Sermon Illustrations for Good Friday (2016)
Illustration
Object:
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
Pictures of Jesus -- they are found in churches, homes, offices, and museums. There are all kinds of different ones: El Greco’s Cristo Salvator Mundi; Christ Pantocratorfrom Hagia Sophia; Head of Christ by Richard Hook; Rembrandt’s Head of Christ; and what may be the most well-known, the Head of Christ by Warner Sallman. All of these depict a different aspect or component of who Jesus was. These works of art are brilliant, but they cannot fully capture the essence of who Jesus is.
There is a picture of Jesus that is not quite as popular or as lovely. It is painted in the words of Isaiah the prophet, and they create a picture of a suffering servant. It is a portrait that is marred with the ugliness of sin, brutality, and death. It isn’t a picture that we’d want to have hanging in our churches or on our walls, yet it is a real and meaningful depiction of Jesus. The wonderful works of art are meaningless without the ugly picture that hangs at Calvary. In the museum portraits of Jesus, marvel at the great masters of their craft as they show characteristics of Jesus. As you do, though, don’t forget to view the real picture seen in the words of Isaiah.
Bill T.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
How do we reconcile a loving God with the sacrifice of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus? Did Jesus die for our sins or for his adherence to the intimate relationship, the spiritual dedication to the life God was calling him to live? Is Jesus the replacement for us on the cross? Did he die for us? Maybe that is true. Maybe it is the love of Jesus, the ministry of Jesus, the life of Jesus that was put on trial, that caused his death, maybe that even necessitated it.
When we believe deeply in love, in compassion, in mercy, in justice, in standing firm in the face of oppression and violence, we put our lives at risk. Jesus died for those beliefs -- for love, compassion, kindness, gentleness, compassion, reconciliation -- for calling into question oppressive systems, even oppressive religious systems, which kept people from an intimate and personal relationship with God. Jesus thought that worth dying for. So do I.
Bonnie B.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
This sounds like a New Testament passage. It is a great description of Jesus’ life and death -- but this was written hundreds of years before our Lord’s birth!
It seems to indicate that Jesus will be very homely. But is it talking about during his life as a man on earth, or at his death on the cross? Could anyone look good on a cross after having been beaten and crowned with painful thorns? It sounds different from all the pictures of a handsome guy with a beard and mustache wearing a white robe that hang on our walls. When he is “lifted up” on the ghastly cross, he was no long the handsome savior.
At the beginning he will not be understood. He will be despised by men (not women?). It was only years later that he was accepted. It was in the 300 ADs that Rome finally recognized Him.
The important message is that he was wounded for us sinners! Jesus did not enjoy what happened to him. In the garden, he even prayed that this terrible suffering might pass from him -- but his Father’s will must be done. He did not enjoy obeying! Is that a message for us? We may not always enjoy what the Lord has in store for us sometimes, but when our Lord endured to the end, it made our life altogether different! We can still suffer down here on earth, but because of what he suffered our whole future is assured.
Jesus was sinless. It is not a sin to hope we might not have to suffer down here, even if it is for some shameful thing we have done. We have all done things that we might be ashamed of! Only Jesus showed us that it is possible to be sinless -- with his help. He still paid the full price. He descended into hell. It seems that he went there to preach to the souls in hell who had never met him. They still had a chance. Does he still preach to those who we have not yet been reached with the gospel? One day we will find out.
Yes, Jesus must have had earthly temptations. He must have been tempted to marry Mary Magdalene and settle down to a life in the carpenter shop, but he passed it up for our sakes. He was tempted in every way, such as we are tempted. That is something to think about. Can we resist our temptations? Even when we give in, Jesus is still here to give intercession for us! Keep thinking about that.
That terrible agonizing cross that we think of this day is a symbol of hope. We can rejoice that he paid the price of our sin on that cross!
Bob O.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
Identified as part of the Suffering Servant passages in Isaiah, this lection focuses on how unbelievably, yet perhaps how inevitably, God works through those who “had no form or majesty that we should look at” them (53:2), who bear our infirmities (53:4), are “wounded for our transgressions” (53:5) -- and who will be vindicated in the end.
