The plan for redemption (for Good Frday)

Preached at Christ Church, Billericay, 29 March 2024 (Good Friday)

 Good Friday

Why is it called Good Friday? Surely it was a disaster.

Jesus has been betrayed, by a close friend

The religious leaders were against him, they are afraid of him.

The crowd were against Him, or were turned against him

Jesus has been arrested

His friends have deserted Him (Peter denied him)

Jesus has been interrogated, tortured and sentenced to death.

Only a weak Roman leader even tried to help, but could do nothing

Jesus had been crucified – His friends just stood and watched.

During that excruciating death, He says even God had left him.

Plan

But,

It’s all part of the plan for our redemption. That plan covers the entirety of human history as recorded in the Bible. Beginning with Adam and Eve, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and the kings, Elijah and the prophets, the exile and return, all the way to John the Baptist and Jesus the messiah. There are at least 300 prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament, and there are some more promises that Jesus makes himself that get fulfilled in our reading from John’s gospel. As we look at the promises and prophecies we heard today, we will see that there is a level of control and planning which demonstrates that Jesus is in control of events the whole way through.

18:8-9

In verses 8 and 9 at His arrest

⁸ Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, then let these men go.” ⁹ This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: “I have not lost one of those you gave me.”

That promise was made in John 6:39, it is part of the passage where he says ‘I am the bread of life’. It protects His disciples from becoming involved in His crucifixion and ensures they are not pursued by the authorities – even if Peter deserved to be.

18: 31b-32

In verses 31b and 32 the Jewish leaders have decided that Jesus must die for His claim to be the son of God. They are not allowed to execute people, so have to ask their Roman masters to do it. Pilate doesn’t see the need, but they are determined.

^31b “But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. ³² This took place to fulfil what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.

Matthew 20:19 tells us that Jesus will be executed by the gentiles. Matthew 26:2 tells us that His death will be by Crucifixion. John 3:14 alludes to the same thing, reminding his readers that as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the son of Man must be lifted up.

19:24

In Chapter 19 verse 24, talking about how Jesus’s clothes would be shared out, it says:

²⁴ “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”

This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said,

“They divided my clothes among them
    and cast lots for my garment.”

The prophecy comes from Psalm 22:18, just a little further on from the reading we had earlier:

They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

This prophecy, in particular, shows the detail in the plan that God has. Nothing has been left to chance, every tiny detail is planned out. It is revealed years in advance to people who have little hope of fully understanding it, but who record it, knowing that it comes from God and is therefore important.

19:28-29

Even when He is minutes from death, Jesus is still aware enough to make sure that the prophecies are fulfilled, verses 28 and 29:

²⁸ Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” ²⁹ 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.

The scripture that Jesus is quoting is Psalm 69:21

They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.

The psalmist uses it as a metaphor for the bitter scorn he received from the enemies around him when he needed comfort. He is pleading for God to come to him. He probably didn’t realise that it was a prophecy, but here it is fulfilled by Jesus, who is being treated in much the same way.

19:36-37

Even after Jesus’s death the actions of his executioners still fulfil prophecies. It is time for the executions to be completed as the Sabbath is coming. Normally those being crucified would be left to die a slow and painful death, but now their legs are broken to speed up the process, so the bodies can be removed before the Sabbath. Jesus is already dead, so to be sure of that, he is simply stabbed with a spear. As there is no blood, it is proof of death. Verse 36 says

³⁶ These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.”

The passover lamb must be eaten without breaking its bones according to Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12. Jesus has become the passover lamb for the whole world, sacrificed to save us from destruction.

Zechariah 12:10 tells us

“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 firstborn son.”

This prophecy, perhaps more than any of the others, sets the tone for Good Friday. The day in our year when we mourn for the loss of Jesus, our saviour. When we grieve bitterly for him, and the things he had to go through to achieve our redemption.

The plan

So, we look upon the plan and see that God has saved us from eternal separation, from death and hell. We look at the details from the beginning of time, everything is worked out in minute detail. The purpose of the plan is to provide us with a way back to God.

It has worked, but there has been an enormous cost – God has given up His son for us. That is why it is a Good Friday, because the plan has worked – we are saved.

Even so, or perhaps because of that, we should be in mourning for our loss, a loss that can be attributed to each of us and would be exactly the same even if you or I was the only individual that needed saving.

Amen.

Violence in the Crucifixion

Preached at Christ Church, Billericay, 15 April 2022 (Good Friday)

Reading John 18:1-19:42 (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

Crucifixion

Crucifixion is, perhaps, one of the most horrible ways that mankind has invented to kill someone. It is designed to be painful – very painful and slow. To cause as much suffering as humanly possible. This is the final act of violence that Jesus suffers on Good Friday, but there are many others also the way.

