Good Friday Service

Intro - Hide and Seek

Playing Hide and Seek with Arabelle is a different game. Logan, he is six, he gets it. If you count, everyone hides, and you look until you find them. If you hide, you hide until you are found. Arabelle only likes two parts of the game: counting and hiding.

"Ready or not, here I come!" "Yoohoo, Daddy"

Or if she's counting: 15 18 14 20. Okay! Daddy where are you? Come out, I can't find you!

She wants to jump straight to the answer and so she misses the whole point. Hide and seek is not profound, okay, but what there is to it requires that seeking.

Tonight we are here to consider something profound. Tonight we consider the cross of Jesus Christ. Often we consider the cross as God's answer to our pain and sin, but the cross alone just raises more questions. For anyone who might be hearing this for this time, there is a fantastic powerful stunning answer three days later but...

Before we jump to the answer, let us consider the question. Let us consider the cross.

Consider a few thousand years of waiting, of anticipation, of not quite satisfactory answers to profound and personal questions. From the moment of the Fall, all creation cries out for something, a salvation it has not yet seen. Consider Job, perhaps the first book of the Old testament to be written down, as he might look upon the cross.

Job - "There was supposed to be a great answer to my suffering, the ultimate answer I looked forward to. I lost my riches... I lost my children... I lost my wife... and my very body began to decay around me. Having more children, gaining more riches, does not just make everything better. Somehow...

19:25 I know that my redeemer lives,    and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my skin has been destroyed,    yet in my flesh I will see God; 27 I myself will see him    with my own eyes—I, and not another.    How my heart yearns within me!

But this is my answer? A condemned man hung on a tree? How can this be God's answer to my pain, my loss, my grief?

From Fall to that hill at Calvary, people expected. They looked for God's answer to suffering and sin, not just in an arrogant way. We kind of chuckle at the way the Pharisees couldn't see past their expectations, but also in a deeply personal way. Consider Mary, mother of Jesus, the expectations and desires of her heart as she considers the cross:

Mary - "What mother doesn't hope for her son to be amazing, to be successful, to be loved and admired? He was my miracle child, my gift from God. The angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest!" I watched him bring life and healing to so many. I followed him as crowds cheered. My heart swelled with pride as I saw my son given a king's welcome into Jerusalem just days ago. How can such a bright life end in such darkness? How can this be the hope of the world promised at His birth. Where is the glory? Where is the promised king?"

Jesus shattered expectations of the Messiah. From hints to Abraham, promises to David, visions of prophets, the people of God expected glory, victory, kingdom. They expected wrongs righted and wounds healed. They expected justice. At the cross, they got something else.

Mark 15

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.

21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). 23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.

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. 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.

This wasn't glory, this was humiliation. This wasn't victory, it was defeat. This was not healing and justice but wounds and pain and injustice. This wasn't a fix, it was all that was wrong with the world.

God's people lifted their eyes, crying out for help, and God responded with His son on a cross.

I Will Lift My Eyes

We jump to the answer before we have fully considered the question. Imagine the plight of a man who has just lost foundation and direction of his life. He lost his teacher, mentor, friend, rabbi. Twice lost, really, once to death but, before that, to his own fear and betrayal: Peter, disciple of Jesus.

Peter - "I failed him when it counted. I was willing to follow Jesus. I was willing to fight for him, against all odds, against all the temple guard. I believed! I confessed Him as Lord, I knew He was more than a great man, he was God with us! It was the shame I feared, it was the shame I could not handle... and I denied him. I abandoned him. I abandoned God. He hangs there for my shame, for my sin, and for my sorrow? In the end, he was abandoned by all. He was forsaken..."

I imagine how Job, Mary and Peter felt as they consider the cross. I don't have to work hard, because their questions are my questions. They are questions within the human spirit. Job asks, how does God answer for my pain? Mary asks, where is the promised Savior and King? Peter asks, where is the forgiveness for my betrayal, my sin and my shame? Don't we ask these things too?

Present Sinner - "How could God allow such pain and misery in the world? How could God allow such pain and misery in me? Someone has to take responsibility for all the darkness and despair, the destruction and death, the pain in me. I cannot. I have tried. I am alone... condemned... betrayed... scorned... forsaken. I am guilty. Where is the hope?"

Jesus cries out from the cross: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus quotes Psalm 22, and this is the lament of God's people throughout time.

We do not consider the cross to feel sorry for Jesus. The cross is not about pity, or about feigning emotion, though perhaps we have all heard people try to using it that way. The cross is not about feeling sorry for Jesus and his suffering, it is about feeling sorry with Jesus. Or rather, the cross is Jesus feeling sorry, abandoned with and for us.

Psalm 22

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me,

so far from my cries of anguish?

2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,

by night, but I find no rest.

Jesus cries out on the cross with the voice of all humanity. Jesus dies on the cross as an ultimate question mark. Here is everything that is wrong with the world, here is all sin, here is all injustice, here is all pain, here is all sorrow, here is all death.

Isaiah 53

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain

and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people he was punished.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Before we jump to the answer, let us consider the question. Let us consider the cross

We stop to consider the cross, because we have not yet glimpsed the height, depth and breadth of the love of God. We say things like "he became sin," he bore our sins, "the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of all." And we cannot grasp the size of that, the extent, the size and space and time of it.

What does it mean for God to become all that was wrong with the world: pain, suffering, humiliation, injustice and death? What could it mean for God to enter into our story, to personally take on punishment and tragedy? To take on all of our sorrow and all of our pain? To take on sin and death?

Here is everything that is wrong with the world, here is all sin, here is all injustice, here is all pain, here is all sorrow, here is all death. What will he do with that?

Where is the Redeemer? Where is the King? Where is the forgiveness? Where is the hope?

Let us consider, and lament, upon the cross of Jesus.

Just before he died, Jesus passed on to his disciples a simple ceremony of Remembrance, we call it Communion, and we share and remember the Body of Christ, broken for us, as we break and share the bread. We share and remember the Blood of Christ, poured out for us, as we drink the fruit of the vine.

There are tables at each side of the room. As we worship, we will take communion together. You can just stand up when you're ready, make your way to the table, and take bread and juice, eat and drink right there or back in your seats. We eat and drink together, in Remembrance of Jesus Christ and his cross.

Let us consider, and lament, upon the cross of Jesus.