Good
Friday - 03/29/13 RWJ/Pottersville UMC
Sermon: “Forgive them; for they know not what they do!”
Scripture Lesson: Psalm 22, Hebrews 10:16-25
Gospel Lesson: John 18:1-19:42
Good evening brothers and
sisters! What a joy and a pleasure it is to be with you this evening, as we
continue on in this our Holy Week. This week in our Christian Calendar that is
the most holy of all of the weeks of the year. The week where Jesus first rides
in to Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of “Hosanna”! “God save us”! The week
where he continues his ministry of loving, healing, and forgiving.
Last
night at the RW Johnsburg church we had a “Maundy Thursday” service. The word
Maundy comes from the Latin "Mandatum,"
which means to order, to command, or to
mandate. This Mandatum comes to us in the
Gospel of John 13:34, which is where we find the institution of the
Lord's Supper on the night he was betrayed. In this commanded or mandated
Thursday, we celebrated last night Holy Communion, as Maundy Thursday was the
first time communion was ever offered by Christ. Also on Maundy Thursday, this
was the first time ever that Christ washed the feet of his disciples, and last
night we did something similar as we had a washing of the hands ceremony. On
Maundy Thursday, Jesus also taught us to share “a sign of peace with one
another,” and well as giving his final commandment to us to love each other.
For last night, Maundy Thursday, a lot occurred in the ministry of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
When we get to the point where we are
ready to depart on this night, I ask that we do so in silence, repentance, and
reflection. I ask this not in an oppressive, a guilty, or in a shameful way,
but rather in a reflective and prayerful way. Upon leaving tonight though, if
we could also quietly and loving share signs of peace with one another, as this
is the night where we as Christians are all together in being before the cross
of the Lord. For if we are really knit together by Jesus Christ, then even in
the most somber and the most reflective of days, can we not still extend a sign
of peace and love to one another. I personally can think of few other nights
where we would benefit more from such signs of peace.
For this day, this day, is all about
extending love to one another. This day, is our Good Friday, our Holy Friday.
Yet this is the day that Christ was brutally beaten, mocked, crowned with a
crown of thorns, and given a cheap staff and purple robe, as the Roman guards
mocked him as being a king. He had already had his feet anointed with the Nard
oil from Mary for his burial, but today Jesus is crowned king of life. He will
soon however, lay down his crown of thorns, for a crown of glory. We will soon
rise from the dead and soon sit at the right hand of almighty God to live and
reign forever!
While Jesus is ready to assume his new
kingdom, most do not realize that this kingdom is not of this world. Last night
he told his disciples, “you cannot come where I am going”. For Jesus knew that
his hour had come. In the flesh of a human man, Jesus as the living God on
earth, had worry and was troubled about his soon to be death, yet he knew what
he had to do. For if the sins of all of humanity were to be consumed then a
sinless and perfect person must die. Only Jesus Christ, the living God, would or
could fulfill this expectation. Only he could create the bridge of life, so
that we might be able to enter the gates of glory.
On this Good Friday, everything has also
occurred as the Holy Scripture had prophesized it would occur. As Frank Allard
read for us tonight from Psalm 22, it said, “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?,” the words that Jesus uttered on the cross to make the prophesy
of old true. The Psalm concluded by saying, “Posterity will serve him; future
generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a
people yet unborn saying that he has done it”.
You see Jesus was not only going to
die for just the people of Jerusalem at that time or just the people of the
whole world at that time, but for all of us. Jesus already about you and me,
and already knows about the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren
that are yet to be born on this earth, but as Psalm 22 said, they are already
free. They are already righteous and saved, if they buy call upon the name of
the Lord and believe. For Christ consumed it all on this day, on this cross.
Sin died, and soon, and soon brothers and sisters, Jesus will conquer the
grave. For the grave cannot hold the king! The grave cannot contain the master
of the universe.
On this day though, this Good Friday,
we find Jesus Christ, as John the Baptist found him, saying “Behold the Lamb of
God who takes away the sins of the world”. As Pastor Andy Stanley has said, “He
chose the nails,” but I declare this to you brothers and sisters, he did not
die in vain. He did not die for nothing. For with one hammer and three nails, I
have been set free! You have been set free! For there are many people who are in
shackles in prisons today, yet they are free, and there are many people who are
running around the world today who are free, yet they are the ones who are
shackles! For those who know the Lord and what he has done for us are free, regardless
of where they are, and for those who don’t know him, they are the ones in prison
and shackled, regardless of where they are. The cross, the Holy Cross of Jesus
Christ, sets us free.