Where we are going

So, I’m going to look at the various acts of violence and calls for violence in the gospel reading and reflect a little on each of them. Human beings, it seems, have not changed. We hear of awful acts of violence every day. But maybe we should have, and we’ll look at that at the end.

Betrayal (18:3)

The betrayal is the first potentially violent act. Judas brings a detachment of soldiers. They are, of course, armed. It would be interesting to know what the chief priests and Pharisees were expecting. But here we get one of the main causes of violence – the soldiers are afraid of Jesus. They draw back, and become submissive. They have heard things about Jesus, but probably not the truth.

Let them go (18:8)

Jesus’s concern is that His disciples should not be arrested at the same time. This is to fulfil what He said in 6:39 “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me” and of course, if they are arrested they will not be there to build the church.

Ear (18:10)

In 18:10, Peter is the first perpetrator. He attacks one of the soldiers, Malchus, and cuts off his ear. Peter is his usual impulsive self and at this point has not really learnt much from Jesus. Only Luke, tells us that Jesus healed the wound. This one rash act could easily have led to an escalation, but the Roman soldiers are a disciplined force.

Arrest

Without further actual violence, the arrest is completed in 18:12. But use of force is there, it could so easily have gone another way.

Interrogation

Now we skip over Peter’s story and look at the so-called interrogation. In 18:22, we see the reaction of a brutal regime, to a simple, straight forward answer that does not fit their own narrative.

When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby struck him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.

This is not the Romans, this is one of the officials of the high priests.

Right of execution

The interrogation proves exactly what they had already decided it should prove. They have already judged Jesus and that justifies, in their own minds, that His death is necessary. They have a problem - the occupying force reserves the right to commit executions, presumably under penalty of death. So they have to plead and manipulate the system. They will end up denying their own beliefs to get their way.

Servants would fight

This leads to a further interrogation, where we learn from Jesus in 18:36, that His servants would fight, he says:

“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

Pilate is getting out of his depth, but at least he knows that this particular fight has been avoided.

Flogged / Crown of thorns

He has Jesus flogged in 19:1-3. That’s a default punishment, and he’s hoping it will be enough to get rid of the Jews. The soldiers have flogged many people, they know how far to go to cause serious pain and enough injury so that there is not too much permanent damage. While they’re at it, they might as well have a bit of fun – so there’s a crown of thorns and a royal robe. He is struck on the face again. After all it’s probably the first time they’ve flogged someone whose claims to be king were taken even slightly seriously.

Crucify!

In 19:6, Pilate brings Jesus to the chief priests to show what he has done, but it is not enough, and they shout for his death. “He’s broken our laws, He must die” they say.

Pilate is a politician, he has bigger things than one death to think about, the constant chants of “Crucify!” finally win the day.

Carrying the Cross

When we say “We all have our cross to bear”, I doubt we are thinking of such an extreme situation. Having been flogged, which would mainly damage the flesh on your back, and then being asked to carry two large pieces of wood, that you could barely lift when normally healthy, just adds to the sadistic approach of the death that Jesus endured. We know from the other gospels that this was too much for Jesus, and one of the crowd was forced to help out.

The Crucifixion and Death

The final act of violence is the crucifixion itself. John spares us the gory details, and concentrates on other things. Being nailed to the cross, having the cross dropped in the hole and then just hanging there, each breath causing pain, but your body compels you to take them.

With what Jesus had been through it is no surprise that he was already dead when the soldiers came to break His legs, so they didn’t bother, but to be sure they pierced his corpse. That leaves us with some important testimony, to prove his death.

Necessary

Experiencing all this suffering and violence was somehow necessary for Jesus to complete His mission. It is the only way that He can pay for our sins, and set us free from them. He went through it for us, that decision was made in Gethsemane the night before.

What has changed?

So, we have been put right with God and have access to him, you’d think that might make a difference to us. It’s there at the end of the reading from Isaiah:

he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the LORD'S will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

But what has really changed for us?

It seems that the very early church, the generations immediately after these events, took non-violence seriously, and preferred to imitate Jesus’s sacrificial life. This must have led to many deaths. It was only after Constantine that the church developed concepts like “Holy War” and “just war”.

Today

Where do we stand today? After all we have heard, and the horrors brought to us in the daily news, what should our approach be

Have we overcome the fear?

Have we overcome the impulsiveness?

Have we overcome our sense of judgement?

Do we prioritise peace and life over getting our own way?

Tweet

I’d like to leave you with this tweet from the Rev. Benjamin Cremer

We want the war horse. Jesus rides a donkey.

We want the eagle. The Holy Spirit descends as a dove.

We want to take up swords. Jesus takes up a cross.

We want the roaring lion. God comes as a slaughtered lamb.