We Christians see this as referring to Jesus, a true enough interpretation considering the events of the cross. But the challenge is for us to see our friends, families, neighbors (close at hand and around the world), strangers, and even enemies as potentially suffering servants who will be vindicated. In Christ we can no longer look at each other in the old way. In Christ we are transformed, and see history differently. Through Jesus we have learned that our neighbors include Samaritans (and remember that the first listeners to that story would have never thought of any Samaritan as “good”), and instead of resenting the prodigal’s return we have learned from Jesus that we are to run out joyfully with open arms. We are to proclaim with regards to the outsiders that nowhere among God’s people have we ever found faith such as this.
In short, we are to see Jesus in everyone. Suffering, struggling, yet ultimately vindicated.
Frank R.
Hebrews 10:16-25
The Good Friday theme of suffering, sacrifice, and death do not mesh well with a popular Christianity that prefers happy, clappy expressions of faith -- the nicely polished gold cross available at the jewelry counter or the always empty cross on a bumper sticker; a claim that God expects only praise, not sacrifice; anticipating that because of God’s grace, faith is always rewarded by a life of economic ease; the promise of coming to the end of this earthly journey never having experienced more suffering than minimal inconvenience.
This day we encounter the message of Good Friday with all of its blood, suffering, sacrifice, and death. It is a dark day. It has a hard, difficult message. If only we could pass over Good Friday in order to have an early entry into the message of Easter.
Of course, that cannot be done. We need to go through the darkness of Good Friday. It can be a difficult experience, but the message of the day is also hope-filled.
R. Robert C.
Hebrews 10:16-25
Seeing Jesus on the cross moves us. The author of Hebrews suggests that Christ’s sacrifice might move us so much as to provoke each of us to love and good deeds, to meet together (vv. 24-25). The cross brings us all together. Americans are not in tune with this insight. A 2014 Pew Research study found that Republicans and Democrats are more polarized than ever. Few in either party have much good to say about those across the aisle. Three-fourths of conservatives want bigger houses with a lot of land. But 78% of self-described liberals want smaller homes near the amenities. This fits the observations of American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray regarding the residential segregation by class which characterizes contemporary American life (Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010).
In contrast to our separation from each other, Martin Luther talks about those who rely on Christ as being carried on his shoulders (Luther’s Works, Vol. 29, p. 226). We are all on his shoulders. There’s not much room to pull away from undesirables when you are all sitting on the same shoulder. The great preacher of the early church John Chrysostom proclaimed: “For if a stone rubbed against a stone sends forth fire, how much more soul mingled with soul!” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 14, p. 455). The connection of people sparks flames of love. The ancient Greek poet Aesop said it well: “In union there is strength.” On Good Friday, we can proclaim with the 19th-century American poet George Pope Morris: “United we stand, divided we fall.”
Mark E.
Hebrews 10:16-25
The publication of Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James placed a challenge before romance writers. They either could continue to use euphemisms in their books, or (like James) become explicit about sex in their writing. Most authors decided to become more explicit. Romance author Mary Bly said, “I decided I could either wither like a dinosaur or try to capture the rhythm of the way young women are speaking and thinking now.”
Application: On Good Friday Jesus put his law into the hearts and minds of his followers. Today those words are still relevant, and one does not become a dinosaur by repeating them.
Ron L.
John 18:1--19:42
Darkness covered the land for three hours. Something terrible was taking place, something that belonged in the dark. A man who was innocent was paying the price for the guilty. God the Son was bridging the gap sin had created from the time of Adam eating the forbidden fruit. The way back to God the Father was being restored. It is humanity’s worst hour and greatest hour. The physical torture of the crucifixion and the events around it are well-documented and difficult to read. We know the scourging Jesus received was horrific. He had to carry the cross beam through the streets of Jerusalem, an excruciating journey, to the place just outside the city. He was nailed to a cross, lifted up, his shame and humiliation for all to see. The loss of blood was huge and perilous. The pain that wracked his body for six hours as he hung there was agonizing. Physically, the crucifixion was unbearable, and it pales in comparison to what was happening in the spiritual realm.
