Good Friday - March 25, 2016 - Jesus Wasn’t Lost for Words - Scripture: Various Gospel Accounts
What do you do when you’re lost for words?
This is Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England. These are photographs before World War 2. Nice, big church.
http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/nowandthen/st-mikes-ruins.php
This is the same church after it was bombed by Hitler during air raids in about 1940. Quite different. Very sad.
http://www.basilspence.org.uk/worship/buildings/coventry-cathedral
Coventry Cathedral is like life. Part beautiful, part ruins. Promising beginnings, and then hardship, pain and evil do their thing.
Some people like to focus only on the beautiful. Life is beautiful they like to say. But then when life gets ugly, they are lost for words.
When tragic, terrible things happen, the bubble bursts. And then what is left?
Some seem to focus only on the hardship of life. The ruins. Loss, suffering, pain, aloneness.
But then they see a newborn child, or a beautiful Spring flower, or a breathtaking sunset, and they are lost for words.
What do you do when you’re lost for words? When something amazingly beautiful, or something horribly tragic happens. What do you do?
The problem with words is that they fail us. Words sometimes don’t really work.
We think of Good Friday, and then we think of the Passion of Jesus, the suffering of Christ. We describe it that way, but it just doesn’t cut it.
Almighty God. Creator of everything. Incarnate. Enfleshed. God with human skin on. Exhausted. Beaten, Bruised. Abused. Humiliated, shamed, mocked, ridiculed.
Hands nailed. Feet pierced. Starved, parched. Thirsty. So very thirsty. There are no words. There are no words, really.
And yet Jesus found words. In His agony, as life drained from His body, He found words. But Jesus.
He found words. And His words live even up to this very day, this very second.
The First Word: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” (Luke 23:34)
His first words uttered on the cross were a simplified expression of why He came in the first place.
He prays for the forgiveness of the people who, with intent and malice, were killing him in the moment. He doesn’t imply they are innocent.
He’s saying they have no clue what is really happening here as He hangs on the cross.
His prayer was for everyone involved in his murder: the crowd who celebrated His arrival on Palm Sunday and then turned against Him, crying out: “Crucify Him!” to Pilate, who had the power to release Him or not.
So He prays here for the common inhabitant of the city of Jerusalem, and He prays for those who had come to the Holy City on a pilgrimage.
He prays for Pilate who opened the door legally to His death.
He prays for the Roman soldiers who mocked Him, (“Hail, king of the Jews!”), spit on Him, made jest of His Kingship, who crammed thorns (mimic) in the shape of a crown on His brow.
He prays for the religious leaders who stand around (mimic pointing) mocking Him:
42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”
I He prays for you and me here as well.
Even though we see Jesus and His humanity bared in weakness for us on this bitter, ugly day of Good Friday, we can’t forget that He is the Son of God who has chosen this path for Himself.
And as God-in-the-flesh, Jesus knows in His divinity all for whom He died.
That means on the cross, He knows you.He knows your life, your hurts, your pain, your mistakes, your sins, your regrets, your fears.
And for all, Jesus prays: “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing”.
He prays for those who sin in ignorance.
“The idea that this terrible thing was done in ignorance runs through the New Testament. Peter said to the people in after days, "I know that you acted in ignorance." (Ac.3:17.) Paul said that they crucified Jesus because they did not know him. (Ac.13:27.)
“Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor and Stoic saint, used to say to himself every morning, "Today you will meet all kinds of unpleasant people; they will hurt you, and injure you, and insult you; but you cannot live like that; you know better, for you are a man in whom the spirit of God dwells."”
Others may have in their hearts the unforgiving spirit, others may sin in ignorance; but we know better. We are (men and women who belong to Jesus Christ); and (so) we must forgive as He forgave” (William Barclay).
The Second Word: “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
Jesus speaks this to a man who seconds earlier was heaping insults upon Him.
Such were some of us, at one time. Mockers of God.
I was raised to think that the very notion of God was primitive, insulting to modern intelligence; that all who believed in God exposed themselves as fools to the contemporary agnostic, truly wise person.
Some of us were mockers of God. This fellow was one of an endless number of God-mockers, not missing from 2016.
But something changed in Him. Somehow his eyes that were scaled over with sin and rebellion and disdain...began to see. This mocker, like me, began to see.
He didn’t all of the sudden become smart; he didn’t grow eyes in an instant where once he had none.
He was graced by the One He mocked. He, who was blind, was given sight.
While the second criminal continued to hurl insults at Jesus, (mockingly) “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”, the first one rebuked the mocking thief: “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
This man who hangs beside Jesus, in a remarkably short period of time, while under the severe trial of crucifixion himself, travelled very, very far, an incredible distance, in his heart.
