Good Friday

(Audio)

John 18:1 – 19:42; 2 Corinthians 5:14-21; Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Your Lord Jesus Christ “came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” He is the Lamb of God’s self-offering, who willingly stretched forth the horns of His strength to be caught in the thorns of your sin. He took your place upon the altar of sacrifice and was consumed under the Father’s righteous wrath. He drank that cup, undiluted, to the very dregs. And when He cried out, “It is finished,” it was finished. There is nothing left to be paid. The Father’s wrath is spent. Its fire is extinguished, “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

For this is the way in which God has loved the world: He gave His only Son. And the Son went willingly, because He is the love of God in the flesh. For God is love. And that love suffered, died, and was buried. There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. So, it is written: “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.” All of this He endured willingly, out of love for His Father and out of love for you. You were the object of that love. And now you are the fruit of that love.

For you have been born again, born from the side of Jesus as He hung upon the cross. The water and the blood that flowed from His pierced side are your life. From Him you have been brought forth, like a new Eve from the side of the New Adam, like a Bride from the Bridegroom. In Holy Baptism you were baptized into His death and buried with Him. And if you have been united with Him in a death like His, you shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. So now you walk in newness of life. But what does that newness of life look like? How does the Bride of Christ live in this world?

The Prophet Isaiah describes the Suffering Servant: “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.” These words first and rightly describe our Lord Jesus Christ in His humiliation. But they also, in Him, describe His Bride, the Church, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. For throughout her history, the Church has often been despised and rejected, mocked and hated, made to suffer for the sake of Christ and His Word. And when this suffering has come as the fruit of faithfulness, the Church has shone as a light in the darkness, salt and leaven in the world. Indeed, as the early Church Father Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Just as it was the Father’s will to crush His Son, that He might be like a grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying to bear much fruit, so also the Church bears witness to God’s love by serving, and not being served, even unto death, for the life of the world.

But suffering is not something to be sought. It comes of its own accord. You do not choose your crosses; they are given to you. And they are given so that your strength may be found not in yourself, but in Him who has suffered all for you. And yet, if we are honest, too often the Church does not appear as the humble Bride of Christ. Too often she dresses herself in another image, proud, self-righteous, uncharitable, unmerciful, unforgiving. Instead of bearing the griefs and sorrows of the world, she seeks power, favor, and influence. Instead of trusting in the Word of God, she is tempted to trust in the laws of men, even wielding them as weapons against the weak. This is not the way of Christ.

The Prophet’s words show us our Lord in His humility: lowly, despised, rejected, yet bearing the sin of the world. And if these words describe the Church, then they describe her only in Him, in His life, His love, His mercy, and His forgiveness flowing through her. Only in Christ does the Church become what she is called to be: a light in the darkness, a beacon of hope in a world bound in sin and death.

For God has loved you in this way: He sent His Son to suffer and die for you. And now, the love of Christ controls you. As St. Paul writes, “One has died for all; therefore all have died. And He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.” Through Jesus’ death, God has reconciled you to Himself. And now He has given to you the ministry of reconciliation, the service of making others right with God through Christ. But this is not your work. It is God’s work in Christ, carried out through you.

You serve with His service. You love with His love. You bear with others in His patience. You forgive with His forgiveness. You regard no one according to the flesh, but as those for whom Christ has died, redeemed by His holy, precious blood. This is your calling. This is your life. For you have been born again from the side of Christ, the New Adam. You are His Bride, His Church, His New Eve, the mother of all the living. And there is salvation in no one else. There is no salvation apart from Christ and His Body.

Therefore, as Christ suffered and died to reconcile you to God, so He now sends you as His ambassadors. You die to yourself, and you live for others. You speak His Word. You bear His mercy. You call sinners to be reconciled to God. And this is the message: Christ has died. Christ is risen. God “has made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.