Easter Friday

Over the past few weeks in our church calendar, we've been working through the book of John, the gospel of John. And we have been dealing specifically with the final words of Jesus to his disciples ahead of this day. The final words of Jesus before he goes to the cross. And what we see in these chapters that we dealt with over the last month or so is Jesus spending a considerable amount of time talking with his disciples about what today means, what his mission to Earth really means. And he ends on a point where he says, I am leaving you.

It's a warning about the fact that he is going to leave them. Now we saw a month ago this conversation start in John chapter 14, and it ends three chapters later in chapter 16. Now if you were here for that, you'll remember that Jesus began those words, or that teaching rather, comforting his disciples in chapter 14 with these words. Have a look at John chapter 14, verse 1. He begins.

This is where his farewell discourse begins. He says to them, do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust also in me. During the course of this conversation, we see Jesus explaining certain things, and the reason, or the theme of discomfort, by telling them that he alone is the way, the truth, and the life, that he is going away to prepare a place for them with God the father.

He goes on to give them promises that they will never be alone, even if he is to leave, because he will send the Holy Spirit to them. The Holy Spirit who he calls the adviser, the comforter, the counselor. He promises that the Holy Spirit will help his disciples live fruitful lives that please God, that have understanding of the message of the cross, and that the Holy Spirit would sustain them even when the world would hate them, even when the world doesn't understand what Easter is about. Well, this morning we have a little snippet at the end of this conversation. John chapter 16, verses 16 to 33.

John chapter 16, verses 16 to 33. Jesus said to his disciples, in a little while, you will see me no more. And then after a little while, you will see me. Some of his disciples said to one another, what does he mean by saying, in a little while, you will see me no more, and then after a little while, you will see me, and because I'm going to the father? They kept asking, what does he mean by a little while?

We don't understand what he is saying. Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, are you asking one another what I meant when I said, in a little while, you will see me no more, and then after a little while, you will see me? I tell you the truth. You will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.

A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come. But when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So it is with you. Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day, you will no longer ask me anything.

I tell you the truth. My father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now, you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. Though I've been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language, but will tell you plainly about my father.

In that day, you will ask in my name. I'm not saying that I will ask the father on your behalf. No. The father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the father and entered the world.

Now I am leaving the world and going back to the father. Then Jesus' disciples said, now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God. You believe at last, Jesus answered. But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home.

You will leave me all alone, yet I am not alone, for my father is with me. And Jesus finished by saying, I have told you these things so that you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. So far, our reading.

Three chapters ago, we see Jesus begin his final teaching to his disciples, saying in chapter 14, verse 1, don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in me. Believe in me just as you believe in God. Massive statement. A massive statement.

These Jews believing in Yahweh, the God of Israel, are now called to believe in the same way in their rabbi, Jesus. It is blasphemy. But Jesus can start saying this because he knows very soon, in a little while, they will understand. And now we find him ending this conversation by warning them that trouble is indeed coming. Their hearts are going to be broken to the point of unbearable grief.

In fact, it would be the most severe grief, because while they are mourning, seemingly the entire world is rejoicing. While this ragged group of a handful of people are grieving the loss of their faithful teacher, their rabbi, their friend, the world is rejoicing. Rejoicing. But Jesus says, be encouraged, because this grief is going to turn into joy. Jesus uses very expressive language here when he starts identifying this joy to that of a woman giving birth.

The emotion of Easter, friends, is like a woman giving birth. The brutal events of the next twenty-four hours are going to be excruciating for his disciples. Like a woman in the ancient world giving birth without sedatives, without medication, without emergency surgery. These excruciating pains will soon be forgotten when the new life that Jesus Christ offers is revealed. You see, the disciples could not in a million years have foretold what was going to happen in these three days.

They could not in a million years have factored in the death of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection. They had slowly, as we see in the gospels, come to this realisation that Jesus might just be the Messiah. He might just be the saviour of Israel, the long-awaited person of God's choosing. And so much in that last week of Jesus' final ministry on earth had been pointing to this. Jesus, on that Sunday he came, the Palm Sunday, the previous Sunday, coming in on the donkey with people shouting Hosanna in the highest to the son of David, pointed back in the disciples' minds to the prophet Zechariah and his promise hundreds of years before, that said the Messiah will come like this.

And they would be praising in Jerusalem, shout, oh daughter of Jerusalem. Zechariah writes, See your king coming to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and humbly, riding a donkey. Zechariah 9:9. The disciples saw that a week before. Righteous and victorious to the praise and the adoration of the crowds, the disciples saw Jesus in white-hot anger also driving out the thieves and the swindlers in the temple of Jerusalem.

Those people that had made a mockery of God, he drove them out, cleansing out the church like the prophets of old had said. A passion for God's house consumes me, the psalmist writes, of the Messiah. A passion for God's temple consumes me. They had seen that in that same week. But the disciples did not foresee the cross.

And therefore, they could not begin to imagine an empty grave. And Jesus is trying to prepare them for both, and he stresses the short wait that is involved between the two. A little while, guys. Shortly, you will not see me, but then a little while more, you will see me again. And it's so wonderful how Jesus does this.

