GOOD FRIDAY (2)
Text: Luke 23: 27-48
Source from Back to Luther with German archive reference. Back to Walther's Epistle Sermons.
Oh Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.
Oh Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.
Oh Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, grant us thy peace. Amen. Amen.
In Christ, the Lamb of God, slain for us, dear hearers.
On the sixth day, Friday, God created man after his image and thus completed the work of creation. Satan however seduced man to fall from his Creator; he fell into sin and so into misery, temporal and spiritual death, and eternal damnation. What happened? Again on the sixth day, Friday, the Creator of man died on the cross out of love to man, earned for him the life he lost, and completed the great work of redemption. "It is finished!" cried the Lord of glory at the close of his suffering, bowed his head, and died. Oh what a tragic day, the day on which God died! With him life died. But also, what a blessed day on which God died for us ! His death is our life.
Today we celebrate this great event. Oh, if only this holy day and this holy hour would actually become the time of our second creation to a new life! Without Jesus we can indeed live on the world physically but not spiritually, not eternally. Without Jesus we are the living dead. "Flesh and blood," says the apostle, "cannot inherit the kingdom of God," 1 cor 15,50; and Christ says: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," that is, whoever has been born merely of men is still fleshly no matter how pious he may seem to be. A great change must take place in us, otherwise we will not see the kingdom of God; we must first become spirit born of the Spirit. As God at the creation had to breathe into man the living breath, so that man would become a living soul, so we become partakers of God's second creation, the redemption, only if life from God is breathed into us again by the breath of the Almighty. If we close this day without being renewed to God's image, God would have died in vain for us.
If the greatness and seriousness of the suffering and death of your Redeemer is to become real within you today, if your spirit is wrapped in sorrow, if your eye fills with the tears of sadness, if your heart bleeds at the sight of the innocent Lamb of God bleeding for you, blessed are you! But do not be secure; you can still be without the true fruit of God's death for you. This death has produced its fruit only if your flesh has died with Christ and if that death has worked life within you.
Oh that God would take pity upon all of us, and as we today go in spirit to Golgotha and place ourselves under the cross dying love, may he give us a life giving drink from the fount of life opened for us upon Golgotha and cause his cross to be a tree of life! Let us together pray him upon our knees for that once again after we will have sung: Oh Christ Thou Lamb of God, etc.
Quote the text here: Luke 23:27-48.
Three things are presented to us in the portion of the Lenten story just read: First, how Christ was led to the cross of Golgotha; then, how he languished six hours upon the cross; and finally, how he commended his spirit
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into the hands of the Father and died. Every one of these three-parts speaks to us of the necessity of our repentance and conversion. A penitential sermon it is which the Lord preached on his way to the cross; when he hangs on the cross we also hear, that one of the malefactors hanging at his side repents, when he sees His last suffering; when he finally dies we hear that even the centurion and his soldiers on duty were suddenly converted, and that all the frightened people moved by God's hand smote their breast. You see, the day of Christ's death is a day of penitence for us. Let us therefore now ponder the truth given in this text:
NOTHING SUMMONS US MORE URGENTLY TO TURN TO GOD THAN THE DEATH OF GOD’S SON UPON THE CROSS FOR US
The reasons are, because nothing
1. Reveals so Clearly the Abominableness of our Sins, and
2. Shows so Absolutely God's Readiness to Pardon and Save even the Greatest Sinner.
I.
From the story of our text we see what true repentance and conversion really is. First, Christ preached repentance to the women accompanying him in the words: " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." V.28. We hear that the malefactor who was converted confessed first to his fellow sinner when he mocked Christ: " Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds." V.40. Finally according to Matthew's report we hear that the centurion and his soldiers " feared greatly " before they in faith called Christ the Son of God.
The first part of true conversion is a painful knowledge of our sins and a heartfelt terror because of them. Without these experiences no person is truly converted. Since every person who is to be saved must first be converted, since without conversion a person just can not return to God, every person must also perceive that without Christ he truly is the great lost sinner for so God describes all men; he must be filled with anxiety, fear, and terror over that fact, bowed, humbled, and softened thereby.
