Good Friday Meditations

So, Jesus says this, but in response to what? As with all these verses, it’s difficult to comment fully since they’re isolated from their surrounding context.

³⁹ One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹ And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³ And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Notice:

1. Thief fears God

2. Acknowledges guilt

3. Acknowledges just punishment

4. Confesses Jesus’ righteousness and kingship (power)

5. Pleads for his help and mercy.

All this in contrast to the first thief. Same situation. Do we rail at God: Are you not God, do something about this! Save me! However, we have to throw ourselves on God’s mercy. Acknowledge we are sinners and don’t deserve any good thing.

So, now let’s look at Jesus’ response:

We tend to focus on the Paradise part of that and how awesome that sounds, but it’s even richer and more significant that we imagine because of the “with me” part. The Septuagint uses the same Greek word for Paradise here as it does for the “Garden of Eden.” Jesus is hinting at the restoration of a bond, a fellowship that hasn’t been possible since the beginning of the world. Since Adam and Eve sinned, we have been separated, apart from God. By Jesus’ actions now occurring on the cross, he is enabling the restoration of a relationship that wasn’t possible for thousands of years…until now. He’s saying “You will be with me in Eden as it was at the beginning. I am restoring things and making all things new again.” It is the dawn of a new day at the twilight of Jesus’ life. It’s a literal trading: we can go back to the beginning only by Jesus’ life ending.

3rd Word: “Woman, behold, your son! … Behold, your mother!” by Pastor Tom Kristoffersen [John 19:25-27]

Even while Jesus is suffering the horror of crucifixion – considered to be one of the most barbaric, torturous, and humiliating of deaths ever conceived by mankind – He is more concerned about other people, in this case His mother Mary, than about Himself! This is really remarkable, and instructive for us. What’s going on here? Jesus wanted to honor His mother, as the 5th Commandment requires, even at His death. Mary’s husband Joseph was almost certainly dead at this point, leaving a her a widow. Jesus, as the firstborn son, would have had the primary responsibility to take care of her. And yet, what we see here is not simply Christ fulfilling a duty. We see His heart of love and compassion for His mother and His beloved disciple John. This was not merely a practical arrangement to make sure that Mary’s economic needs would be provided for. It was personal: John and Mary could provide comfort and support for one another in the difficult days ahead, truly acting as a mother and son to one another. It’s interesting that although Jesus had several brothers who could/should have taken care of their mother Mary, Jesus instead chose the apostle John to make sure she was well cared for. Why? Jesus’ brothers were likely still living up in Galilee, but Mary would want to stay in Jerusalem with Christ’s disciples. Therefore, Jesus made sure that His mother would have someone “local” to take care of her. But more than that, this tells us something about the nature of relationships: in some ways, the spiritual bond that we have with fellow believers in Christ is closer and stronger than the family bond we have with our parents, children, or siblings. Jesus made that clear earlier in His ministry, when He was told that His mother and brothers were looking for Him. Christ pointed to His own disciples and said, in Matthew 12:49, “Here are my mother and my brothers!” They were the ones who believed in Him, unlike His “biological” half-brothers, and who were seeking to do the will of God the Father. So at the point of His death, Jesus felt it was more important for Mary to have a spiritual “son” to care for her than any of her unbelieving biological sons. It is the Gospel that brings us into God’s family, uniting us to Christ and bonding us together as brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. And as family, we are to care for one another, as John did here for Mary. Remember that if you are Christ’s “brother” or “sister,” then He cares for you as well, and that He calls us to care for one another in our church family.

4th WORD: “My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?" By Elder JR RUMMEL [Mark 15:33-36]

