Good Friday, 2022

SERMON 8: GOOD FRIDAY "Evil Friday is also Good Friday" Luke 23:44-56 I'm going to take a bit of a risk this evening. I'm going to take something very familiar and very precious and change its name. I'm going to add something to what we call it, and I'm aware in advance that may sound very odd, very strange to you. It might even sound wrong. But I ask you to bear with me, and I will explain what I mean. Before I take the risk, recall how we began our Lenten journey this year. Our theme came from the Old Testament story of Joseph. After the patriarch Jacob/Israel died, Joseph's brothers were afraid that it was pay-back time. Joseph was powerful, they weren't. Joseph could get revenge, and they couldn't stop him. And the brothers had sinned against Joseph and treated him terribly many years before. But Joseph said to his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to keep many people alive today." But it was important on Ash Wednesday not to misunderstand what Joseph was saying. He was not saying, "Well, you tried to do evil things, but what you did wasn't really evil." No. No. His brothers did evil to him. But what God actually did was to use the evil. At times he counteracted it, but sometimes God just plain grabbed the evil and used it in his larger plan. No one could see it at the time. But that's how God works. OK. Now back to the risk. Based on this rich, profound reading from Luke 23, I want to say this to you: Evil Friday is also Good Friday. There's the risk out in the open. We never refer to that Friday long ago as "Evil Friday." We always call it "Good Friday." And-let me say that I will continue to call it "Good Friday," and so should you. Tonight, however, I want to try to bring out both sides of what Luke tells us. That way, we can take the world as it still is seriously, and we won't sugarcoat things. But we can also marvel at our God, the Father of the Lord Jesus, and how he was at work so long ago on that Friday, and how he is still at work in our lives and in our world today. Stay with me and ponder this: "Evil Friday is also Good Friday." Now the first thing that Luke says is this: "It was now about the sixth hour [about noon], and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour." We have questions about this, and we can't answer all of them-so we won't try. But we can be pretty sure of one thing: the darkness is bad, it's a sign that evil is close at hand. All the way back in Luke 1, Zechariah, father of newborn John the Baptizer, was finally able to speak again, and he praised the true God and his mercy, "whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death." God had begun to work in the world in a new way-his light was already living in the womb of Mary as Zechariah spoke these words. God's mercy brings sunrise, light in darkness. But at noon on that Friday, there was darkness over the whole land. And less than a day before, as Jesus was being arrested by people who were doing the will of Satan himself, Jesus said to those people, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." Even though we know how this story, this history goes-even so, when we read about the darkness over the whole land, it should be enough to make us tremble. Because there is a real Satan, and there is real evil, and evil is at work that Friday afternoon long ago. Again, we have questions-but there is no question that evil is afoot, out to destroy the Son of God. What happened next? "And the curtain of the temple was torn in two." Again, there are questions, and no one can answer all of them. Here are some answers, though. Who tore the curtain? God did. God the Father tore the temple curtain. Why in the world would he do that? This temple was dedicated to his worship; sacrifices and forgiveness happened at this temple for every believer who approached! But now God makes a split ... or we might say, a crack in the temple and worse is coming. Jesus predicted it. Not one stone will be left upon another. Why? Because the leading chief priests had lost their way, as a group, and they have used their power and influence against the person to whom the temple pointed, the person who knew at age twelve that he was to be in his Father's house. In their blind ignorance they have hated and now are trying to do away with God's only Son. For that evil, God's judgment is coming within the span of one generation. We shouldn't point fingers. Would we have been any different? But evil was at work on that Friday; darkness came over the land, and the temple curtain was torn in two. And Jesus entrusted himself to his Father's care, and he died. But-in every way imaginable he didn't deserve to die. You deserve to die; I do, too. The wages of sin is death, and we have sinned. But over and over Luke has told us that Jesus is innocent, that he doesn't deserve this fate, and the centurion will say it yet one more time in the very next verse. Yet Jesus does die. He dies the death of a criminal, covered in nothing, shame and dishonor because they have taken his clothes and divided them among themselves. Death by crucifixion. An evil death. What happens next is like a hinge, a turning point. A centurion, a Gentile soldier in the pay of Rome, in charge of up to one hundred men with authority over them-a centurion is there, and he has been watching and listening. Did he help to fasten Jesus to the cross so he would die? We don't know; Luke only tells us that he was there. We don't know the full extent of what the centurion knew or believed. Like the believing criminal a few verses earlier, we only have what Luke tells us here. But what Luke gives us is precious and beautiful-this unexpected Gentile believer (for that is what he is) can be like a hinge to help us see that Evil Friday is also Good Friday. He can help us turn a corner of faith and understanding, turn around and see the amazing good that God is doing in the face of evil, in spite of evil, and even using the evil for his good will to be done. Luke writes, "Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God-a literal translation would be, "he