Sermon for Good Friday

Witnesses to Christ: St. John the Evangelist

In the Name of the Father, & of the + Son & of the Holy Spirit.

Grace to you and peace from the One Who Is & Who Was & Who Is to Come!

An old African American spiritual begins, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”1 Of course, we were not. But our sins were. All of them. Two thousand years ago, all our sins we would ever commit were borne upon that cross by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. All of the sins committed by our first parents in Paradise and all of those committed since for thousands of years were there as well. All of those old sins were now being forgiven by the death of Jesus. Our ancestors believed that the Messiah would come and that He would take away those sins.

The preacher to the Hebrew Christians in Rome wrote, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible."2 And all our ancestors “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”3 Their faith was accounted to them as righteousness, and their sins were forgiven at this moment,4 when Christ Jesus breathes His last upon the cross.

We who were not there and acknowledge we are but strangers on this earth believe in the same promise fulfilled in the past and in a promise to be completed in the future, in the life of the world to come, when we will join our faithful ancestors. It all comes down to this moment we believe by faith, though we were not there.

St. John the Evangelist was there. Of the twelve, one was already dead by his own hand. The other ten had fallen away and were scattered, as Jesus said they would.5 Was it out of loyalty to his Master or to be close to Mary, the mother of our Lord, to protect her? Or to be protected by her due to his young age? We do not know. Probably all of the above. The most important, of course, is that he witnessed the crucifixion and death of Jesus. He saw the scourging, the mocking, and the nailing. He saw the blood flow from Jesus' hands, feet, and brow. He saw the spear pierce Christ's side and the flow of blood and water. In fact, John saw so much blood that he wove the theme of blood throughout his Gospel.

John saw it all from the beginning of Jesus' ministry. What he saw plus the inspiration of the Holy Spirit led him to write of our Lord’s creation of the world and His purpose in entering it: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”6

He saw John the baptist proclaim, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”7 The Passover lamb is born and bred to bleed, and to die, to serve the people with its flesh and blood in remembrance of God delivering them from slavery in Egypt. The lamb does not ask to be slaughtered. It does not volunteer to bleed. The lamb is not anxious to die. But Jesus does and is.

John sees Jesus set His holy face like flint toward Jerusalem and ultimately to the cross to bleed for you. Jesus came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”8 Jesus Christ has no beginning or end, begotten from eternity by the Father. He is no mere man. But Jesus came not to be served but to serve. He became a man like us. He lived; he grew in body and soul, just like us. He is the King of Righteousness, the Lord of the Sabbath.9 He is the Prince of Peace.10 He is our Great High Priest forever, “after the order of Melchizedek.” He is the greater Passover lamb and the greater high priest offering up His own body and blood for your sins. He volunteers to bleed and to die for you.

If you recall the story of Melchizadek,11 he came out to Abram after Abram had won a great battle, and the Priest-king Melchizedek refreshed him with bread and wine. Like Melchizedek, Jesus comes to us. He is the active seeker and the active Savior. He is the faithful Good Shepherd who brands you as His property with the Name of our Triune God bound to ordinary water. He blesses us as our High Priest with His righteousness. He feeds us with that meal of His flesh and blood sacrificed and offered to us – just where He has promised to “be with us always, even to the end of the age.”12

We may be able to identify with General Abram in that story. We are soldiers on an invisible front with very visible consequences, and we bear the scars – but they are not the scars you think. One of the last things Jesus taught His disciples in the upper room, John remembered and recorded for us: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”13

How are we doing with that? Loving our neighbors, aiding him in his every bodily need sounds an awful lot like being a servant, doesn’t it? We don’t want to serve; we want to be served! We want it easy! And every sin against our neighbor adds a war wound.

Being a Christian opens you up to a state of constant warfare. We battle against our own sinful flesh, we war against trial and temptation, and that opposing general Satan keeps trying to convince us to fall back to the rear and stop fighting. We are called to love as Christ loved us! But we are weak. There are no conscientious objectors to keeping the commandments as Christians. Every sin adds another wound. Another stripe.

Fortunately, while the battles rage within and without us, the war has already been won for us by Christ. We will one day leave this battlefield. The King will call for an accounting of our actions. "When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was naked, did you clothe me? Did you love your neighbor?" And Christ will say, "Yes, they did - because I did it for them." All of your scars and stripes were transferred to His back, His hands, His feet, on the cross. And because of Him when the Father looks at you, he doesn't see a creature scarred by sin; he sees His beloved Son, spotless and without blemish.

