Why Good Friday Makes Us Feel Uncomfortable

Text: John 19:1-42

In the name of Jesus: Amen.

Good Friday has a way of making us uncomfortable.  The darkness of Good Friday, along with the bloody cross makes us squirm. 

If we were, to be honest, the cross of Jesus is painful to contemplate.  Even individuals who have been desensitized to violence through violent movies and video games, struggle with looking at the cross of Jesus.  And there are whole church denominations that are very adamant that crosses in churches should not have the figure of Jesus on them.  These churches are opposed to crucifixes.  In technical terms they say that crosses should be bare and not have a corpus – that is a body.  They argue, “Jesus is off the cross and risen from the dead; we should not use crucifixes.”  While this rationale makes sense to a point, I am still convinced that a huge reason for wanting an empty cross versus a crucifix is that empty crosses are tamer.  Empty crosses are a little more sanitized.  Empty crosses are a little easier to look at, whereas a cross with a bloody Messiah makes our heads turn to the side and our faces cringe. 

But why is there such difficulty with a dark Good Friday and the bleeding Savior upon the cross?  Why does this Good Friday service grab our hearts in such a profound way?  Dear friends, the answer is that the death of Jesus is no ordinary death.  The darkness of Good Friday is no ordinary darkness.  It would be ordinary if Jesus were dying on the cross for a wrong that He had committed.  That is to say; if Jesus was on the cross for something that He had done wrong, we could shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, that is too bad, but I guess he got what was coming,” and then we could go on our way.  But this is not the case. 

Dear friends, the death of Christ is no ordinary death, and it is no ordinary darkness and here is why.  Look and realize that the wounded, bloodied, and crucified Christ did not suffer on the cross for a single wrong that He had done. But rather, that bloody cross and that darkness were because of you and me.  Yes, He was on the cross because of us.  That is why it is no ordinary death and no ordinary darkness. 

You see, on that cross, the totality of human sin – from the first sin of Adam and Eve to the last sin of the last human being alive – all of it was gathered up, pressed together, and then loaded on Jesus while He hung on the cross in darkness.  Jesus bore the whole weight of it and owned it as His own.  And so, Jesus experienced both temporal and eternal death because of you and because of me.

This is why it is tough to look at a crucifix because it is hard to accept the truth of our sins.  The wounds, the nails affixed to His hands and feet, the blood running down His face from the thorns, are because of us – our sin.  His mutilated back rubbing against the tree as He is forced to push upward to breathe is because of us – our sin. 

Jesus’ whole life was only love. He was the only human being who completely loved the Father with His all and His neighbor as Himself; however, this perfect life ended at a cross because of us. 

And so, tonight we find ourselves lowering our heads.  Our eyes drop to the side.  Shame sets in, and we shake our heads because we know that Jesus suffered and died on that cross because of us. 

Dear Baptized Saints, while it is hard to look through the darkness to the bleeding Savior on the cross, tonight I must tell you that it is good and right to do so.  Hard to look at the cross, yes.  Good to look at the cross, yes, as well.  In fact, this night we must lift our heads, open our eyes, and gaze through the darkness upon the suffering servant on the cross.  We must fall on our knees before this image of Jesus bleeding.  We must ponder this picture of the suffering and crucified Savior. 

But why should we look at something that is hard to look at, such as Christ-crucified?

Baptized Saints, we must gaze upon the crucified Christ because it is a picture of the Lord’s love for you!  Because Jesus is love, this loving Savior will not leave sinners in sin.  And so, the bloody cross with a bloody Savior is the most dramatic display God’s love for you.  Yes, Jesus – who is perfect love – takes sin upon Himself.  Jesus – who is perfect love – is wounded to grant us healing.  The dark and bloody cross is love towards you.

And so, tonight we beg the Lord to imprint this image of Christ-crucified on our hearts and minds so that we might carry this image with us wherever we go.  We pray that the Lord would engrave this picture of Christ-crucified upon us so that it can be before our eyes at the moment of our death.

You see, when the moment of your death comes to you, the devil will press you.  At that moment of death, the devil will seek his last chance to snatch you away from God forever, and he has a powerful weapon to use.

During your everyday lives, the cunning serpent minimizes sin and tries to lure you into sin with temptations.  However, at death, the opposite happens.  At the end of your life, the devil then maximizes your sins in your memory to bring you to despair.  Yes, when death is coming for you, the devil will happily set up the projector in your mind and replay for you the many sins you have forgotten.

The devil will taunt you, that you are not a Christian.  He will declare you unfit for the kingdom of God.  He will tell you that you are his and that by your sin that you have committed yourself to the kingdom of darkness.

