[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at noon on Good Friday, the 14th of April, 2017. Look for the video on our Vimeo channel: http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]
The Apostle Luke describes that dark day when man showed just how cruel he can be. Jesus came to mankind to offer the greatest gift of all: salvation from sin and life eternal with God in heaven. And in return, we taunted Him, we beat Him, we tortured Him, and we nailed Him to a rough cross, there to die a horrible death.
Not once did He ask for mercy. Not once did He cry out begging to be spared. Not once did He condemn any man for the terrible actions of that day. Not once did He call out to His Father God to send an army of angels to rescue Him.
Listen to Luke’s Gospel account from chapter 23, verses 13 through 56, reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible...
Not once did He ask for mercy. Not once did He cry out begging to be spared. Not once did He condemn any man for the terrible actions of that day. Not once did He call out to His Father God to send an army of angels to rescue Him.
Listen to Luke’s Gospel account from chapter 23, verses 13 through 56, reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible...
13 Then Pilate called together the leading priests and other religious leaders, along with the people, 14 and he announced his verdict. “You brought this man to me, accusing him of leading a revolt. I have examined him thoroughly on this point in your presence and find him innocent. 15 Herod came to the same conclusion and sent him back to us. Nothing this man has done calls for the death penalty. 16 So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him.” 17 Now it was necessary for him to release one prisoner to them during the Passover celebration.
18 Then a mighty roar rose from the crowd, and with one voice they shouted, “Kill him, and release Barabbas to us!” 19 (Barabbas was in prison for taking part in an insurrection in Jerusalem against the government, and for murder.) 20 Pilate argued with them, because he wanted to release Jesus. 21 But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
22 For the third time he demanded, “Why? What crime has he committed? I have found no reason to sentence him to death. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him.”
23 But the mob shouted louder and louder, demanding that Jesus be crucified, and their voices prevailed. 24 So Pilate sentenced Jesus to die as they demanded. 25 As they had requested, he released Barabbas, the man in prison for insurrection and murder. But he turned Jesus over to them to do as they wished.
26 As they led Jesus away, a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, happened to be coming in from the countryside. The soldiers seized him and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large crowd trailed behind, including many grief-stricken women. 28 But Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Fortunate indeed are the women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child and the breasts that have never nursed.’ 30 People will beg the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and plead with the hills, ‘Bury us.’ 31 For if these things are done when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
32 Two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. 33 When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left.
34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by casting lots.
35 The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed. “He saved others,” they said, “let him save himself if he is really God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers mocked him, too, by offering him a drink of sour wine. 37 They called out to him, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 A sign was fastened above him with these words: “This is the King of the Jews.”
39 One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!”
40 But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? 41 We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
43 And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
44 By this time it was about noon, and darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. 45 The light from the sun was gone. And suddenly, the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn down the middle. 46 Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last.
47 When the Roman officer overseeing the execution saw what had happened, he worshiped God and said, “Surely this man was righteous.” 48 And when all the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw what had happened, they went home in deep sorrow. 49 But Jesus’ friends, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance watching.
50 Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph. He was a member of the Jewish high council, 51 but he had not agreed with the decision and actions of the other religious leaders. He was from the town of Arimathea in Judea, and he was waiting for the Kingdom of God to come. 52 He went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 53 Then he took the body down from the cross and wrapped it in a long sheet of linen cloth and laid it in a new tomb that had been carved out of rock. 54 This was done late on Friday afternoon, the day of preparation, as the Sabbath was about to begin.
55 As his body was taken away, the women from Galilee followed and saw the tomb where his body was placed. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body. But by the time they were finished the Sabbath had begun, so they rested as required by the law.
--Luke 23:13-56 (NLT)
Betrayal. First Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve He chose to follow Him and help with His ministry. And then He was betrayed by the very people He came to offer salvation to.
Just a few days ago, these very Jews had cheered Jesus as He entered the city of Jerusalem. "Hosanna!”, they shouted. “Hosanna in the highest!” And now, at the stirrings of the religious leadership, they cry out to the Roman governor demanding His blood. “Crucify Him!”, they scream! And again, even louder, “Crucify Him!” That quick turnaround and act of betrayal must have hurt Jesus more than even the whips and rods.
Humiliation. When Jesus was first taken before the high priests, they accused Him of blasphemy and spat on Him, tore His clothes, and beat Him. He spoke not a word in His defense, so they beat and slapped Him some more.
