Good Friday

Death rubs us the wrong way. We don’t like it. It’s like it shouldn’t happen. When someone dies unexpectedly, it just seems wrong. When a loved one dies it definitely seems wrong. And when we think about our own mortality – the fact that we are going to die – we can’t even begin to fathom the idea. Death just seems wrong. By and large, Humanity has come to think that death is just a natural process – that “death is just a part of life” because we see it happening throughout nature. But when God created all things he didn’t design death into his created order. He didn’t design into the fabric of creation that death would be a natural part of life. Death only happens because of our sinful nature and the curse of our sin upon the natural order itself.
On Ash Wednesday, we began the season of Lent. We heard that there’s nothing we can do about our sin and consequently, there is nothing we can do to stop death – “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But we also heard the good news: “Our death caused by our sin does not have the final word - Jesus does.” On Good Friday we see that word in action as our savior slowly dies on the cross. And we hear his final word from the cross, “It is finished.”

On Good Friday, we once again rehearse the events of that day. We listen once again to the written testimony of those who witnessed first-hand what Jesus did – who saw for themselves the expensive price paid for those simple words of absolution we hear after confession of sin. We see someone else pay the “wages of our sin.” We see someone else pay the debt we owe by dying the death we deserve. We see something we don’t want to see. We see something that isn’t very pretty. We see that the “someone else” is God himself - a dead corpse on a cross. And this death seems very wrong. He was innocent. Yet he went willingly. The events that we will hear were all unfolding completely under his control. And it seems very wrong to us. “Why does he have to die?” “It just seems wrong!” And you would be right. It is wrong. God does something for us that he doesn’t have to do. But he thinks it’s worth doing, for you. He puts himself under the demands of the law that you cannot keep. And he has done this on your behalf. That’s the Gospel. And that’s the expensive cost of the Gospel.
The Gospel is that the power of sin that leads to your death – dies in the Christ who dies on the cross. Your sin dies with him and is gone forever. And you and I participate in that death through baptism. The font is a tomb into which you have died through water and Word. And there, through water and Word, God does his work. And just as Christ rises from that grave on that Sunday morning, you too rise. In baptism, you have now already died and risen just as Christ has died and risen. The power of sin is no more. It is finished. Jesus has the last word in his death and in yours.
We call Good Friday "good." It’s good because of the great good Jesus has accomplished by his death for you. Good Friday is a rehearsal, not only of Christ’s death, but our own death as well. Listen again to the story, and by his word, his last word, you have life.