Sermon - Good Friday 2022

After Adam and Eve had sinned and God laid upon them and their descendents the curse of death, “the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” After they sinned they had suddenly realized their nakedness and were ashamed of who they were, they attempted to cover themselves with figleaves, but to no avail. Sin gives us many reasons to be ashamed, many reasons to hide and cover-up our wickedness. This shame as the result of sin is such a base instinct now that we cannot help but cover-up our shameful bodies.

For Adam and Eve to be clothed God had to kill lambs, not just shear them, but shed their blood and take their skins. Likewise, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Christ was sheared and killed like a lamb, so that we would be clothed with His righteousness. Jesus was “like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,” when Pilate asked Him questions, “Jesus gave him no answer.”

At Jesus’ crucifixion He was sheared, quite literally, of His clothes. “When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic.” On most of our crucifixes and art Jesus has a garment about his waist, covering His nakedness. But He was crucified naked without any garment covering His body. In His death Jesus became as naked and shameful as Adam and Eve and us, so that they and us may be clothed by the Lamb of God.

On Good Friday Jesus took all of the shame of sin, our sin, upon Himself. Look at your Savior: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him… He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace…the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” 

That description of Jesus is of our crucified Lord, who hung there physically naked, bloodied, and bruised, but most importantly hung there weighted with the ugliness of our sins. Upon the cross His shame and agony wasn’t only physical, but He bore the shame of our sin and the agony from the wrath of God which we deserved. Upon the cross He was clothed only with our iniquities. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and laid on Him an old purple soldiers’ robe, but indeed God the Father laid on Jesus all of our twisted sins and the rags of our self-righteousness. 

The scripture says “They will look on Him whom they have pierced,” so today and everyday we meditate upon the cross of Christ and we look at Him whom we have pierced. This Jesus, clothed in the naked shame of our sins, is presented before us today. Pilate’s voice cries out from the past to our ears today: “Behold the man!” Behold your Savior who willingly suffered the guilt and shame of your sins! Behold the Lamb of God who takes away all of your sins and bears them on Golgotha, The Place of a Skull! Behold your Jesus who cried out that “It is finished!” and bowed His head and gave up His spirit when your redemption price had been paid.

“We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee, for by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world!” In the naked shame of Jesus’ crucifixion, all of our sins, the totality of our sinfulness, the pathetic shame of our sins, are covered and forgiven by Jesus, totally, completely, entirely redeemed by God’s beloved Son. When you behold the Man of sorrows upon the cross, you behold the Man who made you whole.

After Jesus had died, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths. They laid him in a cave, though this time not in a manger but a tomb. On Sunday morning when Peter and John returned to the cave, they found the linen clothes lying there and the face cloth folded up in a place by itself. In the resurrection these garments meant to hide shame and death are no longer necessary, since the death of Jesus has done away with sin, death, and shame. On the cross all sin and shame was laid on Jesus and left in the tomb, and we’ve been clothed in the garment of His righteousness.