At the feast of the Passover, by tradition the governor would release one prisoner back to the people. It was usually someone who had committed a minor crime, or a political prisoner. Pilate was reluctant to have Jesus executed, so he offered the people a choice between Jesus, in whom he could find no wrong, and Barabbas, a renegade who had incited the people to riot against the Romans and who had in fact murdered others. The people preferred that Pilate release this hardened criminal rather than Jesus.
To further humiliate our Lord, the Roman soldiers taunted Him, putting fancy clothes on Him, giving Him a “royal” staff to hold, making a crown from thorns and cramming it down on His head, drawing blood. They mockingly bowed down to Him and addressed Him as King of the Jews. Then they took off the fancy robe and beat Him time after time with the staff.
Torture. Among the many beatings Jesus had to endure this brutal day, the worst would have been the flogging Pilate ordered. A cat-o-nine-tails would have been used. This is generally a somewhat short whip made from combining many straps of leather, often nine (and hence the name), and tying them onto a short wooden handle. Then bits of broken pottery and scraps of sharp metal would be tied onto the leather strips. The result is a near-lethal tool of torture, intended to strip the flesh off its victim, leaving them bleeding and raw.
After the flogging, Jesus was paraded through the streets of the city, His clothes and His flesh in tatters and hanging from His battered and torn body. They would have forced Jesus to carry His own cross to the hill called Golgotha, but He was too weak from the beatings. So they grabbed an innocent worker returning from the fields and made him carry it.
They laid the cross down, stretched Jesus out over it, and drove crude iron nails through the flesh of His hands and into the wood. Through the flesh of His ankles and into the wood. Then they hoisted the cross upright, pulling our Lord into a painful position of His weight being supported by the nails through His flesh.
Breathing is difficult, hanging by the outstretched arms like that, so crucifixion victims would try to put their weight on their feet, as painful as that would be, so that their lungs could extend and take in air. But soon their legs would give out and they would slump, again only to be supported by their hands, again to labor just to take in breath.
If the victim did not die fast enough, either from blood loss or suffocation, their legs would be smashed with the hammer and broken so they could no longer support themselves to breathe. Jesus succumbed before that last act of barbarity became necessary. And this was to fulfill prophecy that speaks of the Passover sacrifice, as in Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12, and of God’s Servant’s sacrifice in Psalm 34:20, that “Not one of His bones shall be broken.”
I know of no form of execution devised by man that is crueler than crucifixion. Even that last breath, that last shout, would have been sheer torture.
Why? Like His captors and His tormentors and even His fellow victims on the cross, we wonder why did Jesus go through all this? He is the Son of God. He is God! He could have called down an army of heaven’s host and stopped this madness at any point. He could have defeated the Romans and all other tyrannies on the face of the earth with one sweep of His hand. He did not have to suffer!
Yet rather than doing any of this, He quietly stood before the Jewish high priests, before Herod, before Pilate, before His tormentors, before His torturers, before the people He had come to save who turned against Him. He stood there, He hung there, and took the punishment that we deserve. He died there on that cross so that we might be spared eternal death and damnation.
And as He died, rather than ask His Father God for vengeance, He instead pleaded for mercy on our behalf. He begged, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
But now we do know. We know exactly what we are doing. We know who and what Jesus is. We know why He came to us as one of us, we know where He is right now, and we know what He will do at some as yet unknown time in the future. Now we know, and we have no excuse.
Each time we disobey Him, each time we disobey our Father God, we drive a nail into the hand of our Lord Jesus. Each time we fail to show His love to another, when we feel hatred or contempt, when we judge or condemn, when we curse someone or lie to them or take something we shouldn’t take… we drive a nail through Jesus’ flesh.
Father, forgive us! We still don’t really know just what we are doing. We still don’t fully get it.
Jesus, the only sinless Man, bore the punishment we deserve for our sins. He took all our sins right up onto that cross and hung them there for all the world to see. Then He carried them to the grave, and left them there, so that we might be seen as sinless in the eyes of God. He shed His blood so that we might be washed clean when we stand before our heavenly Father. Please don’t let that tremendous sacrifice go to waste!
