Good Friday 2024

Lamentations 1:12 (CSB)

Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see!

Is there any pain like mine, which was dealt out to me, which the Lord made me suffer on the day of his burning anger?

About two thousand years ago Jesus and his most trusted followers and friends gathered around a table like this in an upper room in Jerusalem. They had come to Jerusalem for the mission God had set for Christ, and it coincided with Passover.

For generations jewish families and communities have gathered to remember The Passover and the radical rescue from the Egyptians to freedom. It is an annual reminder of how God had not forgotten his people. That God has supplied salvation.

The first passover was intense, dramatic, and terrible - and at the same time it was glorious, life giving, and joyous.

For at the first Passover, God was going to send the 10th and final plague over Egypt - It was going to be the death off all first born offspring - human and animal - in the land. He was going to spare the firstborns of the jewish peoples, he was going to “pass over” them if they followed the instructions.

They were to slaughter a lamb, and then place the blood of the lamb on the lintel and doorposts of their houses. Then there were told to stay in their homes. The blood of the lamb on the door posts was a sign to separate them from the real victims of the plague.

The people were also supposed to eat the lamb dressed, ready to leave a moments notice, and to eat quickly.

And we read in scripture, that at midnight - God stuck down all of the firstborn of Egypt. Could you imagine the shrieks and screams that echoed through the land? As those with out the blood of the lamb found their oldest child dead.

The pharoah then summoned Moses and Aaron and told them to take the Israelites and leave - and they left with great haste - so fast that they took their bread dough before it was leavened.

The people were then instructed to remember and observe the passover every year - the night when God delivered them from Egypt.

And there were commands of how to observe the passover all through the old testament in different places. But the cliff noters were they were to select an unblemished male lamb for sacrifice. Roast the lamb with fire. Eat it with unleavened bread on bitter herbs. Ensure that the whole lamb was eaten and eat it in haste - ready to leave at a moments notice.

It was the biggest festival for the Israelite people. It is the celebration you wouldn’t miss.

As time went on - the Passover feat and celebration grew more robust and structured, And going to Jesus’ time, during the Passion Week, it is likely that their table would be set with much of the same elements that we see here - with many different elements retelling the Exodus story - of God’s faithfulness, and the covenant that he made with Israel at Sinai.

And it is in that context that Jesus sat around the table, with his disciples. To remember how God saved his people - and pass over.

But at that time, something more happened, something deeper, something that harkened back to the very foundations of time and creation itself.

You see, God’s people were still enslaved, not by Egyptians, not even by the romans - but by something much deeper. They were enslaved to sin. They were ruled by Satan. They were destined for death.

You see, all of us, as humans, stand guilty and therefore deserving condemnation before a holy and righteous God.

So each year the Israelites would make sacrifice and would atone for their sins and wrong doing.

But God, in his mercy, and his sovereignty, and in his Love, had set a plan in motion from the beginning, to free his chosen people from sin and the consequences of Sin.

He had prepared a spotless lamb, of infinite worth and value, to die as a sacrifice once and for all - where there would be no more need more need for ongoing sacrifices. Where the people would be forgiven - but not only forgiven - but reconciled - able to come into the presence of God once again.

God would pass over each one - because they would be covered by the blood of the spotless lamb.

That lamb’s name was Jesus. Whom Paul says is our passover lamb.

And he had come not only to remember and celebrate the first passover with his followers - but to fulfill the mission of Reconciliation. Jesus was to be the lamb that was slain.

God in the flesh, Jesus the messiah, blameless, sinless, without fault, lived and upheld the law in every way down to the smallest letter. As Hebrews says, he was tempted in every way that we were yet did not stumble. Completely faultless and perfect.

And he came to free us. To reconcile us.

And so it’s appropriate that at the passover table, Jesus focused the meal onto the fulfillment - that of Jesus Christ, what we call the Lord’s Supper, Where he took the bread and said that it was his body - and then he took a cup filled with wine, and proclaimed that it is the blood of the covenant - a new covenant of grace, which is poured out for the forgiveness of Sins.

What a powerful visual statement - how much did the disciples fully grasp it on this side of the cross? probably little - they were confounded. The didn’t want Jesus to die - they didn’t understand that he needed to in order that they may live. But then the cross.

Jesus was betrayed by Judas, and a shady trial was held, and Jesus was condemned to die a criminals death, a brutal death, on a cross.

According to the Old Testament anyone hung on a tree was cursed, and So Jesus was beaten, and mocked, and hung on the cross by nails, and took on him the curse of God.

And he died on the cross, fulfilling scripture the whole time while dying, and as he died, and breathed the last breath - everything changed. Something deep within the fabric of our broken cosmos was shifted, restored - and at the time in the temple in which there was a veil separating the holy of holies from outsiders was torn in two.

Because of that brutal death the punishment for sin was put on him - atonement. And so God now passes over whomever is covered by the blood of the lamb of God.

Well the disciples now were able to see a lot clearer on this side of the cross. And it became more and more clear through the beginnings of Church history.

Jesus became sin so that we may become the righteousness of God.

And so the commandment we are given is that whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup we do it while remembering Christ - and we proclaim his death until he comes again.

Do you believe it? Have you received it?

Friends this day was brutal, and on it the only innocent man who has ever lived was killed because of us - but it is good because in Jesus has reconciled us to God by grace, through faith - because of his atoning work on the cross. That is a good day. That is why we call it good friday.

Pray