Good Friday

Now, if you've been a Christian for a while or even if you haven't, you may have wondered and asked this question to yourself: why do we call today Good Friday? Why do we call today Good Friday? It seems a little strange, doesn't it? Because when we look at these hours of Jesus, everything about it was the opposite of good. We see that the one who was celebrated, the one who was honoured was despised.

A man who was innocent by all accounts was condemned as guilty. The one who was said to be the lion of Judah was a lamb to be slaughtered. Let's have a read of some of these accounts in Luke's gospel. The account of his arrest and his death in particular. So turn with me to Luke chapter 22, and we're going to read from verses 47 to 53, the moment where Jesus is arrested, and then Luke 23, the next chapter, verses 44 to 49, the crucifixion and Jesus' death.

So Luke 22, verse 47. While He, who is Jesus, was still speaking, a crowd came up and the man who was called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss Him. But Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the son of man with a kiss?" When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?" And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

But Jesus answered, "No more of this." And He touched the man's ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard and the elders who had come for Him, "Am I leading a rebellion that you have to come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour when darkness reigns."

And then Luke 23, verse 44. It was now about the sixth hour and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When He had said this, He breathed His last.

The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man." When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew Him, including the women who had followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance watching these things. So far, our reading. What we see in these two accounts is Jesus, in the early morning before his death, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He took His disciples with Him and then went a little bit further into the garden. The Bible says He took with Him His three best mates, James, John, and Peter, and asked them to just spend a bit of time with Him as He prayed. Now the text doesn't say this, but we can assume that Judas Iscariot, who had been eating the Lord's supper or the Passover feast with them the night before, was probably with them. And when he saw the opportunity where Jesus went away a little bit further with the other three and the remaining disciples were left behind, he saw the opportunity in the dead of night to sneak away. And he went and saw the chief priests and the elders and the teachers of the law. The Bible says.

At the start of Luke chapter 22, we see that Judas had approached these chief priests and these religious leaders and agreed to hand over Jesus to them. The idea was to be stealthy. The idea was to avoid the crowds who might rise up and defend Jesus. And the deal was he would do this for thirty silver coins. So we see Judas finding his opportune time, making the necessary decisions, and he leads a big crowd, the Bible says, of guards and temple priests and elders and Pharisees to Jesus.

And then Judas greets Jesus with a kiss, which was a sign that he had identified the perpetrator. Like picking a criminal out of a lineup. This is the man. This is the man. Now in Luke, we have the only written record of Jesus' words when this happens.

It's only in Luke where Jesus says, "Judas, are you betraying the son of man with a kiss? Is this the signal, Judas? Must one of my own disciples betray me? Is this how it's going to unfold? Must the badge of friendship be the instrument of treachery?"

You can just sense the disappointment. A token of love and of intimacy is desecrated and abused for thirty coins. Now the disciples are beside themselves with anger, with confusion. They asked Jesus, "Lord, should we draw the sword? Should we start fighting these guys off?"

And one of them, identified as Peter in another of the gospels, takes out his sword without waiting for Jesus' answer and slices off an ear of a servant of one of the chief priests. But Jesus yells out, "No more of this. Stop it." And in the midst of all this commotion, and again, it would have just been a confusing, chaotic mess. In the midst of this, you see Jesus reaching down and healing the man.

This last miraculous sign that Jesus does before His death shows some significant truth about the man that we call Jesus. With the healing of a man's ear which had been completely hacked off, healed and attached completely, Jesus' power stands in complete contrast to His meekness. Now meekness is an old word, but it just means that combination of humility and submissiveness. His power stands in contrast to this meekness.

The one who could heal so miraculously could probably also destroy just as powerfully. In fact, it is harder to heal than it is to destroy. So if these guys retaliated against Peter and stabbed him, Jesus could have just healed that too. And though they were overwhelmed by this huge crowd that came with Judas, even this ragtag bunch of fishermen and tax collectors could have taken on all those, because Jesus was there. He was their chief surgeon.