In a moment we will confess our sins. It’s a simple reading - easily repeated without much thought. But I encourage you to truly confess prayerfully. Go past the words and lay your heart before God. Take this time to repent of any sin and promise anew to follow only Jesus. Let us stop driving nails into His hands.
Father, forgive us. Amen.
Let us pray… Lord Jesus, we cannot even imagine what You went through that last day of Your mortal life, during what we now call Good Friday. Even the years leading up to it weren’t all that easy for You. The Jewish religious leaders were constantly questioning You, trying to trap You in something that they could have You arrested for. They plotted Your death.
And every step of the way, You knew what was coming, dear Lord. You knew how each day would end, how Your ministry on earth would come to a close. You knew exactly how God’s plan would work out. You knew that You would have to take the crushing weight of the sins of all mankind upon Your shoulders, heft them onto the cross, and carry them to the grave. You knew that every precious drop of Your blood would be needed to wash us clean of our sin so we could stand presentable before God. You knew how horribly painful it would all be, especially the pain of our sin, yet You bore it all for our sake. You bore it all because it was Your and our Father’s will that You do so. You bore it all on the chance that we might understand, believe in You, repent of our sinful ways and disobedient nature, and follow Your commands. You bore it all because of God’s love for us, because of Your love for us.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for caring that much about us sinful, mortal beings. Thank You, Father God, for giving us another chance. In Your precious name, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Let us seek God’s forgiveness by confessing our sin:
Leader: Merciful God, we confess that so often our discipleship has been weak, when we have failed to serve as Jesus served;
People: Father, forgive us.
Leader: When we have failed to love one another as Jesus loves us;
People: Father, forgive us.
Leader: When we have been happy to proclaim our devotion to Jesus with our lips and then denied Him by our actions;
People: Father, forgive us.
All: Merciful God, empower us by Your Spirit to be steady and true to You in every time of trial; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Leader: Jesus said: "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world", and having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them even to the end. The good news therefore is this: In Jesus Christ, we are loved and we are forgiven.
All: Thanks be to God!
Just a few days ago, these very Jews had cheered Jesus as He entered the city of Jerusalem. "Hosanna!”, they shouted. “Hosanna in the highest!” And now, at the stirrings of the religious leadership, they cry out to the Roman governor demanding His blood. “Crucify Him!”, they scream! And again, even louder, “Crucify Him!” That quick turnaround and act of betrayal must have hurt Jesus more than even the whips and rods.
Humiliation. When Jesus was first taken before the high priests, they accused Him of blasphemy and spat on Him, tore His clothes, and beat Him. He spoke not a word in His defense, so they beat and slapped Him some more.
At the feast of the Passover, by tradition the governor would release one prisoner back to the people. It was usually someone who had committed a minor crime, or a political prisoner. Pilate was reluctant to have Jesus executed, so he offered the people a choice between Jesus, in whom he could find no wrong, and Barabbas, a renegade who had incited the people to riot against the Romans and who had in fact murdered others. The people preferred that Pilate release this hardened criminal rather than Jesus.
To further humiliate our Lord, the Roman soldiers taunted Him, putting fancy clothes on Him, giving Him a “royal” staff to hold, making a crown from thorns and cramming it down on His head, drawing blood. They mockingly bowed down to Him and addressed Him as King of the Jews. Then they took off the fancy robe and beat Him time after time with the staff.
Torture. Among the many beatings Jesus had to endure this brutal day, the worst would have been the flogging Pilate ordered. A cat-o-nine-tails would have been used. This is generally a somewhat short whip made from combining many straps of leather, often nine (and hence the name), and tying them onto a short wooden handle. Then bits of broken pottery and scraps of sharp metal would be tied onto the leather strips. The result is a near-lethal tool of torture, intended to strip the flesh off its victim, leaving them bleeding and raw.
After the flogging, Jesus was paraded through the streets of the city, His clothes and His flesh in tatters and hanging from His battered and torn body. They would have forced Jesus to carry His own cross to the hill called Golgotha, but He was too weak from the beatings. So they grabbed an innocent worker returning from the fields and made him carry it.
They laid the cross down, stretched Jesus out over it, and drove crude iron nails through the flesh of His hands and into the wood. Through the flesh of His ankles and into the wood. Then they hoisted the cross upright, pulling our Lord into a painful position of His weight being supported by the nails through His flesh.
