Good Friday: The Adultress

Welcome and Introduction

Good Evening and welcome to our Good Friday Service. If you have never participated in this experience here at Friendship Church then you have probably noticed that this is distinctly different than our other services. Our services typically are bright and celebratory but this is the one time during the year that we do things with a more dark and somber tone. This is by intentional design.

I like to describe this service as something that is not really fun, but it is good. It is a time to consider the weight and depth of our sin. We don’t really like to think on that subject, and rightly so, but I think it is good to do so because it helps us to better understand the great lengths that Jesus went to to rescue us from our sin.

So on your way in you should have gotten a nail and small piece of black cloth. We will use those later in the service in a responsive act, but I invite you to pick them up right now, hold them in your hand and to consider them. The black cloth is meant to be a reminder of the blackness of our sin and of course the nail is meant to represent what Jesus did about that sin on the cross.

And we have the room darkened, not just to set a particular mood but to help us to get in something of our own space to consider things individually. That it is not just that Jesus went to the cross for sin…but that He did so for our sin. So since it is hard to see others in the room, even me or Trevor as he leads us in worship that is ok. It is a different kind of experience.

So in just a moment Trevor will lead us in a couple songs to consider these things, there will be a short video and then a teaching time followed by an opportunity to

Singing

Lead Me To The Cross

How deep the Father’s Love for us

Sometimes it’s hard to understand how what we are thinking on this Friday Night could be called “Good Friday”. The "good" of Good Friday doesn't mean pleasant. It is something like that branch of ethics called consequential-ism which states an act is good if it results in a good conclusion. The cross was ugly, disgusting, brutal and violent…in short it was “bad”…but it resulted in good for the whole world. We can all recognize this good, but some of our stories have Jesus rescuing us from much more dramatic situations than others. Like this woman....

Video: The Adulteress Woman

This woman who encountered Jesus has her story recorded in John’s gospel. When she thought her life was finished because of her sin, Jesus invited her to a new beginning. The scene from John 8:2-11 unfolds with tension but ends in relief.

John 8:2–11 (ESV)

2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”

6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Caught up in a sin like this, this woman was finished according to what the law in that day said should happen next. The wages of sin is death. In her case, death by stoning was the written consequence for her sin. However, Jesus had a different plan for her on this day.

Because of Jesus, she was not finished. She was to be forgiven and set on a new path and given a fresh start. According to Jesus’ judgement the person without sin was to be the first to cast a stone…but that first stone was never thrown because the only one who fit that bill chose not to condemn her.

We know that Jesus doesn’t take sin lightly, so why would He choose to do this? Well we can’t know for sure because the Bible doesn’t tell us…but maybe He saw the moment as a good time to uncover the hypocrisy of religious leaders as they one by one dropped their stones admitting that they too were sinners. Or maybe He wanted to use the moment to highlight the penetrating power of showing undeserved mercy and how it can change the life of another person.

Either way, what we do know is that his actions were rooted in what He was about to do on the cross. When he would suffer and die to pay the price for her sin...and the sin of the whole world.

It would not be too terribly long from this scene in the temple that Jesus experienced the crushing weight of our sin being dealt with on the cross. John 19:29-30 captures the culminating moment when the final payment of all sin was paid in full. Jesus had been on the cross for six hours at this point and had just called out concerning His thirst from the agony of the crucifixion process which among so many other excruciating pains included deep dehydration.

John 19:28–30 (ESV)

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

This year we are walking through Passion Week looking at several of the last words of Christ and tonight we are going to to look at the 6th word of Christ from the cross. “It is finished.”

Of course, that is what it would have sounded like if Jesus was speaking English. Just three short words…but in Greek it was actually one long word. Τετέλεσται, (Tetelestai). And this word is a form of the “teleo” which means to finish but here is written in what is called the perfect verb tense.

I know that causes some of us to get “tense” because we are having flashbacks to High School English class, but it is important to hear exactly what Jesus is saying. The “perfect” tense is a verb tense that describes a completed action from the past that has produced a state of being in the present. It is that consequential-ism again.

So we don’t just read it as historical fact but as something that bears consequences into our present and future life. In other words, the action has been fully accomplished and completed for all time. It is not something that is on going, will need to be done again or added to in any way. It has been and will forever remain finished and there is nothing that can ever happen to unfinish what Jesus has finished.

IT IS FINISHED! Jesus said, that is something different

What comes to mind when you hear the word “finished”?

Growing up I remember how “being finished” was often a question asked at the dinner table. “Can I be finished?” Anyone else remember that? Maybe you experience that at your dinner table today. It usually had nothing to do with my being full, it was just that I didn’t want to eat any more of what was on my plate. So with food left on my plate I would ask, “Can I be finished?” and my parents look at me as if to say “Well you could be but your not because look at all that food on your plate.”

In some homes, this is when high level negotiation ensues

Adult: “You can be finished when you eat three more bites.”

Kid: “Three more bites and then I can have some dessert?”

Adult: “Well, five more bites and then dessert. Three more bites to be finished with no dessert.”

