Good Friday March
25, 2016
Luke 23:46 God’s
Right to Die . . . For Sinners
Dear fellow redeemed,
Did you hear about the physician assisted suicide bill
that was recently withdrawn by Senator Eaton?
*
I guess she decided to withdraw the bill rather
than face a vote that was likely to fail.
Apparently,
she could see the handwriting on the wall after listening to two hours of
passionate
protests against the bill.
*
It was clear to those who gathered at the Senate
committee meeting, that there’s a big
difference between mercy killing
and mercy dying.
*
Mercy dying is permitting the terminally ill to die, rather than hooking them up
to
unnecessary life support. It’s both compassionate and
God-pleasing.
*
Mercy killing, on the other hand is taking the life of the helpless and
innocent, arguing
that man has a right to end any
suffering that would rob a person of purpose and dignity.
It’s neither compassionate nor God
pleasing.
*
Interestingly, one point made by some pro-life
advocates also dealt with the rights of the
suffering. The elderly, the terminally ill, and the
disabled have the right to receive good
quality care, rather than be
pressured to choose death because they’re allegedly a burden
to other people.
We
just might ask ourselves whether Christ’s death has anything to say about all
this.
*
You may remember that he died just
three hours after his crucifixion.
He died when he determined it was time to die.
*
Now, I’ve never heard it argued,
but some I’m sure will contend that he was exercising a
right. Of course, no one would assert that this was a mercy
killing.
The only gesture of mercy that day was the plan to break
Jesus’ legs, so that he might
suffocate sooner, thus ending his suffering sooner.
*
Then again when the soldiers came
to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead.
And therefore they did not break his bones. They were too
late, for the only mercy to be
demonstrated that day would be on Christ’s part.
*
You see, Jesus did not die because
he was killed.
He died because he willed to die.
*
So he was exercising a right.
But his death was neither a case of mercy killing nor mercy
dying.
*
He didn’t die for his own sake but for the sake of sinners.
He died not so that he might
not be a burden to us, but that we might not be a burden to ourselves.
*
Our sin, after all, had deprived
us of our rights.
But that we might not die
eternally, God the Son exercised his right to die for us.
Maybe
you find this a little difficult to grasp.
Dying this barbaric death was a right?!
*
For many watching the crucifixion
of our Lord, there’s no doubt what the thinking was.
“This is no way to die!”
*
And so it may bring to mind the
claim of today’s right to die advocates.
No one, not even our worst enemy,
should have to suffer this way!
*
How do we argue with that? We sympathize with the Son of God exercising
his right.
After exclaiming: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” we’re
told, “he breathed his last.”
Was this not appropriate that he
die – just three hours later?
* Yes. He died not because he had no
other choice but to die.
He
died because it was his choice
to die!
What
do you think? Does that make our Lord a
right to die advocate?
*
I’ve never heard it argued, but
I’m sure someone’s going to make the connection.
People
believe it’s a person’s right to die when he desires to die, if in his opinion
his life is
no longer worth living.
*
In other words, today’s right to
die advocates do not believe God alone should decide the
timing of one’s death. They think of a God who would make us wait as
a God who’s
inhumane; lacking understanding and
compassion.
*
Okay. But now why did Jesus choose to die?
It wasn’t because he was tired of
waiting for his Father to make the choice for him, or
because his Father had some
coldhearted sense of justice.
*
He chose to die, rather, as the
world’s substitute; that he might deliver us from of our sins.
He wasn’t trying to get out of something. He was exercising his right as God to save us.
Well,
today’s right to death advocates may say we’re entitled to our religious
beliefs.
*
Still, they don’t believe Christ’s
death offers any relevance to our own death.
Speaking
of normal people, such as you or me, we die because we have no power.
We grow weak and old, and lose
control of what happens to our ailing and failing body.
*
And that’s just not right in the
opinion of today’s death advocates.
But
we can fix things. We can make a
meaningless death a good death.
*
And to make good on their promise,
they exploit a power that doesn’t belong to them.
I
speak of Christ’s power, which is none other than God’s power.
*
The truth is, Christ has power not simply to give life, as
when he raises the dead to life.
He also has power over life. Being God himself,
the timing of one’s death is in his hands.
And
so, Jesus demonstrated that he was the Lord over life, even in his own death.
* Recall the opening words of our text: “Jesus called out with a loud voice.”
Dying, he still cried out loudly, “Father,
into your hands I commit my spirit.”
