Tre Ore SermonettesApril 10, 2020Good Friday

Sermon 1 (Luke 23:33-34)

The Lord forgives the sins of even his worst enemies. He doesn’t hold back, He doesn’t offer excuses or exceptions, though He very well and justly could. He is perfect, He is God. He would be in His right to simply wipe His enemies from the map, to snap His finger and make Pilate, the Sanhedrian, those who beat Him, those who spit upon Him, those who hurl insults upon Him, to make them all explode into dust.

Instead our Lord says, “Father, forgive them…” Forgive them. How hard is it for you to forgive those who sin even a little against you? No, you may not have people nailing you to a cross and beating you with a leather whip, and yet how difficult it is for you to forgive. You say, “not until that one comes and apologizes, not until that person grovels before me and conforms his life to my will…not until that happens will I forgive.”

Oh sinner, look to your Lord and master and see how He forgives and learn to forgive likewise.

Sermon 2 (Luke 23:39-43)

One man jealous for his life and blinded by greed or pride or envy attacks Jesus with his words. Another man, with his heart filled with sorrow and shame and humility calls out to Jesus for forgiveness. Seeing death as the end of life, the first thief wants nothing but to be taken off that cross and returned to his life of crime. No repentance, no remorse, no guilt, no humility, just self-protection, self-centeredness and a lust for the desires of the flesh. But the other thief, feeling the

terrors and threats of his choices in life, the sins he’s committed, the wrongs he’s done, the people he’s hurt, knows that he deserves everything he’s getting, and more, and wants nothing more than to be forgiven and released by God.

You might look at both of these criminals who hang there with Jesus and say to yourself, “they deserve what they get.” They made their bed, they must lie in it. But the man in the middle, Jesus who suffers there along with those criminals, it’s not He that should be dying there, but it’s you. There are three crosses and the one in the middle is meant for you.

Yet there He is, the Lord of life, dying in your place and granting paradise to he who does not deserve it.

Oh sinner, look to your Lord and savior and see how He takes your place in death so that you might have paradise forever.

Sermon 3 (John 19:26-27)

The Lord, seeing the grief upon His mothers face looks to John His disciple, a young man who had been with him for over three years, and makes sure that both mother and disciples are cared for. “Woman, behold your son.” It’s as if He says, “mother, I am leaving you now to save your soul, and while you may grieve, I the Lord and master of the universe give you John my beloved disciple in my place.” He looks at John and says, “Behold, your mother.” It’s as if Jesus says to John, “young disciple, you need your mother, for my mother will tend to your needs and care for your life just as she did for me.”

It is in this very moment that Jesus establishes the holy Church and places into His Church and places into His church His beloved brothers and sisters – his disciples. For it is through the church that the savior

was born, and it is for the Church that the savior suffers and dies, and it is the Church that receives the benefits of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

It is only right, then, that Jesus say to you, His beloved disciple, “behold your mother,” and to His holy and royal Church, “behold, your son.”

Oh sinner, look to your Lord and king and see how He gives you His mother, the Church to care for you and protect you and carry you to heaven.

Sermon 4 (Mark 15:34)

Alone. In the dark. No one on earth can come to His rescue. And in heaven, even His Father has abandoned Him. Upon Him is laid every single sin that you have ever committed or ever will. Not just the big sins, but the little sins, the secret sins, the sins you continue to commit that no one else knows but you. There they are driven into His hands and feet, piercing His brow, cutting through to the bone, the skin on his back. Your sin is filling His lungs making it harder and harder to breathe. And the pain of your sin screams from His body like no pain you’ve ever felt, or ever will.

All that sin does and accomplishes is chained upon the back of Jesus, and the worst consequence of all, God’s abandoning of the sinner, Jesus, the holy one of God, experiences for you.

Oh sinner, look to Jesus your Lord and atonement and see how He takes the abandonment and separation from the Father so that you will always be with Him, forever.

Sermon 5 (John 19:28)

The man, thirsty from lack of drink for hours, He still considers the Word and the prophecies, and everything that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord as more important than His bodily needs. There, on the cross, His blood draining from him, his strength emptying from him, breathing becoming harder and harder, sweat and blood filling his eyes so he can hardly see, the stench of human spit and the sounds of human insult filling his senses, and on His mind and His heart is his Father’s words.

In your times of struggle, what enters your mind and your heart? Fight or flight? A quick cure, meds to take away the pain? Band aids to heal the sore? When you’re thirsty, you drink fresh, clean filtered water. When you’re hungry, you eat. When you’re tired, you sleep, when you’re in pain, you take pain reliver. But Jesus seeks, not to satisfy his fleshy cravings at the moment he needs it, but to do the will of His Father, so that you be filled with His righteousness.

Oh sinner, look to your Lord and sustainer and see how He empties Himself so that you be filled with Him.

Sermon 6 (John 19:30)

It is done. The devil is defeated. All that sin and death desires it takes, but the blood and life force it steals becomes its demise. The devil thought, hoped, assumed that Jesus’ death would mean that death triumphs. That the death of God means Satan takes the throne.

But God cannot stay dead and death cannot prevail. Instead, the obedient Son of Man who suffered this life’s struggles and temptations, Jesus, the sin offering who knew no sin, suffered unjustly, died unjustly, gave up His spirit unjustly, the one death in all of creation that didn’t

deserve to die, He messed everything up for the devil because now payment for sin is complete.

You, who deserve everything that the devil had in store for you, who was a slave to sin, death and devil, you who was once destined from conception to eternal death and separation from God, now there is no more condemnation for you. It is finished, you are free, the price is paid, death is defeated, the devil is cast out, and all that awaits you is life forever with your Lord.

Oh sinner, look to Jesus your Lord and redeemer and trust with all your heart that His death has defeated death forever for you.

Sermon 7 (Luke 23:44-46)

Finally, the suffering is over. A lifetime of suffering, and the suffering of every human being throughout all history, all wrapped up in one man, on one day, nailed to one cross. In mid-afternoon, the world was dark. God is dead. God, the creator of the universe, who said, “Let there be light,” the breather of life, He who placed the stars in the sky and wrapped the earth in bright blue, the last thing He sees is the darkness, the same darkness that filled the nothingness before creation. And giving up His spirit, Jesus hangs his head and dies. God is dead.

But His death doesn’t mean defeat for you, o sinner, but victory. For in His death, you are brought into the holy place, before the mercy seat of heaven, where the blood of hundreds of wild beasts was poured, now the blood of God is offered up for you.

Oh sinner, look to Jesus your Lord and God and see the salvation won for you in darkness and death. Amen.