Do you ever wonder what your last words will be? I must admit, in perhaps my more dramatic moments, I’ve given this some thought. I always wondered if it would be iconic, like something out of the movies. “Rosebud…” or “Freedom!”. Or perhaps something more relevant for today, “If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than ever before” from Star Wars, and, as it turns out, theGospels.When we picture that last moment, few of us picture shrieks of agony. Certainly, if we were going to design a religion centering on our moral character, inner strength, and eternal poise, we would end it like a good book or movie. In fact, this is one of the many examples that scholars use to reinforce the historical accuracy of the scriptures. These are un-sugar-coated accountants of a real person’s life, in areal time, in a real place.While the focus of this section is on the words of Jesus, they cannot be properly understood without understanding the darkness. By “darkness”, I’m quite literal. The entire land was put under darkness.Throughout scripture, this is a sign of God’s judgment. This is a physical sign that there is a right and wrong in the world. That morality is not determined by the New York Times, FaceBook, Pinterest, FoxNews, or your local book club. This gives us hope. If we determine for ourselves what is right, and what is wrong based on our situation, we become the ultimate authority in our own lives. Nothing is higher than the self. If nothing is higher than me, what am I living for? Where is my hope? What happens whenI inevitably fail myself? A life of solely self-directed morality is a life without hope. By putting the land in darkness, God physically communicated that he is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, and the bill is coming due. The land is dark, he is alone, and he is dying. Why this phrase? Why these last words? In his last moments, Jesus quotes a very unusual Psalm. Psalm 22. Why unusual? Well, most Psalms of David are directly tied events in his life. The two that most immediately come to mind as examples are when he is being chased by Solomon, and after the death of his son, Absalom. They’re usually autobiographical.What makes Psalm 22 so unusual, is that it describes an execution, obviously something David never personally experienced. Coming from a Jewish perspective, this describes nothing short of a bizarre execution at that. Stoning was the method on capital punishment prescribed in the Torah. By this exclamation, Jesus is pointing to that Psalm and saying “Look at me! Like the snake lifted up in theWilderness to cure you all, that Psalm describes me!”The other thing that immediately springs out from this quote is the use of the word “My”. “My God”.It’s a personal term. When I say “My Wife”, “My Goose”, “My Jazzbo”, “My Scar-ly Bear”. At Jesus’ baptism, God says: “This is My son…”. It's a personal relationship. This is relational language. Christ and the Father have a love that transcends eternity. This is love that is deeper than any love any human we will ever know on this earth. They are literally 2 parts of the same essence. And this love is being rejected. This shriek is not about thorns. It is not about nails, whips, nakedness, spear, or abandonment by friends. It is not about the blood and the filth. This shriek is the first half of “Justified Grace”. In theology, it is the first half of “double imputation”. My filth. My judgment. All of your punishments become his. The pain. The removal of God’s love that I deserve, and you deserve, become his to bear.
Why? This is a voluntary decision. He tells us “no one takes my life, but I lay it down on my own." The easy, Sunday school answer, is “for the glory of God.” Does He need more? Wasn’t he already glorified by the angelic host? An army of angels, constantly singing his praise? That answer is right, but a more practical, and I would argue, deeper answer is simpler. For me. For you. This shriek was for my benefit, because he loved me… Repeat that to yourself daily, hourly… That shriek was for me. He was tortured, abandoned by the deepest of loves… For me.

5TH WORD: “I thirst." by Pastor Tom Kristoffersen [John 19:28]

In verse 28, Jesus says, “I thirst.” Verses 29-30 go on to state that the soldiers put a sponge full of sour wine on a branch and held it up to Jesus’ mouth, and He drank some. So why is this significant? The mere fact that Jesus was thirsty is not unique or surprising; as Jesus lived His life on earth as a man, He naturally became thirsty as we all do. But here, as Jesus was close to death on the cross, His thirst was probably heightened: Christ was gasping for each breath, He had lost much blood, and He was in agonizing pain. Psalm 22, which we just heard Jesus quote from in His previous word from the cross, prophetically describes the agony of crucifixion in amazing detail. It says there in verse 15, “my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws…” That’s part of what Christ was experiencing on the cross. So yes, He was thirsty. But it says here that Jesus knew that all was now finished, and that He specifically said, “I thirst” to fulfill Scripture. This is important in two ways: 1. Jesus knew exactly what His mission was in dying on the cross, and He knew exactly what needed to be done in order to perfectly fulfill that mission that God the Father sent His Son to earth to accomplish. Christ understood that He was near death, and that He had almost finished what He needed to do in order to accomplish the redemption of His people. But Jesus also knew that there was a Messianic prophecy that still needed to be fulfilled…2. Psalm 69 is a psalm of lament, expressing the suffering that God’s people sometimes go through. It is quoted several times in the New Testament and applied to Jesus Christ. In verse 21, it says, “for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” So Jesus expressed His thirst out loud so that the soldiers would give him sour wine to drink…which they did, in fulfillment of that Psalm 69 prophecy! But let’s remember something else here: Jesus is the One who said in John 4 that He could give us Living Water so that we would never be thirsty again. Christ is the One who truly satisfies our spiritual thirst. And yet, here was Jesus, dying on the cross, and He was physically thirsty. Jesus did many things for us as our substitute, both in life and death, and one of them was that He became thirsty for us. Why? So that we will never need to settle for the cheap sour wine that the world offers us, but can instead drink deeply of the soul-satisfying Living Water now and one day, the rich wine of the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven! So let us learn to hunger and thirst for righteousness, looking to Jesus Christ to satisfy us and offering His Living Water to all the thirsty around us!

