A Sermon for Good Friday

“But because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did.  We are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received.  All of us were like sheep that were lost, each of us going his own way.  But the Lord made the punishment fall on him, the punishment all of us deserved.”

These verses are from Isaiah 53.  They form part of what are called the suffering servant prophecies in Isaiah: prophecies that look forward to the life, and especially the death of Jesus.  These particular lines point towards why Jesus submitted to his death on the cross and what the death accomplished for each and every Christian person who has ever lived.

I remember starting my Good Friday sermon last year by saying that of all the days of the Christian year I find Good Friday the most difficult day to preach on.  I suggested last year that perhaps it was because I am overwhelmed by what God did on that Calvary Hill just under two thousand years ago, that to speak with any meaning about what God did for us that day seems next to impossible.  I still feel that way, but I think it’s also because the cross forces us to face the reality of suffering and death in our world.

It cannot be denied that there is suffering in our world.  I started writing this sermon the day after the plane crash in the French Alps when 150 people, including school children were killed.  We now know the horrific truth that the co-pilot crashed the plane deliberately.  There has been suffering throughout the whole history of the world: I only need to say the word Auschwitz and images of horrible suffering come to mind.  People suffer as a group and they suffer as individuals.  Since coming into ministry I have known several people who have endured different cancers and seen first-hand what they are going through, either because of the disease itself or because of the harsh chemotherapy treatments.

It cannot be denied that there is suffering in the gospel accounts of Good Friday.  In the early hours of the morning Jesus suffered betrayal by Judas, a man he had entrusted and loved as much as any of the other disciples. Those of us who have suffered betrayal by a close friend or relative know how Jesus must have felt.  He endured a mockery of a trial conducted by an illegally convened Jewish Council.  Not only that, but some members of that Council spat at him and hit him.  Then another of his friends denied even knowing him.  Jesus was whipped with a Roman whip that tore the flesh from his body.  Many Roman prisoners died after being whipped, such was the pain and damage inflicted.  Finally he was nailed to a cross, inflicting further pain upon a body that must have already been half dead and he slowly died of suffocation.

When we are suffering, when we hear about the suffering of others or when we have to endure the suffering of somebody we love we can get angry with God.  We can accuse God of not understanding how much we or the one we love is suffering.  The suffering in the world can even make us doubt God’s existence.  The gospel accounts of Good Friday assure us that the existence of a loving God and suffering in the world are fully compatible; because suffering is woven throughout Jesus’ last day.  In Jesus God knows what it is to suffer, he knows what it is to be rejected, he knows what it is to be betrayed and denied, he knows what it is like to be the object of scorn: he knows what it is to suffer untold agony!  In watching as Jesus endured all these things God knows what it is like to see a loved one suffer.  Our experience is God’s experience!

It cannot be denied that there is death in our world.  Sometimes there is death on a massive scale.  Cyclone Pam tore through the Pacific Islands a few days ago leaving destruction and death in its wake.  Sometimes that death is on a slightly smaller scale, such as the deaths of those who lost their lives in that French Alps plane crash.  Sometimes that death is one that only affects us and those close to us; like the death of my Dad last March.

It cannot be denied that there is death in the gospel accounts of Good Friday.  There is the death of Judas, who went and hanged himself after betraying Jesus.  There is the death of Jesus himself, suffocating in agony on a Roman cross.  A death that at the time, to those who loved him must have seemed pointless; a death that they thought dashed forever their hopes of the Kingdom of God with Jesus as king!

In our world it is so easy to focus on suffering and death and the bad news broadcast on TV and radio every day, yet it cannot be denied that there is hope in our world!  There is hope every time a baby is born, hope of all the potential that new life brings.  There is hope in the small kindnesses that are shown by people to one another every day; small acts of love and charity that go unnoticed by most but bring such pleasure to those who receive them.  There is hope in the aid that is given to those who need water, food and medical attention.  There is hope in the world’s response to natural disasters.

In the gospel accounts of Good Friday there is suffering and death, yet it cannot be denied that there is hope: indeed the account of Good Friday is an account of tremendous hope.

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”  These words, spoken by Jesus on the cross, are words of hope!  Who was Jesus forgiving?

Was it the Roman soldiers who tortured him and nailed him to the cross?

Was it those who mocked him as he hung dying on the cross?

Was it Pontius Pilate who condemned him to death?

Was it the Jewish leaders who had demanded his death?

Was it Judas Iscariot who betrayed him?

I believe it was for all of them, but not just them.  I believe that when Jesus prayed that prayer of forgiveness it was for all the men and women across time whose sins sent him there.  When Jesus prayed that prayer it was a prayer for the world.  When Jesus prayed that prayer it was a prayer for each one of us here today, because our sins too sent him to the cross.

Jesus died on the cross so that we might receive forgiveness of our sins, forgiveness for all the wrong, selfish and God-defying things that we have thought, said and done: the things that put a barrier between ourselves and God, the things that would deny us the promise of eternal life.  Even as he hung on that cross in agony Jesus brought forgiveness to people.  The cross is all about the hope of forgiveness and reconciliation with God and each other.

There is hope in Jesus words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”  They are not a cry of desperation or an indication that Jesus lost his faith as he hung there.

One reason for the cry was that for the whole of his life on earth Jesus had known the intimate presence of God the Father.  That powerful presence that we sometimes feel when very blessed had been Jesus’ constant experience; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in continuous close and loving relationship.  On that cross the sins of the world were laid upon Jesus, every sin that ever had been committed or ever would be committed.  That sin acted as a barrier between Jesus the Son and the Father.  For the first time Jesus was truly and utterly alone.  In that moment he experienced our human sense of being God forsaken.  The cry shows that in Jesus God truly and completely understood what it is to be human.

Jesus cry from the cross can also be seen as a cry of faith, of hope, that he used to strengthen himself.   The words come at the beginning of Psalm 22, psalm that Jesus may have been meditating on as he hung on that cross, a psalm that ends:

          All nations will remember the Lord.
          From every part of the world they
                   will turn to him;
          all races will worship him.
          The Lord is King,
                   and he rules all the nations.

          All men people will bow down to him;
          all mortal men will bow down before him.
          Future generations will serve him;
          men will speak of the Lord to the
                   coming generation.
          People not yet born will be told:
          “The Lord saved his people.”

Seen in this context it was not so much a cry of dereliction but a cry of true hope, of faith that through his death people from all the nations of the earth, people from the present and the future, would be drawn to God because of what he was doing on that cross.

Since I have become a Methodist Presbyter I have known suffering and death in a way I have never experienced before; not only through members of my congregations but in my own family.  In the past three years my Grandma and Dad have died; and I’m facing the loss of my mum in the very near future.  It’s hard, it’s difficult and yet I am not without hope: the hope brought on that first Good Friday that God is with us through times of suffering and death; that God understands what we are going through because God has experienced it all in Jesus.

And, knowing how the story ends: we not only have the hope of understanding and forgiveness that Good Friday brings; we have the hope of eternal life that Easter Day brings, when we well celebrate glorious resurrection.