Sermon - Good Friday 2018

“Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him… the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head… and struck Him with their hands… they took Jesus, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull… there they crucified Him… He said “It is finished,” and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” As you sit here this Good Friday, meditating on those words of the crucifixion from St. John’s Gospel, what thoughts are fluttering through your mind? 

Perhaps the bitter agony and the tormented anguish which Jesus endured sits heavily upon your mind. Maybe you’re contemplating the pain of having nails hammered through His flesh or His skin being shredded to bits when He was flogged. Possibly you’re imagining the difficulty with which He lifted His wounded body to take each wearied breath. But throughout all of those thoughts should be that Jesus, who is both your Lord and Christ, you crucified on account of your sins; Jesus, who is both your Lord and Christ, He has borne your sins and gives you peace and healing.

For the prophet Isaiah is right, “He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities.” We crucified Jesus. Your sins made Jesus a martyr. When St. Peter preached to the Israelites on Pentecost he said “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” When they heard this they were cut to the heart, and they cried out “O Brothers, what shall we do?”

When you consider the crucifixion of Jesus, allow this narrative to put your sins into the proper perspective. Our sins are what nailed Jesus to the cross. Those sins which you consider to be such light things, unimportant and just nitpicking, old-fashioned and outdated and politically incorrect. Each sin is a thorn in the scalp of Jesus, and so consider your thousands and millions of sins against Him.

God, our Father, takes sin seriously. He hates sin and He hates sinners that He does not allow our many sins against Him to go unpunished. Those sins are so significant that the punishment had to mete out upon someone, they are so rotten and evil that only Jesus, the beloved Son of God, could endure them for you. We hold the hammer in our hands, we crush the crown of thorns onto His head. We have messed up. You are truly the one who has strangled and crucified the Son of God through your sins. 

If that thought makes you squeamish, if it makes you feel fear and terror in your heart at the sheer magnitude of the consequences of your sinful thoughts and actions, then good! To God be praised eternally! So cast your sin on Jesus and give Him the burden to bear! “Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed... The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all!... For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 

Believe with joy in your heart and upon your face, smile to know that your sins are His wounds and His sufferings, and He has made satisfaction for them all! Your sins are a great and heavy burden and you cannot manage them. But Christ has taken them all upon Himself and He triumphs over them all by His resurrection! He swallows up death forever. Since you are in Christ, you are a new creation. “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 

Do not let that fear and anguish wash over you any longer. Instead, find in the wounds of Christ your healing and your peace. From the crucified, wounded, pierced side of Jesus flows blood and water, flows a free-flowing stream of forgiveness from His side. From His side the water of forgiveness pours into the font which clothes you in the righteousness of God. From His side the blood of reconciliation pours into the chalice which feeds you the life-blood of Jesus. Good Friday is not a funeral for Jesus, so don’t weep for Him, instead rejoice in the reconciliation that Christ has accomplished upon the cross for you and for the whole world.