Good Friday 3/29/24 - 6 PM - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “The Boundless And Sacrificial Love Of God!”
Old Testament Scripture: Psalm 22
New Testament Scripture: Hebrews 10:16-25
Gospel Lesson: John 18:1-19:42
So, I remember earlier in my time in ministry when someone
asked me around the time of Good Friday, how could the day that Jesus was
tried, rejected, mocked, tortured, and crucified, be called “Good Friday”? I
mean how could such a day of such awful events be “good?” It’s a fair question,
isn’t it?
In
getting into the answer of this question, today is a day that Christians the
world over have remembered and have commemorated for nearly two-thousand years.
Marking this day, worshiping on this day, telling the story of this day is an
important part of our Christian faith and tradition. In fact, in some Christian
Churches like in Roman Catholic Churches or in Episcopal Churches, this day is literally
laid out in numbers/images around the church’s sanctuary. These stations or
numbered markers are the events of this day.
Our Holy Week, began this week with Palm Sunday, Jesus
entering Jerusalem to the shouts of “Hosanna,” and palms. The week then continued,
as Jesus continues loving, healing, and forgiving. On Monday of this week,
Jesus cleansed the temple, flipped the tables of the money changers, released
the sacrificial animals and threw out the vendors selling these animals. On
Tuesday, Jesus confronted the hypocrisy of the some of the religious leaders.
On Wednesday, Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus for 30-pieces of silver, the cost to
buy a slave at that time. Yesterday on Maundy or Holy Thursday, Jesus had the
Last Supper in the Upper Room in Jerusalem with his disciples. After likely eating
the Passover Seder dinner, Jesus took bread and wine and he instituted Holy
Communion or the Lord’s Supper. Jesus also washed the disciples’ feet, and gave
us the “Maundy” or the commandment to love each other, as Jesus has loved us. Judas
Iscariot then of course leaves the Last Supper to officially betray Jesus.
After the Last Supper, Jesus goes to the Garden of
Gethsemane, and prays all night long. He asks a couple of his disciples to stay
awake, but they both fail to do this both times that Jesus asks them to do so.
On this day, in the early morning, Judas Iscariot greets Jesus with a kiss,
even though he betrayed him. Jesus is arrested, Peter will deny him three
times, and the majority of Jesus’ followers scatter out of fear.
Today’s saga will then play out as Jesus is brought before
the high priest, the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, and the King of
Judea, Herod Antipas. You can see how this week, Holy Week, can therefore seem
similar to a stage production, as the story of this week keeps unfolding. Every
year for centuries we have gone through this week and the events of this week,
as it is our faith and our tradition.
On
this day that we have come to call Good Friday, the religious leaders clearly
wanted Jesus dead, as he was a threat to their authority and their power. The
King of Judea, Herod Antipas finds no fault in Jesus, as the high priest and
the Pharisees tear their robes open feeling Jesus was committing blasphemy in
claiming to be God in the flesh on earth, while the Roman Governor of Judea,
Pontius Pilate, seems to not want to deal with Jesus at all. Pontius Pilate
even offers to release Jesus or the bandit Barabbas to appease the angry mob (Jn.
18:1-18:40, NRSV).
The pressure continues to build, as the crowd shouts for
the bandit Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be retained in Pontius
Pilate’s custody. Barabbas is released, and then things move to a fever pitch
with shouts to crucify Jesus. Many in the crowd shouted “Crucify him! Crucify
him!” (Jn. 19:6, NRSV). Pilate has Jesus flogged and whipped to try to appease
the crowd, but this does not appease the crowd. Eventually, Pontius Pilate
conceded to the mob and has Jesus crucified. Jesus carries his cross, but will
end up getting help from Simon of Cyrene. By the time Jesus gets to the cross
he is marred, whipped, beaten, and barely recognizable as a man. Jesus is
crucified along with two other criminals. One of these criminals rejects Jesus,
and once accepts him. Jesus prays for those who are harming him, condemning
him, mocking him, and even spitting on him. Jesus asks his beloved disciple
John, who is the only disciple of the twelve disciples at the cross, to take
care of his mother Mary. Jesus had a crown of thorns placed on his head, and
has been treated is ways that are cruel and demeaning. Pilate has a sign nailed
to Jesus’ cross above his head in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek that reads “Jesus of
Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (Jn. 19:19, NRSV).