6th WORD: “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,”and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” by Elder Ted Georgian [JOHN 19:30]

Many people think of Christianity as a religion, a set of traditions by which they can express their spirituality. If so, it’s only one of a huge number of religions in the world and there’s really no reason to be a Christian rather than a Buddhist(or a Druid). Religion defines a set of spiritual duties: “Do this, don’t do that” and you’ll be a better person and feel closer to God. If you do enough of the right things and don’t do too many of the wrong things, God will approve of you.Religion condemns us to an anxious accounting of achievements and failures. Have I done enough to please God? Have I done anything so terrible that God will reject me? How can I ever know for sure?This is NOT the Christian life: adding up credit for this, subtracting points for screw-ups. Religion tells us to DO; Jesus calls us to freedom from the burden of religious deeds.The young disciple John watched as Jesus was executed on a Roman cross and heard him cry out “It is finished!” “What was finished?” you might ask. Why, the ancient evil that began when Satan tempted Eve, and she and Adam rebelled against God and his law. That first act of disobedience brought sin and death into the world, and it still brings ruin and despair to us today.But now comes the Good News that Jesus settled our account on the cross. Many of us have grown up as perfectionists, trying desperately to do everything exactly right and afraid at heart that we will fail. “Give it up,” says Jesus. “I’ve already lived the perfect life that you can’t, and I died in punishment for everything you’ve ever done wrong. Everything – you’re off the hook, forgiven. It’s done for you.”A fable: Once there was a professor who taught a really tough course – oh, say Biology. To pass the course the students needed to know everything – all their lecture notes and the contents of a 1,200-page textbook. The room was pretty tense as the final exam was distributed. But imagine the surprise when the students turned over their exams and found every question already answered. One of them raised their hand and said, “Prof – the answers are all filled in.” “Yes,”said the professor, “and since I wrote the exam I’m pretty sure I got all the answers right.” What do you think the students did? Crossed out the professor’s answers and wrote in their own? No – that would be dumb. They signed their names and got a 100%.Well, it’s just as dumb to use religion to try to impress God. Religion says, “DO” – Jesus says, “DONE.” “It is finished.”

There was real triumph in Jesus’ voice when he cried out “It is finished.” In his human nature he had wanted to quit the night before, when he said “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death…” Satan was tempting him: “Look,” he may have said, “Look at your three close friends – asleep. They don’t care about you. Judas, the one you chose, has already betrayed you. And that brash one, Peter, will betray you also. Three times. Are you going to face death and the wrath of your Father for these miserable creatures? Jesus, they’re not worth it.”And we aren’t. But going a little farther Jesus fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” [Matthew 21:39] Jesus didn’t quit; he yielded, in love, to his Father’s will, and he completed his work of salvation for all who believe in him. Isn’t that Good News?! Thank you, Jesus!

7TH WORD: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” BY Pastor Tom Kristoffersen [Luke 23:44-46]

Now we come to the very last thing that Jesus said, before literally taking his final breath and dying on the cross. He has suffered the wrath of God in three hours of darkness and opened up access for redeemed sinners to come into the presence of the holy God. And now, in complete control of how and when He dies, Jesus commits His spirit to the Father…and dies. Psalm 31 is another lament, where the suffering man of God is seeking help and deliverance from God. There, in verse 5, the Psalmist says to the LORD, “Into your hand I commit my spirit.” Jesus quotes that verse here, with two small but significant changes: 1. He begins the cry with, “Father”, addressing the cry in a very personal way to His heavenly Father. When Jesus was asking, “Why have you forsaken me?,” He addressed His cry to “My God”, not to His Father. But now, Jesus is preparing for His spirit to return to His Father, and He addresses Him as “Father” in anticipation of their reunion. 2. He changes the word “hand” to “hands.” It’s a minor change, but I think that when a person receives something with both hands it demonstrates a willingness, an eagerness, and perhaps even a joy, on the part of the recipient. It kind of gives the impression here that God the Father is waiting for Jesus “with open arms,” ready to receive His Son back with both hands. And indeed, Jesus has every confidence that His Father will receive Him back with joy. Why? Because Jesus knows that He has completed His mission that the Father sent Him on. He knows that He died as an innocent sufferer, not for any of His own sins, but for the sins of His people. Jesus knows that He will therefore be vindicated by His Father, first in receiving His spirit the moment after His body died, and then in raising that body again from the dead on the third day! If we belong to God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, then we know something too: that we are accepted by God because we are acceptable in Christ! We should certainly commit our spirits to God at the time of our deaths, having full assurance in Christ that our spirits will enter into the glorious presence of God. But we should also commit our very lives to Him right now! So let us rejoice in the great salvation that Jesus has accomplished for us, and entrust ourselves completely to God – body and soul, now and forever – seeking to live and die in a manner that is consistent with our chief purpose: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever!