Good Friday

For today’s devotion, I would like to share some of the sections of a small Good Friday service that was offered in 2004 by Karen Laughter, Tina Busick and me. I hope that you find much to reflect on in these elements.

"We do not gather at Easter to celebrate a doctrine, the doctrine of the Resurrection. We come here to rejoice in the presence of one we love; in Jesus who was lost to us and has been found. Our Easter faith is that we really do encounter Jesus himself; not a message from him, or a doctrine inspired by him, or an ethics of ove, or a new idea of human destiny, or a picture of him, but Jesus himself." - Herbert McCabe

Calling Together

One: God has given us faith and sight, but often we miss things.
Many: God has given us hearing and touch, but often we miss things.
One: We're gifted with senses to help us interpret all that happen around us, but sometimes what's happening around us surpasses our abilities to see, hear, touch, and believe.
Many: We ask, O God, for a better sense of seeing and hearing what occurs in front of us. We don't want to miss out on anymore. We want to be a part of the world around us and all that can unexpectedly happen in an instant.
ALL: Give to us, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, the gift of awareness so that we might experience anew the mind-boggling, life-giving event of the Resurrection. In the name of the Risen One, we pray. Amen.

Affirmation of Faith

We come this day of all days to acknowledge that you are more than we can ever say or know. You are
Companion of the lonely,
Binder of wounds,
Seeker of lost souls,
Friend of the poor,
Source of all that is,
Forgiver of sins,
Voice of the voiceless,
Counselor of the confused,
Shelter from the storm,
Creator of heaven and earth,
Defeater of death,
Provider of life and hope,
and we enter today to worship and adore you.
Amen and Amen.

An Exposition of Luke 23:33–46 and John 19:25–30
(from a sermon in The Collected Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon)
We have often read the story of our Savior’s sufferings; but we cannot read it too often. We will read, first, Luke’s account of our Lord’s crucifixion and death.

Luke 23:33 When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.

They gave Jesus the place of dishonor. Reckoning him to be the worst criminal of the three, they put him between the other two. They heaped on him the utmost scorn which they could give to a malefactor, and in so doing they unconsciously honored him. Jesus always deserves the chief place wherever he is. In all things he must have the preeminence. He is King of sufferers as well as King of saints.

34 Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

How startled they must have been to hear such words from one who was about to be put to death for a supposed crime! The men who drove the nails, the men who lifted up the tree, must have been started back with amazement when they heard Jesus talk to God as his Father and pray for them: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Did Roman legionary ever hear such words before? I should say not. They were so distinctly and diametrically opposed to the whole spirit of Rome. There it was blow for blow; only in the case of Jesus they gave blows where none had been received. The crushing cruelty of the Romans must have been startled indeed at such words as these, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

34b And they divided up his clothes by casting lots

The gambling soldiers little dreamed that they were fulfilling Scriptures while they were raffling for the clothing of the illustrious Sufferer on the cross; yet so it was. In the twenty–second Psalm, which so fully sets forth our Savior’s sufferings and which he probably repeated while he hung on the tree, David wrote, “They parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” “And the people stood beholding,” gazing, looking on the cruel spectacle. You and I would not have done that; there is a public sentiment which has trained us to hate the sight of cruelty, especially of deadly cruelty to one of our own race; but these people thought that they did no harm when they “stood beholding.” They also were thus fulfilling the Scriptures; for the seventeenth verse of the twenty–second Psalm says, “They look and stare upon me.”

35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One."

36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar

In mockery, not giving it to him, as they did later in mercy; but in mockery, pretending to present him with weak wine, such as they drank.

37 and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself."

I fancy the scorn that they threw into their taunt: “If you are the king of the Jews”; that was a bit of their own. “Save yourself;” that they borrowed from the rulers. Sometimes a scoffer or a mocker cannot exhibit all the bitterness that is in his heart except by using borrowed terms, as these soldiers did.

38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

John tells us that Pilate wrote this title and that the chief priests tried in vain to get him to alter it. It was written in the three current languages of the time so that the Greek, the Roman, and the Jew alike might understand who he was who was thus put to death. Pilate did not know as much about Christ as we do, or he might have written, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS, AND OF THE GENTILES, TOO.

39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!"

He, too, borrows this speech from the rulers who derided Christ, only putting the words “and us” as a bit of originality. “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us.”

40 But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."

A fine testimony to Christ: “this man has done nothing wrong,” nothing unbecoming, nothing out of order, nothing criminal, certainly; but nothing even “amiss.” This testimony was well spoken by this dying thief.

42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

43 Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

44 It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.

He yielded his life. He did not die, as we have to do, because our appointed time has come, but willingly the great Sacrifice parted with his life: “He gave up the ghost.” He was a willing sacrifice for guilty men.

Now let us see what John says concerning these hours of agony, these hours of triumph.

John 19:30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished."

What “it” was it that was finished? I will not attempt to expound it. It is the biggest “it” that ever was! Turn it over and you will see that it will grow, and grow, and grow, and grow, till it fills the whole earth: “It is finished.”

30b With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

He did not give up the ghost and then bow his head because he was dead; but he bowed his head as though in the act of worship or as leaning it down on his Father’s bosom and then gave up his spirit.

Thus have we had two gospel pictures of our dying Lord. May we remember them and learn the lessons they are intended to teach!

(to echo Spurgeon’s implied question, what is Jesus teaching you about the events of this week?)