You Have 1 Good Friday Message

GOOD FRIDAY
29 MARCH 2002
PSALMS 22:1-11
SALEM EV. LUTHERAN CHURCH, MILWAUKEE, WI
JOHN L. HOH, JR.

Dear fellow Redeemed, bought by the blood shed on that awful cross on Calvary:

What is it like to be forsaken? What feelings go through an abandoned person?

A few months ago, about midnight on a Sunday night, I heard some screaming from the hall outside our apartment door. As it continued, I decided to check out the situation. Outside in the hallway was the three-year-old boy from the unit across the hall. The door to his unit was closed. Another neighbor also came out to check. We knocked on the door; no answer. We asked the boy if he knew his phone number. He pointed to a "No Smoking" sign, but there was no number to be found. We finally decided to call the police. When they came, they asked us if we heard any signs of a struggle. We responded all we heard was the little boy's screams. The police tried the door-it was unlocked. They drew their guns and entered. They came out soon and said the mother wasn't to be found. The little boy seemed abandoned and was likely frightened being alone for a long time.

Just last Sunday some of us here heard Matthew's reaction when I came to help Pastor distribute communion. He thought Daddy was "forsaking" him! He screamed out for his daddy!

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Was one of Jesus' seven words on the cross. As we review the events of that Good Friday-an ironic term when you consider the day commemorates a death-we could come to the conclusion that this execution was a gross miscarriage of justice, a travesty of politics, or an innocent caught up in a power struggle. But let us look closer and see, as we've seen this whole Lenten season, that Jesus' death was actually A PART OF THE PLAN. Jesus willingly took on our punishment. He was forsaken so that we wouldn't be forsaken. He died so that we wouldn't die. And he rose again on the third day so that we too would be raised from the dead.

Jesus willingly took on our punishment. He was forsaken so that we wouldn't be forsaken. At times in our lives we have felt forsaken. Maybe it happened when our parents left for the night and had a baby-sitter watch us. It might have been the time our "first love" informed us he or she didn't believe the relationship was going to go anywhere. Maybe we were in a store as a child and wandered away and soon found ourselves separated from our parents and in a panic sought them out. Remember that feeling? Maybe even now at times we go through trials and cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

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God could easily have forsaken us. He could have turned his back on us back in Eden. He gave Adam and Eve one simple command-"Please don't eat from this one tree!" But what did Adam and Eve do? They listened to the snake, they desired, they coveted, they reached up and took for themselves the fruit. They soon learned what bitter fruit this was. They were covered in shame and vainly sought to cover their nakedness with fig leaves.

But God gave a Promise: The woman would bear a Savior for mankind. The serpent would bruise the Savior's heel, but the Savior would crush the serpent's head. Look at the cross. Jesus might look bad, but as they say in the streets, "You should see the other guy." Jesus lived among us, lived under the Law, that we might be redeemed under the Law. Jesus' death is important because Jesus did live a perfect life, untainted by Satan's temptations. He obeyed his Father's will perfectly.

Sin separates. It separates us from God. We often don't want to face someone we've wronged; we definitely don't want to face a God we've wronged. Sin separates us from each other. Satan works best when he "divides and conquers." With our sin, God would forsake us. Jesus took our sin upon himself and endured God's forsaking activity. Jesus was forsaken so we wouldn't be forsaken. We would be forsaken as a child might feel forsaken, lost and alone. David states that feeling when he writes in verses 1-5:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

Jesus willingly took on our punishment. He died so that we wouldn't die. Another word for separation is "death." Death isn't unknown to us. Every now and then we gather to mourn the loss of a friend or relative. Death separates us from loved ones.

Death is also a separation from God. God is life, not death. As such, we have no life apart from

from God. We would be hopeless. But Jesus died. He died because God decreed that the blood of an innocent man was needed to pay for sin. Not a fat calf or wooly lamb. Not a "pretty decent guy." No, the sacrifice had to be perfect. And the only perfect person to walk the face of this earth was also true man. That was Jesus.