Is it not important to know how and where we can best make this experience so necessary for our salvation? Yes! And see, this very day, the day of our Savior's death, we are reminded of it. There is no better nor more fitting place for us sinners to come to true repentance and a living knowledge of our sins than Golgotha, which we today ascend in spirit, and the cross beneath which we in spirit step. Nothing, nothing will summon us more strongly and urgently to turn to God than this place. If you ask: Why that? I reply: Because here we see the sinfulness of men in its highest degree; here we catch sight of the terrible results of sin; here we see sin as an unbearable burden.
If we want to discover the human race's great sinfulness, we must go to Golgotha. For who hangs there between heaven and earth, between two malefactors, with arms outstretched, naked, with blood covering his whole body? Who is he who is ridiculed and mocked and given vinegar and gall to drink? Who is he who is slowly tortured to death?
He is not a criminal who suffers what he deserves; for he cries to his Father in heaven for those who crucify him: " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." V.34. One of the malefactors himself confesses; "This
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man hath done nothing amiss." V.40. And the centurion on duty exclaims a.£ter his death with shaken heart; " Certainly this was a righteous man.” V.47. If the Crucified was only an innocent man, that would be enough to become shocked at the malice of men for causing such a painful death.
But the Crucified is more than an innocent man, yes, more than all angels and archangels: He is the Son of the Most High God; he is the Lord of Glory, the Creator of the world, of all men, Lord and God who in eternal love assumed the human nature into the unity of his person in order to redeem men. He had gone about and preached the truth; he had done good and made all well who were overpowered by the devil; this man they took, hung him on the tree of the cross, and killed him. This was the most disgraceful, heinous, and cursed deed which human hearts had ever conceived and carried out.
Here we see the sinfulness and maliciousness of man in its highest degree, its terrible greatness, and its most abominable form. Here we see: The human heart is capable of the most terrible thing which can be thought of, namely, capable of killing his own Creator, capable of killing eternal Love. When the sun saw this it lost its light, just as though it could not bear the sight of this most fearful drama. And when the deed had occurred, the „earth trembled and split the rocks just as though it rebelled against enduring such sacrilege against its Creator. Should we not become frightened at the fact that we men are and belong to a race, which made itself guilty of a crime of such a rebellion against the Almighty? If we have seen the Son of God crucified by men, can we yet doubt that we have fallen from God and become subjects of the kingdom of darkness? Must we not smite our breast and broan: Oh God, be merciful to us sinners?
On Golgotha we see not only the highest degree of sin but also its frightful results. For what we see Christ suffering he suffers not for his sake but voluntarily for ours. As Isaiah says: "He hath borne our grief, and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities." Is 53,4a.5a. What we see Christ suffering today is what we should have suffered eternally for our sins. He endured the most terrible pains; from this we see that our sins have deserved eternal pains. He hung there naked, full of shame, mockery, and disgrace; from this we see that our sins have deserved eternal shame, mockery, and disgrace. He thirsts and is not refreshed; from this we see that our sins have deserved eternal thirst and yearning without comfort. He hangs abused between robbers and murderers; from this we see that our sins have deserved being excluded from fellowship with all holy creatures to fellowship eternally with the children of wickedness and damnation.
But Christ is also forsaken by God; from this we see that our sins have deserved being eternally rejected by God. He hung there in horrible darkness; from this we see that our sins have deserved the eternal darkness of hell without light and glimmer of grace. Christ our life dies; from this we see that our sins have deserved eternal death and damnation. If we do not want to believe the terrible threats of the Lav? against sin, God has written it upon Golgotha in bloody letters so legibly that all the,excuses of our doubt are taken away. Upon Christ's cross is written before the eyes of all men: God carries out what he threatens: Sinner, you must die 1.
But still more! Upon Golgotha we also see the unbearable burden o f sin. If it would have been possible for any creature to have borne and atoned for the sins of men, would God have sacrificed his only begotten Son to atone for them? If God could have pardoned and saved man without such a sacrifice, would he not have spared his Son? What an insult to God must sin therefore be, what an offence of his Law, what incitement to wrath, since he could not have been reconciled again had not his own Son shed his blood, since God himself had to die if the sinner should live! How unbearable must the burden of the sin of the fallen world be, since no creature but only the Creator himself could bear them!
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You see, all this is what the death of God's Son for our sins preaches to us. Therefore nothing summons us more strongly and urgently to be converted, because nothing reveals the abomination of our sins so clearly.