He went from feeling smug and justified in taunting Jesus to recognizing the innocence of Jesus, the unjust suffering of Jesus, and that Jesus is the One who could justify him before God. And he sees in Jesus the key to paradise.
He says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
He goes from thinking Jesus is a charlatan or a fake saviour, to placing his whole trust in Him, recognizing Jesus power to acquit him of his crimes, his sins against God and man...even identifying that paradise is Jesus domain and that Jesus is the King of heaven.
And this one repentant man: This one who changes his mocking voice that once called out among the scoffers, was, to our knowledge, the first to enter heaven under the New Covenant, as Jesus says to Him, no doubt with love, compassion and perhaps no small joy: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23 NIV)
The Third Word: “Dear woman, here is your son.” (John 19:26). Here Jesus reminds us of the fact of His humanity in another sense. Jesus was a mother’s Son.
He grew up in a human family, with family allegiances - with a mother, a step-father and, as other Scriptures say, with brothers and sisters and cousins.
Perhaps, as we look at Jesus upon the cross through the eyes of a mother who raised him, who was present at His first words, His first steps.
His first scraped knee, His bar mitzvah; perhaps when we consider Jesus in His suffering through the eyes of a mother who suffers also at the unjust murder of her Son, we can feel the weight of Jesus’ suffering in another sense, in His mother’s agony.
And here, in Jesus 3rd word from the cross, He gives us a preview into the nature of Church as family.
He tells His dear mother that since He will soon be gone, she is to take the disciple John as her son.
This speaks of adoption, this speaks of family not through blood lines, but through relationship to Jesus.
Mary was Jesus’ mother.
John was Jesus friend, His best friend I reckon. Jesus becomes the centre of, the reason for and the glue that holds together the family of God.
You and I, as followers of Jesus, are sister and brother in the Lord, united through our common faith in Jesus Christ. Adopted into the family of God because of a gift we have in common, one that we have personally accepted, received: the sacrifice of the Son of God.
Here, Jesus inaugurated the web of relationships based on faith in Him that would become known as the body of Christ, the Church universal.
The Fourth Word: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mark 15:34)
I find this the most difficult of Jesus final words. It’s difficult on the one hand because it is absolutely loaded with theological truth and power.
Theology is the study of God, and the most brilliant thing about God is that He chose in Jesus to suffer.
He chose in Jesus to leave all of heaven’s beauty and safety and splendour, in order to come to this planet, motivated only by the purest love.
He chose to allow Himself to be, by those He came to love and save, beaten and broken and crucified - slaughtered as a lamb.
And that’s just the beginning. He also chose to have all of our sins place upon Him.
Why did Jesus say: “My God, my God, why have You abandoned Me?” Because God the Father turned His face away.
These words recall the reality and the moment when Jesus, separated from God the Father as He endured the wrath of God for the sins of humanity, cried out, expressing the violent sting of alienation from God as He who knew no sin became sin for us.
We can struggle with the thought of the wrath of God. I know some who outrightly reject this idea. Look, no one here wants God angry at us. No one here can handle the idea of God’s fury.
But the wrath of God is against sin.
An airport and a subway in Brussel. Crowds of women, children and men moving about. Chatting.
Reading newspapers. Looking at texts on their phones. Busy travelling but most heading for home.
Then in an instant, suicide bombers detonate. Body parts fly everywhere. Children dismembered. Families destroyed.
If you would like God to take that lying down, to not be moved, to not be angry, to not be furious, to not be full of wrath at that expression of wanton disregard for life, and IN HIS NAME?...Then...that’s just...wow.
God’s wrath against sin is real because God is love, and when He sees sin in action, and the destruction it brings in Brussels, in Paris, in Beirut, Kobane-Syria, Tunisia, Cairo, California, He is not passive. When He sees sin at work anywhere, He is not dismissive or unconcerned.
Romans 1:18 says “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”
He is not casual. He is livid. He is a God who cares. He is a God who so loves the world. And because of His love for this world that He created in love, when evil rears its ugly head in any of its many forms, He is full of wrath. And I’m glad He is.
So Jesus was forsaken, stepping into our place, as He upon Himself the sin of the world; forsaken by the Father, who in His holiness will not countenance or accommodate sin.
We’ll come back to close the open wound of this separation that Jesus experienced in a moment.
The Fifth Word: “I am thirsty.” (John 19:28)
Let me read a poem by the songwriter Beverley Lowry.
One day I came to Him, I was so thirsty.
I asked for water, my throat was so dry.
He gave me water that I never dreamed of.
But for this water, my Lord had to die.
He said, "I thirst" yet he made the rivers.
