Good Friday Main Service 2022

Text: John 19:5 “5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!””

There are a number of statements made by people involved in Jesus’ crucifixion that are recorded by the evangelists— the writers of the four gospels— because they proved to say far more than the original speakers intended. Caiaphas, for example, famously endorsed the plot to kill Jesus, saying “it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50). This one has to be right at the top of the list: “Pilate said to them, ‘Behold the man!’”

He is, in every sense, the True Man. He is, in the truest, fullest sense of the word, Beautiful. He is what Adam should have been: flawless in His duty to God and in His love for others. He is the perfect image of God that Adam was intended to be.

He is all of that. But now, the sin of every son and daughter of Adam is written upon Him— literally and figuratively. He shows the physical effects of the sins of the soldiers who have so cruelly abused Him. But far worse is what is unseen. As swollen as His eyes must have been, they are not nearly as hideous as the twisted, covetous eye of Adam and his descendants. As bloody as His mouth must have been, it was not nearly as bloody as the twisted, murderous mouth of Adam and his descendants. As violated as the rest of His body had to have been, no part of it was nearly as the broken flesh of Adam and his descendants glories in violating itself through its depraved appetites.

Behold the Man and be astonished, His appearance is so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind (Isaiah 52:14). Marred by the hands of the soldiers and, far worse, by the twisted image of your sinful flesh that is placed upon Him.

Behold Him as He takes that sinful flesh to the cross and nails it there to die.

Behold Him as He causes it to be laid in the tomb, once and for all.

Behold Him as He leaves it there while He rises life again.

He, is the True Man in one other way: through His perfect love for His Bride, the Church. Adam’s sin began with His failure to care for the bride that God had given him. Christ, on the other hand, loved his bride perfectly, giving Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present her to himself in splendor, without even so much as a spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:25-27).

Behold Him and see who you are now. Because His dying and rising is not for Himself, only. It is for every child of Adam. “47 The first man[, Adam,] was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man[, Jesus,] is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as [you] have borne the image of the man of dust, [you] shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:47-49).

In baptism, your sinful nature was buried“10 and [you] have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10).

Behold Him and see what God is forming you into. “All things work together for good, for those who are called by God” (Romans 8:28). And what is that good purpose? Some vague sense of earthly success and prosperity? No, Scripture tells us exactly what that good purpose is: to conform you to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

Behold Him and see what you will be. “2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). On the Last Day, He will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself (Philippians 3:21).

Without a doubt, that simple statement resonates far beyond anything that Pilate could have known. It also goes far beyond what anyone that day could possibly have seen. But, tonight, through the eyes of faith, you are able to “Behold the man.”