Text: John 19:17-30
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We are here tonight to
arrange a funeral. The altar, pulpit,
lectern, and so forth are stripped and decorated in black. The lights have been dimed. Your pastor is dressed in black. It is a most sobering time.
That is the way that it is
with funerals. They tend to be
sobering. They carry with them the
feelings of heaviness, grief, sorrow, and sadness. They are not good, but are bad.
Even though there are those
times when a dying person is spared from further suffering through an early
death, the death of a beloved one is still never a good thing, but bad.
The reason why this is so?
Death is our enemy. Death is your enemy. The Lord does not delight in death, and we do
not as well.
Thus, when we come to funerals,
we come with reluctance. We even shy
away from funerals that attempt to put the ‘fun’ in funeral through celebrating
a person’s life. Otherwise stated, we
shy away from these so-called uplifting funerals, these “Celebrations of Life,”
for no matter how hard these Celebration of Life Services attempt to downplay
death, everybody still recognizes and feels the gloom of death that shines
through forced smiles and the forced laughs.
Undeniably, no matter which
way you approach a funeral and no matter how much one tries to strip the
funeral of the sting of death, funerals always have a dead body. Funerals always have a dead corpse, a
lifeless body that speaks to the living about mankind’s brokenness, sin, and
demise.
Funerals are bad, for death
is our enemy.
This is the reason why most
people would rather attend a wedding than a funeral. Furthermore, people would rather suffer
through hours of excruciating painful noise with fifteen birthday children at a
Chuck E. Cheese Family Fun Restaurant than go to a funeral. Give us weddings and birthdays, but not
funerals
With all of this said,
tonight we gather together to arrange not a wedding or a birthday party, but a
funeral. Not a funeral for a family
member or community member; not a funeral for some community hero. No, we gather together to arrange a funeral
for the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Unlike every other funeral
that you have ever been to, we are actually here to celebrate the death of
Jesus. The reason why we are here to celebrate? We are here to celebrate because today is
‘Good’ Friday. That’s right, today is
good. It is a good day and a good
night. Not bad.
This seems strange, does it
not, that we call the death of the Son of God, good? There seems to be so many more things in
Christianity that we could hoist up as the center of our faith, other than this
bloody death. Maybe one the many
healings or a profound teaching could be the pinnacle of good? Counterintuitively though, today is good,
today is the climax and pinnacle of the Christian faith. Today and tonight we proclaim Christ-crucified
as good and true and salutary—as the center of our faith. But why is this Friday so good? Did we not just establish that death is an
enemy?
By faith we call this day
good, when it seems like there is nothing positive and good about it. Good Friday is the exception to the rule
though. Yes, even though it seems like a
bad day—a day when the devil strikes the heal of Jesus, a day where the devil
seems to have the upper hand, a day when the power and darkness of evil seem to
triumph—it actually is ‘very’ good.
Very much, even though it
seems like a day when faith should die, not arise, today is that historic event
that our whole being hinges upon and is sustained. Today is the day we can hang our body and our
faith upon.
 |
| Painting by Stephen Dawson |
Today is Good Friday, not
Bad Friday. Today we celebrate the death
of the Son of God—for us. Today, we cry
out, “Worthy are You Lord Jesus for You were slain, and by Your blood You
ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and
nation!” Today and for all eternity we
will praise the Christ for His sacrificial death on our behalf.
Today we do not cover our
eyes and bow our heads to that, which is bad, but rather we stand boldly with
our eyes and ears open to behold that, which is good.
Dear Baptized Saints, “Behold
this Good Friday the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, and
yours, the very God of Very God who dies to give you life, to rise and build
you up the third day as His house of living stones.”[2]
“Behold the death that
poured forth blood and water [—for you], the death into which you are baptized,
that you might with Him come forth and arise, walking now and ever in newness
of life.”[3]
“Behold, the righteousness
of God, the only [gift of] righteousness that counts for anything before His
judgment seat.”[4]
“[Behold,] this pure
righteousness this world will ever see [that] is poured out for you as a gift
on this Good Friday, to be your life, your trust, your hope, your joy, your
peace that passes all understanding.”[5]
Baptized Saints, Good
Friday’s cross is “your sanctuary in the agony of sin, your hope’s anchor in
affliction, your victory banner in the battle with sin, world, and Satan, your
heavenly ladder in the hour of your death.”[6]
Baptized Saints, behold this
Good Friday the death of the Son of God and say,
“What is death? What is hell? Christ, the Son of God, placed himself under God’s laws and died. But Christ’s death defeated death and gave us life.”[7]
Behold the death of Christ
and say,
“The Law cannot condemn me! Death will not keep me in the ground! I will not be left alone with my sins in this life or when the dark shadow of death encroaches on me.”
Behold the death of Christ
and say,
“It is finished. It all done. It has all been completed for me on that Good Friday long ago.”
The peace of God, which
passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1]
C.F.W. Walther, Gospel Sermons: Volume 1 tr.
Donald E. Heck (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2013), 219.
[2]
John Sias, Sermon for Good Friday from
Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, Colstrip, MT (29 March 2013).
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
C.F.W. Walther, Gospel Sermons: Volume 1 tr.
Donald E. Heck, 225.
[7]
Martin Luther, Source Unknown.
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