Good Friday Service

The Garden of God

Take and eat—such a simple command. As the disciples reclined around the table, they understood only a taste of what the Lord Jesus had instructed them to do. Take and eat. Before the shepherds gathered around the manger, before the years of silence, before the clash of empires, and before the prophets and kings. Before even the fall of Jericho and the wilderness wanderings. Before the patriarchs and the flood, before anything existed, God was. With a word, He spoke all things into being. Let there be, and there was. God spoke all things into existence in six days, and on the seventh day He rested.

It was on the sixth day that God created mankind. The Lord formed Adam from the dust with His hands and breathed the breath of life into Him and formed Eve from Adam’s side. To mankind, the Lord gave a command. Take and eat freely of all you see, but do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or in that day they would surely die. Take and eat. Adam and Eve did as the Lord commanded until the serpent deceived Eve. Rather than do what the Lord commanded, seeing that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was pleasing to the eye and good for eating, mankind took and ate.

In that moment, sin entered the world. Darkness in place of light. Evil in the place of good. Death in the place of life. Mankind was eternally separated from its Creator. Yet, there in the garden, as God’s wrath weighed against mankind, a promise of hope was given from God.

Genesis 3:15 NASB95

15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

One day, this promised Son would crush the serpent’s head, He would take and drink the cup of God’s wrath dry, and restore us once again to our Creator’s table where we might take and eat with Him in freedom.

The Passover Lamb

As the disciples sat around the table, they gathered that evening to celebrate the Passover festival. As the elements of the feast surrounded them, the smell of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt would have filled the room. The feast was prepared as a remembrance of how the Lord had sent his plagues against Egypt, of how God had spared the firstborn sons of Israel by the blood of the passover lamb painted on their doorposts, and of how God had parted the Red Sea and delivered Israel through on dry land. It was a season of recollection and repentance.

This festival was a pillar of the sacrificial covenant structure that Israel was established under in the Old Testament. While the people of God waited for the promised Son to come, the Lord established a covenant with Moses.

Exodus 20:1–2 NASB95

1 Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

-Keep My commands.

But Israel did not keep the commandments. Instead, they did what was right in their own eyes. Still, the Lord made a way for atonement. The wages of sin are death, and it was the blood of animals sprinkled over the mercy seat of God that, though it did not pay the full penalty of Israel’s sin, covered it for a time.

As the disciples sat and ate, it was a reminder of Israel’s falling short and of God’s faithfulness to provide a way to deliver Israel, not just from the physical slavery they endured under Egypt, but also from the spiritual slavery in which they currently found themselves in chains. There could never be enough lambs or bulls slain to pay the full penalty of Israel’s sin, let alone the world’s. The Passover festival was a time of reflection and repentance, but also anticipation as the people longed for the day a deliverer would come to free them from sin’s chains entirely. To paint, again, the doorposts of their hearts with the blood of the promise.

The Suffering Servant

Jesus, knowing the hour was at hand, spoke to His disciples and warned them of the things He must soon suffer. The disciples did not understand. “What is this thing He is telling us?” they asked. But Jesus understood why these things were to take place. It was necessary for the seed of Eve to have His heel bruised in order to crush the serpent's head. It was necessary for the Passover Lamb to shed its blood to make the way for deliverance. It was necessary for the suffering servent to bear the burden of mankind's sin in this way, for the wages of sin is death, and He alone could pay that price.

Psalm 22:1–18 NASB95

1 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. 2 O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; And by night, but I have no rest. 3 Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. 4 In You our fathers trusted; They trusted and You delivered them. 5 To You they cried out and were delivered; In You they trusted and were not disappointed. 6 But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people. 7 All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, 8 “Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.” 9 Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts. 10 Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb. 11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near; For there is none to help. 12 Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. 13 They open wide their mouth at me, As a ravening and a roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; 18 They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.

Isaiah 53:1–12 NASB95

1 Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. 3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? 9 His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. 10 But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. 11 As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.

Zechariah 12:10 NASB95

10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

Communion

Christ’s Broken Body

Christ’s Shed Blood

The Garden of Man

The Second Adam’s Obedience

The Crucified Lamb

Sins paid in full not merely atoned for

The Defeated Serpent

The Serpent crushed by the Savior’s heel