Sermon Tone Analysis
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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.
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