All those sins will be playing over and over and over in your mind as you are struggling in death.  And that is why it is vital that we gaze upon Christ-crucified.  This is why it is so important that we lift up our chins and look through the darkness to Jesus hanging on the cross.  This is why it is so essential in life to look upon Christ-crucified.  This is why it is so important to behold our Savior’s wounds and to hold them close to our hearts, counting them as our most precious treasure.  This is why the image of Christ-crucified needs to be imprinted on our minds and hearts. 

So, in the hour of your death, Christ-crucified will be your only weapon against the despair of the enemy.  You will be able to look at all of your sins as the accuser brings them before your eyes, and you will be able to acknowledge that they are indeed awful and wrong.  However, against the devil’s accusations, you have something far greater – you have Christ-crucified. Yes, we can admit before the devil that Jesus is on the cross because of us; however, we can also confess boldly that Jesus is on the cross because of us.  He is there because He loves you and me.  He is there because there must be an end to sin, death, and the devil.  He is there because He cannot tolerate sin and chose to do something about it for you and me.

Baptized Saints, the dying Savior shatters the devil’s accusations for all the accusations, and all of your sins were atoned for at the cross.  The blood of Jesus blotted out every single sin that you have ever committed or ever well.  And so, the devil cannot contend with Christ’s blood. 

Awful as your sins are, each one has been paid for, covered by innocent blood, the blood of your Savior, Jesus.

So, tonight we lift up our heads.  We look into the darkness without fear.  We look upon the crucified one with confidence.  And as we consider our Crucified Savior, we ask the Lord to imprint this image on our minds and hearts, so that we might have the sure confidence that Jesus Christ – God in the flesh – has proved Himself as our dearest friend by dying for all of our sins, making you and me, His forever.   

In the name of Jesus: Amen.

Note: this sermon is borrowed in parts from William Weedon’s Good Friday Sermon on Isaiah 53.

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Into The Darkness On Good Friday

Text:  John 19:1-42

In the name of Jesus: Amen.

Tonight we travel into the darkness.  The altar was stripped last night.  Black has been laid upon our altar.  The pastor is wearing all black.  We will soon hear the jarring noise of the Strepitus – the loud bang that symbolizes the earthquake that followed Christ’s death.  Indeed, tonight we enter into the darkness of death; we hear the hammer slamming down upon the nails, and we hear about the blood and the agony and the groans and the pain of Jesus Christ. 

Now, it would be easy to think that we are somehow trying to recreate a funeral for Jesus in our service tonight; however, Jesus died some two-thousand years ago.  No funeral is needed or necessary.  Indeed, His death was long ago, but your death and my death is much closer, it is not too far away.  Yes, darkness will soon come to each and every one of us.  Darkness will come, and it will cast its heavy shadow over top of us; enveloping us and pulling us into the cold grave.   

And so, tonight we remember that death is our enemy.  Death is our problem.  Death is the great enemy of humanity.  There is no stopping powerful death.  Modern medicine has not found a solution to death.  Anti-aging creams can only prolong the effects of death.  Plastic surgery only conceals death.  We can run from death, but we cannot hide from death, for the older we get, the darker the shadow of death becomes.  And the darker the shadow of death becomes, the uglier and meaner death seems to be.  And the more death snarls at us, the more we feel powerless and even fearful of death. 

And just when we think that the shadow of death is as dark as it may be, from the shadows of death emerges sin.  Yes, sin creeps out of the shadows.  Dear friends, never forget that beneath death is sin.  When sin is fully grown is brings forth death.[1] Sin consumes and destroys.  Sin brings spiritual death, it brings forth diseases and miseries, and it brings forth eternal death.  So, when the shadow of death descends heavily upon you, realize that it is strangling the life out of you not merely from the outside, but from within because we all are infected by the virus of sin.

To make things worse, the Devil rejoices and parades around in the shadows of death.  He is the ruler of darkness.  And so when death presses upon us, the Devil is eager to press down upon us with accusations and scorn, and laughter as well.  The Devil digs out every sin that we have ever committed and casts it before our eyes and presses these sins upon our souls.  The Devil shows no mercy when the shadow of death comes.  He attacks, and he slanders, and he oppresses for he is the sly evil foe.  Even though he masquerades around as an agent of light, he is of darkness and is evil to the core.    

There is no doubt about it; death is indeed the biggest struggle that humanity knows.  There is nothing more powerful than death in this life under the sun.  And tonight we come face to face with this great power.  In fact, tonight we do not merely stare into the darkness of death, but we travel into the darkness of death in this Good Friday Service.  Yes, we travel into the darkness of death this evening because we know that the only way to make it through the darkness and not succumb to the despair of death is that we walk into it and through it with the Lord Jesus Christ! 

