Sermon Tone Analysis

0:00:05 Speaker 1: On Friday, wow, it all looks so good.

Things finally seemed to be as they should.

But just like that in the blink of an eye they went from sky high to wandering.

Why?

The leader who led was under arrest, the followers fled, now under distress, a message relayed, a teacher betrayed.

The masses were swayed and still a price to be paid.

A supper, a guardian, a trial, a death.

Dreams of the kingdom all crushed, and a breath, a movement and empire, a verdict.

A man left on his own to execute this plan, a judge, a crowd.

This was a complex decision, a pitiless punishment with Roman precision.

A brother spied, a rebel tried, a savior died.

His mother cried.

The sin of mankind made Good Friday awful.

The light of perfection now labeled unlawful.

The best of times became the worst of crimes.

These easily transformed minds, ungodly shrines.

And all of a sudden this king was a pretender, now nailed to a plank without a defender.

See this, this was the day, Good Friday became bad because all who love Jesus lost all that they had.

[music]

0:07:49 S1: If we were able to go back in time and that Friday night and have a conversation with Jesus's mother, Mary, at the end of the day and if we were able to do that and in that moment we were able to explain to her what was going to happen over the next several hundred years, that here, we would sit in 2018 honoring, commemorating, memorializing, and celebrating this day, and then if we were to be able to explain to her that we had actually titled this day, Good Friday, I would imagine for her in that moment, it would have made zero sense.

In fact, to any one of Jesus's closest followers: Peter, James, John, Mary Magdalene, and any of the other ones that were close to him that were there at the last hours, that were even there with him praying in the garden, I would imagine to try to explain to them why we would call this day Good Friday, they would say that that just can't be.

0:09:07 S1: See, Good Friday is, in a way it's like an oxymoron.

You know what an oxymoron is?

It's like jumbo shrimp.

You put two words right next to each other that in and of themselves, the one makes sense but when you slam it next to the other one, it just doesn't.

And that really is what tonight is all about, that tonight is all about sorrow.

But just as we just heard Cody sing that in our great sorrow, we learn what joy really means.

That in order for us to understand joy, the way we were meant to understand it, we have to understand the full weight of sorrow.

That in order for us to understand what forgiveness means... On Sunday, we're gonna celebrate the beauty of life and in order for us to understand forgiveness, we have to understand guilt.

In order for us to understand life, we have to understand the significance and the weight of death.

And so in a way, tonight is going to feel sad as it should because we can't explain, we can't enter into joy until we understand and explain sorrow, we can't understand forgiveness until we deal with our guilt, we can't understand life until we deal with death.

And so tonight, we're going to walk through the last week of Jesus's life.

0:10:34 S1: You're going to hear from different characters in the story, you're going to hear different sections of Scripture, and my hope for you is that you would find yourself in the middle of the story, that you would find yourself wrapped up in the narrative of the story, maybe even put yourself right there in the middle of it and understand how amazing it is that Jesus went through what he went through.

But before we get to the end, which is really the beginning, our story begins right there at the Last Supper, that magnificent Last Supper where even the one who would eventually betray Jesus was welcomed at the table.

0:11:31 Speaker 2: The Festival of unleavened bread, which is also called Passover was approaching.

The leading priests and teachers of religious law were plotting how to kill Jesus, but they were afraid of the people's reaction.

Then Judas, who was one of the 12 disciples went to the leading priests and captains of the temple guard to discuss how to betray Jesus to them.

They were delighted.

And they offered to pay him money.

So he agreed and began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus so they could arrest him when the crowds weren't around.

The day of unleavened bread came, the day the Passover Lamb was butchered and Jesus sent Peter and John off saying, "Go prepare the Passover for us so we can eat it together."

They left, did as he asked, and prepared the Passover meal.

And when it was time, he sat down, all of the disciples with Him, and said, "You have no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering.

It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God." Taking the cup, he blessed it, and then he said, "Take this, pass it among you.

As for me, I will not drink wine again until the kingdom of God arrives."

and teachers of religious law were plotting how to kill Jesus, but they were afraid of the people's reaction.

Then Judas, who was one of the 12 disciples went to the leading priests and captains of the temple guard to discuss how to betray Jesus to them.

They were delighted.

And they offered to pay him money.

So he agreed and began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus so they could arrest him when the crowds weren't around.

The day of unleavened bread came, the day the Passover Lamb was butchered and Jesus sent Peter and John off saying, "Go prepare the Passover for us so we can eat it together."

They left, did as he asked, and prepared the Passover meal.

And when it was time, he sat down, all of the disciples with Him, and said, "You have no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering.

It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God." Taking the cup, he blessed it, and then he said, "Take this, pass it among you.

As for me, I will not drink wine again until the kingdom of God arrives."

and teachers of religious law were plotting how to kill Jesus, but they were afraid of the people's reaction.

Then Judas, who was one of the 12 disciples went to the leading priests and captains of the temple guard to discuss how to betray Jesus to them.

They were delighted.

And they offered to pay him money.

So he agreed and began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus so they could arrest him when the crowds weren't around.

The day of unleavened bread came, the day the Passover Lamb was butchered and Jesus sent Peter and John off saying, "Go prepare the Passover for us so we can eat it together."

They left, did as he asked, and prepared the Passover meal.

And when it was time, he sat down, all of the disciples with Him, and said, "You have no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering.

It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God." Taking the cup, he blessed it, and then he said, "Take this, pass it among you.

As for me, I will not drink wine again until the kingdom of God arrives."

0:13:13 S2: Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you, eat it in my memory."

He did the same with the cup after supper saying, "This cup is the new covenant written in my blood.

Blood poured out for you.

But here at this table sitting among us as a friend, is the man who will betray me, for it has been determined that the Son of Man must die, but what sorrow awaits the one who betrays him."

The disciples begin to ask each other, "Which one would ever do such a thing?"

And then accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives.

There he told them, "Pray that you will not give in to temptation."

And then he walked away about a stone's distance, and he knelt down and he prayed, "Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me, yet I want your will to be done, not mine."

And then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him.

He prayed more fervently and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

At last, he stood up again and returned to the disciples only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief.

"Why are you sleeping?" he asked them, "Get up and pray so that you will not give in to temptation."

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0:16:19 S2: But even as Jesus said this, a crowd approached led by Judas, one of the 12 disciples.

Judas walked over to Jesus to greet him with a kiss, but Jesus said, "Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?"

When the other disciples saw what was about to happen they exclaimed, "Lord, should we fight?

We brought the swords."

And one of them struck at the high priest's slave cutting off his right ear but Jesus said, "No more of this."

And he healed the man's ear by touching him.

Then Jesus spoke to the leading priests, the captains of the temple guard and he asked them, "Am I some dangerous revolutionary that you would come with swords and clubs to meet me?

Why didn't you arrest me in the temple?

I was there everyday.

But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns."

[music]

0:19:22 S2: So, they arrested him and led him to the high priest's home and Peter followed at a distance.

The guards had lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat around it and Peter joined them there.

A servant girl noticed him and she begin staring at him, and then finally she said, "This man was one of the Jesus's followers!"

But Peter denied it.

"Woman," he said, "I don't even know him."

And then after a while, someone else looked at him and said, "You must be one of them."

"No man, I am not," Peter retorted.

But an hour later someone else insisted this must be one of them because he is a Galilean, too, but Peter said, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about."

And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.

And at that moment the Lord turned over and looked at Peter.

Suddenly the Lord's words flashed in Peter's mind, "Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny that you even know me three times."