Good Friday - Luke 23:26-49

Good Friday presents us with a scene

that is very familiar to Christians.

Uh you you're very welcome here if this

scene isn't familiar to you. Um but for

many of us it will be very familiar

rightly that the crucifixion and death

of Jesus is not only mentioned once a

year on this day in our churches.

The events of Easter are at the very

center of Christian belief.

We sing about the cross. We pray about

the cross.

Uh the New Testament, the portion of the

Bible that speaks of the life of Jesus

is followed by a series of letters and

sermons that unfold the meaning of the

cross.

That there are a number of different

churches meeting here today.

And yet we can say that we are one

church

is because we are all reconciled to God

in one body through the cross.

Now the cross has made peace.

The record of debt that stood against

us, our sin has been nailed to the

cross.

We are told that Jesus endured the cross

for the joy that was set before him.

familiar words,

familiar scenes.

Well, I propose to guide us through

these scenes that reading which guy

brought to us. So, if you have a Bible,

it will be helpful for you to have it

open in front of you. Uh the scriptures

will also appear on the screen as well.

But I propose to guide us through this

passage in a way that I found helpful in

my preparation.

Uh to walk through this part of the

Bible that's very well known to us in

the shoes of Simon ofSirene.

It's been my prayer that in so doing God

might by his holy spirit shield us from

merely walking through the motions of a

Good Friday service.

Well, Simon is mentioned in Matthew,

Mark, and Luke's accounts of Good

Friday.

We are told that he's a resident of

Sirene. Um, that's not the name of a

town or village. It's the name of a

region on the coast of the Mediterranean

Sea west of Egypt. And archaeological

finds in that region show that there was

a large Jewish population in this area.

And so it seems very likely that Simon

himself was a Jew

and that he was in Jerusalem at this

time to celebrate the Passover,

which is the backdrop for the events of

Easter.

And the only other information we get

about Simon is that he was the father of

Alexander and Rufus, a detail that we're

given here in Mark's gospel,

possibly because these men were well

known in the church. And so people could

go to them and ask of what had happened

to their father.

And so it seems likely that Simon, as

well as being a Jew, went on to become a

Christian. We can't know that for sure.

The Bible doesn't tell us that, but it

seems a fair inference for us to make.

I've said that the the Passover was the

backdrop to the events of Easter.

And for Simon, as a Jew, the story of

the Passover

would have been as familiar to him as

the story of Good Friday is to a

Christian.

After all, the Passover wasn't only

spoken about during the Passover

festival, but all through the year.

It's at the center and continues to be

at the center of the Jewish faith.

But of course, this Passover

is one that would forever change Simon

because of what he will bear on his

body, what he will hear with his ears,

and what he will see with his eyes.

Verse 26. And as they led him away, they

seized one Simon ofSirene, who was

coming in from the country, and laid on

him the cross

to carry it behind Jesus. We know from

John's gospel that Jesus initially

carried his own cross.

Um sometimes you see this depicted as

the the whole cross, the whole

structure, both the vertical and the

horizontal. Actually, it's likely it was

only the horizontal beam

uh which would be carried by those who

were crucified to their place of

execution.

Jesus was too weak from the tortures

he's already undergone at the hands of

the Romans and that while he carried it

at first, someone else must carry it for

him.

And the executioners

uh would not carry it.

The cross was a symbol of great shame.

And so they seize Simon.

They force it upon him. Imagine that.

to be forced to be a part of this grim

parade.

Part of the humiliation of crucifixion

was to make the condemned carry the wood

on which they would slowly die.

And Simon is given a terrible flavor of

what that would be like

to be condemned to death in this way.

Physically, Simon is bearing a shameful

weight for Jesus.

Verse 26 and 27. And as they led him

away, they seized one Simon ofSirene who

was coming in from the country and laid

on him the cross to carry it behind

Jesus. And there followed him a great

multitude of the people and of women who

were mourning and lamenting for him.

Simon follows Jesus.

Behind Simon is this mourning crowd.

And so Simon would have heard exactly

the words that Jesus then goes to speak

to this crowd.

Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for

me,

but weep for yourselves and for your

children.

For behold, the days are coming when

they will say, "Blessed are the barren,

and the wombs that never bore, and the

breasts that never nursed."

Then they will begin to say to the

mountains, "Fall on us."

And to the hills, "Cover us."