St. Denis' Prayer, a 14th-century poem from his work The Cloud of Unknowing, says, in part: "You fill to the full with most beautiful splendor those souls who close their eyes that they may see."14 Sometimes, we are so used to what we see, our senses dulled by what is directly in front of us, that we lose a certain sense of mystery. The profound becomes the mundane.

One image that should never become mundane is the image of Christ on the cross. It is a shame that many congregations no longer have crucifixes in our sanctuaries, choosing to follow the lead of other Protestants than retain this aspect of our Lutheran heritage because the image of Christ on the cross makes us uncomfortable. That's the point. It is supposed to. For almost all of us, the events of Good Friday are felt in the gut, tighten the back of the throat, and tears dwell in the eyes throughout the service. Close your eyes now, and focus on the image of Christ crucified for you. Concentrate not only on our Savior atoning for the sins of the world, but all the events leading here, to this moment, and to the details we must close our eyes to see, like St. John. We will dim the lights to remember the darkness that fell over Golgotha and shut out the world's distractions so we might truly see.

We heard the crucifixion account of St. John earlier this evening: “Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath... the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken… But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness… that you also may believe.”15

St. John wrote in his first Epistle: “Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came by water and blood… And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”16

Martin Luther said, “The benefit of Christ’s sufferings depends almost entirely upon man coming to a true knowledge of himself, and becoming terror-stricken and slain before himself… You are the one who thus martyred Christ. For your sins most surely did it. But when we see that [our sins] are laid on Christ and He has triumphed over them… and we fearlessly believe it, then they are dead and have become as nothing. When your heart is thus established in Christ, and you are an enemy of sin, out of love and not out of fear of punishment, Christ’s sufferings should also be an example for your whole life. We [comprehend] Him not by His power and wisdom, which terrify us, but by His goodness and love; there our faith and confidence can then stand unmovable and man is truly thus born anew in God.”17

St. John witnessed these events and understood that he needed to paint the word images we heard tonight so we might listen and believe. In the water that poured from His side, in the water poured out on you in your baptism, in the water of regeneration and renewal, we are drowned into Christ's death every single day as He comes to you to ferry you across death's raging flood, burying your sins until He at last ferries you into the promised land of His kingdom without end. Every day until then, we ride out of the water reborn.

In the blood that ran from his hands and feet, that ran into His eyes from His thorny crown, that watered the ground beneath His cross, He comes to you. He comes to you in His own flesh and blood, which passes your lips and bestows new life, salvation, and strengthened faith.

In the Spirit laid upon Him at His baptism, which He returns to His Father in heaven when all is accomplished, He comes to you with life-giving words. The Word made flesh comes to you in His holy Word of Scripture to assure you that you are forgiven and show you how to live as He lived, not caring for yourself but wholly dedicated to the lives of others.

Sadly, many forget that it was in the water that they were made Christians in the first place. They forget that the Body and Blood of Jesus are the ties that bind us together. They ignore the study of the Word, which teaches, convicts, reassures, and forgives. Even in our own families, many may think that being a member of the church is a personal choice. We all forget, sometimes, that it is Christ who chooses us.18 Jesus said early in His ministry, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”19

That rebirth happens here, in the water. In His holy meal of Himself. In the sharp two-edged sword of the living and active Word20 which Jesus calls “Spirit and life.”21 It is all Jesus’ doing. That defeated-looking dead man on the cross. Yet He is on that cross no longer. He has defeated death. He has conquered your sins. He is here, working faith. He is here bringing new life and salvation for all who believe. His new covenant did not fail, and death’s raging flood can no longer drown you. Now we are witnesses to the life-giving truth, like St. John. Share the joy and the hope that fills you, that others may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

May the peace which passes understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Kήρυξον τὸν λόγον (Preach the Word.)

1Were You There. Lutheran Service Book #456. v.1. Public domain.

2Hebrews 11:1-3 (ESV).

3Hebrews 11:13 (ESV).

4Romans 4:5.

5Mark 14:27.

6John 1:1-5 (ESV).

7John 1:29 (ESV).

8Mark 10:45 (ESV).

9Mark 2:28.

10Isaiah 9:6.

11Genesis 14:17-24.

12Matthew 28:20.

13John 13:34-35 (ESV).

14Dodd, David. The Annotated ‘Attics of My Life’. http://artsites.ucsc.edu/Gdead/agdl/atti.html#closed. (accessed April 18, 2019).

15John 19:31, 33-35 (ESV).

16I John 5:5–8 (ESV).

17Luther, Martin, John N. Lenker, and Eugene F. Klug. The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 2000. pp. 183-192.

18John 15:16.

19John 3:5 (ESV).

20Hebrews 4:12.

21John 6:63.