As Jesus hung on the cross, the sins of the world -- past, present, and future -- were put on him. He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. There was a time on the cross when the eternal union between Father and Son was broken. The real agony of the crucifixion is the awful separation from his Father that Jesus had to endure. If the definition of hell is being separated from God, then Jesus endured hell. Why? Love. We can clearly see the worst of humanity in this moment, but it is humanity’s greatest moment too. It is the singular event that everyone will have to confront. Will you accept Jesus’ sacrifice and gift, making it the greatest moment -- or will you gaze upon it and turn away?
Bill T.
John 18:1--19:42
I want to focus on John 19:25-27, one of the traditional seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. From the cross Jesus cares for his mother.
The shortest handwritten will on record was written by a man on the wall of his bedroom, when he realized he was about to die. It was two words: V?e ?en?,which is Czech for “everything to wife.” The will held up.
The shortest handwritten English language will to hold up in court, by Thorne V. Dickens in 1906, was not as simple as it sounded. He wrote three words: “All for mother,” but it spent years in probate before it was determined that by mother he meant his wife, and not his mother. He referred to his wife as “mother.”
One of the most famous handwritten wills was scratched into the fender of a tractor. On June 8, 1948, a Saskatchewan farmer named Cecil George Harris found himself stuck underneath his tractor, so he wrote “In case I die in this mess I leave all to the wife. Cecil Geo. Harris.” It held up in court, and the fender is now displayed in the library of the University of Saskatchewan College of Law.
This passage illustrates not only the care Jesus took for the practical, but also the love he displayed until the end. As it says earlier in John 13:1 -- Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
One of the many cruelties of crucifixion was that death was very slow, but this also meant there was plenty of time for the victim to speak to those who witnessed his death. Although the crucified could not write out a will, what they spoke from the cross, including disposition of their goods, was considered legally valid. Nothing ever happens in a vacuum. Jesus honored his obligations at the worst possible time. Love is personal and real and practical. Love deserves our attention. Love trumps everything. Or as somebody, somewhere once said, faith, hope, and love abide, these three -- but the greatest of these is love.
Frank R.
John 18:1--19:42
Jesus knew all that was going to happen -- that should have made his suffering worse! If we knew we were going to have a terrible death (like cancer), that sure would not make us happy. When a pastor I knew found out he had Alzheimer’s, he took his own life. In the note he left, he said that he wanted to spare his wife the agony of seeing him slowly lose his mind -- and much money!
There was a man in my congregation in California who had one of those “near-death” experiences. His wife was dying in a hospital nearby and he spent every day with her, but after his experience he was smiling at her funeral because he knew where she had gone. He also knew where he was going -- again, so there was no more fear of death -- even if he had to suffer for a while with his bad heart.
Jesus had an interesting trial. He told the absolute truth if he bothered to speak, but it did not help him one bit because the high priest had already made up his mind that if he had anything to do with it Jesus was going to be sacrificed. It was not just the priest -- the whole crowd was demanding Jesus’ death. It doesn’t say what happened to that other multitude who were praising him just a few days before! Is that democracy? Did the majority change their mind? It could sound like our congress today!
Democracy was a disaster in the entire Bible -- we would be worshiping a golden calf if the majority always won!
I have questioned John’s words that Jesus would not lose one of his disciples. Jesus did lose one -- the man named Judas! He almost lost Peter too, didn’t he? Is Judas still in hell? Someday we will find out, if we don’t see him in heaven. Jesus forgave Judas, but Judas didn’t believe he couldn’t forgive himself so he hanged himself. No matter how you may have offended our Lord, know that it is never too late to be forgiven if we accept that forgiveness. So don’t even think about suicide.
There are few places in the gospels that spend so much time on one event as the death of Jesus. This indicates the importance of this event. The details of the agony he must have gone through are amazing. Jesus knew it was coming, but he didn’t try to defend himself. He didn’t have to defend himself -- he wasn’t guilty. We may weep about this sad story, but without the death of Jesus there would be no salvation. We don’t even need a sermon -- just read this scripture!
