C D Brooks - AH HA (Sermon on Crucifixion & Death of Jesus Christ)

About this sermon

http://www.adventistsermons.blogspot.co.uk This is a sermon by Charles D Brooks on the passersby who despised Jesus Christ on the cross. For more sermons and Christian music visit Mark 15:29 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days." Jesus Arrested In The Garden of Gethsemane Let us in our imagination go back to the week of our Lord serious passion. The scenes of the crucifixion and we find these scenes brushed on the canvas of history in living colors. And these colors boldly exclaim the qualities of the participants in that scene – red of anger; purple of rage; the green of envy, the yellow of cowardice, the grey of indecision and thank God the blue of loyalty to the white of purity and the gold of faith and love. Christ had prayed in the garden of Gethsemane and as he prayed a torch lit mob invaded the privacy of that moment, A wine filled rabble of Israel coming to arrest the creator and to take him off as a criminal. Oh! day of infamy. When they approached him Jesus asked, “whom seek ye?” And when they had responded divinity flashed through humanity and the record is, they fell as dead men. You would have thought this enough to teach them a lesson. But Christ would not be delivered by divinity. Not now, and so divinity passed away as it were and he again became Mary’s boy. Identifying with us in humanity and he asked again “whom seek ye?” and the same group having just recovered stood up and said Jesus of Nazareth and Christ said “I am he send them away, let these go”. Jesus always like that, facing danger, taking the brunt of things and letting us off. Take me let Brooks go, Take me let sinners go. After that he was abused and humiliated unspeakably. There was an excitement about sin that day and the fair countenance of our Lord was soon covered with spittle. Ah Ha! (Mark 15:29) And and now we come to verse 29 of Mark 15 where we find this expression that is my title today and those who passed by derided him. Wagging their heads and saying ah-ha! If you read the Authorized Version it simply says ha. What a word! First of all let me point out that the context seemed to suggest that it was not their real problem they were just passing by and were influenced by the sentiments of the crowd. This word AH-HA! is an exclamation of scorn and contempt. Ah-Ha! is a derisive cry. It is a cry of mockery and ignorant men and women who had not known the Lord beheld him suffering and were unmoved having never known the mystery of compassion and grace. Instead of feeling sorry for him these non-thinkers, these lowly souls who simply went along with what others were doing cried ah-ha! and cast their arrows of bitterness towards the heart of the Lord. They saw Jesus hanging there and they knew he was helpless as a man it was all over except the shouting and they shouted a head wagging jeer ah-ha! Ladies and gentlemen if the final balance had been taken at sunset that day they would have been right. The church calls that day Good Friday but it was not good. To the disciples it was the worst Friday that had ever dawned. It was was bad Friday. Peter didn’t recognise it as good, he had cursed and sworn. His soul was barren his heaving breast exploded in grief. It was a dark Friday for Peter. The others had fled also into darkness but you know it wasn’t finished on Friday, Friday was was the devil’s day. A modern evangelist has proposed an allegory that I cannot resist. He said that Death and Hell had a meeting that day and death said to hell, “if I claim him and deliver him to you will you hold him? And hell from Hades the grave replied, “If you deliver him I will hold him”. And so they made a covenant. Death hounded the Lord until finally his heart burst in his breast. He dropped his head in the hollow of the shoulder; screamed in passion and yielded up the ghost. Then death said to Hell, “now Hell I have done my part, you take Him and you do your part. You hold Him.” And according to this man allegory Hell cried out “get these women out of here, seal my bowels with Roman mortar. Set a guard of Roman soldiers at the gate. I’ll hold Him and if I keep him for four days His body shall see corruption and I’ve got him forever”. So good Friday closed with a-ha! But you know God acts cannot be measured in a short time frame. Like Election Day all the returns are not in at sunset and God was not finished. So a day passes and death is a little anxious and death visits the garden says, “Hello, have you still got him?”. And Hell replied “I’ve got him.” They didn’t know that Jesus was just keeping the Sabbath – resting in the tomb. And then two days, on Saturday night and death came by and said, “what about it Hell, have you still got him?”. Hell said, “I still got Him and the Roman soldiers are still on duty outside. Everything is okay”. Ah-a!

Topics

• Heaven & Eternity
• Jesus Christ