* Who’s witnessed such a thing?
Ordinarily, a dying person gives up
his tired soul with a weak groan.
He
has no more power to speak and
cry aloud.
*
His strength fails. The powers of his life fade away.
And
eventually his pulse stops and his heart quits beating.
But
Christ’s death could not be described in this way.
*
He did not die from
exhaustion.
He did not die because of his
countless pains or his unimaginable agony.
* No.
By uttering his last words with a shout, he revealed to the world that
he indeed
was God’s Son and had power over
life and death.
* Therefore,
he didn’t die because he had to die.
He died because he wanted to die and
had the power to die.
* “I have
power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” Jesus had said.
As the Lord, he had the prerogative
to lay down his life any time he chose, and to raise
it again.
Well,
if some right-to-death advocates claim to believe in God, as I imagine they do,
they may
very
well agree that only God has the final say about death.
*
I suspect they’ll also state in
most cases that assisted suicide would be wrong.
“Rather than encouraging people to seek an
exit from this life, we should remind our
loved ones in every possible case
that their life has value.”
*
But then they’ll go on and say
that the time may come when one’s life has no value to
anyone; not to their family, not to
their community, and least of all to themselves.
They’re suffering needlessly and may
have even become a burden to those trying to care
for them.
*
In such cases death advocates
believe we may assist a loved
one in their desire to die.
In fact, this makes death beautiful
in their view; having a chance to die with dignity.
This
is a problem, to tell you the truth, that extends far beyond our culture’s
pro-death mentality.
Many
people today try to take the edge off death by hiding the reality or effects of
death.
* We see this, for example, in many of
the traditions surrounding the funeral.
What
would you say is the main responsibility of the mortician?
* Some might think it’s to beautify death.
We glance at the body lying in the
casket and comment “Doesn’t he or she look nice?”
* And if the makeup job is at its usual
best, we may have a hard time believing this person
is dead at all.
* But what’s the real purpose of an open
casket; to help the loved ones accept their loss;
to give them chance to say
“good-bye?”
* We’d be better served regarding the
open casket as our chance to come to grips with our
own sin. We recognize that death is the result of our
sinful nature.
*
The open casket should be sobering
reminder not only that we shall all
die someday, but
also that we need to be delivered from death.
What
crosses your mind when you see the face of a loved one who now lies dead before
you?
* When the disciples saw the corpse of
Jesus taken from the cross, they might have lost all
hope of seeing him again.
* But they should have known better than
to regard his death as we regard other
deaths.
For while it’s true that your death
may only remind you of your own sin and frailties and
imperfections and, yes, our own death, Christ’s death reminds us that such dying is not
the end.
*
And that’s why we may speak of a
beautiful death.
It happens to be the death of our
Lord Jesus who died in order to save us.
*
And it happens to be the death of
any sinner who dies trusting in the blood of his Savior
and looking forward to his new life with
Christ.
And
so do we pick up on yet another difference between believers who advocate life
and those
who
advocate death.
*
Those trusting in their own means
of death die with no hope, whereas those trusting in
Christ’s death, have every reason to
hope.
* Very simply, Christ’s death means that
our own death can no longer separate us from God.
What
caused our separation, our sin, was heaped upon the body of Christ.
So that our sin might no longer be
our problem or concern, Christ made it his
problem and
concern – up until the moment he
died on the cross.
* This was the death he chose. By dying our death, he wanted us to know that
we were
truly forgiven; without sin in God’s
sight.
* As Paul wrote the Colossians: “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body
through
death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from
accusation.”
Reconciled
to God! . . . Holy in his sight! . . . Free from accusation!
* In the end, God’s death makes your
death and my death very different than the typical death.
Unlike
nonbelievers who die like cattle with no thoughts or hopes concerning tomorrow,
the
Christian can die with the certain
hope of eternal life.
*
Every one of us can die knowing
that the sting of death has been removed.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art
with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”
* What a comfort: to have our fear of
death taken away!
Meanwhile,
we don’t concern ourselves with those who try to hide or beautify death or
speak of some
human
right. The only right that we need brag
about is Christ’s right to save us and our right to believe
in
him.
*
It’s why we may commend our souls
each day to our faithful creator saying,
“If we
live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.
So,
whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”
* And when we see our final day approaching we may permit God’s Word to be
heard from our lips,
“Father,
into your hands I commit my spirit.” Amen.
May
the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus.
Amen.