Bob O.
Pictures of Jesus -- they are found in churches, homes, offices, and museums. There are all kinds of different ones: El Greco’s Cristo Salvator Mundi; Christ Pantocratorfrom Hagia Sophia; Head of Christ by Richard Hook; Rembrandt’s Head of Christ; and what may be the most well-known, the Head of Christ by Warner Sallman. All of these depict a different aspect or component of who Jesus was. These works of art are brilliant, but they cannot fully capture the essence of who Jesus is.
There is a picture of Jesus that is not quite as popular or as lovely. It is painted in the words of Isaiah the prophet, and they create a picture of a suffering servant. It is a portrait that is marred with the ugliness of sin, brutality, and death. It isn’t a picture that we’d want to have hanging in our churches or on our walls, yet it is a real and meaningful depiction of Jesus. The wonderful works of art are meaningless without the ugly picture that hangs at Calvary. In the museum portraits of Jesus, marvel at the great masters of their craft as they show characteristics of Jesus. As you do, though, don’t forget to view the real picture seen in the words of Isaiah.
Bill T.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
How do we reconcile a loving God with the sacrifice of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus? Did Jesus die for our sins or for his adherence to the intimate relationship, the spiritual dedication to the life God was calling him to live? Is Jesus the replacement for us on the cross? Did he die for us? Maybe that is true. Maybe it is the love of Jesus, the ministry of Jesus, the life of Jesus that was put on trial, that caused his death, maybe that even necessitated it.
When we believe deeply in love, in compassion, in mercy, in justice, in standing firm in the face of oppression and violence, we put our lives at risk. Jesus died for those beliefs -- for love, compassion, kindness, gentleness, compassion, reconciliation -- for calling into question oppressive systems, even oppressive religious systems, which kept people from an intimate and personal relationship with God. Jesus thought that worth dying for. So do I.
Bonnie B.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
This sounds like a New Testament passage. It is a great description of Jesus’ life and death -- but this was written hundreds of years before our Lord’s birth!
It seems to indicate that Jesus will be very homely. But is it talking about during his life as a man on earth, or at his death on the cross? Could anyone look good on a cross after having been beaten and crowned with painful thorns? It sounds different from all the pictures of a handsome guy with a beard and mustache wearing a white robe that hang on our walls. When he is “lifted up” on the ghastly cross, he was no long the handsome savior.
At the beginning he will not be understood. He will be despised by men (not women?). It was only years later that he was accepted. It was in the 300 ADs that Rome finally recognized Him.
The important message is that he was wounded for us sinners! Jesus did not enjoy what happened to him. In the garden, he even prayed that this terrible suffering might pass from him -- but his Father’s will must be done. He did not enjoy obeying! Is that a message for us? We may not always enjoy what the Lord has in store for us sometimes, but when our Lord endured to the end, it made our life altogether different! We can still suffer down here on earth, but because of what he suffered our whole future is assured.
Jesus was sinless. It is not a sin to hope we might not have to suffer down here, even if it is for some shameful thing we have done. We have all done things that we might be ashamed of! Only Jesus showed us that it is possible to be sinless -- with his help. He still paid the full price. He descended into hell. It seems that he went there to preach to the souls in hell who had never met him. They still had a chance. Does he still preach to those who we have not yet been reached with the gospel? One day we will find out.
Yes, Jesus must have had earthly temptations. He must have been tempted to marry Mary Magdalene and settle down to a life in the carpenter shop, but he passed it up for our sakes. He was tempted in every way, such as we are tempted. That is something to think about. Can we resist our temptations? Even when we give in, Jesus is still here to give intercession for us! Keep thinking about that.
That terrible agonizing cross that we think of this day is a symbol of hope. We can rejoice that he paid the price of our sin on that cross!
Bob O.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
Identified as part of the Suffering Servant passages in Isaiah, this lection focuses on how unbelievably, yet perhaps how inevitably, God works through those who “had no form or majesty that we should look at” them (53:2), who bear our infirmities (53:4), are “wounded for our transgressions” (53:5) -- and who will be vindicated in the end.
