St. Paul Lutheran Church
Good Friday – March 29, 2013
The Passion of St. John
The Rev. BT Ball
In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
“When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
It is finished. Jesus said it; it is true. It is finished. It is everything. From before the worlds began to be, he is alpha and omega, he the source, the ending of everything. The start and the finish, and now this is the finish, the completion of your life. The cross is the finish of your life. Your sins and your sinful life are his wounds and sufferings. He has carried them and finished them there. They are no more, real as they are they are finished, done for. You are done for. But this is good. You need to be done for, finished. You need to die and be made alive in Christ. Your sins are dead; you are dead, because Jesus is dead. He gave up his spirit, gave up himself as the perfect Lamb of God and pure and spotless sacrifice, a sacrifice for you, in your place. What is finished is all thoughts in your heart that you can make things right in your life, that you can be God for yourself. Behold your king! Pilate cried out. Behold your king is right, dead on the cross all for you. Everything Jesus has done was for you; from the creation of this world, the promises given Abraham and the children of Israel throughout their days. All that sacred scriptures holds before you direct you to this day, to this moment when he would die for you.
We are to move on through the terror of the day, the unimaginable suffering and horrific death. It is right to consider that it was your sins that did that, that you are the cause and the reason. But that is exactly the point, you are the cause you are the reason for this, because this is the fullness of Christ’s love. God the Father has given over his Son to suffer for you to be scourged for you, for by his stripes you are healed. You are to see that in the pierced hands and feet and side the opening of his patient and kind heart. By and through his wounds, you see the Father, that He wants you as His dear child, and he takes you always, and only through the wounds of his dear Son.
Then, if you are filled with sorrow and grief today, Jesus carried your sorrows; he is a man familiar with grief – your grief, your sorrows. . He is also a man who knows all of sin – he knows your sin. He knows your idolatry, your lust, your lies, your pride, your laziness, your hatred. He knows all of that because he carried all of that in his own body, he became sin, and he was pierced for these transgressions of yours. They are finished. It is finished. The worst thing you for any sinner to do is not let Jesus deal with their sins. To hold onto sin and to live in them is to die forever in them. God does not want that for those he has made. So Jesus, in the way that only he can, by dying for them all, for all sinners, for you, today, he finishes things. It is finished.
It is the finish, because you are alive, just as He is. You are alive, new in the forgiveness of your sins. The sacred blood of Jesus which came out of his pierced heart is the complete fulfillment of every word of the law, every promise of the scripture. Now is the finish of sin and death. Now is it is finished. Christ’s passion was for your life in truth. He now has gone to his Father, to mediate for you the new covenant in his blood. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16). The cross was Jesus’ throne of grace on Good Friday, there he was king finishing things for his people, stripped naked save for your sins covering him. Today the altar is naked, except in a moment it will have coming forth from it that king who finishes things. Right now is your time of need, and right now He gives mercy and grace, by his body and blood, finished. Everything. For You. It is finished.
In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
