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A sermon is a manner of oral communication and therefore words and sentence structure/order would be added, altered, or deleted at the moment of delivery. + In Nomine Jesu + The Rev. Evan Gaertner Good Friday “The Guilt of the Cross” The most solemn time in the church year is from Consider the words of Isaiah and that he foretold the suffering servant. Isaiah 52:14 says, “Just as there were many appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness.” There are moments that I wonder why Jesus must suffer. Could there not have been another way in God’s wisdom and love to bring about our rescue? To some it would appear that our God is cruel. Our society has moved from an awareness that God judges us on our moral behavior, to how we presume to judge God on his moral behavior. On Good Friday we are called to be honest with ourselves and witness our guilt, our moral behavior, our complicity in the sin of this world. Jesus Christ is on the cross because of me. Alas did my savior bleed upon the cross. It is not for me to tell God he should have acted in a different manner. He has given me the gift of his own son. Should I tell him that his gift is not desired and put return to sender and give it back to him? Such a response would reveal that I do not yet know how much I truly need this gift. I am a lost and condemned sinner that deserves so much worse than what I will ever face in this life. This is my confession. I am a sinner, O Christ have mercy upon me. I desire to look away and not act as a witness to this suffering. But I am an accomplice in his betrayal and execution. It is my sin that has brought about the need for him to suffer. He suffers for me. In what way are you an accomplice in his betrayal and execution? Take a moment and pray a prayer of repentance. Confess your sins. Witness your guilt on display this morning as Christ is lifted up to the cross. Now confidently ask the Lord to root out sin from your life. The work of the cross is the Lord taking away the punishment that your sin demands. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence.” I may desire to look away from the suffering of Christ, but in his mercy he has come so that I would not be thrown away into my deserved punishment. Again back to Isaiah, as he promises us the suffering servant, he writes, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.” Jesus on this Friday afternoon experienced the worst of humanity. He became intimately familiar with the depths of human depravity. There is no place of torment that he has not visited. Your savior knows the deep, dark, moments of your life that you desire to escape. He knows the darkness you do not want to see in yourself. He knows because he experienced that darkness on the cross. Jesus went to the darkness of death in order to find you in your worst moments and rescue you. You have a suffering servant that knows your suffering. He finds you in your pain, because he becomes that suffering and pain with you. The prophet Isaiah foretold this afternoon and wrote, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Our Christian life is completely dependent on the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God is found through Jesus Christ. We needed Jesus on the cross. Isaiah told us why, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” It was not an accident all gone wrong. Our Lord purposefully suffered and was oppressed. Jesus’ life was a guilt offering, for our guilt. His sacrifice was for our guilt, to wash us clean. Trust today that the gift of the cross, truly is a gift. It is in great love that Jesus sacrificed his life on the cross. We are at one with God through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore give to him a portion among the greatness of blessing you have. “He poured out his life unto death.” Isaiah says “He was numbered with the transgressors.” He was numbered with you and me. “He took up the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” I pray that the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us daily. Indeed by faith I trust in Christ alone, for no other would stand for me the way my savior has. Soli Deo Gloria -->> Home |