We Christians see this as referring to Jesus, a true enough interpretation considering the events of the cross. But the challenge is for us to see our friends, families, neighbors (close at hand and around the world), strangers, and even enemies as potentially suffering servants who will be vindicated. In Christ we can no longer look at each other in the old way. In Christ we are transformed, and see history differently. Through Jesus we have learned that our neighbors include Samaritans (and remember that the first listeners to that story would have never thought of any Samaritan as “good”), and instead of resenting the prodigal’s return we have learned from Jesus that we are to run out joyfully with open arms. We are to proclaim with regards to the outsiders that nowhere among God’s people have we ever found faith such as this.
In short, we are to see Jesus in everyone. Suffering, struggling, yet ultimately vindicated.
Frank R.
Hebrews 10:16-25
The Good Friday theme of suffering, sacrifice, and death do not mesh well with a popular Christianity that prefers happy, clappy expressions of faith -- the nicely polished gold cross available at the jewelry counter or the always empty cross on a bumper sticker; a claim that God expects only praise, not sacrifice; anticipating that because of God’s grace, faith is always rewarded by a life of economic ease; the promise of coming to the end of this earthly journey never having experienced more suffering than minimal inconvenience.
This day we encounter the message of Good Friday with all of its blood, suffering, sacrifice, and death. It is a dark day. It has a hard, difficult message. If only we could pass over Good Friday in order to have an early entry into the message of Easter.
Of course, that cannot be done. We need to go through the darkness of Good Friday. It can be a difficult experience, but the message of the day is also hope-filled.
R. Robert C.
Hebrews 10:16-25
Seeing Jesus on the cross moves us. The author of Hebrews suggests that Christ’s sacrifice might move us so much as to provoke each of us to love and good deeds, to meet together (vv. 24-25). The cross brings us all together. Americans are not in tune with this insight. A 2014 Pew Research study found that Republicans and Democrats are more polarized than ever. Few in either party have much good to say about those across the aisle. Three-fourths of conservatives want bigger houses with a lot of land. But 78% of self-described liberals want smaller homes near the amenities. This fits the observations of American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray regarding the residential segregation by class which characterizes contemporary American life (Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010).
In contrast to our separation from each other, Martin Luther talks about those who rely on Christ as being carried on his shoulders (Luther’s Works, Vol. 29, p. 226). We are all on his shoulders. There’s not much room to pull away from undesirables when you are all sitting on the same shoulder. The great preacher of the early church John Chrysostom proclaimed: “For if a stone rubbed against a stone sends forth fire, how much more soul mingled with soul!” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 14, p. 455). The connection of people sparks flames of love. The ancient Greek poet Aesop said it well: “In union there is strength.” On Good Friday, we can proclaim with the 19th-century American poet George Pope Morris: “United we stand, divided we fall.”
Mark E.
Hebrews 10:16-25
The publication of Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James placed a challenge before romance writers. They either could continue to use euphemisms in their books, or (like James) become explicit about sex in their writing. Most authors decided to become more explicit. Romance author Mary Bly said, “I decided I could either wither like a dinosaur or try to capture the rhythm of the way young women are speaking and thinking now.”
Application: On Good Friday Jesus put his law into the hearts and minds of his followers. Today those words are still relevant, and one does not become a dinosaur by repeating them.
Ron L.
John 18:1--19:42
Darkness covered the land for three hours. Something terrible was taking place, something that belonged in the dark. A man who was innocent was paying the price for the guilty. God the Son was bridging the gap sin had created from the time of Adam eating the forbidden fruit. The way back to God the Father was being restored. It is humanity’s worst hour and greatest hour. The physical torture of the crucifixion and the events around it are well-documented and difficult to read. We know the scourging Jesus received was horrific. He had to carry the cross beam through the streets of Jerusalem, an excruciating journey, to the place just outside the city. He was nailed to a cross, lifted up, his shame and humiliation for all to see. The loss of blood was huge and perilous. The pain that wracked his body for six hours as he hung there was agonizing. Physically, the crucifixion was unbearable, and it pales in comparison to what was happening in the spiritual realm.