They are mourning for him. Jesus turns

and tells them that they should be

mourning for themselves.

In the week leading up to Good Friday,

Jesus has been teaching

of the consequences of rejecting God's

promised one, himself, the Christ, the

one who will come to save them.

Rejecting him will come at a great cost.

Now Jesus has spoken about the

destruction of the temple,

the destruction of Jerusalem.

Because Jerusalem has rejected Jesus,

it will face judgment. Terrible days

will come upon Jerusalem and its

inhabitants. Those without children will

be considered blessed

because they will not have to watch them

suffer in what is to come.

The rejection of Jesus has serious

consequences and the city of Jerusalem

was destroyed.

In AD.70,

the scenes were brutal and barbaric from

what historical records we have as the

Romans came and they destroyed the city.

But when Jesus has been speaking of the

destruction of the temple and the

judgment that's going to come on the

city, it's clear that he's talking about

something more as well.

The destruction of Jerusalem is a

picture of the awful judgment that is

going to come on anyone and everyone who

rejects Jesus and his offer of

forgiveness.

Our people would rather be crushed under

the mountains and the hills than face

the justice of God.

Verse 31.

For if they do these things when the

wood is green, what will happen when it

is dry?

This seems to be a Jewish idiom that

Jesus is using. If a good man is the

green tree and the wicked man is the

dead tree,

then while Jesus

might suffer like he is,

who can be ready for the destruction of

those who are truly wicked? It's

doubtful that a green tree will burn,

but if it does,

a dry one certainly will.

And remember, Simon has traveled a long

way to come to the city of Jerusalem to

celebrate the Passover. He's made a

special journey to come to the city

where the temple of God is. And now he

hears walking behind Jesus the weight of

the cross upon him. He hears that this

city to which he's come, this city which

is the center of the Jewish religion is

going to be destroyed.

Now what does he hear but of the danger

of rejecting Jesus?

Consider also what Simon sees. Verse 32.

Two others who were criminals were led

away to be put to death with him.

And when they came to the place that is

called the skull, there crucified him.

And the criminals, one on his right and

one on his left.

Jesus is being executed along with two

criminals.

The cross beam that Simon has carried is

used to crucify him.

Simon sees Jesus look very much like a

guilty man because he's killed with a

criminal.

One on his right and one on his left.

That Jesus has done nothing wrong. Yet

he's nailed to this cross beam and

hoisted up onto the vertical beam and

left exposed there to the world.

And the position he's in makes breathing

physically very difficult.

Um, medical doctors

think that it is this that will

ultimately kill someone who is

crucified, a slow and painful

suffocation,

if not the wounds that have been

inflicted on them before the

crucifixion.

If breathing is hard, speaking would be

agony.

The first thing that Luke records Jesus

saying on the cross

and Jesus said, "Father, forgive them

for they know not what they do."

There is no entitlement about Jesus.

He doesn't ask for these people who have

nailed him there unjustly to get their

just desserts. He pleads for them

in words that would have been agonizing

to speak that they might be forgiven.

Well, there are no such gracious words

from many of those who gather to see him

die. Verse 35. And the people stood by

watching, but the rulers scoffed at him,

saying, He saved others. Let him save

himself if he is the Christ of God, his

chosen one. The soldiers also mocked

him, coming up and offering him sour

wine and saying, "If you are the king of

the Jews, save yourself."

There was also an inscription over him.

This is the King of the Jews.

The religious leaders who ought to have

been nowhere near a sight of death

during a sacred festival like the

Passover

come there to mock Jesus for his

spiritual claim to be the Christ to be

the promised savior.

The soldiers mock Jesus for the

political claim that he is the king of

the Jews.

And these are some of the biggest points

of offense that people take with the

Christian message.

The idea that you need to be forgiven

and so need a savior. You need the

Christ.

And the idea that you need to be

forgiven because despite the way that we

live them, our lives are not our own.

We need our king.

Neither are there gracious words from

one of the criminals who's crucified

next to him. Verse 39,

one of the criminals who was uh who were

hanged railed at him,

saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save

yourself and us."

Notice that all three of these groups,

the religious leaders, the soldiers, and

this criminal, all insist that Jesus

save himself to prove who he is.

It's an idea that even infects the

disciples.

As we see later on in Luke's gospel on

the road to Emmas, they believe that

Jesus dying somehow invalidates who he

claimed to be.

How truly Paul writes when he says this

in first Corinthians, "For the word of

the cross is folly

to those who are perishing, but to us

who are being saved, it is the power of

God."

What happens with the other criminal

illustrates this point of why Jesus had

to die. Far from invalidating who he is,

it shows us why.

But the other rebuked him. That is the

other criminal. Rebuked the other

criminal who was railing at Jesus,

saying, "Do you not fear God since you

are under the same sentence of

condemnation,

and we indeed justly, for we are

receiving the due reward of our deeds,

but this man has done nothing wrong."

And he said, "Jesus, remember me when

you come into your kingdom." And he said

to him, "Truly I say to you, today you

will be with me in paradise." The

criminal knows he is guilty.

He knows he is dying justly.

He knows that Jesus is innocent.

And yet

Jesus is dying justly.

For Jesus is only able to promise that

criminal that today he will be with him

in paradise.

In other words, saying the moment you

die, you will go to heaven.

And that's not because the criminal was

paying for his own sin on the cross and

therefore he was leaving himself ready

for heaven.

If that was true, the other criminal

would be forgiven too.

If all it took was a cross for someone

to be forgiven of their sin, both

criminals would have received that

assurance.

They suffer as Jesus was suffering.

But it is far more than just the

physical agony of crucifixion that Jesus

endures.

Jesus is going to suffer and die. He's

not going to save himself, although he

could, in order to save others.

The physical agony of the cross is

unimaginable.

But that's not the whole of what the

cross of Christ is about.

Jesus is able to forgive not because he

merely faced physical pain. As if one

can say merely.

Verse 44. It was now about the sixth

hour and there was darkness over the

whole land until the 9inth hour while

the sun's light failed. Now remember we

said the Passover is the significant

background context for the events of

Easter.

And the events of the Passover were very

well known as well known to the Jewish

people as the events of Good Friday are

to a Christian. The Passover celebrates

how God finally liberated his people,

the Israelites, from slavery in Egypt.

There were a number of signs and 10

plagues that were inflicted on Egypt

before Pharaoh would let God's people

leave. And the Jews of Jerusalem

would have known them all very well.

The plagues of frogs and flies and boils

and hail and disease

and darkness

We don't know if Simon lingered at the

sight of the cross to see what happened.

But had he done,

he, as a Jewish man, would have been in

no doubt as to what this darkness meant.

It was not an eclipse

or a dust storm,

but a supernatural darkness

in the middle of the day representing

the judgment of God.

of all Simon had felt in his body, all

he'd heard and seen,

and now the difficulty of seeing as the

darkness closes in.

It would have spoken clearly to him. God

is judging.

The cross of Christ is not merely the

physical agony.

Again, as though we could put it like

that, for the agony would have been

great. that God was pouring out his

judgment upon Jesus.

Jesus saves others by being condemned

for their sin in their place.

This is the perfect justice of God. God

in his great love punishes what must be

punished.

And the judgment of hell

is even an expression of the love of

God.

For what kind of love would it be that

just ignores what is wrong? That allows

injustice. It would be no kind of love

at all.

Oh, but rather than punishing the ones

who committed the sins for those who put

their faith in him, Jesus is punished in

their place. The darkness speaks of the

judgment of God.

What did that criminal have to do in

order to be forgiven?

He simply put his faith in Jesus words

because there was no opportunity for him

to do anything else.

No time for developing a good habit of

quiet times

or evangelism.

He had simply to put his faith in Jesus

and he received the assurance of eternal

life. It is the same for us.

It's the only way we can be saved.

Put not your Bible reading

and praying and attempts to share the

gospel

in the place of Christ.

It is all what he has done. Verse 45,

the second half. And the curtain of the

temple was torn in two.

Then Jesus calling out with a loud voice

said, "Father, into your hands I commit

my spirit."

And having said this, he breathed his

last. Jesus dies.

The temple curtain is torn. And again,

this will be familiar to those of us who

have grown up in churches or have been

Christians for a while. If this is new

to you, what a wonderful thing it is

that I can explain this to you. Now, the

curtain was there in the temple.

It separated off the place where only

one priest could go once a year to make

atonement, to make a sacrifice for the

sins of the people. It was a profound

separation from God because God is holy

and we are not.

The curtain is torn

because through Jesus there is no

separation anymore.

There need not be. We can have a living

relationship with God because Jesus has

paid for our sins. That curtain was not

needed.

