230407 Sermon for Good Friday April 7, 2023

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

King David prays to God in Psalm 38 like this:

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,

    nor discipline
me in your wrath!

For your arrows have sunk into me,

    and your hand
has come down on me.

There is no soundness in my flesh

    because of your
indignation;

there is no health in my bones

    because of my
sin.

What you have just heard King
David say in Psalm 38 is uncommon. He is afraid of God: “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in
your wrath!” This is uncommon because we do not like being afraid. We do
not like being afraid of being caught when we’ve done wrong. We do not like
being afraid of punishment. If your secrets and my secrets were revealed, who could
cover our shame? As it turns out, though, the Bible says that this will happen.

In the book of Revelation it says
this about the last day: “Then the kings of the earth,
the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave
and free, will hide in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They will
call to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him
who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!’”

Jesus says something similar about
our secrets: “For there is nothing hidden that will not
be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into
the open.”

If that is for real, then we have
good reason to fear. There are some things that I have done in my life that I
would rather die than have them made known publicly. Maybe you feel the same
way about things that you have done in your life.

What we’ve heard from the Bible,
though, tells us that death is no escape. It’s actually the other way around. While
we live in this life we might be able to hide things. We can lie to ourselves.
Other people can’t know everything that has been going on in our minds and
hearts. We can easily imagine that everything has been kept in the dark. Nobody
knows. Nobody will ever know.

Death is when this comforting
illusion must come to an end. Then, when the light has come at our death or on
the last day, we might wish more than we’ve wished for anything ever to be able
to stay in the dark. That’s why the people in Revelation are begging the
mountains and rocks: “Fall on us and hide us from God.”
But that won’t work. Now is the hour of darkness. The light is coming from
which no one can hide.

So let me read for you again
David’s words in Psalm 38:

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,

    nor discipline
me in your wrath!

For your arrows have sunk into me,

    and your hand
has come down on me.

There is no soundness in my flesh

    because of your
indignation;

there is no health in my bones

    because of my
sin.

Again, to feel like David feels is
deeply unpleasant. We don’t want to be afraid. We don’t want to be punished by
God. Lots of people, therefore, don’t see the point in feeling the way that
David feels. To feel like David feels towards God won’t make anyone rich or
popular. To feel that way won’t help you make friends and influence people. I
don’t think there is much of any tangible or earthly benefit to being afraid of
God because of one’s sins. Since that is the case, most people are not interested
in entertaining such thoughts. What good can it serve?

The only redeeming quality feeling
this way towards God can have is that it is the truth, and that’s no small
thing. The relationship that you have with God must be true, because God will
never, ever have it any other way. For now we can survive for a while, hiding
our sins, ignoring God, but that is ultimately foolish. Jesus says, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but to
lose his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

When we are dealing with God we
must be dealing with the truth. When we are dealing with Good Friday, the truth
about ourselves and about God should make itself known. In order to understand
Good Friday properly it is necessary to know the truth along the lines of the
38th Psalm: “O Lord, rebuke me
not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.” The
cross is not just a gory, blood spectacle about somebody else. The cross is
about you and God. In order to know how things stand with you and God the truth
is to be found in the cross.

And what does the cross reveal? Are things simply splendid
between God and you? Is God just so proud of you? I can honestly say that I
wish that that were the case! I wish that there was nothing for you to be
ashamed of. There would be nothing better than if you were so good, loved God
so much, loved your fellow human beings so much, maintained your self-control, had
only pure thoughts, and so on. The truth, however, is that this is not how you
have been in your thoughts, words, and deeds.

The fact that you have been sinful and unclean is extremely
serious. The cross of Christ involves an infinite fear, dread, sorrow, pain,
and so on for Jesus. This was not because the Son of God was deserving of his
Father’s blast furnace of wrath. As Paul says, “Jesus
knew no sin, but even though he knew no sin, he became sin for us.”
Having become sin, Jesus suffered all the way to death and all the torments of
hell. The impossible happened. God, who cannot die, died. And what caused this?
It was your sin. The cross reveals that you are a sinner without any hope. If
Jesus couldn’t survive, what chance do you have?

What does the cross reveal about God? It is obvious that God
does not just say about our sin, “Oh, it’s fine. Don’t mention it. No problem.”
Violations of God’s Law desecrate God’s holiness. The sacrifice needed to be
infinitely precious, and it was. What is the whole world compared to one drop
of the Son of God’s blood? It is this infinitely precious, pure, and good thing
that God wounded him for our transgressions, that God crushed him for our
iniquities.

God didn’t just snap his fingers to make our sins go away.
Maybe someone might want to make up some god in their own heads whom the think
should make sins go away by snapping his fingers, but that would not be the one,
true God who died on Good Friday for our sins. This God is extremely serious about
sins. They must be atoned for. As we heard in one of the readings last night, “There is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood.”

And that is what God did on Good Friday. You heard in our
Gospel reading that Jesus cried out: “It is finished!”
What was finished is the rebuking, the disciplining, the punishing. The prophet
Isaiah foresaw this suffering of Christ: “He was
wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was
the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All
we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and
the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

This is what is finished by God through Jesus on Good
Friday. God worked reconciliation between himself and sinners by punishing
Jesus in our place for the sins we have committed. God has reconciled us to himself,
and he has given us the message of reconciliation. We urge everyone to believe
the truth that every sin and every sinner has been redeemed and reconciled on
Good Friday. Jesus died for everyone. It is through faith in Jesus the Savior,
who saves on Good Friday, that we may be justified before God.

Being justified before God is what we’ve been talking about
today. When David prays, “Rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath,” he is asking God to love him in spite
of his sins. We have talked about the last day when everything will be
revealed, and how there is no hope if we are left to our own devices and our
own excuses. All things will be revealed. But here is where justification comes
in. For those who believe in Jesus, they have a stronger thing that they may
believe in. Yes, we have sinned. The shame is unbearable. But it was precisely
for those shameful and awful sins that Jesus suffered so infinitely. Jesus’s
redemption is stronger than your sins. Jesus’s righteousness is stronger than
your shame. Though your sins be like scarlet, they
shall be whiter than snow.

If the thought of judgement and having your sins revealed
makes you afraid, then I say, “Good for you.” Lots of people never even make it
that far in the truth. But know also that God’s almighty and invincible love brought
Jesus to the cross to remove those sins. Instead of feeling guilty or ashamed
about yourself on the one hand, or, on the other hand, feeling pretty good
about yourself, that you’ve done a pretty good job—these are stupid, fleshly
thoughts—turn away from yourself. Give thanks and praise to God the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. He has brought about this infinitely precious redemption,
so that you may not fear death, nor hell, nor God’s judgement. God saves you in
our Lord Jesus Christ.

God forgives you all your sins for Jesus’s sake. Go in
peace. Amen.