In addition to all of this, at Jesus’ crucifixion some of
the prophecies of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible come to fruition, as
well. These prophecies of old, like casting lots for Jesus’ clothes, or none of
Jesus’ bones being broken, etc. occurred. We also hear once again in tonight’s
reading from Psalm 22, in 22:1a the Psalmist says:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1a, NSRV).
Jesus
is recorded saying these words from Psalm 22:1a in Matthew 27:46 and Mark
15:34. The
great saga of this day, as this great stage production that we move through
every year on Holy Week continues.
In
our reading from the Gospel of John 18:1-19:41, Jesus says, “It is finished” in
19:30, bows his head and gives up his spirit. Jesus has died. He then is taken
off the cross, as the Sabbath Day, which is sundown on Friday to sundown on
Saturday was quickly approaching. Jesus was wrapped in linens and a mixture of
myrrh and aloes were put on his body. Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb of
Joseph of Arimathea, and this is how the great saga of this week, Holy Week,
continues.
So how then, as the person asked me some years ago can this
day be called “Good Friday?” One good answer is written in the gospel of Matthew 27:51,
which says upon Jesus dying this:
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split (Mt. 27:51, NRSV).
Further,
this is reinforced our scripture reading for tonight from Hebrews 10:16-25, it says
once again in 10:19-22:
“Therefore, my friends, since we
have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and
living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his
flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach
with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:16-25, NRSV).
You
see, when Jesus died, the veil or the curtain in the great temple in Jerusalem
that separated the high priest from the holiest room in the temple was torn.
This room could normally only be entered into by the high priest, and only once
a year. In fact, a rope would be tied around the waste of the high priest.
Should God find him unworthy, and he be struck down dead, the other religious
leaders would just pull him out. I mean after all, if the high priest were
struck down, what hope would there be for the rest of them.
Jesus
dies, and the sins of the world dies with him. Today then could simply be seen
as merely a saga alone, or part of the stage production alone. We can view
today merely as the events of Jesus’ trial, crucifixion, and death, or we can
realize as my sermon title for tonight says today is a day about “The Boundless
And Sacrificial Love Of God!” Death on this day has been swallowed up in
victory. For on this day, the only perfect and the only sinless person, who was
fully God and fully human, Jesus Christ, dies for the sins of the world. Jesus
dies for us, as measure of unfathomable love, and this open door is offered to
us all. The torn veil in the temple shows us that all people are invited into
the forgiveness from Christ that this day offers. Today is good, because Christ
our Lord dies for us. Jesus does so because on this day and always he embodies
“The Boundless And Sacrificial Love Of God!”
Today
then is not just a legal transaction. Jesus did not just die this day to merely
just check a box. This is to say, Jesus did not just die a brutal death to only
fulfill some sort of contractual agreement. Jesus died this day, willingly. He
could have gotten out it. He could had denied everything he said and taught.
Jesus had a way out. Yet Jesus chose the nails, and chose the cross. On this
day Jesus shows us all “The Boundless And Sacrificial Love Of God!”
Some
have argued that events of this day are just simply too brutal. Some have
argued why did the events of this day happen or need to happen? Couldn’t God
just forgiven us they ask? Sure, but this day was preordained before time
itself. We hear in the gospel of John in chapter 1 these words regarding Jesus
in 1:14-17:
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (Jn. 1:14-17, NRSV).
Today’s events were planned before time itself, and God’s
plan to reconcile humanity through the life, love, light, and death of his son
was God’s plan to redeem humanity before time itself.
Only a perfect spotless lamb’s blood would save the Israelites
first born on that first Passover in Egypt, and on this day the death and blood
of Christ saves us all. We cannot earn it, we cannot buy it, instead it just
is. God in the flesh came to this earth to teach us a radical new way of
loving, healing, and forgiving, and this love was so great, it even went to
death on a cross.
Do we receive this free gift of grace and salvation offered
so freely to us through Jesus Christ. Who deserves it? No one does. Who is
offered it? Everyone is. All of need Jesus, and today all people, without
exception are offered new hope, redemption, forgiveness, salvation, and
eternity through the cross of Christ. For today is about “The Boundless And
Sacrificial Love Of God!” Beyond just Jesus’s brutal death, is
the new hope that is brought through the life, love, death, and soon
resurrection of Jesus Christ. For today Jesus shows the world and us “The
Boundless And Sacrificial Love Of God!” Happy Good Friday.
Amen.
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