And this death was a shameful as well as painful death. Isaiah in chapters 52 and 53 tell us about the pain and ignomy of Jesus' death. Jesus was mocked by the soldiers, taunted by the Jewish leaders, and even a criminal crucified with Jesus spoke up to harass Jesus! David also speaks to the shame Jesus endured on the cross. He says in verses 6-8:

But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."

Jesus willingly took on our punishment. And he rose again on the third day so that we too would be raised from the dead. This is what gives us the assurance that we are saved, that our sins are paid for. Jesus rose from the dead! He displayed his power over sin, death, and Satan. God raised Jesus from the dead, displaying that Jesus' sacrifice was perfect and fulfilled the price for our redemption.

Because Jesus rose from the dead, he's not lying powerless in some abandoned grave in Palestine somewhere. No, our Lord is in heaven and rules his kingdom there. From heaven he raises and levels kingdoms and nations. From heaven he sends his Spirit to create and strengthen faith in people.

The Holy Spirit creates and strengthens faith by using the means of grace. These means are God's Word and sacraments. God has given us his Word to reveal everything we need to know for our salvation. God gave us baptism so that we all can be made children of God through the washing of our sins in water empowered by the Word. And in an even more intimate manner we receive Jesus' body and blood each time we eat and drink at the alter. Here at the alter we recognize and reaffirm the resurrection of Christ. For throughout the ages Christ's body and

and blood have nourished and strengthened Christians-yet hasn't given out. A property of a living person is the possession of living tissue. And living tissue regenerates itself.

Jesus didn't utter empty words when he promised his disciples: "Behold, I will be with you always until the end of the age." Jesus is with us. He promises that he is with is whenever two or more of us gather together with his Word. He is with us in creating and strengthening faith. Jesus is with us even as he controls world events around us.

And in the end, only God can be with us and help us. Last September, we watched helplessly as even our own government had no answers for a terrible tragedy and for awhile sought sanctuary itself. Many of us could only watch helplessly as we saw the tragedy unfold on our TV screens. And no doubt some of you have seen evidences of how God intervened to prevent even more deaths on that awful day-people caught in traffic and running late for work, the jets flying at only 25% capacity, buildings collapsing rather than falling over.

Our resurrected Lord and Savior is powerful to save. He saves us not only from disaster here on earth, but from eternal disaster in hell. Jesus rose from the dead so that we would not be forsaken, but also that he would be with us until the end of the age. He also ascended to prepare a place for us-a place where we will live with our Savior for all eternity.

David speaks of this nearness and close proximity of our God when he writes in verses 9-11:

Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This cry of Jesus was all part of the plan. It was part of God's plan to create the world and to create mankind to manage the earth. God had a plan prepared should mankind fall into sin. And it is a plan God put in motion when he made that fateful visit to the Garden of Eden. The plan included Jesus living on this earth, born of a

a virgin. It included the events of that first Good Friday, a day when Jesus' enemies thought they had won, but only sealed their defeat. This plan included God separating from and forsaking his Son. Defeat was not in this plan, but glorious victory in a glorious resurrection from the dead. God forsook Jesus so that he would not forsake us.

You may notice that this psalm immediately precedes Psalm 23, "The LORD is my shepherd." These two psalms stand in stark contrast. In Psalm 22 we see one forsaken by God. In Psalm 23 we see the exact opposite-a shepherd with his sheep in good times and bad, seeking good for the sheep, providing for the sheep, remaining with the sheep and protecting them, even to the point of death. That man hanging on the cross and dying our death is the very same shepherd who remains in constant vigil over us. He experienced the very shadow of death so that we fear no evil in that same shadow.

Today is called Good Friday because the plan completed on that day bears for us the good news that we are now at peace with God, we are united with God as His dear children, and we will spend eternal life with God in heaven.

Thank God! Thank God! He has not forsaken us!

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