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. 

Good Friday

Hebrews4:14–5:7 - Good Friday - April 3, 2015
Our High Priest

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

What is a priest?  As my members may know, I often like to stress the importance of knowing Old Testament history, because if we don’t know it, we miss out on the context of much of the New Testament.  The fact that it is called the New Testament alone should itself compel us to become at least a little acquainted with the Old.  Now this is not to say that we need to become Jews in order to be true Christians.  God forbid!  The Law of Moses has been fulfilled and all the ceremonies that God commanded him to teach the people have been abrogated.  But why? 

Good Friday

Matthew 27:45-46 - Good Friday Tenebrae - April 18, 2014
Reconciled to God

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

That portion of Scripture which we consider this evening the Holy Spirit caused to be recorded in the twenty-seventh chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, starting at the forty-fifth verse, which we read as follows in Jesus’ name: 

Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

These are your words, holy Father; sanctify us in the truth; your word is truth.  Amen. 

The first thing that God created was light.  He spoke his Word and there it was: light shining in the darkness.  All things that God created were made by the Father through the Son.  He is the eternal Word of God.  Wherever the Son of God goes forth from his Father, the Father accomplishes that for which he sent him.  God sends his Son by speaking.  The Son does what the Father says.  God spoke, and there was light. 

God did not create light for his own sake.  He himself is light.  He doesn’t need what he creates.  We do.  Light, the very first thing that God created, was made for the sake of man, the very last thing that God created.  He is the crown of God’s creation and love.  Everything on earth was made for our sake.

Good Friday

John 19:26-27 - Tre Ore — Word Three - April 18, 2014
Jesus Honors His Father & Mother

Certain things can cause a man to shift around his priorities.  When I was a kid, I remember experiencing the conscious epiphany that it was time in my life to put away playing with my favorite childhood toys.  I loved them and the times I had with them.  But it was time.  It was kind of sad, when I think about it.  But we all grow up and put away old things that once made our young hearts happy.  Now, I didn’t stop playing with my toys because of some duty to grow up.  No one urged me or hinted that I should begin acting my age.  It wasn’t that at all.  Other things just became more important to me, and I knew that I wanted to pursue those things instead.  It’s like when a man leaves his mother and father to be joined to his wife.  He doesn’t need to be told.  He isn’t forced out of his parents’ home.  His desire for his bride simply renews and shifts his priorities. 

Such is life.  We go through stages, and we make several adjustments to our priorities as we go.  And such is death.  Our stages eventually end.  And when a man lies dying, a much more severe adjustment often takes place than when he came of age or got married.  Suddenly, what seemed important for decades, even those things that defined him to his friends, such as fishing or some sports team or even something nobler like a good political cause, all these are suddenly set aside like childhood toys that aren’t important anymore.  Because they’re not.  There’s no duty that tells a dying man to stop caring so much about earthly things he once loved.  Just the reality of ever after and his eternal soul’s future take sudden precedence over everything else.  It’s natural. 

Good Friday

John 19:31-37 - Good Friday - March 29, 2013 

That the Scripture Should Be Fulfilled

Our Lord suffered in body and soul on the cross to save us poor sinners from the eternal sufferings of hell.  Isaiah foretold it in that beautiful chapter that I just read.  God’s Servant bore our sin.  The Lord God laid them on Him so that He might take our place.  He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted as though He were responsible for every sin that makes God mad.  That’s what it means to take our place.  He took our place under His Father’s anger – an anger that He totally agreed with.  And He agreed to endure it too.  No one has ever known such pain.  But He knew it.  And by His knowledge, God’s righteous Servant justified many.  Because His pain was not useless — it was not senseless.  By suffering the way He did, Jesus bore our iniquities. 

God justifies us, that is, He declares us to be righteous in His sight, by taking our sin away in a very real way.  God requires that we live a holy life.  He also requires that the sinner be punished for his sin.  God receives satisfaction for both – both the obedience that we could not render and the deserving death of the sinner – in the same place!  He demands the perfect life of His Son.  And so, in obedience to His Father’s will, Jesus poured out His soul unto death. 

And when He did, although His physical thirst was mocked by sour wine, His thirst for our salvation was fully quenched — because it was in His pain, and in the mockery He endured that Jesus made peace between God and sinners.  There was nothing beyond the painful death of Jesus that God demanded for our salvation.  This was it!  And that’s why Jesus was able to cry out what He did: “It is finished! – it’s done!”

Good Friday

John 18-19 - Good Friday - April 6, 2012
(Adapted from a sermon prepared by Christian A. Preus)

What is Truth?

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:

O Son of God, eternal Word,
Divine Redeemer, dearest Lord,
We marvel at Thy suff’ring;
For Thy disgrace, and pain, and shame,
We'll ever magnify Thy name,
And praise Thy glorious off’ring. Amen. 

Amen.  Jesus teaches us to say Amen.  Jesus taught us the Lord’s Prayer, which we have been considering during our evening services this Lent, and so we say Amen to it.  Jesus teaches us to say Amen not simply by telling us to say Amen when we end our prayers.  But He Himself also sets the example. 

Jesus says Amen when He wants to affirm that something is true. How many times throughout His ministry here on earth did He say this word!  Amen is the word of one who is confident of the truth.  And Jesus was very confident of the truth.  In fact, He was the very truth of which He spoke.  Jesus declared to His disciples shortly before He went to the cross: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; nobody comes to the Father, except through Me” (John 14:6).  Jesus is truth, and His words are truth.