Good Friday Sermon

Introduction
Have you ever been in a position where you had to do something that you were not looking forward to? That may be something that you have to do regularly, but that you don't like, perhaps cleaning the drains or visiting the dentist. Well that's going to be an unpleasant experience, but it has to be done, and in both cases some good will ultimately come of it. No-one wants to suffer from overflowing drains, and no-one wants to suffer from tooth ache. I suspect that like me many of you may try to put these jobs off for as long as you can, before finally getting them done.

Linda's Story
Of course, the thing that you are not looking forward to may be something that life throws at you in the normal course of events. When I was at sixth form I had a friend, I'll call her Linda. Now when Linda was seven she had left the infants school, and was preparing to go to Junior school. That's into year 3 in the current way of measuring school years. Linda was not looking forward to this, in fact she was dreading it. For her it was a different school, with different teachers, and even some different pupils. Linda wasn't ready to make the change, so one morning, probably in early September, she decided that she could not go through with it. As her parents were no help, and were insisting that she must go, there was only one alternative. At the age of seven, Linda decided it was time to leave home. She packed her satchel, yes, the one she had been given for junior school, with some sweets, and some bread, she went up to her room and and changed into some warm cloths, put on her best coat, picked up all of her pocket money and all of her savings, and headed for the front door. All was quiet, so she left. Closing the door behind her she strode purposefully for the front gate, opened it and walked down the road. Fortunately for all of us, Linda's mother heard her leave the house and caught up with her a brought her home. If she hadn't who knows what could have happened. Linda did survive junior school, and senior school, but the point of the story is that she knew there was something going to happen – she had to go to a new school. She could not accept what life had put in her path and decided that the only option was to run away.

My Employment
Some of you may know that I am currently looking for a new job after my job was moved off-shore (to India). I have had to spend sixty days handing over everything I know about my job to other people, while the management sort out a successor on the sub-continent.
To help with the handover I was asked to prepare a Knowledge Transfer document. There would be a bonus paid for the completion of it, so I had some motivation to get on and produce a good result. The handover was not something I wanted to do, at first. I decided that although the process is an unpleasant experience, the best thing to do was to continue to take a professional approach, and to do the best job that I could under the circumstances. The approach of my management, which had until the sixty days been very hands-off, had suddenly become very intense. They wanted to know, and have justified, pretty much everything I was doing. Keeping my head down and getting on with my work – my usual approach was impossible – I had to do my job, hand it over to others, and document it, under the watchful eye of my manager. I am happy to report that I have come through it, and received the maximum available bonus.

How to approach an unpleasant task
It seem that we have three example of how we can approach a difficult and unpleasant task. If the option is there we can put it off, but many things in life do not fit with our timing, but with someone else's. We can run away, or at least we can try to run away, but there is plenty of evidence from life that running away doesn't actually achieve what it is designed to. The problem, task, or job to do will still be there when you get back. Perhaps the best approach then is to embrace the task, and make the best possible job of it.

Before our reading today Jesus had prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, Here's the story from Luke 22:
'Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, Pray that you will not fall into temptation. He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done. An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”
Following that prayer Jesus had decided to go through with the difficult job that he had been given by his father. Now what Jesus had to do was to die for the sins of the world. That really makes anything that we might have to face seem fairly insignificant by comparison. In our passage today we see Jesus accomplishing the task, and I am going to look at some of the aspects of how successfully that was carried out.

God had been speaking to the Jews through the prophets for many years, almost throughout their entire history. God had told the Jews why he had chosen them, how they were to live together and relate to other peoples who lived around them, and how they were to worship Him. The Jews had struggled with this, what God was asking was not easy. God had also told them many of the things that the Messiah would do, and many of the things that would happen in the Messiah's life. Three times it says “So that scripture would be fulfilled”. Lets take a look at each of them, and see what Jesus did, and the events that occurred around him as he went to do the job that God had placed in front of him.

First Prophecy
The first prophesy involves the Roman soldiers who were there to follow their orders and crucify the prisoners handed to them. They themselves were not involved in the process of justice, like a prison warden today does not appear at the court hearing, he is just responsible for executing the sentence passed by the court. That's what the Roman soldiers were doing - following the instructions of the court, and the Roman legal system. Each prisoner would have four soldiers to accompany him. As part of that system, when someone was handed over for execution the soldiers who performed the act would keep all the worldly goods of the person who they were crucifying. In Jesus' case, as in the case of most Jews of his day there would likely be five pieces of clothing – shoes (or sandals) turban, girdle, tunic, and robe. So the soldiers shared these out amicably enough, 1 piece each, but what to do with the fifth item. The undergarment had been woven in one piece. It was a special piece of clothing. It was customary for Jewish mothers to present such a garment to their son's as a gift when they entered adult hood – like a traditional coming of age birthday present today. When adult hood began at 21 the tradition was to give the key to the door – something small but very significant. For a Jewish mother the traditional gift was a tunic woven as one piece.

So there were the soldiers wondering what to do with this piece of clothing. To cut it into quarters would be to destroy it, so what better to do than to draw lots to see who gets it. At least then someone would get something of value. So the prophecy in Psalm 22:18 has been fulfilled. “They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”

OK, Pete, lots of interesting things about Roman Soldiers and Jewish clothing, but what part did Jesus take in all this? Surely he's just the victim here?

Well, yes, at this point Jesus has submitted himself to the Roman authorities, but he was also responsible for dressing himself. He chose to wear that tunic – knowing what was about to happen he could easily have swapped for something of little or no value, but he didn't. Perhaps you could say “What a waste letting the Romans have something that good – couldn't it have been used to help the poor?” May be it could have, but it was the only thing of real value that Jesus had, if prophecy were to be fulfilled, it needed to be put in front of the soldiers so that they could agree to draw lots for it.
The robe has another potential significance to. A seamless tunic was worn by the high priest, partly as a symbol of who he was, but also because it would be much less likely to tear than a regular tunic. So here we see some symbolism of Jesus as God's new high priest. That may seem to be stretching a point here, but it would not have been lost on the Jews.

Jesus' Mother
Before we look at the second and third prophecies, it is worth noting that Jesus is still behaving like the Jesus we are so familiar with in the Gospels. He makes arrangements for his mothers long term care – asking his closest disciple John, the author of our reading to take care of her as though she were his own mother. At this point it is possible that John took Mary back to his home, where she would have stayed for the rest of the day. John would have returned to the scene of the crucifixion. That would be one possible explanation for the narrative appearing to skip forward slightly, missing some of the details from the other gospels.

Second Prophecy
The second prophecy is in verses 28 and 29
“Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.”
Even now, after being scourged and beaten and nailed to a cross Jesus is still fully aware of what he is doing, here by asking for a drink, he picks up the prophecy from Psalm 69:21 “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.” Gall is also known as wormwood, a bitter tasting herb that dulls pain and the senses with it. Jesus has already refused to drink the vinegar when it contained the drug. He needs to keep his head clear for all that is going on around him. Here though he accepts the vinegar. This is, of course, wine vinegar, not malt vinegar, not the sort you would put on you chips. It is the common drink of Roman soldiers, and does not contain much alcohol at all – just enough to make the water safe to drink. Even today's binge drinkers would stay reasonably sober drinking this – not that they would, it does not have a very pleasant taste.
As you leave today, take with you the smell of the wine vinegar, use the smell to remind you of the actions of Jesus on the cross fulfilling the prophesies from hundreds of years earlier.

Third Prophecy
The third prophecy again involves the Roman soldiers, but this time includes the Jews. As the crucifixion was held on the day before the Sabbath – Friday, the Jews were concerned about the criminals being left on the cross, so the Romans agreed to break their legs. This has the effect of speeding up the death, and would not have been something that the Romans would normally have been prepared to do. So one of the soldiers is asked to go and break the legs of those on the crosses. When he comes to Jesus, he can see no sign of life, so to prove to all those present that death has really occurred his spear is stuck into the side of the body. The blood has separated out and is seen as blood and water confirming to the Roman that he is dead. In verse 30 we hear Jesus say “It is finished” , by which he means that he has done all that is to be done. Everything that God has asked of him has been completed. These things happened so that a number of scriptures would be fulfilled
Ps 34:20 he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.
From Numbers, the rules for passover say of the lamb that was eaten:
Nu 9:12 They must not leave any of it till morning or break any of its bones. When they celebrate the Passover, they must follow all the regulations.
Jesus is the Lamb that God provides for the required sacrifice for this most special passover. The regulations for passover must be followed – if not by God, who else would follow them.
In Zec 12:10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a first-born son.”

Had Jesus not died when he did, the scriptures could not have been fulfilled. John says “he gave up his spirit”, in other words he deliberately allowed himself to die at that moment, any later and there would have been a different outcome.

Conclusion
Everything that Jesus did in the passage we read today was either to directly fulfil the scriptures, or to make circumstances where their fulfilment was the most probable outcome. Everything he did was intended to demonstrate who he was, and that he was on the path chosen by God, quite deliberately taking all the steps that would lead to his Death, and so to our restoration with God.