Good Friday 2018

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: John 19:35
Theme: All or Nothing

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

“It is finished.”1 Just three little words (only one in the Greek), but they embrace the totality of the divine plan of redemption. The entirety of the Father’s love, the enormity of the Son’s sacrifice, the completeness of the Spirit’s affection; all are distilled into these last words of the Saviour. It was an epic journey; unique, peerless, and redemptive. What humans could never achieve in eons of combined effort, Christ did in this singular act of sacrifice. In one moment, God who dwells in timelessness, healed what sin’s sword has severed. God’s wrath was appeased. The debt of sin was pardoned. The ammunition of Satan was destroyed. Reconciliation was achieved.

It’s not so much at the manger, but at the cross that we see how precious life is. The heart-warming sentimentality of the stable is exchanged for the gut-wrenching spectacle of the crucifixion. There on the Hill of the Skull the holy Son of God is given in sacrifice for wayward children of Adam. Human life, in all of its filth, its darkness, and its depravity is deemed worth saving by God. How marvelous and mysterious that our God- who owes us nothing, but whom we depend on for everything- does not yield to the failure of humanity but perseveres in restoring life. He could have washed His hands in a much more righteous way than Pilate did and declare Himself through with the exasperating failure of humanity. Instead, we are redeemed.

Good Friday is an excellent time to reflect on what you value in life. Does the way you invest your time, energy, and resources align with your core convictions? Everyone’s life tells multiple stories. What stories is your life telling other people? Are they stories of selfishness, arrogance, or apathy? Are they chronicles of integrity, reliability, and honesty? Are they tales joyfulness, optimism, and hope. We are saints and sinners, so the complexities of our lives cannot be defined too narrowly. We can be as fickle as we are loyal, as hopeless as we are helpful. Undying devotion and manifest selfishness can be displayed in the same person concurrently. When all the fleeting things of life are stripped away, what permanent things do we hold on to? When hardship, or illness, or age, or finally, mortality robs us of both our pleasures and our possessions, what do we have that remains unshakeable? What do we possess that’s non-negotiable?

A prosperous entrepreneur was enjoying his success and good fortune as he neared middle age. Suddenly, his wife fell sick and died. Several years after the death of his wife, their two children were killed in an accident while travelling together. The next year he contracted a debilitating illness. He was forced to resign as CEO of the company and accept regular home nursing visits, so he could still live on his own. Over time, he adjusted to his diminished affluence and the limitations on his physical abilities. In the beginning he was bitter and resentful. God’s name was taken in vain. Surely, he thought, God’s cold-hearted compliance or apathetic ineptness must be at least partially to blame. Spiteful and angry, he regularly took out his frustration on others. Few people liked to be around him.

Then something happened. It was gradual at first. He started to notice how other people handled suffering; people of much lesser means, people without privileged backgrounds, people with lives also touched by grief. He reflected on how in the past he had turned a blind eye on the down and out. Some humility and remorse were conceived within him. He began to look differently at the meaning of life. Looking for truth, he recognized that many of his former convictions were hollow and false.

Dear friends, the truth is, God isn’t absent from suffering; He is right in the middle of it. Jesus hung suspended from the tree. Either it was a pathetic miscarriage of justice. Or, the suffering God is the greatest truth ever revealed! In the end, it’s all or nothing. Pontius Pilate cynically asked, “What is truth?”2 Jesus humbly provided the answer. Truth is not always where we think it is. Nothing more earth-shattering will ever be revealed than this truth: Christ crucified and raised for the sins of the world.

Idolatry has many altars on which the truth and wisdom of God are sacrificed. Truth is sacrificed on the altar of greed. In 2002 a British man named John Darwin faked his own death. He and his wife collected 25,000 pounds in insurance money and paid off their mortgage. He was discovered five years later and sentenced. New York man Raymond Roth tried to have his son Jonathan help him fake his death in 2012 but was foiled when he was picked up for speeding in South Carolina. The death of Jesus was not fake.

Truth is sacrificed on the altar of popularity. A study in Psychology Today revealed that less than ten percent of children in primary school consider popularity important, but by high school it was more than one third. How strong is the human need to be liked? Think of the dynamics of human relationships facilitated by social media. People mistake popularity with genuine love and care. Jesus cared nothing for popularity.

Truth is sacrificed on the altar of fear. King Saul feared David’s popularity with the people and that he would lose his throne. He became so obsessed about it, the matter consumed him for the rest of his life3. He hoped David would be killed by the Philistines in battle and devised schemes in hopes of achieving it4. How many foolish and harmful decisions are made every day out of fear! Jesus was not driven by fear.

So now, here at Calvary, we see the greatest irony and the greatest paradox. Truth Himself is sacrificed on the altar of the cross. But it is not done in vanity. He dies as the substitute for all of our lies and falsehoods. Not just our petty lies and our failures due to ignorance, but the sinister deceptions with which we try to appear as people we’re not before God and before others. “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.”5 Nothing highlights the autonomous work of God as clearly as the crucifixion. Christ goes it alone. The Son of God immerses Himself in the darkness of our fallen world and single-handedly disarms Satan and defeats evil. The disciples didn’t even have the courage to stand with Him at the cross. At the cross we see the weight of sin. If sin were a trivial matter, it’s scarcely thinkable that Christ would have died. It was all or nothing, and Christ did not fail.

We might be tempted to quickly move on from the crucified Jesus. After all, who likes to linger in the macabre-ness of death? The victorious, resurrected Lord presents a decidedly more cheerful appeal. But dwelling on the crucifixion of Jesus is not a fixation on death. It is recognition of truth. The resurrection doesn’t render the crucifixion obsolete. It immortalizes it as the power by which forgiveness transforms unbelievers into children of God. This is what St. Paul meant when he said, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?”6 In the crucifixion and burial of Jesus the power of Satan to accuse us over our sins, and the just wrath of the heavenly Father against our disobedience were laid to rest in the grave. Your baptism is a celebration of these victories, even as it is a source of strength in your daily fight against temptation.

The crucifixion was an all-or-nothing event. Everything hung in the balance. That’s not to deny the necessity of the resurrection. But if sin had remained un-atoned for, reconciliation with the Father could not have been achieved. The crucifixion and burial marked the end of Christ’s humiliation, but not the end of His servanthood. He not only understands suffering, He gives the ultimate hope and the final victory to all who trust in Him. Today can only be called Good Friday in relation to the benefit that resulted for us. It was all or nothing. Our souls weren’t left wanting. Amen.
+ In nomine Jesu +

Good Friday
30 March 2018
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt


1 John 19:30 2 John 18:38
3 See 1 Samuel 18:29 4 See 1 Samuel 18:17
5 Isaiah 53:5 6 Romans 6:3