He mentions that word seven times. It's mentioned seven times in just a few verses. Guys, it's just short. Just hang in there. And so this morning, as we reflect on Good Friday, and friends, for many of us, this is something we hear every Sunday.

But today, with the same mixture of pain and the same mixture of relief, we remember Easter. Don't look away from the cross. It is good and right for us today to be a little somber. It is good and right for me to wear a grey tie as though I'm going to a funeral. It is good and right for us to be reflective.

Don't look away from the cross. With unflinching gaze, look upon it. See the cost. See the loss. See the punishment of Jesus upon that tree.

Those hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered. See him upon that hill. Hear the scorn. Hear the laughter. Witness him silent as a lamb before the slaughter, praying to his father.

Don't look away. Don't recoil. Look upon that cross. But then we don't stop there either. In a little while, grief will be turned into joy.

The resurrection is our story. The cross is not our story. The resurrection is our story. For a little while, the cross was the disciples' story, but ours is the resurrection. If you are a Christian, it gives us the certain hope of God's better plan for the world.

Because in the resurrection, in that little while that followed, Jesus is vindicated as the true son of God. It says that Jesus' death, what happened on that cross, was not simply man's rejection of him. Even though the world would heartily rejoice in this moment, Jesus says it is all part of the plan. It is all part of the plan. The apostle Peter explains in the book of Acts later, only a few days afterwards, at the Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. He says to the Jews there, Jesus, this man, was handed over to you to be killed, to be executed by God's set purpose and foreknowledge.

You thought you were executing a usurper. You thought you were putting to death a rebel. It was all part of the plan. For Jesus to have been raised to life shows that Jesus' death on the cross had worked. And so we will never understand the victory of the cross unless we are overwhelmed to the point of incredible joy by the resurrection. But why did Jesus need to leave?

Why can't he just stay? Well, the resurrection that turns grief into joy shows that the payment of that sacrifice was accepted. The cross is the place where Jesus swapped himself with us. It should have been us on that cross. We should have died that death.

We should have had God turn his back upon us. We should have said the words that Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And so when I am sad and reflective on Good Friday, part of it is because my saviour died a brutal death, but a larger part is the sadness that he should die for my sin, that he would die for me. But Easter exclaims with words that echo throughout eternity. The payment was acceptable. The credit card was not declined.

Our just punishment was indeed paid for by Jesus, and his resurrection is what proves that the job is complete. What is the result of this now? Jesus explains in verses 23 and 28. He says his going away, his dying, is to restore our relationship with God. And he does it in such a way. He explains that our relationship with God the father is so intimate that any Christian, any believer, may talk to this infinite, righteous, perfect God as if we're talking to a father, as if we're talking to our dad.

This comes at the heart of why Jesus needed to die. Because of the cross, because of the resurrection, Jesus will usher all of his followers into the same kind of relationship that he himself has with the father. If you think that Jesus had a great relationship with the father, that is what we have with him. A relationship of genuine connection, of genuine acceptance, a relationship where you will know and experience God like you could not have before. But they will only do so, Jesus says, in Jesus' name. What that means is on the basis of what Jesus has done and who he is.

I know people have misunderstood this passage to say, whatever you ask for, and you just tack on "in Jesus' name," that is what you'll receive. Just add the magic words and you'll receive those things. That is not what Jesus meant. In the ancient world, to speak in someone's name, to deliver a message in someone's name, is to come with an authority not based on who you are, but based on the one who has sent you. Based on the one who has given you this message to deliver, who has given you this command to go and speak on his behalf.

To ask therefore in Jesus' name isn't so much a promise that God will fulfil your every whim. It is a promise that because of the cross, there is a brand new relationship with Jesus, which will so influence your lives and transform your hearts that what you say on his behalf will be acceptable to God because that is God's will as well. Our will becomes aligned with Christ's will. And God will work in us now, and he will change our motives and our hearts' desires to come in line with his. Therefore, we will indeed receive what we ask for because what we ask for, God wants to give.

Jesus going to the cross, therefore, has restored each of us to speak to God as intimately and as personally as he is our father. The third reflection on Good Friday. In verse 29, the disciples say to Jesus, after all this, say, now you're speaking clearly to us. Now we can understand. Now we see.

You've made us believe. Things are starting to add up for us. They're beginning to grasp what Jesus is saying. He doesn't need to ask any. We don't need to ask any more questions. And so they affirm, make us believe. This has made us believe that you are from God.

And Jesus' reply is very important. Jesus' reply is very important. He says in our NIV translations, you believe at last. But that should, and could probably, be translated as a question. Do you now believe? What this means is that Jesus thinks, okay.

Maybe in part, they understand, but they don't fully. And as the shadow of the cross is steadily creeping across their lives, it is one thing for them to say that they believe in the need for Jesus to go away. He might need to leave us for a little while, but they don't understand that it is to the cross. They don't understand what the cross will usher in for this new order under God. But it will be another thing also for them to believe in the face of such brutal violence and the threat on their lives. We understand this thing as well, don't we, of understanding and knowing what Jesus is doing, but not really understanding it?

