Good Friday March 30th 2018 South Dunedin Baptist Church
There is human blood, plenty of it, and a body at the centre of our Christian faith.
That's not good! Is it?
Many years ago, a friend asked: “Why do you call it Good Friday?”
“Well, actually, I do not know,” so I said I would find out and get back to him.
Good Friday; for some, a good excuse to sleep in…
Now that you see who is preaching you may well say,
“Well, I wish I still had THAT option!”
But what is Good Friday?
Is it good? And if so, for whom and for what purpose?
It is good for us to attend worship on this day remembering that Jesus Christ died!
So it's a good day then?
Someone said: “I heard that you Christians sometimes do things around the opposite way to the rest of us… But this Easter thing; do you believe that the Ruler of the Universe, your Leader, your King, your Greatest Helper and Hope, the One you claim to be the Saviour of the world, died this day in history, and you say it's a GOOD Day?
Good Friday is a Good Day for three reasons:
a. This was no ordinary man!
b. His was no ordinary death!
c. There was no ordinary outcome!
Yes, it's a good day today because:
a. This was no ordinary man.
So it's a good day for all of us because on this day Jesus Christ completed all His work.
He hung on the cross, true, all bloody and dying, that’s true too... but saying with His final breath:
“IT IS FINISHED!”
Now if He was a failure why would he say that?
All that the Father in heaven had sent Him to do, He accomplished!
That’s what He meant!
That's why Good Friday is a good day!
But what could a man dying long ago and so far away, do for the world?
What does it all mean for us today?
If you look at an old tree, like the oldest trees in the world for example, you may get a glimpse as to how and why Jesus Christ’s death could have universal effects…
“The Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) is... found in the American West, mostly in Utah, Nevada, and California.
One of these trees has been measured to be 5,065 years old!”
Such living organisms make you wonder. If you and I stood beside it I am sure we would want to get our photograph taken with it.
Also, very old buildings even from before the time of Jesus, such as the Parthenon in Athens or just after Jesus’ life on earth, the Colosseum in Rome, both speak volumes about where our democracy came from and how we all became shaped by their history.
Jesus stands in History a giant among whom all the other great men fade, shrink and die... never to return.
Jesus was no ordinary man, because whatever they did to Him He never sinned...
Oh, he cried out in pain, physically and spiritually, cosmic pain, actually.
The ultimate transaction was fully achieved, sealed in His own blood.
Here was no temporary action nor was it being achieved by a feeble man.
No! Here was a man with a capital M! The Son of Man who gave his life, for your life. The One who gave his blood, instead of yours, bleeding out for your sins.
Just as the year-old lamb was butchered at the Tabernacle on behalf of the family it represented, so Jesus Christ bled and died for each one here who trusts their life to Him. (Lev 12:6)
All those who came under His banner by faith in Him and in Him alone, were reconciled to God, had peace with God the Father. This was no ordinary man!
All who were at the foot of the cross saw something no one had ever seen before.
So unique was the act of His dying that they all stood in awe.
The Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate had a sign put OVER His head saying,
“This is the King of the Jews”
The symbolism of the sign ABOVE HIS head is that it was the earthly authorities’ feeble attempt to define Him.
Those who had power on earth to execute Him, had no idea what they were doing or who they were dealing with.
This crucified man told them,
“My kingdom is not of this world.” All you are able to do is by permission of my Father in heaven.
All who were BENEATH HIM, those at the foot of the cross saw something never seen before.
So exceptional was the act of His dying that many criticised and jeered Him who died there, nailed up above them.
The faithful all stood in awe.
Some comments came up from the crowd:
A Roman centurion said: “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Mt 27:54)
One of those crucified beside Him said: “...this Man has done nothing wrong.”
Another man said: “Certainly this was a righteous Man!”
While others jeered at Him, He prayed for them God’s grace, saying:
“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
b. Secondly, His was no ordinary death, because Christ died as sin bearer.
Taking our place as substitute because all of us have sinned, He gladly took the fall, just as the old system of animal sacrifice had done. Truly the Lamb of God had come!
He became a sin-offering for us that He might appease the angel of God just as surely as the angel of death went over and passed over the houses of the Jews in Egypt so many years before.
While Pharaoh's firstborn was cut down, the people of God were passed by in mercy and saved from death. This was that work completed, paid for in His blood, “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
His was no ordinary death!
c. Thirdly, the outcome of the death of Christ was no ordinary one.
His death for the whole world was that He took away it’s reason for going to Hell.
And, I'm not talking about the mere idea of Hell, but Hell itself!
He accomplished what no one else had ever done or could ever do.
He released the captives and set the unworthy ones free.
That's called grace.
“Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy Cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the Fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”
And so what do we do with Good Friday?
Well, we honour God on Good Friday.
We trust Him on Good Friday, we take our sins and by faith we pray them onto Christ on the cross.
The Apostle Paul says that although we are all up on serious charges, due to be court-martialed at the court of the universe, the list of debts before us, “God has has taken the list out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” (Col 2:14)
Yes, we get to hand over the penalty of our evil deeds to the One who, through His death on the cross, dealt with it completely and forever...
His death for our death, His life for our life!
I like the title of a John Owen book: “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ!”
“If we compare the manner in which the service of the world's greatest men have been rendered, and that in which Christ's work of redemption was rendered, we are immediately impressed with an outstanding contrast.
While the service of men is rendered during their lifetime, and while Christ too, for that matter, lived a life of unparalleled service, the climax of His work came at its very close, and our salvation is ascribed pre-eminently to His suffering and death.” Loraine Boettner - “Atonement”
Chapter: “The Significance of Christ's Death”: https://www.monergism.com/atonement-ebook-1)
That's what Good Friday means! Is that what it means for you?
Do you understand in your soul that He went up there on that Cross deliberately because of His sacrificial love for you?
Yes, He can still love you and you and you and you because He lives!
He died, oh yes, but He lives again! That's what Easter Sunday means: Resurrection!
If you say you believe “more or less,” in religion, please show me in Scripture what the cross of Christ means for you!
If we say the One who hung on the cross was a Good man and that's why we have Good Friday, you have to explain what you mean by “good”!
Was He a good man? Compared with what? By what standard? Compared with whom?
C.S. Lewis must be brought in here in closing:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus Christ]:
‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’
That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of hell.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut him up for fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.
But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.
He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to.”
(C.S. Lewis in “Mere Christianity”)
To Summarize:
We call Good Friday good because we have an exceptional Saviour, the Real Man in the Person of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.
We have in his death the substitutionary sacrifice which none but He could deliver.
We have an astounding outcome that you, whoever you are, may come to Him by faith and enjoy all the benefits of that great and Good sacrifice.
And that’s why we call it Good Friday!
“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Prayer: "Worthy are you, our Lord and our God to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things..." (Rev 4:11) and by Jesus Christ you created a whole new society of believers now known as the church. We who trust you, live for you, seek after You, no matter what denomination, we worship you in Spirit and in truth and we rejoice together in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Thank you Lord God that we can call this day “Good Friday” because of this extraordinary Saviour who did His extraordinary work of dying in His innocence on the cross in our place. Thank you that the result is, 2000 years later, all the way down at the ends of the earth, we can worship and serve you together in Dunedin, NZ. To your name be all the glory and honour, now and forever, amen.