And it isn't just so that we can enter

in. The curtain is torn and now I can

enter into the presence of God.

The curtain is torn

that God might come out and be among us

and dwell with us.

We did not go after him.

He came for us to love us with an

everlasting love.

Verse 47. Now when the centurion saw

what had taken place, he praised God,

saying, "Certainly this man was

innocent."

And all the crowds that had had

assembled for this spectacle, when they

saw what had taken place, returned home

beating their breasts.

And all his acquaintances and the women

who had followed him from Galilee stood

at a distance watching these things.

The story of the Exodus, the Passover,

ends with God's people being liberated

and celebrating as they march out of

Egypt.

And Jesus has paid for sins.

But it's clear that the story is not

complete yet.

The centurion proa proclaims Jesus

innocence. The crowd leaves in mourning.

Jesus's followers watch from a distance

as they see that his body no longer

moves.

It's the incomplete story. If we stop

there,

Easter Sunday when Jesus is raised makes

it absolutely clear that Jesus was

totally successful in paying for sins.

Nothing left to pay for.

But this moment, how it must have felt.

And Jesus had died. The crowds leaving,

the centurion wondering.

Wow.

It took time for them to realize, as you

see, as you go on through Luke's gospel,

what had really been achieved.

For many of us, this is a familiar

story. But let not our familiarity keep

us from thanksgiving.

Um after our next hymn, those of us who

are Christians are going to share in

communion together by bread remembering

Jesus body

and by wine his blood that he has paid

for our sins.

Communion is a prompt to us to confess

sin that we've not yet confessed. It's

one of the things, one of the reasons

why it is so helpful to celebrate

communion regularly

to ensure that there's no guilt for sin

that's going to hold us back from God.

Now, let me be clear here. It's not that

if we fail to confess a sin, that means

we're not forgiven of that sin. If you

have confessed your sins and you are a

Christian, your sins, past, present, and

future are forgiven. The reason why

continual repentance is important for

the believer is not because if you fail

to repent, then you're going to end up

in hell. If you die before you can

confess. The reason why it's important

is because the guilt of sin, we still

feel it. It lays upon us. And our

feeling of that guilt keeps us from God.

Not legally as it were. We have access

to God,

but it makes us hesitate

and pause.

It causes us to not enjoy the

relationship with him that he invites us

into.

So we confess our sins

that we might fully enjoy the

relationship of the God who has come

through the curtain.

This simple meal says you are fully

forgiven

of all of your sin. Your public sin,

your secret sin, your besetting sins,

your occasional sins, every kind of sin

can be paid for.

Have you confessed the ways in which

you, like the soldiers, mock Jesus as

king of the Jews?

Because Jesus is king of your life.

He's king of my life.

And I mock him when I live otherwise.

When I make my life about me

and not about him, I'm joining in with

those soldiers.

Ah, but we can confess that sin and he

has forgiven and he will forgive and he

would restore our relationship with him

if it's become muddled or confused.

Confess your attempts to save yourself.

We feel better about ourselves before

God when we've kept up in Bible reading

and prayer.

And that's because we're enjoying the

means of grace that he gives us. that

sometimes we can start to rely on those

things rather than resting in the

promise of Jesus' death and resurrection

to save us.

Certainly

Jesus was innocent,

but he paid for the sins of the guilty

like me.

Hallelujah.

Praise the Lord.

Let's pray once again before we sing.

Our gracious God and loving heavenly

father, familiar scenes,

but Father,

help us to see them aresh.

For those of us who have been Christians

for a long time, we've taken bread and

drunk wine many times before,

and it is oh so easy to just go through

the motions.

We pray, Father God, that by your Holy

Spirit, you would awaken us to what is

true here.

And Lord, for for those of us who are

Christians

and yet have been wandering from you,

not been confessing our sin to you, who

are feeling distant from you.

Lord, lead us in confession.

Lead us to the cross.

And we ask that we would enjoy again the

fullness of what it is to be a child of

God. Someone saved and washed by the

blood of Jesus.

Lord, we would pray for anyone here who

is not yet trusting in you

and ask Lord God that you do what only

you can do. The message of the cross is

folly to those who are perishing but to

us who have been saved. It is life.

Lord, open their eyes

that the news, the good news of a savior

hung on a cross might not be folly to

them any longer,

but might be their joy.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.