We see that eventually at the cross, where the pressure is on, where the temptation to forsake Christ is great, the disciples scatter. They leave. Jesus says that they will leave. Jesus has already told Peter that he will deny him three times. It is us as disciples who struggle with these words.

We find the cross so baffling. Some of us may be here for the first time in a long time at church. You may be a sceptic even about Christianity. But I wanna ask you, you hear the message of Jesus. You may have heard about the cross.

And you may, with the disciples, say we understand what this is about. But the reality is you may not. And I may say this even to people that have been at church for many, many years. You may know about the cross. But do you understand what it means? Are there some questions that you need answered first? Be honest about them.

Talk to a friend. Talk to a family member. Talk to a pastor. But then again, the message of the cross is a challenge even to the most experienced Christian, isn't it? Because it is marked by God's grace that is so hard to hold, so hard to understand.

Even as a long-time Christian, the cross is baffling because the temptation can be that we start living as though we understand it. And if we understand it, then we can control it. We can control when and where God gives his grace to the people around us, to our neighbour who doesn't know God, but should be acting as a Christian. Why? Because I'm a Christian.

He should be acting as a Christian. If God's grace ripped you from the darkness of Satan's empire and brought you into God's kingdom purely by God's electing grace, how can we make those calls? How can we make those judgements? And so the cross challenges us in how we understand God.

It challenges us in the way we think about others' actions. It challenges us in how we treat others by understanding that we don't understand the cross and that we don't know anything of God's grace except Jesus Christ and him crucified, who is the ultimate example, the ultimate showcase of this grace. If we only accept that we know Jesus Christ and him crucified, this forms the basis of such intense humility that we will say, even in hard situations, Lord, I don't understand this person's motives in hurting me. I don't understand the situation of a world that is so ostracising Christians at this stage. I don't understand why someone would blow themselves up in a Palm Sunday service to hurt Christians that are doing nothing wrong.

Lord, I don't understand these motives, but I know because of the cross, your heart for me. And that heart is that you saved me. That heart is that you loved me when I was in so much need and could offer nothing to you. You loved me.

The grace of the cross challenges even the most mature Christian. And then we finish with Jesus' final statement in verse 33. And he concludes his final bit of teaching. These are the last words that he says to his disciples. He says, I have told you these things.

All of these things, not just in this last few paragraphs, from chapter 14. I've told you all of these things so that in me, you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome it.

Jesus looks into the eyes of his disciples around that Lord's Supper dinner table, knowing what lies ahead of him. And he knew what these disciples of his would go through in this little while. And so he gave them these words that would only make sense after everything had unfolded. But he gives them the key to the mystery. All of it is for a victory. All of it is for good news. All of us understand what pain and suffering is.

All of us do. We know it because we live in this world that is full of pain and suffering. We feel it so acutely some days. The stress, the anxiety, the frustration. And Jesus admits this.

Notice that Jesus says, in this world, you will have trouble. These disciples especially will be martyred for this good news. They will have trouble. But then he says again, this won't overwhelm. This won't destroy.

This won't tear down because you have peace. Jesus in his death on the cross has brought us peace. This trouble in the world would not overwhelm them. Jesus says, because they saw, and would see, the final message of the cross. It would bring them peace between God and themselves and an end to sin.

It would bring an end to eternal death by offering eternal life. So much so that Paul could exclaim, sin, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? Paul the apostle says that Jesus has overcome all his enemies. The cross brings unconquerable peace.

There was a uni student who attended a famous university, and he was a man who had grown up with a disability. He was on crutches. And although not a handsome fellow, he had a great talent for academics. And he was known by everyone for his friendliness and his optimism. One day, a new student to the university asked him what had caused him to become so badly crippled, and he explained to the man that it was polio.

With a hardship like that, the other student thought out loud, how can you face the world so confidently, so happily? Oh, the polio victim exclaimed, that disease never touched my heart. Today, as we look at the cross, as we reflect on the price, it is good for us to be a little somber and reflective. It is good and right for us to even be a little sad, to see the cost, to see the loss. But as the cross rises on the horizon, be reminded that in a little while, there is joy.

Jesus has overcome the world. Jesus has overcome the world. If you will bring yourself to believe that today, if you will understand that and accept that for your own life today, and friend, no disease will ever touch your heart. Let me pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for these last words of Jesus, his final will and testament.

We thank you for the words of comfort that he so lovingly and deliberately kept sharing with his followers. And these are our words as well. Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust in me. I must go through these things.

I must leave you, but only for a little while. And then you will see a victory. Then you will see a kingdom. Then you will see and experience a life that you could not have imagined. Father, let the cross bring us to you.

Let the cross speak to us this morning. Help us to understand. And, Lord, thank you that in this church, we don't often forget it. But, Lord, let us also not ignore it. Let us also not become complacent about it.

And so today, above all days, we thank you for the cross. In Jesus' name we can say this, because of that cross. Amen.