Good Friday Sermon 2022

 

Let us listen to the words of our Savior on the cross.  He receives violence while He gives His life to the Father for us.  He hears mockery and scorn and the accusations of the Law against Him that should fall on us.  And while He endures the punishment for the sin of the world, He speaks.  He speaks seven times. And every word He speaks is grace and mercy, and every He word He speaks can help you to receive from Him that comfort which He won for you with His pains.

 

First He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  They are crucifying Him.  Who?  The soldiers.  But also the Jews, His own people. He told us in His Sermon on the Mount,

 

“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”

 

And so He does what He tells us to do.  He shows that He is the Son of the Father.  He is obedient to what He tells us to do.  He is not a hypocrite.  He fulfills His own word.  He asked the Father to take the cup from Him, but that not His own will be done, but the Father’s.  And now as He drinks the cup of pain and woe, He prays and intercedes for His enemies. His forgiveness is heard, because at the end of His life, when the soldiers and the Centurion saw what had happened, they said, “This was a righteous man, this was the Son of God.”  The Father answered His prayer, and gave faith to those who had just crucified His Son.

 

See the harmony and unity of the will of the Son and the Father.  See how Jesus reveals the Father’s heart and wins forgiveness for those who did Him wrong.  All the sins that bother you were done against Jesus.  He prays, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  We don’t.  We don’t realize the gravity of what we are doing.  Even if we were to willfully sin, we don’t know what we are doing.  We don’t know the pain.  We don’t know the gravity and horror of sin.  But Jesus does, and while He knows it, while He tastes its bitterness, while He suffers for our sins, He prays that God would forgive us whose sins put Him there. 

 

Let us pray.

Dear Father, turn our hearts from pride when it rises and from despair when it would drag us down, because Jesus has prayed that You would forgive us, and we know that You answered Him.  Grant us pardon so that we might confess that Jesus is Your Son and our Righteousness, and with such knowledge may our hearts and mouths forgive those who do not know what they do when they sin against us.  Amen.

 

Next Jesus speaks to the thief on the cross.  The thief had just been joining in on insulting Jesus, but he heard Jesus say, “Father, forgive them.”  He saw His silent patience and suffering, His sorrow so willingly endured in His innocence.  And it converted the thief’s heart, and he defended Jesus, confessed his own sin, that he deserved his punishment, but that Jesus had done nothing wrong.  And he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into your kingdom.”  So Jesus spoke these words to him, to strengthen him while he suffered the consequences of his own sin, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”  And so Jesus fulfills His word spoken in John 6, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” 

 

Every word Jesus speaks on the cross is in concert and harmony with what He promises.  When you must suffer for your sins, the consequences that God allows to unfold, the pain that you know that you have brought on yourself and others, then you must not despair but see that Jesus is hanging on the cross right next to you, loving you.  Take up the thief’s prayer, since all sinners are thieves who take what is not theirs. “Lord, remember me in Your kingdom!”  And Jesus will bring your heart to Paradise.  He will speak and send His Holy Spirit into your heart to claim you as His own, to sit you be with Him in the heavenly places, far above all the pain of your sin because it has been removed, and you are not suffering for sin anymore, but suffering with Christ out of love for Him who loves you more than you know. 

 

Let us pray,

Dear heavenly Father, may we, when our guilt and shame threaten to overwhelm us, when our suffering is great, turn our eyes to the holy and bitter sufferings of Your Son, our Brother Jesus, so that we might be bold to cry to Him in every need for pardon, and taste the sweetness of His kingdom in the forgiveness of our sins and the promise of everlasting life.  Amen.

 

Thirdly, When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.  He sees the sword pierces her heart which Simeon prophesied.  He feels the same sword, because surely Has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, and so even as He is stricken by God, He remembers the mother God gave Him on earth, and He honors her.  He it was who commanded on Sinai, “Honor your father and your mother,” and so He honors His Father by honoring His mother.  He does what He tells us to do, and so covers all of our disobedience’ all of our dishonoring of our own parents is covered by the suffering Jesus honoring His Father and His mother.  

 

In doing this He leaves us an example, that we should love one another.  He commends His mother to His dearest friend on earth, John, the disciple whom He loved.  He loves all the disciples, but John claimed this title for himself, because He knew the love of Jesus.  Therefore count it joy when Jesus gives you someone to love who needs your love.  If you feel you lack it, then only draw from Him who loves you.  His suffering is your strength. His love is the fountain from which you may unceasingly draw the love you need and the love others in your life need. 

 

Let us pray.

Dear heavenly Father, we thank You for these words of Your Son, which show that in the bitterness of suffering and dying for us, He loved His mother to the end, and so He loves us in our sorrow and loss.  Grant us that love which He so willingly gave, that we might in our sorrows cling to those whom You have given us to love on earth.  Amen.

 

Fourthly, Jesus said, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  These are words which should fill us with repentance and faith.  Repentance, because here is the only righteous one being forsaken by God, when we have forsaken God countless times with our sins, but Jesus has clung to Him from birth, has loved Him and served Him wholeheartedly and deserved only to be near Him, and yet now He feels the Father so far away. 

 

It is not that the Son is divided from the Father.  That is impossible.  But it is only the Son who became man; the Father did not and the Holy Spirit did not.  In this great mystery, we see the Son of God, and therefore the fullness of God in His body enduring the pain of losing God.  What is this mystery?  God cannot lose God.  The Son cannot be separated from the Father of whom He is begotten from eternity.  And yet hear His words and believe them.  This is what David prophesied in Psalm 22, when he spoke the words of the coming Christ, “Why have You forsaken Me, Why are you so far from helping me and  from the words of my groaning?” 

