2026-04-03 Good Friday

Scripture Readings: St. John's Passion

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!

The cross. You literally see it everywhere. It hangs around peoples’ necks. Athletes often make the sign of the cross before competing in events. Hospitals frequently have crosses or crucifixes in the halls. And of course, churches are adorned with crosses inside the sanctuary and on top of steeples. The cross is a very popular symbol of religion. Yet do people really know what it even means anymore?! It hasn’t always been such a popular symbol to showcase on our bodies. In fact, 2000 years ago it was a symbol of shame, of embarrassment and of warning and sheer terror. The great Roman Empire used it as a form of capital punishment. Of course, it’s not like current day practice with the last meal and the painless lethal injections. Quite to the contrary, crucifixion was calculated to present the greatest amount of human suffering and agony available. It was the death of slaves, thieves, assassins and rebels. To Jewish people, crucifixion represented the most heinous way to die, for it meant one was cursed by God (Deuteronomy 21:22-23). It was a terrible experience of being cursed, mocked and forsaken.

When the night had fallen, Jesus and His disciples were in the garden of Gethsemane, surrounded by a dark canopy of gnarled trees. Most likely a quiet, if not eerie, evening. In the distance, they saw and heard the soldiers and the officers of the chief priests and the pharisees coming towards them. They were carrying lanterns, torches and weapons. It must have resembled the typical gaggle of pitchfork and brimstone monster hunters. As it was night, such a ruckus was easily seen and heard. Escape would have been easy. Had anyone wanted to evade them, they easily could have seen them coming and took off.

Yet, in the garden, Jesus didn’t flee. He waited, patiently. As He did, He showed the world that He was the Lord, though His Kingdom was not of this world, He was nevertheless, the Lord of His own passion. He was mindful of the cross and what it meant, and what it still means for us today. He went willingly. Voluntarily. Even, as our text says, the troops arrived and drew back and fell down – providing Him and the disciples a window of escape – Jesus stayed. Even as He gazed into the eyes of His hand picked disciple, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him, He stayed. The Old Testament scripture was fulfilled. “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9). The words of St. John’s Gospel become more and more clear all the time. “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18).

Bound and led, Jesus is taken to face His trials. Even His right hand man, Peter, the rock on whom Christ builds His church, would deny his Lord not once, not twice but three times. Like salt and lemon juice in an open wound, the rooster crows and Peter denies the Christ. Jesus of Nazareth. He had taught openly. He had preached openly. Nothing of His doctrine was ever cloaked in secrecy. Yet He was interrogated before Annas and sent before Caiaphas, the High Priest of the Jews. Having done no wrong, He was sent to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Prefect. His question to Jesus, still echos through the ages “Are you the King of the Jews?”

How else could our Lord Jesus answer? “My Kingdom is not of this world.” The truth is testified. The Divine witness is born. “So, you are a king?” Pilate retorts. Yes, Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Messiah, the Savior of Humanity. He is the Word made flesh, born of a virgin named Mary. He bears witness to the eternal truth that alters human history forever. Pilate offers only cynicism: “What is truth?”

This is the pivotal question of our time! So many today would make truth be whatever they desire it to be. Many believe that truth is relative; it is in the eye of the beholder. Yet the Eternal Divine Truth is Jesus Christ. His word is truth. His word is life. And Pilate, aware or unaware, sent the Word of Life, the King of the Jews, the Word made flesh to be scourged and crucified.

“Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” was all the breath of the crowd of onlookers. Yet just a few short days before, Jesus was welcomed and greeted with joyful shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest!” Yet now, just days after, the times have changed. Scripture is quite reticent as it records “they crucified Him.” There was no need to use up precious papyrus with gory details, like Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” film does. For the early hearers of St. John’s Gospel knew what the cross meant oh too well.

The onlookers saw the scourging, the ripping and tearing of the Word made flesh with leather and bits of bone and metal. They beheld the physical shock of the victims, bodies writhing in pain from nail marks and blood loss. They could taste the dehydration, they could feel the exhaustion on the faces of the crucified. They could struggle to breathe themselves as they watched asphyxiation settling in. Being crucified is utter humiliation. For Jesus, it was made even more degrading as the crown of thorns, fit for a King were pressed into His Holy flesh and Pilate’s sign nailed above His head declared to all that this was “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

There was a story spoken by a Japanese Diplomat discussing his country’s World War II efforts. There was a call for volunteers, soldiers, to run out and cut barbed wire that was stretched out before the Japanese troops on the front line. The troops were told, “You will never come back. You won’t carry a gun. You will have only wire cutters. You will run to the barricade and cut 1 or 2 wires before you are shot dead. Another soldier will take your place and cut 1 or 2 more. However, you will know that upon your dead bodies, the armies of your Emperor will march to victory!” Total regimens of Japanese soldiers volunteered for this certain death mission. They were men marked only with love and a sense of duty for their Emperor. Nothing, not even death would stand in the way of accomplishing their mission.

The same and more could be said of Jesus Christ’s loyalty and love to His Father. And, more over, for us – to save us from sin and eternal fires of Hell. He was crucified, that we might be forgiven. He died that we might live. He shed His precious blood for our justification. Jesus Christ alone could cut the wires of sin and death for us. He had to complete His mission that began when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the virgin Mary, as God the Word became flesh and was born in that Bethlehem stable. As God died on the cross and uttered His last words – “it is finished” – He lowered His head and gave up His Spirit. This is not the other way around. Even in death, Jesus proves that He is Lord by willingly giving up His Spirit for the life of the world. In the utmost humiliation, the glory of God in Christ is displayed.

As Jesus hung on that cross, already dead, a soldier pierced His pericardium with a spear. St. John tells us that “Blood and water came out,” flowing from his pierced side. Here we see so clearly the precious mysteries of the church, the Lord’s Sacraments of Holy Baptism in the Water and Holy Communion in the Eucharistic cup, which is like “drinking from His very side” (St. John Chrysostom). Literally, forgiveness of sins gushed out of the side of God on the cross. The living water of Baptism and faith and the precious blood of Christ for life everlasting!

Our Lord’s lifeless body was removed from the cross by 2 unexpected people. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus of the Sanhedrin. They together took His body down and anointed Him with myrrh and aloes and placed Him in a nearby tomb. There, His body lay. It seemed as though Satan, having lost the temptation battle in the desert, had finally won the war! It was as if the great darkness of evil and sin had eclipsed the light of Christ. Yet, in three days, all the world would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it!” (JN 1:5). Glory be to the Lamb of God who on the cross did suffer for us and our salvation. Amen.