He died for us. (Good Friday sermon)
Monday of last week I was able to get a COVID vaccine at the Publix on US 60. It was all very quick and easy. The nurse warned me that my shoulder might feel sore, as though it had been punched. That is a very familiar feeling. For most of my childhood my older brother and I routinely punched each other in the arm. Sometimes it was just for fun, a game to see how tough we were. Sometimes it was to settle a dispute. Sometimes it was just a sneak attack, for which there was always a just reprisal.
Over the next day or two my arm was sore, which caused me to think more about my brother. He is two years older than me. He is a great guy, a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer who ran nuclear reactors on submarines for 20 years. He’s now a librarian at the Lakeland Public Library. I love him dearly and am thankful for him and his family.
I learned a lot from him. He had two years of life experience and wisdom on me. He would tell me stuff. A lot of it just came from his example. An eldest child, or an only child goes through life like an icebreaker cutting its way across the Arctic Sea. They are tough, they may shudder at times, but they plow forward through life. Mom & Dad are learning to be parents at the same time, so the oldest child cuts through that. He or she is the first to go to school, the first to drive, the first to get a job, the first to have a crush.
If you’re fortunate enough to be following behind an older brother or sister and smart enough to stay in that slipstream, you wind up learning a lot. And there is that dynamic of learning from their mistakes. I made plenty of my own mistakes, but I did manage to avoid a few because I learned from his. And I watched him deal with the consequences.
At the start of Lent, a parishioner gave me a book of sermons on the cross, from broad array of great preacher from St. Augustine to Tim Keller (who pastors a big church in New York City today.) Alistair Begg, a Scottish pastor with a great accent whom I’ve heard many times on the radio, contributed a sermon titled An Innocent Man Crushed by God.[1]
He made the point that Jesus isn’t merely our advocate, pleading our case convincingly before the Father. I’ve heard that reference many times, that when God looks at us he sees his son. Yes, that is true but incomplete.
We tend to approach Jesus’ death on the cross with solemnity and with a great deal of reverence, as we should and as we would when entering a courtroom with our invincible lawyer defending us. But, as Pastor Begg notes, what lawyer then serves the sentence?
Likewise, think of the role of a priest. In the Temple at Jerusalem, a priest would offer the sacrifices of penitent pilgrims on the altar. It was a butcher’s block for God. (When I was a kid my mom used to shop at Mr. Martin’s in Homeland. I remember Mr. Martin in his white apron, blood spattered all over it. Unless you’re a hunter or frequent an old-school butcher’s shop, it might be hard to envision the analogy. We get our meat shrink-wrapped with a little soaker pad underneath it.) The priest would kill a lamb, a goat, or a pigeon on the altar. At no point did anyone ever expect the priest to be the sacrifice. We regard Jesus as our great High Priest, and that is precisely what he did.
He anticipated that when he instituted communion at the Last Supper. We bind ourselves to that moment every time we celebrate Eucharist. It is a reverential and solemn remembrance. He died for our sins.
But this week I thought about this in context with my brother. What if he were to suffer the consequences of my mistakes? I don’t mean that I did or said something that hurt him or caused him to suffer, although that would be bad. I mean that if I drove too fast, he got the ticket. If I got into a fight at school, he got suspended. If I skipped work, he lost his job. If I got home way past curfew, he got grounded. If I upset my mother, he got spanked. If I committed a crime, he went to jail.
What if I sinned, and he suffered? What if I sinned, and he died? That would be horrible. That would rend my heart in two. That would overwhelm me with responsibility and sorrow, which amount to guilt. And what if he did that on purpose, entirely out of love for me?
Flip that around, for whom would any of us suffer and die? It would naturally be someone we love very much. Remember what Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) We must take this very, very personally. Paul made this point in his Letter to the Romans.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
Note that what Paul wrote to the church of Rome was meant for converts to the faith; it was part of what formed the early Church. Whoever we are, wherever we are, whenever we are, whatever the state of our faith and our lives, we come to this moment and this realization of just how much Jesus loves his people and what he purposefully did to overcome not only the sin of that moment, or even up to that moment, but dealing with the sin for all people at all times who repent and call upon his name.
The sacrifice is too terrible, except that it is the purest expression of love, selfless and true. We must receive him, abide with him, be shaped by him, follow and serve him.
Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:19-22)
AMEN
[1] Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross, edited by Mary Guthrie, 2009 Crossway Books