Day by Day with Jesus Series
It’s Friday, But Sunday’s Coming
Luke 23:33-46
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Good Friday is a problem. First, there is the name. We call it good. No one called it good then.
Then there’s what happened. They killed Jesus. Everything had looked so different on Palm Sunday. The crowds cheered. Even Monday and Tuesday were very different from Friday. Jesus took charge. He cleared the temple and confounded his adversaries. Even the events of Wednesday and Thursday have their share of good times and warm feelings. Jesus and his friends share a family Passover together. Everything changed on Friday. Good Friday is a problem.
The big problem is the cross. Many people like the teachings of Jesus. His miracles astound and attract. Everyone likes the stories of his good deeds and loving example. That’s part of the Christian message. But it’s not the heart of it. “We preach Christ and him crucified,” the Bible declares. “We glory in the cross,” we sing. Good Friday is the day of the cross!
For the last several weeks, we have been working our way day by day through the events of Jesus’ last week. The Bible recognizes the importance of these events. Matthew devotes eight of his twenty-eight chapters to the last week of Jesus’ thirty-three year life. Mark, six of sixteen chapters; Luke, six of twenty-four. John uses almost half of his gospel to tell the story of the last seven days of Jesus’ life. If we don’t grasp the importance of Holy Week, we don’t understand Jesus. As much as we might wish otherwise, we can’t have Holy Week without Good Friday. Unless you struggle with the problem of Good Friday, you won’t appreciate the victory of Easter Sunday.
Today I invite you to consider Good Friday through the lens of a classic line from what might well be one of our times most famous sermons. Tony Campolo is a short, round, bald, fast-talking, Italian-American, seventy-one year old sociology professor at Eastern College in Philadelphia. Time Magazine listed him as one of America’s great preachers. You may remember his name as one of former President Clinton’s spiritual advisors. His fame as a preacher is due in large measure to this one sermon. Campolo says his sermon was inspired by one he heard from the preacher of the African-American church he attends when not traveling. In Campolo’s sermon, he insists that we will never understand Good Friday unless you remember what happens next. Campolo calls his sermon, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!” I’ve never heard his sermon. I’ve read pieces of it. Here’s the idea:
Friday was a long day. It actually started the night before. One event led non-stop into the other. After the meal in the upper room, Jesus and his men went to a secluded spot on the Mt. of Olives. Jesus prayed late into the night. His men tried to join him, but the late hour and the hectic schedule over took them. They fell asleep. Suddenly in the middle of the night, probably in the wee hours of the morning, the disciples awoke to shouts and the clanging steel of swords and shields. At first, they probably thought it was a dream. It wasn’t!
The next few hours were a whirl of activity. Soldiers arrested Jesus. They hauled him before the Jewish high priest. Before sun up, a special called meeting of the Jewish council interrogated him. Witnessed said they had heard Jesus blaspheme the name of God and the Holy Temple. In fact, they said, he threatened to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. All of the charges were false. In fact, the witnesses had been paid to offer their testimony. All of that was beside the point because the whole early morning, secret trial process was illegal from start to finish. But Jesus never protested. He didn’t strike back. He didn’t talk back. “Like a lamb before the shearer and sheep before the slaughter,” he didn’t say a word. There was nothing good about the way Friday started.
I’ll bet you’ve had some days like that. You woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Everything seems to go wrong. The whole world seems out to get you. You’ve been lied to and lied about. Maybe it was at work or even at home. You get blamed The fact that you tried to do what was right didn’t seem to matter. Somebody still accused you.
Once when our kids were little, Rose walked in on our three-year-old son sitting in a pile of unrolled toilet paper with his hands still on the roll. “How many times have I told you not to play with that?” she scolded. She sent Tony to his room and told him not to come out until she called him. As she proceeded to clean up the mess, she noticed something strange. The roll looked like it had been unrolled even further, but someone had tried to roll it back up. Sure enough, when Rose went to ask Tony about it, he explained that his two-year-old sister was actually the culprit. He had been trying to fix what she had done. Rose gave him a big hug and said, “I’m sorry I blamed you.” He looked up with big innocent three year old eyes and said, “That’s OK, mom, I forgive you!”
It was probably something a lot worse that wasting toilet paper that you were falsely accused of. You had to take it. You weren’t allowed to explain. When you face days like that, remember you are not the first. You will not be the last. Remember Jesus and Good Friday. As Peter would later announce, “Men disowned him. Men killed him. But God raised him from the dead.” It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!
The worst part of Good Friday for Jesus wasn’t what his adversaries did. A person can handle that. You expect it from your enemies. Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane because a friend, one of his own, betrayed him. For thirty pieces of silver, the price of a common slave, Judas turned against him. He stepped out of the crowd, pretending to greet Jesus. He gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek. The very act of friendship turned into an act of treachery. How cynical can you get? Then the other friends turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble. Even Peter who had pledged his undying devotion to Jesus hours before would before morning repeatedly claim that he didn’t even know Jesus. On Friday, Jesus stood alone, falsely accused, betrayed, and abandoned.
Maybe that’s happened to you. Maybe you found out that all the nice things and warm words of your friend were nothing more than a cynical attempt to get on your good side. I’ll never forget receiving a dinner invitation from some friends years ago. They said they thought it would be fun to just get acquainted better. We were looking forward to a nice evening. We arrived to find ourselves at an Amway recruitment meeting.