As Jesus hung on the cross, the sins of the world -- past, present, and future -- were put on him. He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. There was a time on the cross when the eternal union between Father and Son was broken. The real agony of the crucifixion is the awful separation from his Father that Jesus had to endure. If the definition of hell is being separated from God, then Jesus endured hell. Why? Love. We can clearly see the worst of humanity in this moment, but it is humanity’s greatest moment too. It is the singular event that everyone will have to confront. Will you accept Jesus’ sacrifice and gift, making it the greatest moment -- or will you gaze upon it and turn away?
Bill T.
John 18:1--19:42
I want to focus on John 19:25-27, one of the traditional seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. From the cross Jesus cares for his mother.
The shortest handwritten will on record was written by a man on the wall of his bedroom, when he realized he was about to die. It was two words: V?e ?en?,which is Czech for “everything to wife.” The will held up.
The shortest handwritten English language will to hold up in court, by Thorne V. Dickens in 1906, was not as simple as it sounded. He wrote three words: “All for mother,” but it spent years in probate before it was determined that by mother he meant his wife, and not his mother. He referred to his wife as “mother.”
One of the most famous handwritten wills was scratched into the fender of a tractor. On June 8, 1948, a Saskatchewan farmer named Cecil George Harris found himself stuck underneath his tractor, so he wrote “In case I die in this mess I leave all to the wife. Cecil Geo. Harris.” It held up in court, and the fender is now displayed in the library of the University of Saskatchewan College of Law.
This passage illustrates not only the care Jesus took for the practical, but also the love he displayed until the end. As it says earlier in John 13:1 -- Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
One of the many cruelties of crucifixion was that death was very slow, but this also meant there was plenty of time for the victim to speak to those who witnessed his death. Although the crucified could not write out a will, what they spoke from the cross, including disposition of their goods, was considered legally valid. Nothing ever happens in a vacuum. Jesus honored his obligations at the worst possible time. Love is personal and real and practical. Love deserves our attention. Love trumps everything. Or as somebody, somewhere once said, faith, hope, and love abide, these three -- but the greatest of these is love.
Frank R.
John 18:1--19:42
Jesus knew all that was going to happen -- that should have made his suffering worse! If we knew we were going to have a terrible death (like cancer), that sure would not make us happy. When a pastor I knew found out he had Alzheimer’s, he took his own life. In the note he left, he said that he wanted to spare his wife the agony of seeing him slowly lose his mind -- and much money!
There was a man in my congregation in California who had one of those “near-death” experiences. His wife was dying in a hospital nearby and he spent every day with her, but after his experience he was smiling at her funeral because he knew where she had gone. He also knew where he was going -- again, so there was no more fear of death -- even if he had to suffer for a while with his bad heart.
Jesus had an interesting trial. He told the absolute truth if he bothered to speak, but it did not help him one bit because the high priest had already made up his mind that if he had anything to do with it Jesus was going to be sacrificed. It was not just the priest -- the whole crowd was demanding Jesus’ death. It doesn’t say what happened to that other multitude who were praising him just a few days before! Is that democracy? Did the majority change their mind? It could sound like our congress today!
Democracy was a disaster in the entire Bible -- we would be worshiping a golden calf if the majority always won!
I have questioned John’s words that Jesus would not lose one of his disciples. Jesus did lose one -- the man named Judas! He almost lost Peter too, didn’t he? Is Judas still in hell? Someday we will find out, if we don’t see him in heaven. Jesus forgave Judas, but Judas didn’t believe he couldn’t forgive himself so he hanged himself. No matter how you may have offended our Lord, know that it is never too late to be forgiven if we accept that forgiveness. So don’t even think about suicide.
There are few places in the gospels that spend so much time on one event as the death of Jesus. This indicates the importance of this event. The details of the agony he must have gone through are amazing. Jesus knew it was coming, but he didn’t try to defend himself. He didn’t have to defend himself -- he wasn’t guilty. We may weep about this sad story, but without the death of Jesus there would be no salvation. We don’t even need a sermon -- just read this scripture!
Bob O.