He said, "I thirst" yet he made the sea.
"I thirst," said the king of the ages.
In His great thirst He brought water to me.
Now there’s a river that flows as clear as crystal.
It comes from God’s throne above!
And like a river, it wells up inside me,
Bringing mercy and life giving love.
He said, "I thirst" yet he made the rivers.
He said, "I thirst" yet he made the sea.
"I thirst," said the king of the ages.
In His great thirst He brought water to me.
The Sixth Word: “It is finished!” (John 19:30)
On this day of Good Friday, as we consider all that Jesus lived through in real time on the last day of his life; as we consider His last words, it is perhaps this word that begins to open the door, if even just a crack, to what awaits us in a few days.
When Jesus uttered these words, it marked the moment when Jesus understood not that His life was truly over, not that His suffering was necessarily at an end, but that the purpose for which He was sent had been completed.
He had asked the Father while He prayed in the garden to, if it was possible, remove this cup, this experience, this responsibility, this agony from His path.
He prayed while sweating drops of blood from the sheer anxiety of the anticipation of His crucifixion. But then He said to God: “Not my will, but Yours be done”.
With that prayer, Jesus embraced His path to the cross.
But here Jesus says: It is finished. The purpose of His incarnation, His birth, His life, of every day He lived, was fulfilled in this, His death.
His purpose of creating a way for us to be reconciled with God was finished.
His purpose of trading His life for ours, taking our penalty upon Himself, suffering in our place, absorbing God’s wrath for sin, like I said. It was finished.
And now, from this vantage point, from Easter 2016, we can look back and speak of the finished work of the cross, from which flows our hope, our salvation, our joy and our healing.
The Seventh and last Word of Jesus, offered in a final, gasping breath: “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” (Luke 23:46)
Here, Jesus reconciles Himself with His Father’s will and with His own chosen path. Was Jesus forsaken by the Father? He says He was.
Was He abandoned as He took upon Himself the ugliness of our sin, when God turned His face away from His own Son? Jesus says He was.
But Jesus didn’t lose focus. Jesus didn’t lose track of His mission. Jesus didn’t get confused by all that was happening to Him, even in His torment and agony.
Jesus choses, despite the trial, despite the fiery furnace that He is in, to place His whole confidence in God, to entrust His ebbing life into the hands of God the Father.
Jesus faced the ultimate trial, under the harshest circumstances - not for Himself. Not to redeem His own life. Not to get something for Himself. He did it for you. He did it for you, and He did it for me.
Let me ask you: If Jesus was thrown into the ultimate furnace for you, can you begin to sense Him in your - smaller - furnaces with you?
He has endured the worst that awaited me and you. He is with us in each daily struggle, present in each moment of pain.
Jesus laid down His life for you, if He traded His own well-being, His own lifeblood for you. Can you accept that? Can you receive from the hand of God that kind of love?
Can you accept that you, personally, matter enough to God, that God loves you so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die in your place, to suffer in your stead for your sins...
So that you and me and all who believe that He did what He did needn’t perish, but can have everlasting life with God?
Some people like to focus only on the beautiful. Some seem to focus only on the hardship of life. The ruins. Loss, suffering, pain, aloneness.
Both of these are real and they exist side by side in a world full of suffering.
The is Coventry Cathedral now. Restored. Quite stunningly beautiful. It’s almost hard to imagine that 76 years ago it was laid waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Cathedral#/media/File:Coventry_Cathedral_Interior,_West_Midlands,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg
In a few days we will celebrate the fact that Jesus Who died on Good Friday, well Jesus conquered the death He died.
He will rise victorious over the grave, and in His resurrection He will commission His followers to go into the world and make disciples, to continue His mission in the world as the Followers of the Way.
As Christians we seek to live more on the latter side of Easter weekend. We desire to live more in resurrection and victory than in hardship and suffering, and so we should.
But, here’s the thing. Coventry Cathedral still stands in part in ruin. http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Coventry-Cathedral-ruins-new-cathedral-left.jpg
The old devastation still stands as a testimony to what has happened in the past, that it might never be repeated.
And we revisit Good Friday, the darkest day of all darkest days in the history of this planet, to remember the cost of our freedom, to recall that the free gift of God’s grace, so generously lavished on us, was actually bought for us at an inestimable price, a price too high for humans to count. The very life of the Son of God.
Now as we enter into our cross ceremony, where we will literally nail our sins to the cross, let us worship our crucified King.
Let us remember, as we hear the sound of the hammers pounding, the nails that pierced Jesus. Let us remember His sacrifice for us.
Let us stand together to read from the prophet Isaiah:
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.
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…For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished…Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer…
After he has suffered, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
