Good Friday

Good Friday (Tenebrae)
April 6, 2007
Text: John 19; Ps. 8:5

“It is finished,” says Jesus, as He bows His head and gives up His spirit (John 19:30). Which is to say, He dies. What exactly is it, which is finished? It is the whole work of salvation. It is the reconciliation of fallen humanity to the righteous and holy God. It is the payment of our debt for sin. It is the culmination of Jesus’ entire mission. He reaches His goal on the cross where He suffers all hell and dies for our sake, because of our sins, in order to abolish sin, death, and the devil forever. That is, after all, why He came.

To accomplish this goal, Jesus had to be forsaken by the Father. That is the definition of hell, to be utterly forsaken by God. To be thus forsaken by God is the complete absence of anything good, of any blessing or comfort, of any relief. In this connection, Luther comments on Psalm 8:5 which he paraphrases in this way: “Thou wilt let Him be forsaken of God for a little while, but Thou wilt crown Him with honor and adornment.”[1] He writes:

"In this verse David describes how miserably Christ will be forsaken. No human
words can describe this as clearly, briefly, and simply as here. He is not speaking
of the physical suffering of Christ, which was also great and difficult, but of His
sublime, spiritual suffering, which He felt in His soul, a suffering that far surpasses
all physical suffering. He describes the highest degree of this suffering and says:
'Thou wilt let Him be forsaken of God for a little while.' What this is, no man on
earth understands, and no man can reach or express it in words. For to be forsaken
of God is far worse than death."

Again, the spiritual suffering of one forsaken by God is something that we cannot even begin to imagine. But by this suffering of God in the flesh, we are healed, and Jesus’ victory of salvation is won. Luther continues:

"This is what David talks about here, as though he wanted to say: 'Sin and death
are conquered, the enemy is destroyed, the kingdom of heaven is won. It
happened in this way, that the Lord, our Ruler, true Man and Son of Man,
travailed with body and soul in His tender humanity. He underwent such
need and anguish that He sweat blood and felt nothing so much as that He
was forsaken of God. In His soul He had to quench and extinguish the
temptation of being forsaken by God, the devil’s flaming darts (Eph. 6:16),
hellish fire, anguish, and everything that we have deserved by our sins.' By
this the kingdom of heaven, eternal life, and salvation were secured for us."

Now let us not be deceived about why it is so important for us to reflect on our Lord’s anguish. First of all, we have to understand that if God were fair, He would never have punished His Son in this way, for His Son is sinless. No, it was our punishment that Jesus suffered, in our place, for us who are sinners. If God were being fair, He would have punished us. But in His mercy, He sent His only Son to suffer what we deserved, that we might go free and enjoy everlasting life. Secondly, when we reflect on our Lord’s innocent sufferings and death, the Word of the Gospel drives us to faith in Him alone for salvation and all things needful. In the death of Jesus Christ we learn of our merciful God. And we learn of all the benefits of our Lord’s suffering and death: the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, eternal life and salvation, an inheritance which can never perish, spoil, or fade, and the blessed hope of the resurrection of the dead. On the cross the Lord Jesus takes all our sin and shame upon Himself, and in exchange, we get His righteousness, so that when God looks at us now He sees nothing but the perfection of His Son.

That is what it is that is finished when Jesus bows His head and gives up His spirit. Nothing less than the redemption of the world. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Luther’s comments on Psalm 8:5 from Luther’s Works, 55 vols., Jaroslav Pelikan, ed. (St. Louis: Concordia, 1955) 12:124-130.