Good Friday (Sunday) Alliance Church

The Cross

Bible Project Video Psalm 8

Introduction & Prayer

This Palm Sunday I want to invite us to remind ourselves why we celebrate Jesus’s death as good. Our faith is one of tension.

Story of Skiing in March. 12 inches in 45 minutes. First double black Ski slope. Boom Seizure.

Good Friday is kinda…like that. “It is a story of tension. A story of Goodness and justice, innocence and betrayal, faith and dismay, a good creation gone wrong, ruling and reigning through bloodshed instead of love, all colliding in a beautifully scandalous story of God’s grand plan of redemption for you and for me.”

What were the Jewish people expecting from a King?

Jesus’s triumphant entry wasn’t what they expected. They decide this is the time to get rid of him before the people make him “King”

Mark 15:12–20 (NIV)

12 “What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them. 13 “Crucify him!” they shouted. 14 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” 15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. 16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

Jesus’s is mocked as King.

This is Jesus’s Kingdom.

Mark 15:25–38 (NIV)

25 It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the jews. 27 They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. 28 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!” 31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32 Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. 33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). 35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.” 36 Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said. 37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. 38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

What is good about this? Why celebrate when death is so horrible?

God’s Kingdom was on the cross. Jesus is King

What did God accomplish on the cross?

Jesus Fulfills the story of Israel

Remember that we are apart of a grand story

Sins Covered

weight of the sin of the world was put on Jesus as he cried his last breath

1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)

24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

Law Destroyed

Jesus freed us from the requirements of the law that humanity could not meet. It was a tutor leading us to faith in Christ.

Galatians 3:23 (NIV)

23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.

Colossians 2:13–14 (NIV)

13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

Satan Defeated

Colossians continues, that the power and principalities that held us in bondage because of our inability to meet the righteous requirements of the law were destroyed. Satan has nothing to hold against us. Jesus was triamphant on the cross and through his resurrection. Hebrews points this out...

Colossians 2:15 (NIV)

15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Hebrews 2:14–18 (NIV)

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

God’s Wrath Satisfied

In the God loves you day and age this makes us uncomfortable but as rebellious creatures living outside of God’s holiness, humanity deserved God’s anger and wraith, but God provided a way.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 5:8–9 (NIV)

8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

Enmity (hostility) abolished

curtain was torn (holy of holies or jew gentile curtain/both)

Ephesians 2:14–16 (NIV)

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

Jesus is the perfect moral example

Heb 12:2

“2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

I hope through contemplating this you are able to understand God’s rescue plan for you in a more complete way and understand the depths at which Christ went through to adopt you into his family through his propitiating work on the cross…but let us not forget...

All the theological understanding in the world will do you no good until you understand that God wants to redeem this world, his people, and you back into the way it was suppose to be.

Mark 15:1-16 Barabbas

We are Barabbas. God willing took your place. Jesus was our substitute because only Jesus could accomplish what humanity couldn't. Only Jesus could redeem creation and continue God’s plan for making all things right. Only Jesus could bear the weight of the sin world as he cried out in anguish to a God that turned his face away from his beloved son. Only Jesus.

We are all sons and daughters who have gave up our place and as Paul says, are living in the kingdom of darkness if we have not submitted to Christ as King and Lord. Barabbas represents humanities rebellion and attempt to fix things our own way. Barabbas thought that by overthrowing the roman government, he could save Israel and pronounce their own king. Yet Jesus, in his death, pronounces that he is indeed king which represents a scandalous upside down kingdom to redeem his people.

This Good Friday is good because Jesus took what we could not. And the anticipation for Easter should be real. Giddy. Excited. Bubbling with thankfulness and joy. overwhelmed by love. A tension of knowing what Jesus has done, yet not fully seeing it yet.

End With this thought

In Genesis 1 within the creation narrative, on the 6th day God looked at creation good. On the 6th day, Good Friday, Jesus was crucified on our behalf to remake creation good again.

Psalm 8 “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Amen

Lead into communion

Communion is gospeling to each other that we are the family of God.