Moreover, in Matthew 26:53, Jesus says, "I could call down twelve legions of angels, and that's about 90,000 angels to come and defend me if I needed them." Yet despite His power, despite His power, Jesus chooses an act of mercy. Months previously, He taught the crowds in Galilee, "Do good to those who hate you. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who persecute you."

And here Jesus heals a man, part of a plot to murder Him. What mercy. Despite this act of great kindness where everyone stood still for a second and saw this miracle, despite this great act of kindness, their hearts remained hardened. Jesus asked the chief priests and the Pharisees, "Why do you come to me with swords and clubs? Am I a rebel leading a revolt against you?

Every day I was with you in the temple courts. I met with you. I debated with you. I talked with you. I wasn't trying to sneak around. There was no clandestine meetings planning to overthrow. I met with you in the temple courts for goodness sake." And this over the top heavy handedness shows the hatred.

The hatred and the fear that these individuals had for Jesus. Their hearts were set on murder. Their hearts were set on death. And Jesus says, "Yes. This is your hour when darkness reigns."

Despite the fact that Jesus had the power to wipe out and destroy all these attackers, despite the fact that they had so unfairly and mercilessly apprehended Him, Jesus submits to them. Jesus says, "This is the hour that you have been allowed. This is the hour that you have been allowed. This is the hour that has been given to you."

But listen well. This is only an hour. It is short, it is limited, and it's been given to you. Satan and all his power manifested in the hearts of Judas, the religious leaders, the crowds will come under the authority of God Almighty, because He has the final say in this story.

It may look like you're winning, but God appoints what will happen and when. And this, friends, is such a huge comfort to us. If God would allow the suffering of His perfect Son, why don't we think suffering would happen to us? Why do we expect prosperity? Why do we expect everything to happen in the time that we want it to?

The nerve to think that our timing is better than God's. That our motives are better than His. That our ways are higher than His ways. If God the Father allowed His Son, His perfect righteous Son to suffer, why do we expect anything different? If Christ was able to be unfairly treated, don't expect anything less.

But if Christ repaid hate with good, showing forgiveness and meekness in the face of hatred and persecution, shouldn't His followers do the same? But the peace and the fresh perspective we get is that God will, and sometimes does, give His enemies, and by extension our enemies, only an hour. Their hour is limited, their hour is short, and ultimately He will triumph over the evil. He will triumph over the evil. In chapter 23, what we read after this, we come to the death of Jesus.

Jesus says in that passage we just read that the darkness has come. This hour is when darkness reigns. And in chapter 23, we come to the death. In verses 43 to 44, sorry, we see that in the sixth hour, which is twelve noon, it became dark. The moment where the sun is at the highest point, where the day is at its brightest, the world became dark.

Luke says the sun stopped shining. The world is silent and dark. And at the end of the three hour ordeal on the cross where Jesus hung painfully, He felt His time draw near, and with His final bit of strength, said in a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." And then He breathed His last, Luke says. That darkness that Jesus mentioned in chapter 22 seems to have become the reality in chapter 23.

The darkness was made physically manifest as Jesus hung on the cross. The very sun had lost all its shine, and here was Jesus crucified between two criminals, and He says, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Now from the perspective of the crowds that had gathered, an obviously guilty man was asking God to receive him openly. How audacious, this guilty man asking God to receive him. But although this word "to commit oneself" refers to the idea of entrusting to someone something of worth.

More importantly, there's the idea of a deposit. As Jesus hung there, knowing that His time had come, He so honestly asked God the Father, "Accept my spirit. Accept my soul. I entrust it to you to do as you please." It's an act of tremendous trust.

I commit myself into your care, Father. Despite the darkness, despite the pain, despite the injustice, the Son trusts the Father. The Son trusts the Father to do what needs to be done. But the hour of darkness was beginning to waver. You see that the moment leading up to Jesus' death was dark.

