Isaiah 52:13-53:12/2 Corinthians 5:14-21/St John 18-19
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Our Lord is nowhere described in the Gospels as “happy.” As Isaiah foretold, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We are told He rejoiced. Once was when He was informed that Lazarus died. St John tells us that He told His disciples, Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I rejoice that I was not there, in order that you may believe (Jn 11:14-15). So perhaps the next time you see a picture of Jesus laughing, imagine that He is telling the disciples, “Lazarus is dead.”
Jesus rejoiced. He probably laughed. But overall, the picture the Gospels gives us is that He wasn’t a happy man. He was a man of sorrows.
Yet this is not sorrow in terms of feeling sorry for Himself and the pain He must endure. It is compassion; which is the word “com,” meaning “with,” and passion. As in the passion of our Lord. Passion is to desire something so intently that is causes suffering. Compassion means to suffer with. Compassion is what happens to you when your daughter is home from college for Thanksgiving and tells everyone that she had an abortion. You can’t eat. Food loses its flavor. You realize the violence done to your little girl and the baby was done out of ignorance or fear, but it can’t be undone. The frustration and pain and the main part sorrow.
This is nearly the constant reaction of the man of sorrows. During His humiliation our Lord looked around this fallen world and looses His appetite. He sees unnecessary pain and sadness everywhere. And it hurts Him. He sees the futility and stupidity of pride, greed, and lust. He watches us hurt ourselves and those who love us and it wrenches Him deep down in His guts.
Our Lord’s other high frequency emotion in the Gospel is anger. Sin makes God mad. Mad enough to destroy the whole world in a flood. Mad enough to bring the waves down upon Pharaoh and to turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. Mad enough to make things go so bad that people would think barrenness a blessing and beg the hills to fall on them.
Like it or not, Good Friday is about God’s wrath. God’s wrath is revealed when He casts it upon His Son for you. Not just today, but throughout our Lord’s ministry, when you see His frustration, sadness, and anger over sin. He has no sympathy for the demons. Remember the fig tree He cursed. Remember the violence He inflicted on the money changers. Remember how He called Peter “Satan.” He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, but He goes meek and mild as a lamb to the slaughter. Do not be mistaken, though. He is no house cat. He is the stronger man and He is angry.
Then there is love. “Jesus loves me, this I know.” There may be no more profound a statement. But His love is not what we usually think of as love. That love is not Jesus sitting in heaven thinking happy thoughts about us. That love is sorrow, pain, and death.
We tend to think that the ideal form of love is romantic. Not every culture has agreed. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and C.S. Lewis believed the highest form of love is friendship; Aristotle thought so too. But we tend to eroticize the relationship between Bonhoeffer and Boethke, or Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Jesus said, Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13).
The problem with what we consider to be love resides in the emotions of the lover. We sing along to the Beatles and Taylor Swift because they are attune to our sentiments. When the beloved no longer makes us feel happy and good, positive and enjoyable, we no longer call it love. You don’t look at the man who raped your daughter and feel your heart grow full of joy and peace and contentment. You don’t say, “I love him. He’s so sweet.”
But that is precisely how God loves us. God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rm 5:8). His love for us does not make Him happy. It is a heart-wrenching sorrow that moves Him to act. That is why we call the last days of our Lord’s life His passion.
John 3:16 is a key verse. The problem, though, is that we misunderstand the translation. We hear the word “so” as emphasis. Like grandma loving us so much she wants to give us a big hug. But in John 3:16 our Lord isn’t writing a Hallmark card trying to tell us the great quantity or depth of God’s love. He is explaining to Nicodemus how it is that God loves the world: by giving His Son into death as a ransom for rebels who hated Him and killed Him and who chose Satan and Barabbas over Him. John 3:16 actually means, For in this way God loved the world: He gave His only-begotten Son in order that whoever believes in Him should not be destroyed but have everlasting life. Remember that right before this Jesus is saying that He must be lifted up from the earth. He is talking about His death. His death is how He loves the world; how He makes men His again.
It is written, In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10). This is how God loves rapists, abortionists, liars, cheats, and all the rest. This is how the Lord loves you. He gives Himself into death for you. That love is sadness and anger, sorrow and pain.
Divine love is self-giving. God’s love is service. It is action. Death. God’s love hurts Him, causes His heart to break and water and blood to pour out. We do not rightly understand love, in God or ourselves, when we think of it as an emotion or a feeling. The emotions of Jesus in the Gospels are mainly sorrow and anger, not love, because love is not how He feels, but what He does, who He is.
But what the New Testament evangelists don’t report the Old Testament Gospel according to Isaiah does: Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied. Satisfaction is not necessarily happiness. You can’t always get what you want. But sometimes you get what you need. Jesus is satisfied because He has fulfilled His mission. It is finished, perfected, complete. He has loved you. He loves His Father. He has defeated death.
This is the great and wonderful surprise: You are the labor of His soul, the plunder of hell stolen away, the reward of the Father returned to its rightful place. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s trespasses against them. For our sake He made Him to be Sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus Christ has been lifted up from the earth and has drawn you to Himself. By His grace you believe our report and rejoice in it.
That is why we call today Good Friday. It is not bad or sad Friday, but good. For it is the day that the Lord restored the original goodness to His creation. This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps 118:24); even as a bride rejoices with tears and embraces her wedding day. For Good Friday is the day when the Son of God, true Man, left His Father in heaven and His Mother, the Virgin Mary, and cleaved fast to His beloved Bride the Church; the day He became one flesh with Her.
