Good Friday noon
March 21, 2008
The Rev. Charles Henrickson
The Big Why Question (Matthew 27:45-46)
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all
the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth
hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli,
Eli, lema sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? (Matt. 27:45-46)
Why? The question is as profound as it is short.
Why? Who, what, when, and where--those are usually
easy to answer. But why, that is the big question.
Thats the case today with our Gospel reading. Who?
Jesus of Nazareth, a Roman governor and soldiers, the
Jewish religious leaders. What? Jesus is beaten,
mocked, and crucified. When? On this day we call
Good Friday, close to 2000 years ago. Where? A place
called Golgotha, just outside Jerusalem. But then the
question, why, thats a little harder to answer.
Why did things happen as they did?
Why is a question that little children like to ask,
as every parent knows. Once, when our daughter Anna
was little, and I was up in the chancel reading the
account of the sufferings of Christ, I came to the
part where the soldiers are beating and mocking
Jesus--well, Anna must have been bothered by this,
because at that point she turned to her mother and
asked, Why, Mommy, why? Why what? Why did they
do that to Jesus?
Thats a good question, isnt it? Why did they do
that to Jesus? I suppose from the soldiers
perspective, we can understand the reason easily
enough. Rough, tough soldiers, with a prisoner in
their hands to do with as they wish--they can be
pretty brutal. Weve seen news stories about that
sort of thing. On that level, at least, we can
understand the why of the beatings.
But more than that, we need to ask the larger
question, why, of this entire episode--the arrest,
the trials, the beatings, the crucifixion. Why? Why
did this take place? Why was Jesus put to death?
Were reminded of Pilates question to the crowd,
Why, what evil has he done?
The answer to that question is, of course, none. He
did no evil. He committed no crime. He did nothing
to warrant such treatment and punishment. No, nothing
but righteousness and truth and goodness could be seen
in the life of Jesus.
So then, why? We can explain it, I suppose, in human
terms. The Jewish religious leaders were jealous of
all the attention Jesus was getting. They felt
threatened by Jesus, by his unmasking their hypocrisy,
by his stripping away their works-righteousness, and
by the threat that he posed to the corrupt religious
industry they had built up for themselves. Thats why
they were out to get him. That answers the why
question from the perspective of the Jewish religious
leaders.
Then how about Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor?
After all, he could see through the anger and the
jealousy of the Jews when they brought Jesus to him.
He could see that Jesus was no criminal. But at the
same time Pilate wanted to keep the peace. He wanted
to maintain order in his territory. The extreme
turmoil that this whole Jesus controversy was stirring
up--this needed to be settled down in a hurry before
it got out of control. The Jews were even suggesting
that if Pilate didnt put Jesus to death, they might
have to report him to Caesar: There was this rebel
king in our midst, and your guy Pilate didnt doing
anything about it. So finally Pilate washed his
hands of the mess and gave in to the demands of the
crowds. Jesus would be crucified.
Now we have the why question answered when it comes
to Pilate, the Jews, and the soldiers. But we still
have left unanswered the bigger why question. Why,
from Gods perspective? After all, this is Gods own
Son here! His dearly beloved Son, who came to do the
Fathers will. And he did it perfectly. So why did
God let this happen?
Make no mistake, it is God who is really in control of
these events. Not the soldiers, not the Jews, not
Pilate. But God. The unusual darkness is a signal
that God is in control. From the sixth hour there
was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
This was no natural eclipse. This was a sign in the
heavens. Darkness does not normally come at the sixth
hour of the day--at 12:00, high noon--right at the
zenith of the light of day. And the darkness lasted
for three hours, right until the time of Jesus death.
Deep darkness. The darkness of God, shutting the
heavens on this Jesus on the cross. It was like a
wall went up between God and Jesus.
Jesus cries out: Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? The
words are Aramaic, the language of that day. They
mean, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Words that were prophesied centuries earlier in Psalm
22. Words now spoken in their full meaning from the
lips of the one for whom they were written, the
ultimate righteous sufferer. My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Jesus himself is asking the
why question. Why? For what purpose? Why is this
happening? What purpose is being served?
God has forsaken Jesus. He has abandoned his own Son.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus
cries out in a loud voice, but it is not loud enough.
The heavens have turned to brass. Heaven turns a deaf
ear to this cry. God has turned away from Jesus, left
him alone on that cross for those hours of darkness.
Why? The answer to the why question is spelled out
explicitly for us all over Scripture. Isaiah 53 had
prophesied a suffering servant who would bear these
sufferings for our sake: Surely he has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him
stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was
wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our
iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought
us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we
like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every
one--to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all.
St. Paul spells it out for us in 2 Corinthians 5:21:
For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of
God. Jesus, who had no sin of his own, took on our
sin into himself, in such a way that he actually
became the living--and dying--embodiment of sin. It
was like all the sin in the whole world, for all time,
was gathered up and placed into his body. Jesus was
sin, the embodiment of sin, there on the cross, and
therefore God must turn away from him.
But look, that is actually good news for us! All your
sin has been taken away! Jesus has borne it for you.
He took it to himself and took it to the cross. There
the penalty has been paid, there the sentence has been
served. For you, by Jesus, in your place. Thats
why. Thats the purpose. So that in him we might
become the righteousness of God. In Christ we are
accounted righteous before God. Our sin is replaced
by his righteousness.
Paul puts it this way in Galatians 3:13: Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a
curse for us. The curse of death and separation from
God, Gods judgment against sinners--we were the ones
whom God should have forsaken, that is the curse we
deserve under the law. But Christ has freed us from
all that, by becoming the curse for us. He was it.
The curse. Sin, all of it. Jesus became it, there on
the cross. Now the curse and the sin and the death
and the judgment--these all have been taken away.
That is what is so good about Good Friday.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Thats
the big question, isnt it, the why question. The
answer is this: Jesus was forsaken so that we would
be forgiven. He was abandoned so that we would be
accepted. Jesus endured the darkness so that we would
receive the light of life. My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? The big why question has a big
wow answer!
Charles Henrickson
4749 Melissa Jo Ln
St. Louis, MO 63128
(314) 845-8811 (home)
(314) 779-8108 (cell)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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