He who still has let nothing move him to see that he is a lost sinner, to become terrified at this thought, and fall at God's feet with remorse and sorrow, oh let him learn this very day, while he is standing in spirit at the cross of God's Son who is bleeding for his sins, to recognize finally that even though he has lived most honorably in the eyes of the world his sins are no joke; he must let the pains which God's Son had to take upon himself for his sins shake and break his heart. If the thunder and lightning of the Law from Sinai cannot frighten him, alas, he is not only hardened toward the blood of God's Son which today had to flow upon Golgotha, so that God could be reconciled with him again and cry still more loudly, penetrating even more than marrow and bone: Man, repent! Nothing can awaken, nothing can call to repentance, nothing can cause the conversion of him who sees Christ dying and still can remain securely and calmly in his sins, in his wretched outward honorableness and not become anxious and tremble.
II.
True repentance and conversion consists not only in terror at our sins but above all in firm faith in God's grace. And nothing summons us more strongly and urgently to have this faith than does the death of God's Son, for nothing shows us in tie second place so irrefutably God's readiness to pardon and save even the greatest sinner.
Had God done nothing more to assure us of his grace than reveal the decree to pardon us to a person who would have to preach that to us, would we not have to believe him and be satisfied with that? If God would have sent an angel to announce his grace to us, could we not comfort ourselves even more in that divine grace which a heavenly messenger would have revealed? And could we doubt even less God's grace if his Son told us of it? Certainly not!
But see, God has done much more than all this in order to assure us of his grace, when we want to return to him; to reconcile him and assure us God gave his own Son into death.
If, when you see Christ the Crucified, you fall down before his cross terror-stricken because of your sins, be confident; your sins are forgiven you! Do not ask: What must we still do, when your sins cause you anxiety; Christ has already done everything; you are merely to believe.
If you are conscious that your sins are many, more than the hairs of your head, more than the sands of the seashore, more than the stars in the sky, and this worries you: Behold, your Savior has endured torments without number; thus all has been paid to the very last penny.
If you are conscious that your sins are great and terrible, huge as the mountains reaching toward the sky, behold infinitely greater is the grace won for you; for the Most High, the Infinite, the Lord of the world himself has become the eternally valid sacrifice for your sins.
If you are anxious because you have sinned so long, that you have let yourself be called so often without hearing God's voice, that you have often let yourself be awakened from your, sleep of sin without arising, that you have
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often begun to follow Christ but never remained faithful to him, behold God's Son has borne also these sins; for he has remained faithful to death, even the death on the cross, who is the Eternal and the Infinite; his eternal faithfulness swallows all your unfaithfulness and opens to you the gates of paradise, just as he did for the poor malefactor who waited to seek grace until the eleventh hour.
If you are anxious that you cannot weep or discover the depths of remorse and pain which you wish, behold, God himself has offered so many tears with strong crying and the fear of hell in your place, so that even you who must complain over the hardness of your heart and lack of tears, even you can receive grace and forgiveness.
If you are anxious that you have approached God and sighed for grace without finding rest, that you feel nothing within yourself but doubt, fear, and anxiety of conscience, be confident! You are not to find rest in your heart but in the heart of the Crucified; that is why he has let it remain open even after his death. Flee to it with your trembling soul! You will finally go with Christ after the strife and struggle into your eternal rest.
But bear in mind all of you who are present; As the death of God's Son is lost to all who do not learn to know the abomination of their sins, so he is also lost to those who do not accept that grace in faith which was earned for him. As brightly as these words shine on the cross for secure sinners: Repent, for you must die! just so brightly do the words shine there for frightened hearts: Be ye reconciled with God; you shall live!
Oh may none of us leave burdened with the load of his sins. Let every one say: Lord Jesus, all sins for us thou borest, else I would have to despair; here at your cross I lay down my burden of sin; oh take it with you into your grave and there bury it out of sight; I will wait in faith until I will awaken in your image and perfectly pure triumph with you on the great day of the resurrection.
Oh that none may be left behind! Today God lifted up his Son between heaven and earth and has them as witness that he does not want the death of the sinner but that the sinner turn and live; he has heaven and earth as witnesses that he has excluded none from his grace; he has heaven and earth as his witnesses that he has done everything to entice all sinners to come to him, that he has opened heaven and stretched out his arms to all. Amen!
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