glorified God"-saying, "Certainly this man was innocent!" Pause with me over these words. "He glorified God." Travel with me quickly through the Gospel of Luke. There are others who do this same thing, who "glorify God." On the first Christmas, the shepherds returned to their fields, and they glorified God over all they had seen and heard. Did they get it all? Hardly-but they knew that God was doing something wonderful. When Jesus forgives and heals a paralytic with a word, both the man and the gathered crowd glorified God. They knew God was at work. At Nain, the crowd saw Jesus raise a widow's son back to life, and they glorified God. A woman was crippled and bent over for eighteen years, and Jesus healed her. What did she do? (You can probably guess by now!) Yes, she glorified God. Ten lepers were healed, but only one foreigner, the Samaritan, came running back to Jesus, glorifying God. All these people saw God at work-it was obvious-and they glorified God because of angels and healings and wonderful deeds. What happens in our reading tonight is remarkable. The centurion glorified God; he knew that God was at work-in the presence of evil. He stood there in the darkness, faced with cruelty and a death that by every normal way of thinking should not have happened. In the face of that, the soldier glorified God. How much exactly did he know? We can't be sure. But he knew that the execution of this perfectly innocent man had to be part of the plan, the plan of God, and so he glorified God. And so can we, and so must we. When Jesus breathes his last, that can't be the end, it can't be the last thing-not if God is God, not if justice matters. Evil must not have the last word, and that means Jesus's complete trust in his Father to receive his spirit will not be the last thing. Not if God cares about the world and about sin and about Satan's wreckage. No-the centurion knew that Jesus was deeply, cosmically, eternally innocent, and pure, and righteous. And so, the soldier glorified God because more was coming, because good was coming. He may not have known in what form-but good was coming. Evil Friday was also Good Friday. Because Easter was coming. The centurion helps us to turn the corner and see God at work. The curtain of the temple was torn in the middle. God is rejecting the former place of sacrifice and forgiveness; it was corrupted by its leaders and their sin, yes it was. But rejecting the temple means also that there is a new place of sacrifice and forgiveness, a new place where God can be present among his people to strengthen, and protect, and restore. The new place, the physical location for God's blessings now will be Jesus-the body of Jesus. He is the new way, his blood is the new covenant, the new place where God is present with his people, with his people now. Jesus, body and soul, true Man and true God. All of Jesus. The temple was cracked. Something more was coming. Easter was coming. Satan meant it for evil, and it was. But God meant it for good, and so it was. God planned to bring men and women and children out of the darkness of Satan's lies and their own sins, and into the light of his peace, his acceptance, his fellowship. Satan did his worst. He waited for the opportune time, and it came. He entered Judas and Judas did Satan's bidding. The authorities were all pawns and tools in Satan's hand. And there was darkness, all around Jesus, coming against Jesus. But it came against him, and against him alone. The darkness could not snuff out his compassion: "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." The darkness could not snatch any believer, no matter how fragile, from Jesus's mercy: "Today you will be with me in paradise." Jesus stood in the gap, he hung where all of us deserve to hang. The darkness came against Jesus alone, but he did not flinch, and he took it all, and he perfectly performed the Father's plan. And so in faith, he entrusted his spirit to the Father's hands, knowing that the darkness would give way ... to light. Jesus knew that the darkness would give way to light. Evil at work, but God at work more strongly still. Evil Friday-even more, it was Good Friday. And life and light would return. Because Easter was coming. Luke tells us about Joseph of Arimathea, and about the Galilean women who bought spices to anoint Jesus's body. What they did was very beautiful on that evil day. More beautiful, still, is the fact that their loving efforts were in vain. The tomb where no one had ever yet been laid will become the tomb where no one is lying anymore. The spices prepared to anoint a corpse will go to waste. No corpse to be found-only Jesus, all of Jesus, whole and living. That night long ago was the turning point, the hinge of history. Everything depends on Friday, and on Sunday. Our lives depend on how God took that evil and used it and then destroyed the evil with the new resurrection life of Jesus, the Lord. No darkness of sin or guilt can overcome Jesus-and he is for you. When darkness comes, remember Good Friday, and entrust yourself to Jesus who bore the darkness in your place. When confusion and hardship swirl around you and confuse you and you can't find your way back into God's presence, remember Good Friday, and the torn curtain, and Jesus who is God's presence. Come to him, to the Lord's Supper, come to hear God's promises in Jesus-he is God's presence in our world, and he is for you. If life becomes so hard that it seems like you can't trust God and you have no idea what good he can bring out of evil-lean on Jesus, and let him trust his Father, and glorify God because he is still at work. Evil Friday was also Good Friday because Jesus stood against the darkness for you. What a God! And Easter was coming. So we end this evening in hope, and in faith, and we'll go home and rest as the women did long ago. But we're not going to prepare any spices to anoint a body. Because we know that it was, and is, and always will be ... Good Friday. They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good-for you, for me, and for the world. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.