We keep trying to arm God. God keeps trying to disarm us.

Amen

Truth

Preached: 2 April 2021 (Good Friday)

Readings: Isaiah 52v13-53v12; John 18v1-19v37

​Introduction

Well, that was a couple of looong readings! But it’s appropriate on Good Friday that we get the whole story, and we pretty much have. I probably have less time than those readings took, so I can just concentrate on one small aspect of them. As you listened to them, I wonder what stood out for you? Perhaps take some time over the holiday weekend to look deeper at that. For me, it was Pilate's question “What is truth?”, so I'm going to offer some thoughts on that this morning.

“What is truth?”

So, “what is truth?”. Let’s start with the simple truths first and work towards the more complicated ones.

Tell the truth

When we say to very young children “just tell the truth”, we are usually asking them to give an account of their actions that will incriminate them. Children will often say what they believe the parent or adult wants to hear. “I was a good girl, I didn’t eat the cake.” the little girl said to the researcher, but the icing around her mouth told another story altogether. Each child had been left alone in a room and told not to touch the cakes and sweets. Some found temptation impossible to resist, most of those that succumbed told some sort of lie.

Adults too

This is simply asking someone to relay an accurate, complete and pure record of some events that have taken place. We ask adults in court to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. But who takes any notice of that declaration any more! Or do I just watch too much crime drama?

In the reading

We find this type of evidential truth in our reading, when John writes in 19:35 “The man who saw it (the sudden flow of blood and water) has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.”

John’s telling of his truth has a purpose – ‘so you may believe’, just as this type of truth told in a court has a purpose – to get justice for someone.

Simple Truths

These are simple truths, if we want to get to more wider truths, we will have to look elsewhere.

​Science

Perhaps science has the answer, after all describing the world we live in ought to be pretty straight forward, didn’t it?

Well, it turns out that this is not the case. Scientists have a concept known as ‘lies to children’ to explain science to either children or non-scientists to give them just enough to gain an understanding and encourage them to look deeper.

Electricity

Let me give you an example. You can think of an electric current like water flowing through a pipe. The idea works well enough to explain volts and amps at a basic level, but when you begin to look at what’s happening to the electrons in the wire, the story is completely different – an electric current is not like water in a pipe at all.

Professor Kathy Sykes, of the University of Bristol said '...science is not about truth, but is about trying to get closer to the truth. This is important because, too often, people look to scientists as having the "truth". What we have is wrapped in uncertainties, caveats, and simplifications.'

Other types of truth

So, science doesn’t really help us to get to the indisputable facts that easily. Perhaps we should be wary of bringing science into the discussion at all, there is no evidence that Pilate was specially interested in the natural world. Anyway, there are other truths that we need to think about.

Definition

One definition of truth, with a capital T, is an “ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience”. This is getting closer to what Pilate was asking, I suspect.

Psychology Today

The Psychology Today website tells us: “Truth is a property not so much of thoughts and ideas, but more properly of beliefs and assertions. But to believe or assert something is not enough to make it true, or else the claim that ‘to believe something makes it true’ would be just as true as the claim that ‘to believe something does not make it true.’”

​Answering Pilates question

This begins to bring us closer to providing an answer for Pilate, because his question is in response to Jesus’ claims to be a king, but in a kingdom not of this world. Here’s what Jesus said, from 18:37

“You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Did Pilate really listen? We’ll probably never know. But we can see from his reaction that he does have an understanding of truth. He’s still prepared to tell the Jews that there is no basis for a charge against Jesus. Next, he makes a politically expedient decision and hands Jesus over to be flogged. One more step and he has given up on the truth that Jesus has not committed a crime worthy of crucifixion, or any other punishment.

Value of truth?

Perhaps the question Pilate should have asked is “What is the value of truth?” because for now at least, ignoring the higher truth and sticking with the truth that he’s in a difficult situation and need to preserve the peace, and with it his career is more important to him.

He is in essence behaving just like a small girl who failed to resist a cake.

An Answer?

So, can we provide an answer? The Psychology Today website article starts with the sentence, “Truth tends to lead to successful action.” The apostle John, also, has other things to say about truth—8:32 “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free”

The Truth

Jesus came to proclaim the truth, and that truth sets us free from our greatest fear – death and oblivion – our own end, which we know will inevitably come.

Freedom from that fear leads to many positive outcomes. Look at the progress humanity has made since belief in Jesus became widespread.

We’ve still got a long way to go. I’ve just completed safeguarding training, so I’m more aware than ever just how far we have to go. But progress has been made.

Today

Perhaps today, we can reflect on the times when we have ignored the truth and made our selves and our reputations more important.

It’s time for us to be on the side of truth and to listen to Jesus.

Amen.