Sermon: Good Friday - 2019

19 April 2019

Text: John 18:1-19:42 (Isa 52:13-53:12, 2 Cor 5:14-21)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

This past Monday, the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris appeared to burn down.  Early reports were that the 850 year old edifice was a total loss.  Nothing had survived.  But when the smoke cleared, the world saw the image of a cross, a golden cross that appeared to glow near the Cathedral’s altar – surrounded by ashes and rubble and destruction and chaos – the cross became a stark and serene reminder of the Christian faith itself.

As it turns out, much of the Cathedral was preserved from the ravages of the flames.

The fire in the cathedral was shocking to us, because such things don’t happen in our enlightened age.  We live in a world of safety, of regulations, of sprinklers and fire extinguishers, of inspections and experts.  We put our trust in princes to make sure that bad things never happen to us.  We especially protect children not only from harm and danger, but also from scraped knees and the hurt feelings of not receiving a trophy.  We are a society that believes in being in full control.

Our world has become hermetically-sealed, even as we sanitize death itself, keeping it behind the closed doors of the butcher shop and the hospital.  And whereas earlier generations of teenagers stormed the beaches at Normandy, our current generation of young people are scrupulously protected even from disagreeable opinions.

Sometimes a Nine Eleven or a Notre Dame Fire puts things into perspective.

Dear friends, we live in a broken world, a world of sin and death, of malice and violence, of so-called natural disasters and things that we cannot control.  We Christians bear the cross of this fallen world, of our corrupted flesh, but we bear our crosses even as we follow Jesus, who willingly carried His own cross to Golgotha.

Jesus did not come into our world to make us kinder people, but to make us perfect people.  Jesus did not come into our world to lay down the law, but to fulfill the law.  Jesus did not come into our world to give us our best life now, but to call us to die to sin and rise to newness of life for eternity – to bring Christ crucified to our world of Nine-Elevens and Notre Dame Fires and butcher shops and hospitals.  

For the cross of this world is described by the prophet Isaiah as “our griefs.”  But Jesus, the crucified one, has borne our griefs.  He has carried our sorrows.  Jesus: stricken, smitten, afflicted… “wounded for our transgressions… crushed for our iniquities.”  Dear friends, His sacrificial suffering “brought us peace” and by His passion “we are healed.”

By His atoning death, we are indeed healed, forgiven, made new, restored, and brought through the flames of this world and even spared the fires of hell, to shine burnished in the light of the countenance of our Lord, all by grace, all through faith.  For His crucifixion is the suffering and death that we have deserved, dear brothers and sisters, the sacrifice of the “Lamb… led to the slaughter,” so that He might take our place, the punishment that we have earned.

For Jesus, the cross is a symbol of death, but for us, dear friends, it is a symbol of life.  Too often we treat the cross like a fashion statement or an emoji – but the cross is more than just a symbol that glints in the light to give us hope: the cross is the flesh-and-blood means by which our Lord Jesus Christ died in our place, so that we might survive the flames of the end of the world, when everything will be consumed with fire: cathedrals and continents, crosses and Caesars – nothing will be left of this fallen and passing world, dear friends, nothing but the Word of God, that endures forever.  And from the destruction of the wrath of God, we will rise unscathed, for we are not under judgment, dear friends, because we are under the cross.

And under the cross, we are safe, we are forgiven, we are recast in the burnished gold of our true humanity as we were created to be, being purged from the dross of sin and corruption, purged by His passion, purged by our Lord’s suffering, purged by His atoning death.

For “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  Through the cross, “Christ reconciled us to Himself, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”  

Today, dear friends, we focus on the cross, we focus on our Lord’s substitutionary death, we focus on the blood of the Lamb.  We mourn on account of our sins and the Lord’s suffering even as we mourn the appalling destruction of the Cathedral.  But we look to the cross, and to where the cross leads: to a brighter future, to the resurrection, to the rebuilding, to the life that has no end, to the hope shining from the face of the Light of the world: the Light no darkness can overcome.

There is no more enduring symbol of the Christian faith than the cross, dear friends.  The cross is why our Lord took flesh, and the cross is where our Lord sacrifices His flesh.  The golden cross that glows on our own altar is a reminder of the true flesh and blood that the Lord distributes to us in His holy sacrament of the altar: a participation in His death, a communion in His resurrection, and the promise of His coming again in glory.  Our Lord’s cross, and the crosses on Christian altars around the world, are surrounded by ashes and rubble and destruction and chaos.  And yet, everywhere that the Gospel is proclaimed and the sacraments are administered, dear brothers and sisters, the cross is a stark and serene reminder of the Christian faith itself – faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, who “bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors” – even unto our eternal life.  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.