Dear friends, we must never forget that the death of Jesus Christ is our death.  Jesus, the righteous and innocent Man, “had to tremble and fear like a poor, condemned sinner and in His tender, innocent heart had to feel God’s wrath and judgment over sin, taste for us eternal death and damnation, and, in short, suffer all that a condemned sinner has deserved and must suffer eternally.”[2]  On that cross, Jesus had to experience hell’s fire and terror, the Devil’s fiery darts, and the painful bite of the jaws of death.  He experienced all of this for you and me – in our place and on our behalf. 

It is like this, for one time and only one time in the whole history of our race, there was a death of one whom sin had no hold – no hold whatsoever.  Death had no right to Jesus, yet as we celebrate this holy evening, Jesus gave Himself up into death.  And He did this, so that He could bring you out of it!

Are you beginning to see just how brilliant this is?  How masterful this plan of salvation is?  Into the darkness of this night, death swallowed down another apparent victim; however, Jesus was unlike all the others that death had eating before.   Indeed, Jesus was true human flesh.  He was nailed to the cross.  He bled.  He suffered.  He cried out.  From the perspective of death, Jesus seemed to act and die like ever else.  However, hidden under the flesh of Jesus was a light that no darkness could overcome.  Hidden under the flesh was no mere mortal, but the Divine Son of God.  And so, when the Son of God gave Himself over to death and when death licked its lips and devoured down the Son of God, it may have seemed that it was all over, that death had consumed another helpless victim.  However, this could not be further from the truth.  For into the dense darkness of death, Jesus let loose light, light that darkness could not overcome.    

Blessed Baptized Saints, your Jesus goes into the darkness that you will have to go into.  And because you will go into the darkness with Him, you have nothing to fear from the devil and his lies.  As the darkness could not hold your Jesus, so it will not hold you.  As the darkness had no claim on Jesus, so by the innocent shedding of His blood, darkness has lost all claims on you.  His blood has covered all your sins forever.  You are HIS.  Surely, your sins put you into the grave, but your baptism joins you to Jesus’ grave, a grave leading to the resurrection and new life.

Tonight we enter into the darkness; tonight we remember that Jesus went into the darkness before us and with us.   And so we go into the darkness of Good Friday, and we travel towards the darkness of our own death, knowing that we will go through darkness with Jesus.  We will go through the shadows of death fearing no evil.  We will walk into death and through it and out of it, for Jesus has overcome the devil, sin, and death. 

Tonight we remember the death of the Son of God, but we also remember the destruction of death itself.  We remember forgiveness of sins accomplished for us.  We remember all of this, and by faith, we confess,

“I shall not be afraid, for the Lord Jesus Christ is for me in His life and in His death.” 

Yes, we have gone into the darkness of Good Friday, and tonight we will arise from our pews and go forward towards Sunday where we will hear about so much more. 

In the name of Jesus: Amen.

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[1] James 1:15.

[2] Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics: Volume II (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1951), 312. 

Portions of this sermon are indebted to Rev. William Weedon’s Good Friday Tenebrae Sermon.

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This Is The Way It Is With Christ's Cross

Text:  John 19:16-42

In the name of Jesus: Amen.

Today, our thoughts gather outside the walls of Jerusalem on a little hill called Golgotha, where we watch three men die.  These three have been judged and condemned as criminals.  They have been sentenced to hang from a cross until their strength gives way and their bodies collapse into death.  

Two of these men have pretty corrupt pasts.  In fact, one of the men even admits that they are getting what they deserve.  

The guy at the center though is different.  He is innocent; He is blameless.  He was not like the two criminals on his right and on his left.  Regardless of His innocence though, all three of them share the same execution together, they are brothers in death.  

We all know a lot more about the man on the center cross than we do about the men on the sides.  You and I have followed Jesus’ life through this first half of our church year.  We heard about His birth in Bethlehem, where He was born just like one of us.  We heard about His life and learned how Jesus shared our whole life with us.  We learned that Jesus is our brother because He did life like we do life, except without sin.  

This brings up a very interesting question for us this evening.  If Jesus was innocent and perfect and holy and just, why did He die?  If He was innocent, why did He die a criminal’s death?  

One of the reasons for His death is that Jesus had to die because the religious leaders of Jesus’ time hated Him.  He exposed them as the hypocrites that they were; He broke down their religious systems, and revealed that it was by grace – not the works of mankind – that a person was forgiven.  They obviously did not take to well to this and killed Him.  

