Good Friday

Welcome

What is Good Friday all about?

Isaiah 52:7 NRSVue

7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

I want to start today by visiting how Jesus’ earliest followers discussed this day, in the passage we are about to read, I believe there is a similar heart for this body of believers.

Paul here is addressing the church in a place called Colossae, this was a new church plant, planted by someone who was not Paul. Paul writes them this letter:

Colossians 1:9–23 NRSVue

9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. 21 And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, 23 provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a minister of this gospel.

Paul also talks about Jesus like this in another letter:

Philippians 2:1–8 NRSVue

1 If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

So one of the earliest followers of Jesus seemed to have an interesting view of Jesus. He for sure knew that Jesus was God, but Paul’s view of God was that God, who is King, who is all powerful, all knowing…would empty Himself, would humble himself…to the point of the most shameful and excruciating death…for us.

To redeem us, to give us life, to defeat satan, sin and death on the cross.

Paul is referencing the events of Good Friday.

Good Friday is all about how God in Jesus, humbled Himself to step into our broken stories, to redeem us, to write a better story and fix the problems we made but couldn’t fix.

So what happened on Good Friday?

Remember how last Sunday was Palm Sunday when all of Jerusalem were hailing Jesus as King as He entered Jerusalem, remember how Jesus was not what they expected…well now, not so much time later…we have a different situation.

Jesus has had the last supper with His disciples, One of His closest friends and companions has betrayed Him and He has stood trial, falsely accused and guilty of nothing.

Jesus has entered the political game of Rome and the Jews and He has been deemed too troublesome to keep alive. He was dragged in front of multiple groups of people to finally be given the death penalty of death on a cross.

Here is how the prophets talked about this 700 years prior, Jesus saw himself as the fulfillment of this:

Isaiah 53 NRSVue

1 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. 4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases, yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. 9 They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with affliction. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. 11 Out of his anguish he shall see; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Good Friday is the day that Jesus gave His precious life as a Sin Offering, a ransom for many, just like He said.

Matthew 20:26–28 NRSVue

26 It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave, 28 just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”

See Jesus was very clear on what He was doing.

But Why? And what does this have to do with me?

See the last couple of weeks we have been talking about sin, about evil.

We have studied together that all of us want to see a world free from evil, we do not have to look far today to see some horrible things and all of us want that gone.

Importantly, so does God.

Here is the rub, as we have been discussing, we all know that we contribute to that evil. We have all been part of messing things up, breaking things, hurting ourselves and others, in some cases ruining aspect of our lives or the lives of others.

I can think of many times, where I totally messed up and made good situations bad or made bad situations worse…or even more so was the whole cause of the whole bad situation that I kept making worse…

I think if we are being honest, we all have done that. We all contribute…

So again, here is the rub…if you are God and you want evil out of the good world you created…how do you do that without getting rid of the people you love and are committed to.

How do you get rid of the evil, without getting rid of the people?

Remember, for us to say we want evil out of the world means that I have to be out of the world because I contribute to it.

This is where sacrifice comes in. Evil has real consequences, we all know that, evil when you travel to the end of that road only leads to death. Sin and Evil don’t just hurt us and break relationships but it corrupts everything around it. Think about situations you may or may not have been in, where some really evil things are going down…it usually isn’t isolated to one person, usually whole groups of people get sucked in and if you have ever been to some places where some real gnarly stuff has happened, you can feel it, sin/evil corrupts. All of this is dealt with by Jesus.

His pure life atones for all of that, which is a fancy word for covers over. You can’t just wipe up evil, like when you are trying to clean up some nasty greasy spills and the more you try to wipe it the more it spreads, it is similar to that, it must be cleaned, it has to be purified, this is where the pure blood of Jesus comes in, it is the cleaner for all of that.

So instead of getting rid of us, Jesus cleans us, He redeems us. This is the power of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

The cross is both the brutal reminder of the ghastly consequences of evil

and

the beautiful reminder of God’s total love and commitment for us.

The Cross is Brutal because we murdered our God who came to save us.

The Cross is Beautiful because God entered that brokenness on our behalf.

The Cross is Brutal because sin/evil can not be ignored and we all participate in it.

The Cross is Beautiful because God sees that and loves us.

The Cross is Brutal because humans left alone to determine right from wrong, will choose savagery and selfishness when it comes down to it.

The Cross is Beautiful because we don’t have to be alone.

The Cross is Beautiful because the Cross isn’t the end of Jesus’ story and therefore it’s not the end of our story, Sunday is Coming.

As we close, I want us to take moment, as we so rarely do anymore in our busy lives and I want us to pause and just reflect on this.

I want us to take 5 or so minutes and just pray, God is there something in me that needs to be nailed to the cross?

God I am just so thankful that you would enter my brokenness and heal me, is there anything that I need to be healed from?

God I am so thankful you love me, that you would die for me so that I may have life and life in all it’s fullness.

After this we will have the opportunity for anyone who would like to take of communion. Explain and do.