With today being Good Friday, it disturbs me to see and hear so many who miss the point of today. I just came from a Good Friday service where the sermon focused on Jesus saying I am thirsty while on the cross. After some very fine isogesis about that statement, we were told about serving. Jesus can do nothing without the church, and this statement was Him inviting us to serve. The last time I checked that is not the reason for Good Friday. Good Friday is all about what happened on the cross. This weekend is all about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Without which there would be no forgiveness of sins. The message of the cross is a hard message, and many pastors will shy away from telling the story. Today the Gospel should be proclaimed for all to hear.
We have another church in our community playing off of Obama presidential campaign posters. They are using the posters that said Obama is hope and had his picture. They have replaced Obama’s name and photo with the name of Jesus and a traditional looking Jesus image. This is a pet peeve of mine to begin with. The use of this traditional view of Jesus has in many cases become a graven image to our society. We have no clue what Jesus looks like, but yet here is this commonly used image of our own making that makes us comfortable. That was just a side note, but my real trouble is with the Jesus is Hope message. This message sounds good on the surface, but what does it really convey. To portray Obama and Jesus in any similar way is just wrong to me. Jesus is not hope for a better economy or any of things Obama proclaimed to be. Jesus is not the one who is going to make your life better if you accept Him. Following Jesus may very well wreck your life as you know it. Jesus is our sacrifice and our propitiation. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. He took the wrath that was upon us. He is our Lord and Savior. He is our king who is coming again. Our hope is not in this world, but in the Kingdom to come.
So, why did He come? Did Jesus come to teach us a better way to live? Did He come to make the world a better place? Did He come so that those who believed in Him would have prosperity? The answer is no to all of the above. The Father sent the Son to die in our place. Because of the curse of sin, no one is righteous in the sight of God. We are all born under the curse, and subject to the wrath of God as a result. Only God Himself coming down out of Heaven could take our place. It took a perfect spotless lamb. Jesus is that lamb. He was beat beyond recognition. He was battered and bruised. His flesh was torn and His blood spilled. He was rejected by His own people. All because of you and me. We are the reason He had to come. He was placed on a Roman cross to die. On that cross the sins of the world – past, present and future – were placed on Him. Isaiah 53:10 – But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; He was crushed on our behalf. That is what today is about. The substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross is celebrated on Good Friday.
For those who don’t know the rest of the story, don’t worry. Sunday is coming. The tomb could not hold Jesus. On Sunday Jesus arose from the dead. Proving that He was no ordinary man, He arose and walked this earth again until He returned to the right hand of the Father. As a result, we have a way (the only way) to be forgiven for our sins. We have to repent of our sinful ways, and believe that Jesus, as the Son of God did everything mentioned above. We have to believe in Him as our Lord and Savior. This is a believing that goes beyond a head knowledge. If I am in a plane, I may believe the pack beside me is a parachute. But if the engine fails, I better believe (have full faith) that the parachute is everything it is supposed to be. To believe in Christ is to have a trust that He is everything He claimed to be. And in that trust, we are willing to devote ourselves fully to Him and nothing else. As a result, our lives are noticeably changed. If you go to a church that doesn’t preach this message, find a new church that does. There is no message that is more important.