On this day, the Lord of life, the
king of kings, the Lamb of God, says “It is finished,” and then he breaths his
last. With this final act, as Christ dies, sin has been conquered. Yet to prove
that Christ is the Messiah, he will be raised to new life this Sunday, on our
Easter Sunday. The sins of the world on this night have been consumed, as if
Jesus drank a cup of poison, the poison of our sins. But fear not brothers and
sisters, he isn’t finished, he is going to be raised, and further one day, on
that “Great gettin up morning” he coming to take us all home.
What is amazing to me though is that amidst
all of this suffering that Christ endured, he is still loving, still healing,
and still forgiving. Last night on Maundy Thursday he served the betrayer Judas
Iscariot Holy Communion, knowing full well that Judas would betray him. On his
cross he said to his mother and his “his beloved apostle” as the scripture says,
“Son behold your mother. Mother behold your son”. This “beloved apostle” was
now his mother’s keeper. On that cross, he also forgave one of the two men who
were being crucified on either side of him. Jesus said to the one repentant man
on the cross, “Amen I say to you, today you will be in glory with me”. For even
as he was dying in great pain, “Then said
Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”.
Amidst of all his pain, all of his
suffering, he looks after his mother, he forgives a man on a cross, and he
prays for his killers. “Forgive them; for they know not what they do”! So often
we are just so consumed with the guilt of Christ drying for us on the cross,
but maybe we need to look on this night just a little further than that. To see
that the Lord of life, the Lord of hosts, was still loving, still healing, and still
forgiving to his very last breath, of “It is finished”. How could Jesus Christ
in such pain and torment, still be and do all these things, I wonder? “Forgive
them; for they know not what they do”.
The answer is, because he loves you
and me so much, he came to die, so that we may live. He didn’t die just for
some people either, but for all of us. No matter who we are, or what we are, he
died for us. For we all are in this life of faith together, and we are all
moving in the boat of faith towards glory together.
It is often said that at a Christian
funeral, that the “flesh grieves, but the soul rejoices”. I think on this day
we should have some reflection, some sorrow, and some burden, but he chose to
die for us. He wanted to do this for us. I don’t believe the Lord wishes us to
be in misery or to punish ourselves on this day. I believe that the Lord asks us
hear what he said on the cross, “Forgive them; for they know not
what they do!”
All the Lord of life then wants of us is our hearts, is our devotion, and our repentance.
All of this then, this cross, these nails, his pain, and his blood, just so
that we may repent and accept him into our lives. So that we may live, forever!
For even if there was no nails on the cross at Calvary, his love would have held
him to the tree. He died for our sins; he died because he loves us so very much.
It
is as if there were two men in a hospital, and one man gave up his very heart
from his chest, so that the other man who was dying may life and be happy.
Jesus gives up his very body, so that we can live and serve him, but not live
in misery. For the Lord wants our devotion, our repentance, and he wants us to
serve him. He desires that we have joy in him.
I
would like to close this Good Friday worship service with a simple quote about
what Good Friday is. This quote is taken from Robert G. Trache. Here is the
quote, “Good Friday is the mirror held up by
Jesus so that we can see ourselves in all our stark reality, and then it turns
us to that cross and to his eyes and we hear these words, "Father forgive
them for they know not what they do." That'sus! And so we know beyond a
shadow of a doubt that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. We see
in that cross a love so amazing so divine that it loves us even when we turn
away from it, or spurn it, or crucify it. There is no faith in Jesus without
understanding that on the cross we see into the heart of God and find it filled
with mercy for the sinner whoever he or she may be”.
So today brothers and
sisters, the “flesh mourns, but the soul rejoices”. We mourn the death of our
Lord and Savior, but we rejoice, that he said, “It is finished”. “Forgive them,
for they know what they do”! Yet soon, very soon, he will be raised to new and
certain life. In the name of our Lord, our savior, the messiah, the great I Am,
Jesus Christ, Amen and hallelujah!
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