CHRIST'S GOOD FRIDAY
Text : Matthew 26:52 — 27:52
Proposition : Good Friday pictures the sin that Christ experienced on the cross. It pictures the nature of sin that Christ took upon Himself in order to take it away from the world.
Introduction : John Henry Jowett once said, "Sin is a blasting presence, and every fine power shrinks and withers in the destructive heat. Every spiritual delicacy succumbs to its malignant touch... Sin impairs the sight, and works toward blindness. Sin benumbs the hearing and tends to make men deaf. Sin perverts the taste, causing men to confound the sweet with the bitter, and the bitter with the sweet. Sin hardens the touch, and eventually renders a man ‘past feeling.’ All these are Scriptural analogies, and their common significance appears to be this--sin blocks and chokes the fine senses of the spirit; by sin we are desensitized, rendered imperceptive,..." (John Henry Jowett in The Grace Awakening, C. Swindoll, Word, 1990, p. 140-41)
I quote this statement about sin to you because this is Good Friday. It is the day we hold in remembrance of when Jesus died for our sin. It is the day when Jesus fulfilled many of the prophecies, completed many of the pictures or types that had sought to reveal Who He is as the Savior Who pays the penalty of death for sin.
But we struggle to call Good Friday `Good', because in it are the brutal descriptions of Christ’s death. Have you ever wondered why God the Father ever allowed such horror to occur to His own Son? If Jesus was to be our sacrifice couldn't He have died in a more gentle manner? Couldn't His life have been yielded up as the lambs life was, with a clinical slash of the knife? Let me suggest to you that the events that preceded Jesus death were not just circumstantial, not just the result of the barbarous Roman rule. They were in fact fore-ordained in prophecy but even more so they are used of God to define the very nature of sin that Jesus was taking upon Himself on our behalf. The brutal events of Good Friday reveal the horror that sin is, especially the horror that sin is to God.
Turn with me to Matthew 26:47 as we recall the events of Good Friday and the devastation of sin that Christ faced for us.
I. Because of Sin there is ...Isolation...
This first effect of sin was experienced in the early hours of Good Friday. The isolation began with betrayal, as Judas used intimacy to betray Christ. In a prophecy about Christ Psalm 41:9 says, "Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me." Verse 56 of Matthew 26 concludes that all the disciples had left Him and fled. Sin causes isolation, between man and man and between man and God. Jesus experienced the intensity of isolation in all the events that led to His death.
II. Because of Sin there is ...Accusation...
The accusation of the chief priests had but one purpose. It was not to determine if Jesus was really Messiah or not, it was not to determine if He really was threatening to destroy the temple or not. The one purpose of the accusation was to destroy Him. Satan uses accusation to bring destruction to people's lives, it tears people down. Jesus felt the tearing down of the unjust accusations of those high priests on Good Friday.
III. Because of Sin there is...Condemnation...
The things that Jesus did say to the Council were true. These men would one day see Him sitting at the right hand of God, and would even be allowed to witness the day when Christ would return to earth to fulfill God's kingdom on earth. The condemnation of the high priests was blind to the truth of God's plan of salvation. Jesus came to take away all condemnation. Because of His death Romans 8:1 boldly declares that, " There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Jesus, as he faced the cross, felt the death sentence of our condemnation that sin demands.
IV. Because of Sin there is...Rejection...
Jesus was a Jew, He came first of all to the lost sheep of Israel. These are the people that the Father called His 'First Born', the people the Father referred to as His bride. What He experienced in verses 67, 68 was the vehement rejection of His nation, through it's leaders. Isaiah 50:6 says, " I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting." Before this day was out over 100 people would have spit into the face of the Lord who created heaven and earth... and the amazing thing... He didn't hide His face from the intensity of such rejection. Sin will reject that which is not self- favoring. Sin will reject righteousness. And sin will itself be rejected by holiness.
2Cor. 5:21 says, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf..." Jesus felt the rejection that sin brings when it encounters holiness.
V. Because of Sin there is... Degradation...
Degradation is the dehumanizing of a person to the point that one looses the ability to identify with that person. Do you remember that quote from J H Jowett, " Sin hardens the touch, and eventually renders a man "past feeling." The Roman cohort, some 200 or more men not only sought to humiliate Christ they sought to strip Him of His humanity. They had lost the ability to identify with Jesus as a person. How ironic that Jesus was doing exactly the opposite, identifying with man and the sin that dominates him. Sin caused the degradation that sought to strip Christ of His dignity that Good Friday and Jesus felt the full impact of it's dehumanizing effect. (Walter Wangerin's the Rag Man is a picture of this)
VI. Because of Sin there WAS ...Crucifixion...
Clinically crucifixion is suffocation by pain. The pain from the nails that pin the wrists works against the pain from the nail that pins the feet. In order to breathe the person must push up from the feet to exhale. The pain from the feet is excruciating so they slump down putting the weight on the wrists. Carbon dioxide builds up in the body because of this labored breathing. The blood thickens and as the heart struggles to keep circulation. It feels like a crushing weight on the chest. Death typically occurs from lack of oxygen after many hours of struggle.
Isaiah 53:5 says, " But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities." The death of crucifixion depicts the effect that sin has on every person’s life. It creates a pain that seeks to suffocate us that has the end purpose of death. That's what the wages of sin are... death. Crucifixion also depicts God's action towards sin. He wants to put it to death so that it will no longer have any presence in us. Jesus experienced crucifixion not just because it was prophetically pictured, but because God had a purpose in having Christ die in this manner. Crucifixion depicts the horror of sin, and Jesus became acquainted with that horror because of us.
Sin in all it's poverty's; Isolation, Accusation, Condemnation, Rejection, Degradation, Crucifixion... this was the experience of Christ as He took sin to death!
Author Jill Briscoe wrote this poem that reflects these truths:
Scourged my King, a plaited crown, runs the blood of Godhead down,
Ripped the flesh, the beard pulled out, cruel this sport, rude this shout.
Scourged my King, a plaited crown, runs the blood of Godhead down.
Scourged my King, in the soldiers den, exposed to beasts, dressed like men,
Smelt the blood of prey soon caught, set my Jesus all at naught,
Scourged my King a plaited crown, runs the blood of Godhead down.
Scourged my King, a plaited crown, runs the blood of Godhead down, Can I doubt You, Father's loss, broken God on broken cross?
Have I a wound, a scar in me, that mirrors Thine on Calvary?
Scourged my King, a plaited crown, runs the blood of Godhead down.