Intro St. Luke tells that “about the sixth hour [when Jesus was being crucified] . . . darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, because the sun’s light failed” (Luke 23:44-45). The sixth hour would have been noon, and so the ninth hour was 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon.
In the middle of the day, the sky turned dark. Now some have said it was a dark, thick storm in the sky; others, a dense cloud of sand in the upper atmosphere. But they are wrong, for an overcast sky would hardly be worth a comment in the death of Christ Jesus. What happened was that nature itself went out of kilter. And the darkness was only the start of it. An earthquake also took place that would split the rocks. Considering that God of the universe had just died, such an upheaval that would crack open tombs does not seem strange at all. But that the recently dead within the tombs should come back to life and walk into the city? Yes, it seemed the universe itself has gone crazy. Main Body But should you expect otherwise from this particular day and this particular crucifixion, which began with an out-of-place man speaking out-of-place words? The man, Jesus, pleaded to the Father to pardon His murderers. Yes, the whole day was in disarray. But thank God that it was! For out of that disarray and confusion came the rock-solid foundation of our faith. Out of it came the grounds on which our hope of salvation is built. Out of it comes the answer to all our prayers for forgiveness. Isaiah tells us that “we all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way.” Yes, it would be a pleasant dream to think that our troubles are not of our own making. We might try, as did our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the garden, to portray ourselves as victims. Or we might, like so many today, rationalize that we are just victims of unavoidable circumstances. And there are others, or even those among us, who have blamed God for our troubles. Such people assert that they are being punished much more than they deserve for any crime they may have done. Such is the way our sinful nature lies to itself. But what does Isaiah tell us? He says that we are sheep who love to wander--and so we have no one to blame but ourselves for our own wandering. God has set a path before us, clearly etched on tablets of stone, and has commanded us that this is the way we are to walk throughout our lives. But we’ve decided that we know better. We’ve found other ways to walk, opposite to that of God’s revealed will for our lives. We have spent this Lenten season cataloging our sins. Like Jesus’ frightened disciples in Gethsemane, we have fled from Him when staying would’ve taken more trust in Him than we had. Like the arrogant rulers of the Jewish Sanhedrin, we have balked at the authority of His commands. Like the mob in Pilate’s courtyard, it annoys us when we feel God hasn’t given us what we think He owes us. And like Pontius Pilate, we have been afraid to stand up for His truth and do what is right--and so we do what is expedient. The mockery of the soldiers in the Praetorium has found an echo within us when we have tried to deny, or at least soften, Christ’s royal claim on us. And we have often wept the fruitless tears of the daughters of Jerusalem, when Christ called us, instead, to cry tears of repentance for our own wrongdoing. We aren’t innocent victims of the hardships that a sinful human race brought into this world. No one was forced to sin. At some level, we all chose to sin. And we cannot argue that since we were born in sin, we had no choice. Don’t get “theological” about this, if you are trying to dance around the hard reality of your sinful choices. In the end, we sin because we want to. And that’s also how we chose the punishment that Isaiah mentions. We should be carrying our own sickness and sorrow; we should be stricken, smitten, and afflicted. The Bible tells us that this is our well-deserved sentence, because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That is how life is supposed to be, where we get what we earn and deserve. That’s how it is if you want a fair God who treats you as you deserve. But on that disordered Friday when the sun darkened at noon, God made life turn out differently for us. Oh, the wages of sin were paid, but not by the sinners: God’s Son made the full payment for us all. Nature was in turmoil because turmoil was taking place before the judgment seat of God. The innocent One, Jesus Christ, was suffering for the sins of the guilty. The Creator was dying for the sins of His creatures. The Son of God was shedding His blood for the transgressions we committed against His own majesty. On Good Friday, God’s Friday, someone else suffered for our guilt: God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. It wasn’t the souls who sinned that died that day; it was the One who never sinned, Jesus Christ, who died. Think of the many woes that Isaiah mentions: sickness, sorrow, piercing, and wounds. How difficult these would be to bear for those who deserved them! But for someone who was innocent? How much more must these bring agony to the soul of Him who alone never wandered or went astray! It was a burden so great that He prayed to be relieved of it in the final moments at Gethsemane. It was an agony so deep that amid the darkness at midday, although He had always known the answer full well, He cried out to God the Father, “Why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). In suffering our own punishment, we would be lost forever. In suffering for us, Jesus saved us from what we deserved. We would be lost to eternal death and torment. But Jesus promises, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). And so on that Good Friday the impossible became possible. Full justice was served. Every sin against God’s commandments received its full penalty. But, at the same time, the Father showed His love and mercy to us sinners, who would not have to perish but were given the gift of everlasting life. God could be just and enforce His law to its last measure but, and at the same time, be merciful and take away all our guilt. “Father, forgive them!” was Christ’s plea. It was only in this way that Christ Jesus could win for us the answer to that prayer that we could never merit. He bought the answer at the price of His life’s blood. That we should go astray was sadly all-too predictable. But that God’s own Son should fully pay for our sins? No wonder nature went out of whack that day! When such a momentous upheaval took place in the courts of the Almighty, how could there not be a sign of it on earth? How could the rocks not shake and split? How could the tombs of the newly buried not cough up their dead? How could the sun continue to shine as if nothing special were happening? Conclusion And so when God’s one-and-only Son, the Son He loves, the Son in whom He delights, offered up His life for our sins, how could the Almighty refuse? How could Isaiah have written any other words than those we heard tonight, the words that shook the world, and the words that opened heaven to us all? It’s true that “we all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way.” Yet praise God that this truth also rings out in the highest heavens: “but the Lord has laid on Him [that is, Jesus,] the iniquity of us all.” And that makes all the difference, not only now, but even into eternity. Amen. -- Rich Futrell, Pastor Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Kimberling City, MO Where we are to receive and confess the faith of the Church (in and with the Augsburg Confession): The faith once delivered to the saints, the faith of Christ Jesus, His Word of the Gospel, His full forgiveness of sins, His flesh and blood given and poured out for us, and His gracious gift of life for body, soul, and spirit. ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. 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