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Good Friday Illustration by Bible ProjectMaking room for the sorrow and shadow together as behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. "Thou didst give Thyself for me. Now I give myself to Thee." + Let Thy Blood in Mercy Poured1 Luke 23:24: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Jesus’ forgiveness for those who caused His death. The Son intimately addresses the Father in front of everyone ... This is God’s work on our behalf. Through Christ, we are made members of the only Kingdom governed by a politics of forgiveness and redemption. That is why we are drawn to the Cross, why we remember Jesus’s words, in the hope that we might be forgiven and offer to the world the forgiveness made ours through the Cross of Christ. + Stanley Hauerwas, Cross-Shattered Christ 2 Luke 23:43: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise. Jesus’ salvation for those who trust in Him. (see Psalm 139:7-9) It is almost impossible for us not to identify with the thief ’s request. “Please, dear Jesus, remember us ...” (We all want to be remembered for something by someone.) Jesus’s crucified companion, however, does not ask to be remembered so that his life will have significance. Rather he asks, as the Psalms have taught Israel to ask, to be remembered when Jesus comes into His Kingdom. ... This thief confidently asks to be remembered because he recognizes the One who can remember. + Stanley Hauerwas, Cross-Shattered Christ 3 John 19:26-27: Woman, behold, your son! ... Behold, your mother! Jesus’ binding hospitality for God’s multigenerational and multicultural family. (see Psalm 68:6, 113:9) The saying is about the new community that comes into being through the power of Jesus. In giving His mother to the disciple, Jesus is causing a new relationship to come into existence that did not exist before. The disciple and the woman represent the way that family ties are transcended in the Church by the ties of the Spirit ... May we who belong to Christ be newly committed to our calling, so that blood and race and class may be truly transcended in His Name. + Fleming Rutledge, The Last Seven Words from the Cross 4 Mark 15:34: My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? Jesus’ forsaken moment so we could be forgiven and never forsaken. Try to imagine what it would be like to be totally without God. Imagine being cut off from all of those things which God gives in abundance to make life worth living. No love, no life, no light, no joy, no encouraging relationships – just total and utter aloneness. No peace, no pleasure, no satisfaction, no hope, no silver lining, no future – just the endless absence of everything and anything good, utterly cut off from all that God is, and all that God gives. That is the separation that sin causes.That is what it means to be forsaken. That is hell. That, perhaps, is the least that hell is. And Jesus went there ... Jesus did it so that you and I need never have to ... + Christopher J.H.Wright, To the Cross 5 John 19:28: I thirst. Jesus’ human pain in accomplishing God’s divine plan to meet our need. Jesus’ obedience for us matters, and it is an obedience that costs. He has a cup to drink, but it is the cup of death and justice for us. We know the costs from His prayer in Gethsamane that this cup be removed. But the cup cannot be removed if we are to be saved from the dryness and decay that is our lives. We were created to thirst for God (Psalm 42:1) in a “dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). Our response to those who ask how we can ever come to worship Jesus is to simply ask,“Do you not need to eat and drink?” Our God, our thirsty God, is the One capable of saying to us:“Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me, and let the one who believes in Me drink (John 7:37). + Stanley Hauerwas, Cross-Shattered Christ 6 John 19:30: It is finished ... Jesus completes His reconciliation for humanity, breaking in new creation. In the original Greek text,“It is finished” means “It is completed; it is perfected.” Jesus is announcing that, at the precise moment when He seems to be defeated, He is actually the conqueror: Christus Victor. It is in our nature to think that Christ’s work could not possibly be finished for us, that we have to do more. We have to add to it. We have to earn it. But God’s divine gifts are beyond our capacity to earn through any means we could possibly devise or try. It has already all been done for us in King Jesus. + Fleming Rutledge, The Last Seven Words from the Cross
7 Luke 23:46 Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit! The Christian life is lived in between “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” and “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”In this last saying from the Cross, Luke is teaching us how to die and how to live. In Jesus’ suffering, we find our redemption. In Jesus’ abandonment, we find our acceptance. In His being forsaken and condemned, we find our freedom and salvation. And at last we are able to say even in the midst of doubt and perplexity, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit." + Fleming Rutledge, The Last Seven Words from the Cross Anyone who has stayed with our Lord on the Cross has done so for some special reason. God has His hand on you in some way. You can trust Him. The hymn,“Let Thy Blood in Mercy Poured” repeats in the refrain: “Thou didst give Thyself for me. Now I give myself to Thee.” Your crucified King holds out His arms to you in love that will not let you go. Will you receive Him and His gift of salvation for you? (Final) Stations of the Cross The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black, We watch him as he labours to draw breath. He takes our breath away to give it back, Return it to its birth through his slow death. We hear him struggle, breathing through the pain, Who once breathed out his spirit on the deep, Who formed us when he mixed the dust with rain And drew us into consciousness from sleep. His Spirit and his life he breathes in all, Mantles his world in his one atmosphere, And now he comes to breathe beneath the pall Of our pollutions, draw our injured air To cleanse it and renew. His final breath Breathes and bears us through the gates of death. His spirit and his life he breathes in all, Now on this cross his body breathes no more. Here at the centre everything is still, Spent, and emptied, opened to the core. A quiet taking down, a prising loose A cross-beam lowered like a weighing scale, Unmaking of each thing that had its use, A long withdrawing of each bloodied nail. This is ground zero, emptiness and space, With nothing left to say or think or do, But look unflinching on the sacred face That cannot move or change or look at you. Yet in the prising loose and letting be He has unfastened you and set you free. + Malcolm Guite Christ is all, + Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us |
The mission of Emmaus City Church is to be united with Jesus as He shares and shows His Gospel in, with, and for Worcester, MA. "As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus Himself suddenly came and began walking with them.” + Luke 24:15
Friday, April 7, 2023
Good Friday | 7 Last Words of Jesus on the Cross w/ Psalms
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