And this goes on and on until the point when the Parent drops in “old school” with the brilliant argument, “You know there are starving children around the world who would love to have what is in your plate” to which I once replied, “Great, whats their address, we can mail it to them.”

That did not go well for me.

But for Jesus it was not about finishing what was on His plate, but rather finishing what was in the cup. The night before the cross when Jesus was gathered with his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane he spent a great deal of time in agonizing prayer over what he was about to experience on the cross.

Matthew 26:37–44 (ESV)

37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.

Three times Jesus asked the Father if He could be finished without having to drink all that was in the cup, but the Father the answer was clear. “No. I’m sorry, but you have to finish the cup. It’s the only way to rescue humanity from the consequences of their sin.”

Luke gives us greater detail on the level of anguish Jesus suffered in this prayer time. He says...

Luke 22:44 (ESV)

44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

But the answer was the same. The only way to rescue humanity is to drink all the contents of the cup of sin, shame, and suffering that comes with the cross. This is what was in the cup that Jesus did not want to drink. It wasn’t just the physical pain that Jesus had to endure on the cross, as awful as that was. That horrible instrument of excruciating pain and suffering was just a physical picture to help us on the track of what was even more deep, desperate and deplorable.

It was the wrath of God and all the sin of humanity all swirled together that was a deep, dark, death potion.

In the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was asking His Father about the cup, He knew how that cup would taste because He knew the ingredients. Maybe more than any other time in history the old saying, “You are what you eat” was demonstrated in what Jesus had to drink.

The Apostle Paul tells us what Jesus was about to become as He consumed the cup.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus became sin; His cup was filled with the sin of humanity from all people of all times. He drank it to the last drop and became what He drank. Jesus became sin for all humanity when He consumed the cup and sacrificed His life on the cross as a sin offering for all people.

Galatians 3:13 helps us more by explaining that...

Galatians 3:13 (ESV)

13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—

Just like the woman who was caught in adultery we have all be caught in our sin. We may be able to hide it from others but there is no hiding from God. I think that is why those religious leaders dropped their stones that day. They may have fooled the people about how righteous they were, but to declare themselves without sin before God was a whole different matter.

Only Jesus could do that. He was the perfect unblemished lamb of God. Completely without sin and yet He became sin…our sin. He drank the cup of our sin that we should have drank. In doing so, Jesus made what has been called the Great Exchange. He became the curse on the tree for all humanity for all time...in exchange for... all humanity having the opportunity to be redeemed by His sacrifice.

This is what happened when Jesus cried out, Τετέλεσται, (Tetelestai) “IT... is finished”

Perfect tense finished so that what was done “ has been and will forever remain finished, and there is nothing that can ever happen to unfinish what Jesus finished.”

In this word, Jesus proclaimed that He had drained the cup of wrath filled with the sin of the world and our curse; and He drank it all the way to the bottom. It was a bitter drink. Six hours of a slow, sacrificial, body tearing, heart screaming, mind bending sipping until every last drop of God’s wrath was poured into Him on Calvary’s Cross.

APPLICATION

What do we do with the fact that it is finished? Well Jesus has just asked us to one thing…remember.

Remember that “It is finished.” That the sacrifice and the slow death sip of the cup was drained of every drop. And His mission to rescue the world includes rescuing you from sin, death, Satan, and hell is finished and will forever remain finished, and there is nothing that can ever happen to unfinish what Jesus finished.

To help us remember these things, I invite you to participate in an interactive response. I am going to start us out in prayer and then allow some time for you to silently pray, reflect, and remember what Jesus has done for you. Then after a couple minutes we will start some music, a fitting song for this experience and I welcome you at that point to come down when and if you are able and take that black cloth that represents your sin and nail it to the cross.

Understand that this is not nailing Jesus back on the cross, because He already told us that “It is finished”. We are simply reminding ourselves of what He did for us long ago because it bears consequences for us today. When you are finished nailing then just return to your seat and when everyone is finished I will give you the final instructions for our night.

PRAYER TIME

CROSS EXPERIENCE

Place the cross upright.

Remember…your sin and my sin have been consumed by Jesus. Forgiveness is ready to be experienced by all who allow the deep, dark, drinking of the cup to be done on all our behalf. When we place our faith, hope, and trust in Jesus then we have been rescued and redeemed by Him who drank the cup on our behalf.

We are going to finish our time this evening with two things. In just a moment Trevor will lead us in the song “Jesus Paid It All” At the end of that song our service as a whole will be concluded. You can leave at that point or stay to quietly pray and contemplate these things for a bit longer.

When you do go to leave, we ask that we you gather your things in intentional silence and head all the way out to your vehicle before you break that silence. In this way we get to experience something of the silence that Jesus’ followers felt as they watched him die and be buried in the tomb.

But unlike the followers of Jesus back then, we know the rest of the story. We know that it’s just Friday Night but Sunday’s a coming. So we welcome you back to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ on Sunday Morning beginning at 8:00am for the breakfast and 9:30 for the service.

With that we will close with this very fitting hymn.

Jesus Paid It All