Heaps Good Friday

Luke

Today, we will read through John 18-19 to appreciate and understand the events of Jesus’ death in a way that we might not usually do. We will read a bit and then explain some of the culturally and theologically significant parts and show the timeline of what happens, too.

Slide: Time and Date.

Steemer, we begin in John 13-17. Jesus is in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem, it’s Thursday evening on April 2, 33AD. Tell us what happens?

Steemer

It’s the Day of Unleavened Bread, the celebration that precedes the Passover feast. In about 18 hours, Jesus will be in the hands of his enemies. Jesus and his 12 followers are in a room, eating the Passover meal of the lamb, herbs, wine and bread.

The Passover commemorated the night in Egypt when God’s people covered the doorposts of their homes with lamb’s blood, so that death would not come to the firstborn in their homes but would pass over them.

Jesus, the firstborn Son of God, likewise has come to die and cover us with his blood, so that God’s just wrath would pass over us sinners.

Towards the end of the meal, Judas leaves to go and betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, while all the others boast they will never abandon their Rabbi. Once the dinner finishes, they leave the house and go to the garden of Gethsemane.

Read: John 18:1-3.

Luke

Years ago, in another garden, Adam betrayed God and plunged us into a world of chaos and sin. Judas does the same to the Son of God, but it all happens to reverse the mess.

Whereas the other Gospels recall Jesus’ prayers in the garden, John instead records Jesus’ high priestly prayer in Ch 17. John wants us to understand that Jesus has complete control of this situation.

When Judas brings the soldiers, enemies of each other have become allies - Roman soldiers, Sanhedrin and Pharisees - they are all working together to remove Jesus. Their weapons are designed to intimidate, not to kill.

Read: John 18:4-9.

Steemer

By twice asking who the armed group is seeking, Jesus protect the disciples. He ensures that is he alone is arrested and they aren’t.

In his response of “I am he”, Jesus steps forward as the light of the world, confronting the darkness. He is the great I am.

In this moment, the whole power of God radiates out like a shockwave and sends the soldiers stumbling to the ground. All throughout the Bible, when people are confronted with the power and presence of God, they fall down.

Read: John 18:10-11.

Luke

Peter’s probably a little hurt and bewildered - he tried to protect Jesus but got told off! Jesus is reminding Peter and the rest of his disciples that his arrest is not the result of sly, powerful men and he needs their defence.

At its core, this is about the will of the Father, not the will of man. What is going on in this dark garden is not a political martyrdom, but a living sacrifice ordained before time. The story now shifts to Annas’ house.

Slide: Time and Date. Here’s the next few verses:

Read: John 18:12-14; 19-24.

Steemer

Here we start to meet those who have incredible influence and power in the community and how they are against Jesus.

First, we meet Annas, a shrewd and exceedingly wealthy but older man. He has stepped down as High Priest, so Caiaphas, his son-in-law, could rule. However, Annas still holds most of the power and is ruling through Caiaphas.

But since Caiaphas is the official High Priest, it has to be his authority that will allow them to bring Jesus to Pilate.

The slap Jesus receives shows how the system has moved from justice to corruption and intimidation. These leaders are not about upholding any of God’s standards. Jesus knows how corrupt they are and they don’t like scrutiny.

Luke 22:64–65 records that while waiting for Caiaphas, Jesus receives his first beating, this one from the Jews. Jesus is spat on, mocked and pummelled with their fists. He’s then left in a holding cell for the next few hours.

Slide: Time and Date. At about 6am, the full council arrives, and they bring Jesus before Pilate to seek his death.

Read: John 18:28-32.

Luke

It’s such an ironic scene. The Jewish leaders don’t want to be ceremonially unclean before God while they beat up the Son of God.

Some years earlier, Pilate had intentionally provoked the Jews by installing a row of gold shields inside the palace of Herod, in honour of Emperor Tiberius, whom Rome considered divine. It backfired, and Tiberius was annoyed that Pilate had annoyed the Jews in his name.

So, there’s tension between Pilate, the Jews and Rome. The Jews leaders will play on this to get Pilate to do what they want. Pilate has lots of power, but at the same time he needs to be careful.

Under Jewish precedent, the right to kill a blasphemer was set by their law, but the task must be executed by Roman hands.

Jesus will die the death for rebels, to show the great glorious love of God to us. Here’s the next bit:

Read: John 18:33-40.

Steemer

Jesus is brought to Pilate. He’s bloodied and beaten by this point.

Pilate wants to see if Jesus is a threat to Rome. Is he seeking to establish a kingdom and overthrow Roman rule?

Jesus tells Pilate that if his kingdom were political, his followers would be fighting, but that’s not the case. His kingdom doesn’t come from this world, but it is for this world.

