Good Friday Sermon 4-18-14
4-18-14 Good Friday A
Message given at Vandalia Ministerial Alliance Lenten Lunch Good Friday
Message Text John 18:1-19:42
And so here we are, coming into these last few days of Lent, our final gathering together to share in food, fellowship, and worship. We've been in the midst of Holy Week since Palm Sunday, living out the last week of Christ's life and ministry on the earth as we have celebrated his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, as we've gathered around the table and sat with the disciples as they shared one final meal with their master...
And now we gather here today on this Good Friday afternoon and we hear the familiar story, the passion narrative... we listen to the recounting of those who had seen it: Jesus, beaten and bloody, stripped of all his clothing and his dignity, hanging bruised and broken on the cross while the world heaped its sin, its scorn, and its shame upon his thorny brow.
And somehow, we find something to celebrate in it. We find in that gruesome spectacle a purpose to gather together, to share in a meal, to laugh and sing together and to enjoy a beautiful sunny afternoon with one another. It seems morbid, when you really think about it, and yet here we all are, all the same.
In many churches today, there is time set aside for people to properly absorb that passion - they walk the stations of the cross and see depictions of the various things Jesus suffered through in his final day. Some put it on as a full performance, putting someone up on a cross themselves and finding every way they can to relive the Good Friday experience - in other places, you'll enter into a sanctuary that was emptied last night of all its decorations to signify the period that Jesus was in the tomb. Perhaps some of your own churches might even be planning a night to screen The Passion of the Christ tonight.
We spend the next three days, much like the disciples even did, trying to process the magnitude of what this Holy Week means for us. We look for ways to visualize it, to experience it, to put ourselves closer to the events that happened that Good Friday nearly 2000 years ago. There's a part of each of us that wants to relive those experiences, to internalize them and to understand them because it's only through experiencing them for ourselves that we can really begin to understand and appreciate what an amazing thing it is that Christ should have given his own life that we might live.
But at the same time, it's also good for us to be gathered together like we are today - celebrating this event and remembering it, not dwelling in it and crushing ourselves in the weight of its passion and drama. It's incredibly important for us to take today and to appreciate its gravity, but we also need to remember that Good Friday isn't the end of Holy Week. In Good Friday, we enter into a time of living in between. You see... we know how the story ends, don't we? We have the privilege of being able to know more about the story than the disciples did, more than Pilate and the Roman guards did, more than women who came to the tomb did. We know that even in the midst of the mourning that Good Friday brings with it, there's an empty tomb waiting for us on Easter Sunday.
Because you see... we are, and always will be, an Easter people - a people marked by the knowledge that He is Risen. Christ doesn't stay on the cross anymore than he stays in that tomb because we know that God is more powerful than anything this world can throw at him. God is more powerful than our hatred. God is more powerful than our sin. God is more powerful than our stubborn refusal to know and understand God's love for us. God is more powerful than death itself. And God has shown that power to us in Jesus Christ.
And so we celebrate on this Good Friday - not because we remember that our Savior was hung upon a cross and died for us this day, but because we know the Easter promise that still awaits us - that the final word doesn't happen at Calvary, but comes from the lips of angels themselves: He is not here; he is risen!
Message given at Vandalia Ministerial Alliance Lenten Lunch Good Friday
Message Text John 18:1-19:42
And so here we are, coming into these last few days of Lent, our final gathering together to share in food, fellowship, and worship. We've been in the midst of Holy Week since Palm Sunday, living out the last week of Christ's life and ministry on the earth as we have celebrated his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, as we've gathered around the table and sat with the disciples as they shared one final meal with their master...
And now we gather here today on this Good Friday afternoon and we hear the familiar story, the passion narrative... we listen to the recounting of those who had seen it: Jesus, beaten and bloody, stripped of all his clothing and his dignity, hanging bruised and broken on the cross while the world heaped its sin, its scorn, and its shame upon his thorny brow.
And somehow, we find something to celebrate in it. We find in that gruesome spectacle a purpose to gather together, to share in a meal, to laugh and sing together and to enjoy a beautiful sunny afternoon with one another. It seems morbid, when you really think about it, and yet here we all are, all the same.
In many churches today, there is time set aside for people to properly absorb that passion - they walk the stations of the cross and see depictions of the various things Jesus suffered through in his final day. Some put it on as a full performance, putting someone up on a cross themselves and finding every way they can to relive the Good Friday experience - in other places, you'll enter into a sanctuary that was emptied last night of all its decorations to signify the period that Jesus was in the tomb. Perhaps some of your own churches might even be planning a night to screen The Passion of the Christ tonight.
We spend the next three days, much like the disciples even did, trying to process the magnitude of what this Holy Week means for us. We look for ways to visualize it, to experience it, to put ourselves closer to the events that happened that Good Friday nearly 2000 years ago. There's a part of each of us that wants to relive those experiences, to internalize them and to understand them because it's only through experiencing them for ourselves that we can really begin to understand and appreciate what an amazing thing it is that Christ should have given his own life that we might live.
But at the same time, it's also good for us to be gathered together like we are today - celebrating this event and remembering it, not dwelling in it and crushing ourselves in the weight of its passion and drama. It's incredibly important for us to take today and to appreciate its gravity, but we also need to remember that Good Friday isn't the end of Holy Week. In Good Friday, we enter into a time of living in between. You see... we know how the story ends, don't we? We have the privilege of being able to know more about the story than the disciples did, more than Pilate and the Roman guards did, more than women who came to the tomb did. We know that even in the midst of the mourning that Good Friday brings with it, there's an empty tomb waiting for us on Easter Sunday.
Because you see... we are, and always will be, an Easter people - a people marked by the knowledge that He is Risen. Christ doesn't stay on the cross anymore than he stays in that tomb because we know that God is more powerful than anything this world can throw at him. God is more powerful than our hatred. God is more powerful than our sin. God is more powerful than our stubborn refusal to know and understand God's love for us. God is more powerful than death itself. And God has shown that power to us in Jesus Christ.
And so we celebrate on this Good Friday - not because we remember that our Savior was hung upon a cross and died for us this day, but because we know the Easter promise that still awaits us - that the final word doesn't happen at Calvary, but comes from the lips of angels themselves: He is not here; he is risen!
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