Breathing is difficult, hanging by the outstretched arms like that, so crucifixion victims would try to put their weight on their feet, as painful as that would be, so that their lungs could extend and take in air. But soon their legs would give out and they would slump, again only to be supported by their hands, again to labor just to take in breath.
If the victim did not die fast enough, either from blood loss or suffocation, their legs would be smashed with the hammer and broken so they could no longer support themselves to breathe. Jesus succumbed before that last act of barbarity became necessary. And this was to fulfill prophecy that speaks of the Passover sacrifice, as in Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12, and of God’s Servant’s sacrifice in Psalm 34:20, that “Not one of His bones shall be broken.”
I know of no form of execution devised by man that is crueler than crucifixion. Even that last breath, that last shout, would have been sheer torture.
Why? Like His captors and His tormentors and even His fellow victims on the cross, we wonder why did Jesus go through all this? He is the Son of God. He is God! He could have called down an army of heaven’s host and stopped this madness at any point. He could have defeated the Romans and all other tyrannies on the face of the earth with one sweep of His hand. He did not have to suffer!
Yet rather than doing any of this, He quietly stood before the Jewish high priests, before Herod, before Pilate, before His tormentors, before His torturers, before the people He had come to save who turned against Him. He stood there, He hung there, and took the punishment that we deserve. He died there on that cross so that we might be spared eternal death and damnation.
And as He died, rather than ask His Father God for vengeance, He instead pleaded for mercy on our behalf. He begged, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
But now we do know. We know exactly what we are doing. We know who and what Jesus is. We know why He came to us as one of us, we know where He is right now, and we know what He will do at some as yet unknown time in the future. Now we know, and we have no excuse.
Each time we disobey Him, each time we disobey our Father God, we drive a nail into the hand of our Lord Jesus. Each time we fail to show His love to another, when we feel hatred or contempt, when we judge or condemn, when we curse someone or lie to them or take something we shouldn’t take… we drive a nail through Jesus’ flesh.
Father, forgive us! We still don’t really know just what we are doing. We still don’t fully get it.
Jesus, the only sinless Man, bore the punishment we deserve for our sins. He took all our sins right up onto that cross and hung them there for all the world to see. Then He carried them to the grave, and left them there, so that we might be seen as sinless in the eyes of God. He shed His blood so that we might be washed clean when we stand before our heavenly Father. Please don’t let that tremendous sacrifice go to waste!
In a moment we will confess our sins. It’s a simple reading - easily repeated without much thought. But I encourage you to truly confess prayerfully. Go past the words and lay your heart before God. Take this time to repent of any sin and promise anew to follow only Jesus. Let us stop driving nails into His hands.
Father, forgive us. Amen.
Let us pray… Lord Jesus, we cannot even imagine what You went through that last day of Your mortal life, during what we now call Good Friday. Even the years leading up to it weren’t all that easy for You. The Jewish religious leaders were constantly questioning You, trying to trap You in something that they could have You arrested for. They plotted Your death.
And every step of the way, You knew what was coming, dear Lord. You knew how each day would end, how Your ministry on earth would come to a close. You knew exactly how God’s plan would work out. You knew that You would have to take the crushing weight of the sins of all mankind upon Your shoulders, heft them onto the cross, and carry them to the grave. You knew that every precious drop of Your blood would be needed to wash us clean of our sin so we could stand presentable before God. You knew how horribly painful it would all be, especially the pain of our sin, yet You bore it all for our sake. You bore it all because it was Your and our Father’s will that You do so. You bore it all on the chance that we might understand, believe in You, repent of our sinful ways and disobedient nature, and follow Your commands. You bore it all because of God’s love for us, because of Your love for us.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for caring that much about us sinful, mortal beings. Thank You, Father God, for giving us another chance. In Your precious name, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Let us seek God’s forgiveness by confessing our sin:
Leader: Merciful God, we confess that so often our discipleship has been weak, when we have failed to serve as Jesus served;
People: Father, forgive us.
Leader: When we have failed to love one another as Jesus loves us;
People: Father, forgive us.
Leader: When we have been happy to proclaim our devotion to Jesus with our lips and then denied Him by our actions;
People: Father, forgive us.
All: Merciful God, empower us by Your Spirit to be steady and true to You in every time of trial; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Leader: Jesus said: "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world", and having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them even to the end. The good news therefore is this: In Jesus Christ, we are loved and we are forgiven.
All: Thanks be to God!
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