 

And the answer is that He is bearing the sin of the world.  The answer is what St. Paul tells the Corinthians and us, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.”  He feels the wrath of God.  He feels His own justice against sinners entirely meted out against Him.  With the same measure that He threatens to punish sinners He who knows no sin Himself is willingly punished for all sin.  Therefore if you feel forsaken by God, then your feelings are wrong.  If you feel that your sins are too much for you to bear, you are right, but Jesus has surely borne them.  It is no small thing for God to forsake His own Son with whom He is one.  And in this unity of the Father and the Son there is a blessed exchange, the wrath of God for the righteousness of God, the punishment against sin for the innocence of Christ.  Do not say, “I have sinned too much!  God is not near me!”  He draws near to the brokenhearted with the truth that He has forsaken Christ instead of forsaking you.  Therefore embrace this dying man, the Crucified, for His “Why have You forsaken Me?” says that God has not forsaken you. 

 

Let us pray.

Dear heavenly Father, grant that we might never be tempted to despair of Your mercy, but might find in the mystery of your wrath against Christ the glory of Your mercy for poor sinners, so that we might hear the words of Isaiah with joy,

 

Fifthly, Jesus, “I thirst!”  Here we must understand two things.  First, he has a real physical thirst.  He is being tortured.  His blood has been flowing from His body since the Garden of Gethsemane, when His soul was sorrowful unto death.  Whips, cords, fists, a crown of thorns, nails all added to this sorrow with dehydration.  But the second point is that it was not only a physical thirst that David describes, “My throat is dried up like a potsherd,” but it is His thirst for our salvation.  It is the thirst for righteousness, because He has taken all of our sin and given up all His righteousness to the Father.  And so He is blessed in this moment of His suffering, because blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.  He is satisfied when it is finished.  He is thirsting for your righteousness. Even in His physical anguish, He thinks of you.  They gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink, but when He had tasted it, He would not drink.  It was a pain reliever.  Gall is bitter, but it is a medicine to alleviate pain, and His thirst for your salvation prevented Him from accepting any relief. 

 

Remember this when you thirst for righteousness that you can’t see in you.  Jesus thirsted for this righteousness for you.  He did not stop offering Himself up until He could give you what satisfies your soul, until your righteousness was complete.  This is why John says, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. The hyssop is the plant used to paint the doorposts of Israel with the blood of the Lamb.  The hyssop is the plant that is joined to cedar wood and scarlet and dipped in blood to sprinkle on an unclean leper to make him clean in the old Testament.  Behold, we have the wood of the cross and the scarlet blood, and the pure dove, and the hyssop sprinkled on our uncleanness to make us clean, to give us the righteousness for which we thirst. 

 

Let us pray.

Dear heavenly Father, grant us to thirst for the righteousness Jesus’ thirst won us, that we may always be satisfied with the righteousness of His obedient suffering.  Amen.

 

Sixthly, So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!”  What is finished?  There seems for us to be so much still to do.  What about all that we still have to accomplish?  Don’t we still have life to live?  What is finished?  All of the work for your salvation.  There is nothing left for you to do.  There is nothing to be done to complete the righteousness that God requires of you.  There is nothing for you to do to make up for your sin.  Jesus has done it all.  It is as simple as that.  If you feel that you need to make up for your sin, then be still and know who is God.  It is this man on the cross who tells you to stop working and believe in Him who justifies the ungodly.  Cast off the robes of your own righteousness, stained as they are with so much sin, and receive this wedding garment that Christ has bought with His own blood.  It is finished, complete, white, pure, and it is yours.  It is finished. 

 

Let us pray.

Dear heavenly Father, grant that we may stand only on the Rock that is Christ and His righteousness, that we may not presume to turn away your anger, but offer to You only that righteousness which is spotless and pure obedience in the suffering and death of Your beloved Son, our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

 

Finally, Jesus spoke His last words before He died.  “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’”  He trusted in Him to the end.  He was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.  We lost the Holy Spirit, but Jesus preserved Him for us. The Spirit by whom He was conceived and who descended on Him in His baptism, who drove Him into the wilderness, who is in His words, this Spirit He won for poor sinners, and His own human spirit is joined inseparably in His obedience to the Holy Spirit who anointed Him.  He commends Himself and all that He is and has done, all of His life and sacrifice and suffering and obedience and death, He gives to the Father for you. 

 

Therefore you can commit your spirit to the Father every night and when the night of death comes for you.  Receive Jesus’ Spirit which He speaks to you.  It is the Spirit of comfort and forgiveness, who takes all that is Christ’s and gives it to you.  He forgives you.  He gives you that life which Jesus gave on the cross.  He covers your sins with His death.  He is with you when your spirit is rent from your body.  He is with you to the bitter end.

 

There is no reason for despair.  Today is Good Friday.  It is a sad day that kindles true joy in our hearts.  To hear from Jesus in His sufferings is to endure through all of our sufferings.  To listen to Jesus while He bears our sin is to have His mercy when our sins rise against us.  But our sins cannot be on us if they are on Jesus.  His words make that clear.  Let us cherish these words of our Savior all our life, until we commit our spirit to Him who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him for us all.  Amen.