That’s nothing compared to real betrayal and abandonment. You know how much it hurts to have a friend turn on you. Maybe it was nothing more than refusing to help when you needed it. Maybe it was worse. Maybe you found out that the gossip and rumors came from the lips of somebody you trusted. Betrayal hurts. When that happens, think of Jesus and Good Friday. Remember it may be Friday, but Sunday’s coming!
By sunrise on Jesus’ last Friday, the pace quickened. The betrayal, the phony trial, the false accusations soon turn physical. Soldiers mock him. They rough him up for sport. They press a make shift crown of thorns on his head. The blood flows down his brow. They laugh. They parade him to Pilate’s palace in a purple robe. “Some king you are,” they taunt.
They didn’t stop with words that Friday morning. Pilate knew the charges were trumped up. But to satisfy the officials, he orders his soldiers to beat Jesus. Roman soldiers had just the tool to do it. The Roman cat of nine tails was a long leather whip. The multiple ends were embedded with nails, pieces of bone and glass. Thirty-nine times the soldier laid into Jesus’ back with that whip. Flesh turned to hamburger. The pain was unimaginable. It probably seemed like it would never end. It was Friday, but Sunday was coming.
When the beating stopped, the real bad stuff began. “Crucify him!” the crowds cried. The fickle crowd even chose Barabbas, a murderer and thief, over Jesus. Most of you have heard the story often enough to know that crucifixion was not a pretty picture. Remember the furor that greeted Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ two years ago. Critics objected to the violence and blood. Most didn’t understand the reality. Crucifixion wasn’t just execution. It was public torture.
At nine o’clock that Friday morning, the soldiers spread eagled Jesus against a pole. They tied him to the wood. Then they drove iron spikes through his hands and feet, lifted the beam, and dropped it into a hole. For six hours, six long hot hours, Jesus hung there suspended between heaven and earth dying minute by minute, hour by hour. At his feet, soldiers continued the taunts. The crowds jeered. His mother and friends stood back in horror, their hearts broken.
At noon on Friday, the sky over Jerusalem turned strangely dark. The earth shook. A thief on the next cross cried out, “Remember me when you come to your throne.” Soldiers offer Jesus a drink mixed with a painkiller. He declines it. Jesus cries out “My God MY God why have you forsaken me?” On that Friday, for the first time in his life, Jesus experiences separation from the Heavenly Father. He knew. No one else there did. This execution may have been at the hands of wicked men, but it was according to the plan of heaven. He was innocent. No one else was. It was not for his sins that he was on that cross. It was for ours. Ultimately, it was not Roman soldiers or conniving politcians who crucified Jesus.
When Mel Gibson filmed the last twelve hours of Jesus’ life in The Passion of the Christ, he wanted that message to come through loud and clear. Gibson said he wanted viewers to know that we are all responsible for Christ’s death. Gibson is a veteran Hollywood star. As the director and producer, he could have given himself a part in the film. Instead, his face never appears on the screen. But his hands do—once! They are the ones, with spike and hammer, nailing Jesus to the cross. (From a live interview of Mel Gibson with Lee Strobel at Saddleback Community Church, January 5, 2004).
The Bible explains it this way, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). You do understand that, don’t you? Some folk don’t!
Evangelist D. M. Stearns was preaching in Philadelphia. At the close of the service, a stranger came up to him and said, "I don’t like the way you spoke about the cross. I think that instead of emphasizing the death of Christ, it would be far better to preach Jesus, the teacher and example."
Stearns replied, "If I presented Christ in that way, would you be willing to follow Him?" "I certainly would," said the stranger without hesitation. "All right then," said the preacher, "let’s take the first step. He did no sin. Can you claim that for yourself?" “Of course not!” protested the man, “I’m not perfect. I never said I was.” Stearns replied, "Then your greatest need is to have a Savior, not an example!"
Sometimes crucifixion could last for days. Not on this Friday. At three o’clock, Jesus declares, “It is finished.” He breathed his last. The soldiers remove his body. Friends carry him away to a borrowed tomb. They hurriedly wrap the body. They intended to finish the proper burial once the Jewish Sabbath was over. The officials seal the entrance and post a guard. They didn’t want any trouble. It was Friday.
Friday ended in death. The disciples were distraught, dejected, and grief stricken. Anyone who has buried a loved one or friend knows the feeling. You stand at the grave. Time stands still. It all seems like a bad dream. You pray to wake up and find everything back the way it was before. But you know better. Death and the grave cast a shadow over everything. You’ve been there. That’s a good time to think of Good Friday. Remember Jesus was there. It was Friday but Sunday’s coming!
We call it Good Friday. We call it that because Sunday came. If it hadn’t, there would have been nothing good about it!
A man was walking going down a street when he stopped to look at a store window containing a Good Friday display. A beautiful painting of the crucifixion hung in the center of the window. The man wasn’t particularly religious, but he was spellbound by the painting. He suddenly became aware of a young boy at his side. He could tell by the expression on the lad’s face that he too was gripped by the painting.
Touching the boy on the shoulder, the man said, “Son, what does it mean?” “Doncha know?” he answered, his face full of the marvel at the man’s ignorance. “That there man is Jesus, an’ them others is Roman soldiers, an’ the woman what’s cryin’ is His mother, an’ he added, “they killed ‘im.”
The man had other things he had to do. He turned and walked away. Part way down the block, he heard footsteps on the streets running up behind him. It was the boy. Out of breath, he exclaimed, “Say, mister, I forgot to tell you—He rose again!”
It may be Friday!
But don’t forget, Sunday’s coming!
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
