Good Friday

John 19:25-27 - Good Friday - March 25, 2016         
“Woman, Behold Your Son!”

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In ancient times, it was a common belief among the Jews that the day a prophet died was also the day he was conceived.  They didn’t always keep track of birthdays the way we do.  But in this way they thought they could at least figure out a prophet’s birthday.  Since the day of his death would be the same day as his conception, all they had to do was count nine months later, and there you have it, the day he was born, more or less.  Whether or not this is an accurate way to figure out someone’s birthday is beside the point.  This is how the date of Christmas was established.  First they identified when Jesus died.  Then they concluded that this must have been the day he was conceived.  And so nine months later they would celebrate his birth.  He was born to die. 

This shatters all the stupid claims of modern scoffers who say that the date of Christmas was the Church’s attempt to replace some pagan holiday or another.  It’s simply not the case.  The date of Christmas has nothing to do with the winter solstice or anything of the sort.  It has everything to do with today, the day Jesus was conceived being the very day he died.  Even before Christians were celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25, which is nine months from today, they were celebrating the conception of Jesus on March 25, which is today.  And they arrived at this date because today, March 25, is also the earliest date recorded for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  He was born to die. 

This is a special Good Friday.  While Good Friday is determined by the lunar calendar, this year it coincides perfectly with the festival of the Annunciation to Mary which is determined by the solar calendar.  Gabriel announced that Mary would conceive and bear a Son who would be the Savior of the world.  So this is kind of neat to have this date fall on the very day that we also commemorate the death of God’s Son our Savior, since, after all, Jesus was born to die. 

The almighty God who made us joined himself to humanity by becoming one of us – bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.  He depended on his Father’s providence for every earthly need even as he himself upheld all things by the power of his own divinity.  This is the mystery of the incarnation.  

Behold, the world’s creator wears
The form and fashion of a slave;
Our very flesh our Maker shares,
His fallen creatures all to save. _{(Coelius Sedulius)}

But God does not save us by merely making a decision from his heavenly throne.  He must do more than make a decision.  He must form a plan.  And so he did since before time began.  He cannot deny his justice.  He cannot deny his mercy.  So he satisfies both by making his throne here on earth – by requiring of himself what we owed him.  He makes his throne in the womb of a virgin.  He makes his throne in her lap as she rocks him to sleep.  He makes his throne where the Son of Man has nowhere upon which he might rest his head.  He makes his throne where he lives as an obedient servant and fulfills the law of God as our holy Substitute.  He makes his throne where he is rejected and mocked and beaten and nailed to a cross of wood by liars and self-righteous charlatans. 

There is his throne: where he is rejected and despised by men.  There is his throne: where God condemns God to die.  There God’s almighty power and glory are made known to man – there where it looks like his power and glory are dimmed and extinguished.  But it is only veiled in humility so that we might be able to behold it without being undone.  And so we behold it.  Here alone in the preaching of Christ crucified do we have access to such divine glory, because here alone do we have sure knowledge of God’s good will and love toward us. 

We behold God’s glory in the death of him who took our place.  For there on the cross, where the God Man suffers for you, God’s justice and mercy kiss.  There his thirst for your eternal salvation is quenched as the lips of his eternal Son taste the cup of divine wrath against your sin and drink it to its bitter dregs.  And from that throne he makes his decree: “Father, forgive them.”  “It is finished.”  These decrees of unimaginable selflessness and love toward us come from the same heart of God that compelled him to take up residence in Mary’s womb in the first place.  He was born to die. 

And so to these decrees of our God and Lord, we learn with Mother Mary to respond in faith, “Let it be to me according to your word.”   For there on the cross, God fulfilled his word – the ancient promise our fathers trusted in – the all-availing sacrifice we teach our children to rely upon.  There on the cross the high favor once spoken to Mary was purchased and procured for her and for us.  “Rejoice, highly favored one; the Lord is with you.” 

And was this not what Mary consented to in faith when she said Amen to Gabriel’s announcement: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus.”?  Is this not what it was all for as she wept beneath the cross?  God became Man to die.  He who once put enmity between the serpent and the woman assumed flesh in order to do away with the enmity between God and man.  The Seed of the woman became a Man in the virgin’s womb in order that he might resist Satan’s temptations, and yet also feel in his flesh the venom of our sin.  All for us.  By succumbing in death to God’s curse on humanity, Jesus crushed the devil’s head once and for all, and freed us from all wrath to come. 

