Good Friday 2024

Good Friday, 2024

John 19: 30

 

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, who on the cross cried out: “It is finished!” we thank You that You completed the work which Your Father gave You to do: You fulfilled the Law of God for us; You bore its curse in our stead; You reconciled all people to God.  Grant that we may with our whole heart believe this and that we may never rely on any work or merit of our own, but always trust in Your finished work on Calvary, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, now and forever.  Amen.

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

The cross is shocking.    For anyone to be put to death on a cross—as were thousands in the Roman Empire—is un-thinkable.   But the ancient world was good at torture for rebellious criminals.   For an innocent man to be crucified—even when the judge knew that he was innocent—is beyond shocking.    But for God in the flesh to be crucified is almost impossible to believe.     And this is why the cross is essential to Christianity.

 

Christianity without a cross is just pagan moralism that saves nobody.    A Christianity that skips Good Friday to go to Easter Sunday is just feel-good emotionalism.   The cross is so central to why we are here that St. Paul sums it up: “We preach Christ crucified.”     That is what preachers must preach and hearers must hear.   The cross is where heaven and earth meet, where God and man intersect, and where all life finds its true and eternal meaning.

 

But once again, God dying on a cross is almost impossible to believe.    As St.  Paul continues about us preaching Christ crucified, it is a “stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.”    Indeed, to those who have the Old Testament, but don’t really understand it, the cross is a scandal and a pill too large to swallow.   To those who worship the pagan gods who aggrandize themselves, a God who dies for His   people is just comedic foolishness.    But for us, as St. Paul says, the cross is the power and wisdom of God.

 

Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah knew about the cross.  He knew that the Messiah would be the suffering servant.    But this is a Messiah that the Jews did not want and this present world does not want. The people at the time of Jesus would rather have a larger-than-life strongman on a golden throne than a seemingly helpless man mocked and nailed to a wooden cross.

 

And so it is much the same today.    Many want a god who meets their criteria;

 

• a god who will bow to their version of morality;
• a god who will smile on their sinful lives with glowing approval;
• a god who gives the thumbs up to your sin;
• a god who looks like Elvis;
• a god who does not call for repentance;
• a god who does not bid them to pick up their cross and follow Him and crucify the flesh.

 

In stark contrast, Isaiah speaks of the Christ as being “marred beyond human semblance,” with “no form or majesty. . . .  Despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief . . . He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”   This is certainly a stumbling block of a Messiah.

 

But Isaiah explains the purpose of the Messiah’s suffering:

 

“Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. . . . Wounded for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.”

 

I always find it interesting that the Lord, both in the New Testament and the Old Testament picture God’s people as sheep.    Sheep are rather dumb as far as animals are concerned.   Sheep will follow other sheep to their death.   Isaiah writes of God’s people as sheep and reminds us that we are like wandering sheep.  We have followed after our old Adam.     This evening, we are going to hear about Barabbas in the Passion readings.  Barabbas was a murder in the rebellion against Rome.

 

But Barabbas represents all of us.     Every sin is ultimately rebellion against God.  Rebellion is the attempted murder of God; it is the desire to get God out of your way and out of your life so you can do the things you want without interference or consequences.

 

• That lustful and wandering eye tells God “You are blocking my view get out of the way.”
• That desire for earthly wealth rather than the riches of God’s providential care tells God to get out of the way.
• Bickering, and jealousy and anger push God away and replace it with selfishness so we can get want we want.
• And who of you can deny that?    We deserve what the thieves on the cross got but for all eternity.

 

But our Good Shepherd sacrifices Himself to save us, “and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”    Isaiah goes on to describe, again, seven hundred years ahead of time, the Messiah’s illegal and crooked trial, His execution, and His burial in a rich man’s tomb.

 

And here is the key, according to Isaiah: “His soul makes an offering for sin” and “He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”    And from God’s perspective, this promised Messiah, who dies for His people, “shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.”

 

St. Paul recognized the crucified Jesus as the Messiah who fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy when he himself wrote:  “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.”

 

Earlier this evening, we recited the Psalm that Jesus spoke from the cross, also a confession of the Messiah who suffers and dies for the sin of the world: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?. . . I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. . . . They have pierced My hands and My feet. . . . They stare and gloat over Me. . . they divide my garments . . . they cast lots.”

 

The final line in this Psalm, written by David a thousand years before Christ, and fulfilled by Jesus on the cross, is this: “Posterity shall serve Him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn, that He has done it.”      “He has done it,” dear friends.   This is our Lord’s victory cry from the cross: “It is finished.”

 

Isaiah’s prophecy has been fulfilled.    David’s Psalm has been brought to reality.    Victory over the devil is complete.   Our sins have been atoned for.   Death has been swallowed up by death.    God’s kingdom has invaded and taken over the earth from the forces of evil. The covenant with Israel now extends to people of every “tribe and language and people arid nation.”     It is finished.  He has done it.

 

And in spite of these prophecies, Christ crucified remains a stumbling block to the people called under the first covenant.   As far as the Gentiles, they see the cross differently.   They are not scandalized by it.   They aren’t tripped up by it.  They simply mock.  For their gods are very different: selfish, vain, immoral, and in love with themselves. Their gods destroy one another and men, motivated by petty jealousy and rage. There is no honor and no compassion in their gods.   Indeed, the world sees such things as weakness.

 

And so, the Gentiles join the Jews in looking at Christ crucified and mocking, wagging their heads, and refusing to believe.    Modern-day pagans don’t believe in Zeus and Athena, but rather in science (so-called), in the state, in the popular culture, in technology, in their believed ability to identify as whatever they want, in their material goods, and in their own willful ignorance.    We have all seen those yard signs that say “love is love” “science is real” “Women’s rights are human rights” and “diversity makes us stronger.”    They too call Christians “haters” and “deniers” just like the pagan Romans did.   They too mock the cross and mock the Crucified One just as did the dominant culture of first-century Rome.

 

But no matter who mocks us, our Savior points you the cross, to look at the God who willingly is crucified and who dies for you, this event in history that is almost impossible to believe, and we do just that: “we believe.”   And we say it in our creeds.   We confess it with our mouths.    We stake our very souls on Jesus as our Savior, as the One who restored us to the Father when He declared victory, saying “It is finished.” He has done it.

 

And not only do we believe, dear friends.   We confess it.   We say publicly what we believe, and we will not be silenced.    We read the Scriptures and do not accept it when pagans try to change the story, or present a different, politically correct Jesus.    For we know what happened on that Good Friday.   We   know what Isaiah and David and Moses and the rest of the prophets said would happen, and we know that Jesus “has done it.”   He brought our atonement to its completion.    He accomplished the mission. “It is finished.” And He is exalted.

 

And contrary to appearances, the cross is a symbol of victory, of life, of love, and of God’s wrath being taken from you and placed on a substitute, a sacrificial Lamb “that takes away the sin of the world,” who has mercy on us and grants us peace.

 

Indeed, to the world, the cross is a symbol of one man’s submission to a more powerful man, but to us, the cross is a symbol of the “love of Christ” that “controls us, because we have concluded this: “that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.”    

 

Sunday we celebrate the High festival of the Christian Church.  But today, our Lord invites you to ponder the cross.   Today, your Savior beckons you to rejoice in what God the Son has done for you by His death and burial.    In the midst of your failures, indeed, in the midst of your sin, your Savior calls you once again to come to Him and ponder this victory on the cross because it is for you who are burdened by your sins.    Look to the cross and see what God wants you to see: His love, His forgiveness, His atonement, and His victory.     He has done it!   It is finished!   Amen.