years before this little game of chance was thought up by pagan soldiers, he predicted it.  How about that!  In fact, in the verses above (14-17) he describes crucifixion and its affects on a victim with the kind of precision you’d expect from an eyewitness.  300-400 years before the Persians introduced crucifixion as a form of execution?!

 

2.     They’d give Jesus vinegar for thirst.  John 19:28-29  [Psalm 69:21]

Jesus was near death and understandably thirsty.  READ John 19:28-29.  …so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.  Again, it fulfills a psalm: Psalm 69:21.  “I’m thirsty.”  If David was just guessing about what might happen, he’d most likely go with water being offered for thirst.   Instead, he writes vinegar; no way he could know 1000 years ahead of time, that by Jesus’ day vinegar would be the poor man’s beer—especially a Roman soldier’s beer.

 

3.      They wouldn’t break Jesus’ legs.  John 19:31-33, 36  [Psalm 34:20]

READ John 19:31-33, 36.  The Romans crucified to prolong suffering but the execution had to end at some point.  So they’d hurry death along by breaking the victim’s legs so he could no longer push himself up with his feet to relieve his constricted lungs.  Asphyxiation followed.

But Jesus was already dead.  He’d been beaten so badly, flogged so mercilessly that massive blood loss and shock probably hurried things along.  The prophet David predicted even this tiny detail about his legs.  READ Psalm 34:20.  Why did this matter?  Because Jesus was a sin offering and you can’t break the bones of a sin offering.

READ Numbers 9:12.  Passover was the highest holy day in the Jewish year and the details of the Seder, wellknown even to young Jews.  When Jesus was killed, it was Passover in Jerusalem, and that year, the Passover lamb was nailed to a cross as the once-for-all sin offering.  Never again would an animal lamb be needed. 

(Remember, prophecy does not only reveal the future God sees, but the future He plans.)

 

4.     They would spear him.  John 19:34, 36-37  [Zechariah 12:10]

READ John 19:34, 36-37.  Although Jesus was already dead, a soldier plunged his spear in the body.  Again, a callous gesture by a Roman soldier with no interest in fulfilling prophecy, was predicted centuries before.  READ Zechariah 12:10.  You see, everything about Jesus’ end was designed in heaven.  Not just known, but designed (Acts 2:23).

 

5.     Messiah prophesied rise from the dead.  John 20:9  [Isaiah 53:10-12)

READ John 20:9.  Who did the people of Jesus’ day think He was?  Although some stopped at “great teacher,” Herod suspected He was John the Baptist come back from the dead, others guessed Elijah, or a prophet like Jeremiah (Matthew 16:13-14).  But from the start, some disciples believed He was the Messiah (John 1:41).

All Jews were expecting a kingly Messiah, a fearless Deliverer.  One who would conquer, not be defeated; one who would live; not die.  So resurrection wasn’t even on their radar.  But it was in their Bibles.  Isaiah 53 is the 4^th and final song about a mysterious Servant of God who suffers greatly.  Today the rabbis say it’s Israel.  The church knows it’s Jesus.   READ vv.10-12.  It is the picture of someone coming back to life.  (Also see Psalm 16:10.)

 

6.     Why were these prophesies fulfilled?  John 20:30-31

It is written; it is written; it is written.  OT prophets declaring what God told them would happen in the future.  Hundreds of years in the future, a thousand.  Why was it written?  The same reason the NT books were written after the events.  READ John 20:30-31. 

It is written as evidence for you and I to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Jewish Messiah who will give life—not only to the Jews, but castoff Gentiles like me.  The Bible says that…

·       By God’s standard we are all sinners

·       God condemns all sinners

·       But if we change our minds about our love affair with sin and trust the Messiah to forgive them all—past, present and future, God forgives, God adopts as son/daughter, God gives eternal life as an inheritance.

 

Concl:

Easter is about the power of divine forgiveness which does not come through religion.  Being a Muslim—even a devout one, will not turn aside God’s condemnation for your sin.  Being a Buddhist—even one that plays golf really well, will not stop God from condemning you for your sin.  Being a Hindu, or a Rastafarian, or a Jew, or a Shinto or a Bahai or a Scientologist will not bring anyone one step closer to deliverance.  That requires Easter.  That requires Jesus.