And the consummation is close at hand; not merely when the stone is rolled away and Jesus is missing, but when His risen Body and Blood are poured into our hearts through our mouths that we might receive the remission of sins. For know this above all dear sinners: Jesus who loves you is risen and lives and is satisfied with you. He loves you. You are His.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Our Lord is nowhere described in the Gospels as “happy.” As Isaiah foretold, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We are told He rejoiced. Once was when He was informed that Lazarus died. St John tells us that He told His disciples, Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I rejoice that I was not there, in order that you may believe (Jn 11:14-15). So perhaps the next time you see a picture of Jesus laughing, imagine that He is telling the disciples, “Lazarus is dead.”
Jesus rejoiced. He probably laughed. But overall, the picture the Gospels gives us is that He wasn’t a happy man. He was a man of sorrows.
Yet this is not sorrow in terms of feeling sorry for Himself and the pain He must endure. It is compassion; which is the word “com,” meaning “with,” and passion. As in the passion of our Lord. Passion is to desire something so intently that is causes suffering. Compassion means to suffer with. Compassion is what happens to you when your daughter is home from college for Thanksgiving and tells everyone that she had an abortion. You can’t eat. Food loses its flavor. You realize the violence done to your little girl and the baby was done out of ignorance or fear, but it can’t be undone. The frustration and pain and the main part sorrow.
This is nearly the constant reaction of the man of sorrows. During His humiliation our Lord looked around this fallen world and looses His appetite. He sees unnecessary pain and sadness everywhere. And it hurts Him. He sees the futility and stupidity of pride, greed, and lust. He watches us hurt ourselves and those who love us and it wrenches Him deep down in His guts.
Our Lord’s other high frequency emotion in the Gospel is anger. Sin makes God mad. Mad enough to destroy the whole world in a flood. Mad enough to bring the waves down upon Pharaoh and to turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. Mad enough to make things go so bad that people would think barrenness a blessing and beg the hills to fall on them.
Like it or not, Good Friday is about God’s wrath. God’s wrath is revealed when He casts it upon His Son for you. Not just today, but throughout our Lord’s ministry, when you see His frustration, sadness, and anger over sin. He has no sympathy for the demons. Remember the fig tree He cursed. Remember the violence He inflicted on the money changers. Remember how He called Peter “Satan.” He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, but He goes meek and mild as a lamb to the slaughter. Do not be mistaken, though. He is no house cat. He is the stronger man and He is angry.
Then there is love. “Jesus loves me, this I know.” There may be no more profound a statement. But His love is not what we usually think of as love. That love is not Jesus sitting in heaven thinking happy thoughts about us. That love is sorrow, pain, and death.
We tend to think that the ideal form of love is romantic. Not every culture has agreed. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and C.S. Lewis believed the highest form of love is friendship; Aristotle thought so too. But we tend to eroticize the relationship between Bonhoeffer and Boethke, or Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Jesus said, Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13).
The problem with what we consider to be love resides in the emotions of the lover. We sing along to the Beatles and Taylor Swift because they are attune to our sentiments. When the beloved no longer makes us feel happy and good, positive and enjoyable, we no longer call it love. You don’t look at the man who raped your daughter and feel your heart grow full of joy and peace and contentment. You don’t say, “I love him. He’s so sweet.”
But that is precisely how God loves us. God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rm 5:8). His love for us does not make Him happy. It is a heart-wrenching sorrow that moves Him to act. That is why we call the last days of our Lord’s life His passion.
John 3:16 is a key verse. The problem, though, is that we misunderstand the translation. We hear the word “so” as emphasis. Like grandma loving us so much she wants to give us a big hug. But in John 3:16 our Lord isn’t writing a Hallmark card trying to tell us the great quantity or depth of God’s love. He is explaining to Nicodemus how it is that God loves the world: by giving His Son into death as a ransom for rebels who hated Him and killed Him and who chose Satan and Barabbas over Him. John 3:16 actually means, For in this way God loved the world: He gave His only-begotten Son in order that whoever believes in Him should not be destroyed but have everlasting life. Remember that right before this Jesus is saying that He must be lifted up from the earth. He is talking about His death. His death is how He loves the world; how He makes men His again.
It is written, In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10). This is how God loves rapists, abortionists, liars, cheats, and all the rest. This is how the Lord loves you. He gives Himself into death for you. That love is sadness and anger, sorrow and pain.
Divine love is self-giving. God’s love is service. It is action. Death. God’s love hurts Him, causes His heart to break and water and blood to pour out. We do not rightly understand love, in God or ourselves, when we think of it as an emotion or a feeling. The emotions of Jesus in the Gospels are mainly sorrow and anger, not love, because love is not how He feels, but what He does, who He is.
But what the New Testament evangelists don’t report the Old Testament Gospel according to Isaiah does: Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied. Satisfaction is not necessarily happiness. You can’t always get what you want. But sometimes you get what you need. Jesus is satisfied because He has fulfilled His mission. It is finished, perfected, complete. He has loved you. He loves His Father. He has defeated death.
This is the great and wonderful surprise: You are the labor of His soul, the plunder of hell stolen away, the reward of the Father returned to its rightful place. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s trespasses against them. For our sake He made Him to be Sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus Christ has been lifted up from the earth and has drawn you to Himself. By His grace you believe our report and rejoice in it.
That is why we call today Good Friday. It is not bad or sad Friday, but good. For it is the day that the Lord restored the original goodness to His creation. This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps 118:24); even as a bride rejoices with tears and embraces her wedding day. For Good Friday is the day when the Son of God, true Man, left His Father in heaven and His Mother, the Virgin Mary, and cleaved fast to His beloved Bride the Church; the day He became one flesh with Her.
And the consummation is close at hand; not merely when the stone is rolled away and Jesus is missing, but when His risen Body and Blood are poured into our hearts through our mouths that we might receive the remission of sins. For know this above all dear sinners: Jesus who loves you is risen and lives and is satisfied with you. He loves you. You are His.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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