God's Incredible Gift
Sermon
The Courage to Carry On
Sermons for Lent and Easter During Cycle B
The servant song in our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah has been the traditional Old Testament reading for Good Friday for a long time. No other text describes the Messiah as a suffering servant of God more clearly.
God presents the servant as his chosen one and suggests that he intends to exalt him through a mission of suffering for a greater purpose.
As we reflect on this special portion of scripture and the events of this holy day, may we always remember first and foremost that the suffering servant suffers and dies for others. The death, the agony, the abuse is vicarious. "He was crushed for our iniquities ... and by his bruises we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).
Secondly, the drama of the suffering servant is depicted to bring about an awareness of the love of God and a conversion in all that witness it.
Like all the witnesses through the years, we gather to observe the agony and death and to realize once again that the suffering and death is for us. We are guilty. He is innocent. God is at work to redeem us in spite of our sin. In a real sense, the servant song becomes our confession.
There is a tremendous depth of feeling and drama in every Good Friday worship. We may not understand it all but we most always are moved to confession by God's incredible gift in Jesus our Lord.
The novelist, Frederick Buechner, once wondered what would happen if God, instead of depending upon our faith, decided to give us proof. What if God decided to clear up all this religion business and give us something scientific, something tangible, that would be beyond the shadow of a doubt? "Suppose," Buechner imagined, "that God were to take the great, dim river of the Milky Way -- stars flowing across the night sky -- and were to brighten it up a little and then rearrange it so that all of a sudden one night the world would step outside and look up at the heavens and see not the usual haphazard scattering of stars, but written out in letters light years tall the sentence: I really exist."1
Well, most likely the reaction would be earth-shattering. Churches would grow like crazy. Crime would stop. Wars would cease. The frenzied anxious tenor of the world would settle down. This would go on for sometime until we took the clear proclamation, "I really exist," for granted. We might say, "So what?" What difference does it make?
Buechner goes on to say that we are not so interested in scientific proof that God really exists as we are in a personal awareness of God's presence and love for us as individuals. Then it hits home. Our faith is renewed and made much stronger.2
There may be a lot of questions about this day but at the center is God, knee deep in our sin, suffering, agonizing, and dying to redeem us all. The event is huge in the scope of what God intends for the world. It is very personal, as this Christ who dies for each of us, loves us beyond all comprehension.
____________
1. http://www.day1.net/inex.php5?view=transcripts&tid=29.
2. Ibid.
God presents the servant as his chosen one and suggests that he intends to exalt him through a mission of suffering for a greater purpose.
As we reflect on this special portion of scripture and the events of this holy day, may we always remember first and foremost that the suffering servant suffers and dies for others. The death, the agony, the abuse is vicarious. "He was crushed for our iniquities ... and by his bruises we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).
Secondly, the drama of the suffering servant is depicted to bring about an awareness of the love of God and a conversion in all that witness it.
Like all the witnesses through the years, we gather to observe the agony and death and to realize once again that the suffering and death is for us. We are guilty. He is innocent. God is at work to redeem us in spite of our sin. In a real sense, the servant song becomes our confession.
There is a tremendous depth of feeling and drama in every Good Friday worship. We may not understand it all but we most always are moved to confession by God's incredible gift in Jesus our Lord.
The novelist, Frederick Buechner, once wondered what would happen if God, instead of depending upon our faith, decided to give us proof. What if God decided to clear up all this religion business and give us something scientific, something tangible, that would be beyond the shadow of a doubt? "Suppose," Buechner imagined, "that God were to take the great, dim river of the Milky Way -- stars flowing across the night sky -- and were to brighten it up a little and then rearrange it so that all of a sudden one night the world would step outside and look up at the heavens and see not the usual haphazard scattering of stars, but written out in letters light years tall the sentence: I really exist."1
Well, most likely the reaction would be earth-shattering. Churches would grow like crazy. Crime would stop. Wars would cease. The frenzied anxious tenor of the world would settle down. This would go on for sometime until we took the clear proclamation, "I really exist," for granted. We might say, "So what?" What difference does it make?
Buechner goes on to say that we are not so interested in scientific proof that God really exists as we are in a personal awareness of God's presence and love for us as individuals. Then it hits home. Our faith is renewed and made much stronger.2
There may be a lot of questions about this day but at the center is God, knee deep in our sin, suffering, agonizing, and dying to redeem us all. The event is huge in the scope of what God intends for the world. It is very personal, as this Christ who dies for each of us, loves us beyond all comprehension.
____________
1. http://www.day1.net/inex.php5?view=transcripts&tid=29.
2. Ibid.
