Good Friday + John 18:1-19:42 + March 30, 2018

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

We are always tempted on Good Friday to think that it’s not actually all that good. We hear the account of Christ’s betrayal, His trials, His scourging, the crown of thorns, and His rejection by man and God the Father, and we think that evil has one the day, that the sufferings and death of Christ are the triumph of darkness over light. If viewed this way, Good Friday becomes a day of mourning and sorrow over Christ’s death, almost like a yearly funeral for Jesus. But this is not how the Scriptures teach us view Christ’s passion. It is not the triumph of darkness over light. It is not Cain murdering Abel for no reason than to satisfy his own rage. We mustn’t imagine that that on this day that the devil, the world, and the wickedness of men prevail over the goodness of God.

Jesus was not at the mercy of bloodthirsty Jews, just as His life was not in Pilate’s hands. When Pilate reminds Jesus that he has the power to crucify Him or release Him, Jesus says, “You could have no power at all against me unless it hand been given you from above.” The Jews have conspired against Jesus to crucify Him. The Gentiles do their dirty work for them. But Jesus was not at the mercy of Jew or Gentile, High Priest or Pilate. Everything that happened to Jesus, every ounce of agony that was poured out upon Him was the will of God His heavenly Father. In the fourth chapter of Acts, Peter prays and says, “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27-28). Every affliction of Christ was given as if from the hand of God Himself. Herod and Pilate, the Jews and the Gentiles, conspired together to bring Christ to death. They intended it for evil but God the Father intended it for our good. As Isaiah said, “It pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10).

Why would Father wish this for His only-begotten Son? It wasn’t hatred, as if God the Father could hate His Son whom He begot from eternity. The exact opposite is true! Twice during Jesus’ earthly ministry the Father spoke audibly for the disciples to hear. Both times God the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” It wasn’t hatred. It was justice and it was love. It was justice because God is holy and holiness cannot tolerate even the smallest amount of sin. David sings in Psalm 5:4, “For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you.” Sin must be punished. It cannot be tolerated. God can’t excuse our sins or wink at them. Sin is every violation of His will for us. So sin must be punished, just as the sin of our first parents was punished. The Lord had told them that if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die. They ate. So they died. At that moment they spiritually died, becoming enemies of God who would rather listen to the voice of Satan rather than the Word of God. That sin of Adam’s is passed on to all His children and every one of his descendants, so that there is not a child born that is not born into sin. It is, as Job says, impossible to bring a clean thing from an unclean thing. So sinners beget sinners. As St. Paul says, “Through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation” (Rom. 5:18).

We are born sinful and this spiritual condition is what then leads us all to daily commit all kinds of terrible sins. Our hearts are like fountains from which flow all sorts of vile and filthy thoughts: covetous desires, discontentedness with our situations, lust, greedy desire, anger against our fellow man and hatred for our neighbor. The desires of our hearts and minds work themselves out in our words and deeds. These sins are often visible, but our spiritual sins are far more difficult, even impossible, for us to detect. We imagine that we fear God above all things in life when in reality we fear destitution and suffering. We think that we love God more than anything else in this life when we really love our possessions and our lifestyle more. We say we trust in God for good things, but then prove ourselves liars by worrying about tomorrow. We misuse God’s name and we fail to use it properly for prayer, praise, and thanksgiving at all times. We fail to orient our lives around the most important thing: hearing God’s Word. All of this is sin’s work us, for our many sins we deserve nothing but everlasting wrath, punishment, and condemnation. This condemnation must be meted out. Sin must be punished with the full force and wrath of God.

But God loves His creation and hates nothing that He made. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). He gave His Son to assume our flesh and live our life so that He might die our death in our place. Sin must be condemned. So the Son of God comes in our flesh and takes our sin upon Himself. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21), so that Christ might be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Christ doesn’t suffer because the Jews are thirsty for His blood. Jesus isn’t condemned by Pilate in justice. Pilate acquits Jesus three times publically! God gathers Herod, Pilate, the Jews and Gentiles together so that He might afflict Christ with the punishment we deserve for all our sins so that that God’s wrath against sin can be satisfied. As the prophet Isaiah foretold: “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

All of this He endures for you. Each wound of Christ is for the healing of the wounds you have inflicted upon yourself by your sin. Every ounce of suffering is Hell that you no longer have drink from the cup of wrath because Christ your Lord has drunk that cup to the dregs. Every false accusation He bears is so that He can silence the true accusations of Satan against you for your sins. The abandonment He suffers upon the cross, even from God the Father, is the abandonment which you deserve for having abandoned God by your sins. He fulfills God’s justice against sin, for the Father punishes Christ as THE sinner upon the cross so that all who believe this gospel may be free from everlasting condemnation. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Do not fall to the temptation to think this Friday is not actually good. It is truly good because on this day Christ willingly atoned for every one of your sins and satisfied God’s wrath against you. He earns for you the forgiveness of all your sins. He gives His life into death so that you may receive everlasting life. He endures your deserved condemnation to give you salvation from sin, eternal death, and all the power of the devil. This was God the Father’s purpose in gathering together Herod, Pilate, the Jews and Gentiles on Good Friday: to earn for you what is truly good.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.