Pilate is relieved. This “king” has no money, no army, and no power. And so his verdict is that Jesus is no revolutionary threat to Rome.

Barabbas, on the other hand, was part of a nationalist party seeking to overthrow Roman rule. He’s guilty of the very crime which Jesus has been accused of. The irony is that the guilty will be set free and the innocent will be sent to death. It’s a small picture of what’s about to happen on the Cross. Jesus will die to take the punishment for the guilty ones.

The situation is now getting a bit out of hand. Pilate is growing anxious; the city is overcrowded because of the Passover festival, and he doesn’t want an uprising to happen on his watch.

Slide: Time and Date. So he orders Jesus flogged to try and appease the Jewish leaders. The story now moves from Pilates' palace to the courtyard.

Read: John 19:1-16.

Luke

The guards tie Jesus to the pole in the courtyard adjacent to the palace and he’s whipped. The whip is laced at the ends with lead weights and pieces of sharp bone. His body would have been torn open and organs exposed. It is such a harrowing ordeal that the Roman philosopher Cicero referred to it as the “intermediate death.”

The soldiers then take Jesus into their quarters, weave a crown of long thorns, and jam it down on his head. They also take a purple cloak and drape it over his shredded back, giving him a sceptre to hold. The emphasis here is on the shame - you don’t treat royalty this way.

As Jesus comes back from his final questioning, the Jewish leaders put pressure on Pilate in a ludicrous way; they deny God as their only king, declaring loyalty to Rome, just to have Jesus killed.

Pilate hoped that the butchery would shame the Jews into withdrawing their demand to have Jesus killed. But, he’s backed into a corner. He sends Jesus to die on a cross. Why die on a Cross? Why not in his sleep or in battle?

Two things: The emphasis is on the shame of the Cross and the prolonged suffering. It broadcasts a ruin of your reputation. Those killed this way were considered less than human to begin with. They are trying to de-create the Son of God. Theologically, Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says that this kind of death puts you under God’s curse.

Put it all together - Jesus is marked in every way possible as an enemy of God on the cross. A far cry from today’s cross symbol being one of love and peace. For the Jews, it was pain, torture, and abandonment by God. It’s now noon.

Slide: Time and Date. Here’s what’s next:

John 19:17-19.

Steemer

Jesus is led through the crowded streets and out of the city to a hill shaped like a skull. There he is crucified between two criminals. Crucifixion was so awful that a word was invented to describe the pain: excruciating, which literally means ‘the pain of the cross’.

John gives one sentence to this dramatic moment because the biblical emphasis is much less on the pain of the cross, and much more on its shame - how embarrassing, humiliating and degrading it was.

People line the streets to watch. It was public, you were naked, and the crowds would gather to mock, spit and abuse the person. To add to the shame, a sign rubbing in Jesus’ claims of being king hangs over him.

We sang Man of Sorrows earlier. This song takes language from Isaiah Ch 53, where Isaiah speaks of the Servant of God who… is despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

But not only is the Servant of God a man of sorrows, for he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

This is the very plan and purpose of God. Jesus, the suffering Servant of God, the Messiah on a Cross, dying for the sins of the world.

Slide: Time and Date. It’s now 3pm, the moment of Jesus’ death.

John 19:29-30.

Luke

Jesus hangs on the Cross for about 3 hours and then, he announces that he has finished the work the Father gave him to do. “It is finished!” is one word in Greek. It’s the word that people would write on an invoice after it had been paid. What has been paid? We call it atonement, which means being made at one with God.

William Tyndale, in the first English Bible, translated the Hebrew and Greek words this way to capture the reconciliation between humans and God. What’s finished is that the full measure of our sin has been poured out on Jesus, and the wrath of God has been extinguished.

All that God had intended his people to be and do, to restore creation back to himself, Jesus has done it. In him, as the I Am.

This is what Martin Luther liked to call the “great exchange” Jesus took our sin and gives us his righteousness and we are now one with God.

Steemer, that’s a pretty significant event we’ve just described. The Son of God dying an excruciating death on the Cross sounds bad, tell us how this can be heaps good?

Steemer

Well, it’s heaps good because of Jesus’ final words – it is finished. This is not the moan of the defeated, nor the sigh of resignation. It is the triumphant recognition that he has now fully accomplished the work that he came to do.

The work of paying the debt we all owe to God. The debt is paid, the work is finished. There’s nothing we can add or contribute, because we don’t need to; it is finished. As we sang earlier, our debt is paid in full by the precious blood of Jesus.

That God would go to the lengths of sending his only Son into the world for this purpose shows us both the heaps bad depths of our sin and guilt and need for salvation, but also the heaps good magnitude of God’s love and grace. And that’s why Good Friday is heaps good.

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Shannon to pray