Good Friday 2022

The theme of Yom Kippur is purification for sin. In the days of Jesus the high priest would make his way into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle blood on the altar to atone for the sin of all Israel (rope around ankles).

Today there is no temple, there is no animal sacrifice, but Yom Kippur remains a day when those who are Jewish engage in acts of confession and repentance in the hope that their sin will be forgiven.

It’s not a given. It’s not a sure thing.

Because apart from Christ, uncertainty is all we have.

Apart from Christ, the weight of sin is always there.

SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM—DAILY (national sin vs individual sin)

Under the Old Testament system of sacrifice, the problem of sin is never fully dealt with, and that stands as a constant barrier to humanity’s understanding of and relationship with God.

The author of Hebrews points out in Chapter 10, saying:

Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins.

Then he goes on to say this:

But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.

BARCLAY: a “priestly tread-mill of sacrifice.”

v.11: “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.”

The same sacrifices day in, day out…and yet they could never take away sins.

BARCLAY: “There was no end to this process and it left people still conscious of their sin and alienated from God.”

By contrast, the author of Hebrews points out the finality of Christ’s sacrifice:

v12: “But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

Sit with the finality of those words:

ALL TIME

ONE SACRIFICE

FOREVER

What made Christ’s sacrifice so perfect?

BARCLAY:

“The life and death of Jesus was an act of perfect obedience and, therefore, the only perfect sacrifice. All scripture, at its deepest, declares that the only sacrifice God desires is obedience; and in the life and death of Jesus that is precisely the sacrifice that God received. Perfection cannot be improved upon. In Jesus there is at one and the same time the perfect revelation of God and the perfect offering of obedience. Therefore his sacrifice cannot and need not ever be made again. The priests must go on with their weary routine of animal sacrifice; but the sacrifice of Christ was made once and for all.”

At the same time: the perfect revelation of God the perfect offering of obedience

Made once and for all.

But I think the question for us is: do we really believe that?

Or maybe I should put it this way: do we live like we really believe that?

Or do we live as though we’re still under the imperfect system of the Old Testament priests, still afraid that some part of our sin needs atonement, still afraid that God holds it against us, still afraid that Christ’s sacrifice for us “didn’t take?”

Let me describe for you some of the symptoms you might experience if that’s where you are:

Have you brought your sin to God for forgiveness, but found that you still live in the shadows of guilt and condemnation?

Do you imagine God as a loving Father who wants the best for his children, or do you still struggle with an image of an angry, punishing God who “knows what you did?”

Do you rest in the knowledge of God’s love for you, or are you caught up in an endless cycle of trying to earn God’s favor by doing enough “church stuff?”

A pastor named David Seamans put it this way:

“The failure to see and know and feel grace drives many Christians to the

tragic treadmill of performing, achieving, and striving. They try to get rid of their guilt. They try to atone and pay the debt. They read an extra chapter in the Bible and extend their prayer time for another ten minutes, and then go out and do some guilty witnessing. And what they have is salvation by promissory note.”

Salvation by promissory note. What a great phrase to describe what we have when our understanding of forgiveness and atonement is incomplete.

That’s where a lot of us live. I know I find myself there sometimes.

That’s living in the Old Testament covenant…the place where our sin is never fully expunged, where the stain is never fully cleansed, where righteousness is earned by our obedience instead of imparted to us by Christ because of His.

Salvation by promissory note. By IOU.

Day after day after day…burdened by guilt, offering to God what we ourselves can never fully accomplish.

When instead, the offer of Good Friday, of every day, is to rest in the completeness of Christ’s sacrifice, in the sureness of his salvation, and in the love of God that has gone to such great lengths to bring us back to himself.

Mark 15:38 may be my favorite verse of Scripture. Let me share with you one other verse that maybe runs a close second.

2 Corinthians 5:18-20

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.

For many years the church had that backwards.

(ANGRY GOD)

WALDENSTROM: “Where is that written?”

It’s not in Scripture anywhere.

God’s heart toward us has never changed. It has always been a heart of love.

And it was that love that sent Jesus to earth.

It was that love that Jesus demonstrated time and again to the broken, the hurting, the hungry, and the lost.

It was that love that led Jesus to sacrifice himself willingly on our behalf, so that the debt of sin might be repaid.

ONCE. FOR ALL TIME.

That’s what the torn curtain represents.

And with the curtain gone, an invitation takes its place.

The presence of God is no longer something for only the most important religious figures, the most pious, the most learned, the most influential.