This is what Mary said Amen to.  Her God had come to save her.  Amen.  But before he did, he brought her joy.  It was joy that no mother has ever known.  She had the perfect Son.  He was obedient and kind.  He was considerate and respectful.  He brought her honor and filled her home with the word of God.  The holy life that Jesus lived as Mary’s Son was the same holy life he lived toward God in our place.  What was pleasing to Mary and Joseph was even more pleasing to God.  He fulfilled the law not merely by not sinning.  He fulfilled the law by doing what was his duty as a man to do – what was your duty and mine.  The duty Jesus fulfilled in his perfect life brought much joy to his mother.  But not nearly as much joy as would his perfect death.  He died for her. 

There on the cross, the most blessed mother of all time became the saddest mother of all time.  And yet her good and thoughtful Son, of all times justified if he were too distracted, yet was not distracted.  His mind remained sharp and focused, and his heart remained devoted to his mom whom he loved.  But his love toward Mary was not merely as a son towards his mother.  It was as God toward a lowly sinner who stood helpless in the face of death and sorrow.  He knew that Mary should no longer regard him and long for him as her Son who was dying.  She needed to know him as her Savior who was taking her sins away. 

“When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’  Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’” 

Even in his agony, Jesus sees to his mother’s earthly welfare.  He places Mary in John’s care because even as he suffers the condemnation of the law for us and bears the weight of human guilt, he was still committed to fulfilling the righteous requirements of the law.  He honored his mother.  Jesus loved his disciples to the end, as we heard in last night’s Gospel.  So also, he loved his mother to the end.  He was accomplishing her eternal salvation from sin, death, and hell.  He was reconciling her and all humanity to his Father.  This was her greatest need. 

This is where our greatest need is met.  No other earthly sorrow can compare.  No need or pain or poverty or stress can compare with the inestimable value of what Christ did for each one of us on the cross.  But this doesn’t mean that Jesus doesn’t care about these meager, temporary problems of yours.  He does.  He was born to die.  Yes, but he is wholly invested in life – both life as we live it today under the cross and life as we will live it forever in heaven on account of his cross.  By meeting your spiritual need, he does not tell you that your earthly needs don’t matter.  Even from the cross he shows how much he cares.  “Woman, behold your son!”

His entire life he devoted himself to the temporary needs of his neighbor.  And all the while he was earning the one thing needful for all of us.  So also on the cross he devoted himself to the eternal need of all men.  And all the while he cared about the day-by-day comfort of Mary and John.  And so he cares about you. 

“From that hour [John] took [Mary] to his own home.”  She lost her Son.  Jesus gave her a new son.  But she didn’t lose Jesus.  She gained him as her Savior.  This is what was promised her when she first became a mother.  This is why we celebrate the Annunciation as well as Good Friday – and so much more when it falls on the same day.  Jesus was born to die.  The Annunciation was the announcement of more than a life of joy for Mother Mary.  It was the announcement of the life that Jesus would live in her place and of the death he would die in her place.  And so we find that where Jesus takes time to see to the rest of Mary’s earthly life, he sees to the rest of yours. 

You find your life not so strictly divided by spiritual needs and earthly needs – though of course we must distinguish.  But where Christ our Lord joins us to himself as his brothers and sisters, he also joins us to one another.  He sees to our spiritual need – our need for peace with God – by bearing our sins by himself on the cross.  God does not condemn you.  He does not see your sin.  His Son bore it.  Your sins are removed from you as far as the east is from the west, as far as life is from death.  Your God regards you as his child with whom he will never be anything but pleased so long as you claim by faith what Christ has done for you.  In him you are highly favored. 

And so also we, who together are joined in him who lived and died and rose, we are a new family.  Therefore through this family, the holy Church, God continues to care for our earthly needs.  As Jesus said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48-50).  And so we love each other as such.  Our relationship with each other by our common faith in Christ is stronger than any blood relationship that might bind us to another.  Those with whom you hear God’s word are your family in the truest sense even after they die, because your bond is one formed by the blood of Christ who took on human flesh in order to give his life for yours.  As Mary found joy living for a time with the perfect Son, so we find joy spending our earthly days with brothers and sisters who confess her Son as our Savior. 

Mary is blessed, and remains so through all generations, as she herself sang in the Magnificat.  So we can sing it too, and with the woman in the crowd, raise our voice to Jesus and confirm her words: “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!”  But we do well to remember how Jesus responded to this: More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27-28).  This is what made Mary so blessed.  And this is what makes us so blessed when Jesus tells us likewise to behold our Mother.  As Mary, the Mother of God, by the Holy Spirit conceived and bore the innocent Christ Child, so the Church, who is the Mother of us all, through water and the same Spirit gives birth to Christians, clothed and kept safe in the innocence of Jesus.  This is the one hope for all our children and for all of God’s.  It is our priority in life above all earthly cares, and in the hour of death it will be our eternal stay. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.