But when Jesus died, the light started coming back. As Christ offered up His life, something started happening. Though it seemed that Satan and God's enemies were having their time in the spotlight, Christ's time of vindication was at hand. And like I said before, we are on the other side of that event. And twenty nine hundred thirty years later, a follower of Jesus named Paul wrote in Galatians 4:4.

But when the time had fully come, when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons. When the time had fully come, when the time had fully come, whose time? God's time. When did it come? At the right time.

At the perfect moment. In the perfect fullness of time, God sent His Son Jesus to redeem us so that we might receive the inheritance of sons. What happened at the cross is that while darkness seemed to have won, God actually won. At the cross, we see the greatest reversal of fortunes. Everything gets flipped on its head.

Everything about the death of Jesus is actually the opposite of what it appeared. Though it seemed like it was an hour of darkness, that the hour belonged to Satan and God's enemies, God's timing was perfect. Though the people who arrested Him should have been destroyed for their arrogance against God's only Son, though they should have been destroyed for their injustice, they are healed. Like that servant. Though the Pharisees premeditated Jesus' murder, Jesus' death was a predestined sacrifice.

They thought they were taking His life, but in fact, He was surrendering it. Death was their goal, yet life was the outcome. Why? Because God had other plans. He made one particular Friday affect all of eternity.

He made the wounds of one man become the healing for many. He turned our worst acts of hate into the greatest expression of love. So that because of the cross, we hand over our sins and we receive righteousness. We lay down our burdens and we pick up freedom. We come in broken and we leave restored.

The great reversal. The great reversal. The death of Jesus was not a sorry ending to a life cut short. Jesus wasn't a good man that died too young. He entrusted His life to God the Father.

He received His spirit as a complete sacrifice for our sin, so that when God looks at us, when God sees you, He sees Jesus. The ones who put His Son to death, He doesn't see, but He sees Jesus His Son. That's why Paul writes in Galatians, "Now we have received the full rights of sons." The full rights.

We are His family. God sees Jesus' meekness in us. Jesus' compassion, His tenderness, His forgiveness. It's marked over us, covering every inch of our souls, so that when He sees you, He says, "My son, my daughter." People thought this day was a bad day, but we call it Good Friday.

Why? Because of the reversal. Yes, there was a death, but a new life. Don't leave this place unchanged and unmoved by this. Realign yourself with God today.

Accept the sacrifice that was paid on your behalf. Don't let this sacrifice slip away in bitterness, in anger, in the mess that you find yourself in today. Don't leave unchanged. Don't fumble around in the darkness anymore. Come and walk into God's brilliant light.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this truth. Oh, God, we can say that every week, but every week it is the same. We can't thank you enough.

Father, give us the strength. Give us the ability to live uplifted, cleansed, purified lives because of this. We accept this truth. We accept and reflect as we accept, as we reflect on this, that today, today there is fresh renewal and redemption for us available in Jesus Christ. Thank you for that moment.

Thank you for those twenty four hours, Lord, that was so horrifying, yet magnificent beyond description. Lord, our lives are changed by this. And Lord, we commit our lives to you, and we will say, "Lord, use us to glorify yourself more and more." Our lives that are redeemed and restored, Lord, are redeemed and restored for your glory alone, because you deserve it all, Lord. You deserve our praise and our thanks.

There's nothing in us. There's nothing in us that could have warranted this amazing act of sacrifice. It came simply because of your love. Lord, this weekend we pray, as we reflect not only today on the death, but on Sunday on the vindication of the Lord Jesus in His resurrection. We pray that as we take time and as we have family time, as we have time with friends, Lord, that we will not lose the spirituality of this holy celebration.

And let our lives, Lord, reflect lives that are marked by your grace, and that we may be committed and have the urgency to have our friends know this great truth. We do not remain unchanged by this, Lord. Empower us, Lord, through your Spirit. Change us, Lord, by this truth. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.