While this is all true, there is another reason why Jesus had to die.  That reason is this, Jesus stepped towards death.  He went up to Jerusalem to die.  He rode on a donkey into the city of Jerusalem for the purpose of giving His life into the hands of sinners to be crucified.  He gave his life as a ransom for many.  In other words, death did not overtake Jesus, but rather, He went to meet it.  Death did not cut Him down, but rather His death was the fulfillment of His whole mission.  He went straight at death, commending His spirit to God.  This death was of His own choosing.  

Christ Jesus chose to go right towards death not in order to merely die a physical death, but rather, to die the big death for sin.  The death for sin is the death of the Lamb of God on behalf of mankind.  It is the death of the Servant of God on whom God lays the sins of us all.  Bearing all these sins, guilty with our sin, Jesus is nailed and bloodied for us.  He bears our sin – our hell for us.  He is damned on the cross as if He were a sinner.  He endures the separation from the Father.  He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  He cries with a loud voice, “It is finished,” and then the job is done.  The death of the Savior; the death of our sin!

What does this mean for you and for me?  It means that sin – the thing that is wrong with us – has been answered for, and now it can no longer condemn us.  Sin has spent itself against Jesus, and with the loud triumphant cry He – Jesus – claims the victory.  Salvation is achieved.  There was a death of sin!  We need no longer die.  

Tonight we are not retelling the story of Jesus death as if it was a mythical children’s story, but we retell it because it is a historic fact.  Indeed, Jesus went through this life.  He began this human life by being born in Bethlehem and He completed this life by death on a cross.  Jesus really did die; His corpse was taken down from the cross by Joseph and Nicodemus, wrapped in a piece of linen, and put in a grave.  Jesus was buried.

Tonight we also retell this story because the life that Jesus lived is a life lived for you and for me.  Furthermore, His death that He died is shared with you and with me.  You see, whenever we put the body of a loved one into a grave, we know Jesus has been there too.  As the three men were made brothers in death, so we are also brothers and sisters with Jesus in His life and in His death.  We are baptized into His life and His death.  Jesus put Himself not only next to the two criminals on the cross, but He also puts Himself next to you and me in our lives and especially in our deaths.   

This is the way it is with Christ’s cross.  When we see the cross of Jesus we see the condemnation of our sin – the end of our sins. The cross is the condemnation of us as sinners.  It is actually our crucifixion.  Therefore, I must ask all of us this, are we in this cross or do we try and pull ourselves out of it, refusing to be joined to Jesus’ death?  If we run from the cross and the blood stained Christ, repent!  Yes, repent of running from the cross, there is no other way.  You are either joined to Jesus’ death in baptism or you are dead in your sins alone.  

You, who have ears, hear on this quiet and sober Good Friday Evening, Christ was crucified for you and for your salvation.  Stand in awe before the blood stained cross.  Hear the sound of the nails.  Hear the crying agony of the Savior.  Hear the words, “It is finished.”  And as we stand beneath the cross, we confess together, 

“As Jesus dies, I die too.  My sins are crucified.  I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”  

You my friends, have died with Jesus.  You know no life except the life that comes from dying with Christ.  The pattern of your life is constantly returning to the message of the cross of Christ, where the King of glory died for you.  Yes, being returned to the message of the cross you hear that sin’s accusation and power find their end.  Being returned to the message of the cross you hear that death has lost its sting.

Dear Baptized Saints, your hearts will stop beating some day in the future.  There is no doubt about that; however, because of that Good Friday long ago you must take comfort for your grave will not be a hopeless cold resting place for your body.  Indeed, your graves are not a place where you will be cut off, but by Christ’s mighty death and His three-day rest in the tomb, the graves of Christians have been made holy – your grave has been made holy.  Yes, in death and in your grave, you have the blessed assurance that you have been joined to Christ’s death on the cross.  You are baptized into his death, you no longer live, but you live by faith in the Son of God who has purchased you from the jaws of hell and from the grip of sin’s condemnation.  You have been joined to the glorious news of Easter Sunday; the message of Easter that will dawn upon us in a very short while.

In the name of Jesus: Amen.

This sermon has been an adapted and adjusted Norman Nagel Sermon:
Norman Nagel, Selected Sermons of Norman Nagel: From Valparaiso to St. Louis (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2004), 113-118.

It's 'Good' Friday, Not 'Bad' Friday

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

My friends, today is good because on this day many years ago the “Most Holy [Lord] died the death of the sinner in order that the sinner might live.”[1]  Today is good, for on this day the Almighty Lord was conquered by the power of darkness, so that blind sinners might be delivered from darkness unto radiant eternal life.  Today is good, for on this day the source of life dried up in order to give life to the dead dry hearts of all sinners.  Today is good, for on this day God in the flesh died on the cross, reconciling the sinful world to Himself. 

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.

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[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.