Good Friday (2024)
Notes
Transcript
Rethinking Sacrifice
“It Is Finished”
In most religions the gods demand sacrifice. Followers are to surrender something of value to that god. Money. Time. Possessions. Some religions have even called for human sacrifice. Even people who think they aren’t religious sacrifice to false gods. Take the man whose idol is success. What he wants most is to rise through the ranks at work. So, to pursue that idol, he sacrifices his family, spending little time with them. Throughout human history, false gods have expected you to die for them.
In Christianity you meet a God willing to die for you. And this evening we see that the true God does not make our relationship with him conditional on how much we sacrifice for him. Instead, we are at peace with God because he sacrificed himself for us. It is one reason why we call it “Good Friday.”
One may wonder what exactly it is that makes this Friday “good” and what makes this Gospel message good news. Jesus left hanging on the cross is certainly not good news in the sense of the happily-ever-after ending that we have come to expect or to hope for. Yet, strange as it may seem, God’s Good News on this Good Friday is precisely this: Jesus Christ, God's own Son, died for you. The sin is not just on the part of the Jews, Pilate, and the soldiers. It was also your sin that caused His pain and death. Our disgust at sin should not be directed only at evil men near the cross. The fingers must point homeward and inward.
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews
Two children were playing together and half-watching a movie about the life of Jesus on television playing in the background. One of the children had never heard the story of Jesus, and when it came to the crucifixion scene, he became more and more engrossed in the film. His playmate, anxious to resume their game, said matter-of-factly, “Oh, never mind about that. He gets out of it in the end."
We find that tendency to rush quickly ahead to the end of the story even among more sophisticated Christians (like ourselves). We seem to want to close our eyes and hold our breath until all the suffering of Lent and Holy Week and Good Friday is over and it is safe to come out again to Easter lilies and chocolate bunnies and the resurrection.
But the gospel writer paints a picture that we cannot avoid like the priest or Levite who crossed quickly to the other side of the road, pretending not to see the beaten man from Jericho. The picture has our Lord on the cross, and above Him is the title “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
The chief priests of the Jews complained to Pilate about this inscription. Jesus was not their king—not their king—they insisted. To call this crucified one “the King of the Jews” was a major affront. Pilate's response was simple: “What I have written, I have written.”
Given the chance, we too might voice some complaints. Of all the episodes in Jesus’ life, this one seems to be the strangest time to acclaim Him as King. Would not that title be more appropriate for the Jesus who fed and preached to multitudes, or the Jesus who was transfigured with Moses and Elijah beside Him, or, best of all, the Jesus who entered Jerusalem in triumph?
“Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”—Jesus is enthroned, to be sure, but His throne is a cross, and the positions of honor at His right and left hand are occupied by common criminals. Jesus is crowned, but His crown is a crown of thorns. Can this beaten man, this humbled and crucified One, be our King?
Let us turn our attention for the moment to the soldiers at the foot of the cross. As far as they were concerned, Jesus was nobody’s king—not the Jews’ and certainly not theirs. He was just another person being executed, another criminal whose personal belongings were not at their disposal. The soldiers divided Jesus’ garments among themselves, and they separated His life and death from any possible meaning for their lives.
Our problem with Jesus’ kingship exists at two levels.
First, we do not fully understand the cross. We do not understand how suffering and dying can be the marks of a king.
But worse than that, to the extent that we do understand the cross, we reject it.
We want nothing to do with it. That’s one of the reasons why our crosses are clean and sanitary. We do not like to see suffering and pain in ourselves or in others. We refuse to accept it. We spend our lives trying to avoid and eliminate it.
Can we really accept what it means that Jesus Christ had to die for us, that true life can flow only out of death—out of His death?
Can we trust Him?
Can we have faith?
Or do we look another way, for a forgotten loophole or a shortcut around the cross of Good Friday?
The oft-told story about Rembrandt illustrates the point. In a painting of the crucifixion by the Dutch artist, one’s attention is first drawn to the cross and the one who hangs there. Then the attention is drawn to the crowd around the cross. Different attitudes and actions can be detected. As one’s eyes drift to the edge of the picture, another figure stands in the shadow. It is Rembrandt himself. He includes himself among those helping to crucify the Lord. We also are among those responsible for Jesus’ death, for he died for the sins of the whole world.
It Is Finished!
It Is Finished!
There is no other way than the way of the cross.
Despite his hastiness, that little boy attempting to regain his playmate’s attention did know one very important thing—the story was not going to change.
Reading the end of the mystery first does not change the outcome when we finally sit down and read the whole book. What has been written stays written, to paraphrase Pilate, or, in Jesus’ own words, “It is finished.”
When John writes that Jesus said, “It is finished,” and bowed His head and gave up His spirit, he is not simply flashing “The End” on the screen at the conclusion of the main feature— “It is finished”; you can all go home now. Finished does not mean simply terminated; it means fulfilled, completed.
Imagine the gospel writer still with pen in hand. After he has written in large letters “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” as the caption to his picture of the crucified God-man, he is now underlining those words and adding exclamation points all around. “It is finished!”
This is it! This is the completion for which we have been waiting, for which all creation has been waiting. This is our salvation. Here and now, today on this very cross, God is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. He is making all things new again. It is finished. It is accomplished. It is that sure.
That is the Good News. It is certain today, and we can begin proclaiming it right now. We do not have to wait until Easter Sunday to celebrate God’s victory for us. Indeed, we must not wait at all. Shout it out! Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews—our King—has accomplished God’s mighty work of salvation on the cross!
God For Us!
God For Us!
If the King Himself dies, what does that say about us, His subjects? It seems that we too must die. Of course, the King shows us that to die is not the end of the story.
Death has lost its sting, and the grave is no longer a threat, but dying is still easier said than done for most of us.
We like Easter better than Good Friday. It seems so much happier. We want the glory and the lilies and the lights for Jesus and for ourselves, and we want them now. We want to be winners. We want a God who looks like a winner. We want everyone to see that we and our God are winners.
But Jesus is God and He is the One into whose likeness we are to be changed—Jesus, the crucified one. In this Man, God comes to us.
On this cross God is most for us, triumphing over our death and destruction. It is finished.
We still have to read the story through to the last page, each one of us, but we know how it ends, for Jesus and for us.
In His death there is life. In our deaths there is life also, because we die with Him, in Him, into Him.
John tells us that Jesus said, “It is finished,” and bowed His head and gave up His spirit. He did not simply give up—throw in the towel—but He gave up His spirit, gave His spirit back to the Father who had sent Him, gave His spirit up in order that He might give His Spirit to us.
Mary and John at the foot of the cross understood that.
“When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing near, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”
Mary and John could not have understood everything that was going on, but they did not need to. They did not question. They did not resist. They simply let the will of Jesus be carried our in their lives.
Jesus had said to his disciples earlier that the greatest expression of love was to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. This is hard to accept and even harder to do. Most of us hope never to be put in the position of having to die for another human being. But it is just as hard, if not harder, for me to lay down my life for someone else while I am still alive—to put my own life at your disposal. Yet this is what the Christian is called to do daily.
Christ died for you so that you can live. Christ died for you so that you can die—die to yourselves and die for others, die at the end of your life and die all through your life, die in Him and so die into life.
The cross of Good Friday shows you how Christ is King and how you are His. The cross of Good Friday empowers you with new life—His new life. For Jesus, death was not the end of His life by the fulfillment of His mission. For you who are in Christ, death—His and yours—is also not the end of life but its true beginning, both now and forever. All because of Jesus’ sacrifice for you.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.