Dear Readers and Listeners, Friends in Jesus Christ,
Our watchword for today is one of the most loved verses in Scripture, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” John 3 verse 16, (KJV). Today we commemorate the Crucifixion and Death of our Lord. We retell the Gospel accounts, sing the Passion Hymns and become quiet in our contemplation of what the Lord has done for the world on that day, when the sun grew dark and the earth trembled. Jesus’ coming to the world was the culmination of the promises of the coming Saviour spoken from the Fall in Paradise to their last cry from the Cross, “It is finished!” Jesus came to save each and every one. It is the gift of his love to the uttermost for us. Each one of us through the ages and the times to come is the “whosoever” who has eternal life through believing in Christ. Looking on the Cross of our Lord and seeing Him there, telling us, like he told the man hanging next to him, “You will be with me,” this is our peace. We know that ultimately we will be with the Lord in his eternal home, enjoying life-everlasting. However, we can already enter into this peace of the Lord, while we live in this chaotic world, for we have the blessed assurance that he died for us and broke the bonds of death, sin and condemnation.
Good Friday is a day of solemn recollection as we look at the wrongs that occur throughout the world, throughout the ages. We are part of the world and the wrongs done and suffered in this world. Looking out across the world and the path that it follows can bring us into deep despair and mourning, but, let us take heart, for this is the world that God loves and saved, through his Son. As we come and stand beneath the Cross and look at Jesus, we see him suffering for us. We see the crown, the nails, the spear wound. We see the little group looking up to Jesus, seeing him dead on the Cross, his head slightly turned to the side. Jesus in his death has said “yes” to us, his tilled head resembling his silent affirmation, as told in the words of Bach in the Passion of Jesus according to Saint John. It is good that we stand in awe at the Cross and consider that we have a Saviour, who died a forsaken death, so that we can live and die accompanied by God, who loves us and laid his life down for us. “My dear Saviour, may I ask you, you who cannot speak because of your pain, your grief, your death: Am I free, forever free from sin and death? You bowed your head and in silence answered me, “Yes, yes, yes!” (Bach: Mein teurer Heiland).
Our watchword for Good Friday is taken from Psalm One Hundred and Forty seven, verse 14, “The Lord grants peace within your borders,” (NRSVB). This praise psalm states that it is the Lord, “who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.” Christ was wounded for us, his heart broken as he called, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?” God broke through on this day and he passed over us with the blessing of salvation and healing, as he brought Christ through death, death on a cross, to life, life-everlasting. Despite the turmoil of the world, God gives us his peace, within and without, for “Christ is our peace,” (Eph 2 verse 14). The Apostle Paul writes in his Letter to the Ephesians in Chapter Two verses 17 to 19, “And Christ came and preached the glad tidings of peace to you who were afar off and peace to you who were near, it is through him, that you are no longer outsiders, but you now share citizenship with God’s people, and belong to God’s household,” (Amplified Bible). There is a place for all of us at the foot of the Cross, even as there has been prepared for all of us, a place in the Kingdom of God.
Father, you call us your children, you open heaven for us through Jesus, your Son, Amen.