Good Friday | Matt Ostercamp

3 movements tonight, a prologue, and then we journey to the cross

followed by an epilogue. Would you pray with me on this

solemn day? Holy God, we come and we reflect

on the cost of our salvation. We reflect on the love of our

Savior who came and died for us. Pray that He would come in His

grace and truth into this building, into this

congregation. Teach us tonight, Lord, May the

words I speak be edifying to your church.

May they be glorifying to your name.

We pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy

Spirit. Amen.

Prologue. In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God, and all things were made

through Him. Without Him was not anything

made that has been made. In Him was life, and this life

was the light of men. The light shines in the

darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming

into the world. He was in the world and the

world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.

With these words, John the Evangelist opens his gospel.

And tonight we come to the climax of the story.

Light meets darkness. Will it be overcome?

And this story matters because the pain and the tears of the

world matter. A holy God cannot just sit there

and hand wave it away. Just pretend like it didn't

happen. He can't excuse it.

Well, what do you expect? You know, it's probably the

best. It's not.

It's not OK. It's not OK.

And I think many of us, we've cried some of those tears.

We felt that pain in our heart. We long.

We long for resolution. We long for justice.

And as we come to the cross tonight, there's validation.

Something needs to happen. This world is not all right the

way it is. There needs to be a response.

We have a Savior, Emmanuel, God, who is with us here in the

darkness, who can walk with us, who can relate to us, who we

pray can heal us with the light of the cross.

It doesn't just validate our longings for justice in the

world, it also convicts. You see, when the light shines,

we learn how comfortable we've become in the darkness.

Our actions and our desires add to the darkness.

How we are complicit in the darkness.

How we don't just endure the darkness, but we add to the

darkness. So we journey to the cross both

as sinners and as victims of sin equally, longing for the light

and fearing the light. The good news start with the

good news on this Good Friday. The good news is that God does

not love us because Christ died for us.

Christ died for us because God loves us.

I invite you to bring your pain and your shame to the cross

defined in the Crucified One, the life that was, the life that

is the light of the world, the light that continues to shine in

the darkness, even this darkness.

And the darkness has still not overcome it.

Let's go to the cross, Peter. Peter again denied it, and at

once a rooster crowed. John 1827, I think this is a

universal memory. Can you remember as a young

person being at the end of a school day or at the end of

practice or maybe a youth group? And you're waiting for the ride,

right? You're with all your friends and

one by one, each of their parents shows up or their older

brothers sister, and they all depart and you're the last one,

You're the last one left. And you start to panic a little

bit and you start to wonder. And this was a bigger deal

before cell phones, believe me. Like, are they going to come?

Have they forgotten? What if I'm left?

What if, what if, what if? Well, we can say a lot about the

Apostle Peter. He's quite an interesting guy.

There's a lot about him. But one of the things you can

say about him is that he was a really good friend to Jesus.

The two of them, they've been through a lot together.

They'd walked on water together. Peter was the only one who got

out of the boat. They had fed the crowds physical

food. They'd fed the crowds spiritual

food. They'd been in confrontations

with the with the priests and the Pharisees, and they talked

to each other as friends, right? They could be direct.

Christ could say, Peter, get behind me, Satan and Peter could

say to Christ, like, you're not going to wash me.

They had a rapport. And now here we are.

It's Thursday night. We're in the garden.

All of human history comes down to these next 72 hours.

This is the hinge, the conflict between good and evil.

It's all right here. And Jesus, fully God, but fully

man. He needs his friend.

He needs his friend to show up. I need you, Peter.

I need you to stand visual with me.

I need you to be there in the garden for me.

Peter doesn't show up. Maybe he doesn't understand.

He doesn't get what this is all about.

Maybe he does understand. Maybe it's all overwhelming.

He doesn't know what to do, and caught in his own inadequacy, he

just falls asleep and bails. And then the crisis comes.

The enemy, the Evil 1, having entered Judas, appears, and

Jesus and the enemy are staring face to face in the dark of the

garden with the torches and the guards.

And Peter comes too. He's completely panics.

He just loses it, goes out on his own, goes rogue, starts

swinging his sword. Jesus has you, Peter.

Peter, put that away. Follow my lead, Peter.

Read the room. Peter, show up for me.

Peter, I need you. You see, in this moment when

Christ had literally been sweating drops of blood, he has

to stop and he has to clean up Peter's mess, take time to like

get that stuff straight. And Peter, he disappears into

fear and shame. He spirals, he denies, he

denies, he denies. Have you ever needed somebody to

show up? Friend, family member, you were

going through something. It's so much more important than

a ride. This was a dark moment, a

crisis, and you needed your friend to be there.

You needed somebody to tell you it was going to be OK.

You just needed a hug. You just needed somebody to grab

your hand, to shake your grab. You by the shoulder, say I'm

here with you, I see you, I'm proud of you.

And they didn't show up. They weren't there.

Maybe like Peter, they promised and promised that they would be

there. And here's is the moment when

you just need them and they're gone.

They bail. Or they do show up and they

panic and they just say something really inappropriate.

They try to make it about themselves.

Oh, it's so much worse when I and it's not helpful.

I need you to see me. I need you to be here for me.

This is darkness, my friends. This is the way of the enemy.

Leaving us all alone, abandoning us, betraying us.

Christ went to the cross for the sins of the world.

So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers

of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him.

But what if it was us? What if it was you?

What if it was me? What if we were the ones that

bailed? I was our friend.

We didn't. I didn't know it was so serious.

I knew it was kind of rough, but I didn't know it was that bad.

I would have taken time. I should have asked them a

question. I was trying to help and I said

it was dumb. I shouldn't have said that.

I could see their hurt on their face as soon as I said it.

Now it's awkward. I mean, how do you apologize for

that? I don't know.

We don't really see them anymore.

We weren't there. They were counting on us.

Like Peter. We didn't show up.

We left them hurt. I suspect we can all relate to

this interpersonal pain at some point.

We've experienced the pain of broken trust.

And if we're honest, we've not only received or been on the

receiving end of having our trust broken, we failed to live

up to what somebody expected of us.

Jesus light. It is not overcome by this

darkness. Well, we were yet sinners, the

one who will never leave us or forsake us.

He continued on to the cross for us.

The faithless priest. The chief priest answered we

have no king but Caesar. We don't know a lot about Jesus.

As a young person, one of my friends would say Jesus is a

Shorty, But the one scene we get in the Gospel of Luke is Jesus

in the temple, Jesus in the temple with all of the

professional priests and elders. And they're whole, you know,

they're talking shop and they're, they're going over the

Scriptures and Jesus is just eating this up.

I imagine this being like when the principal cellist comes to

the Youth Orchestra and he's playing with them or she's

playing with them or here at basketball camp and there's a

pro player there. This guy's in the NBA and he's

going to play basketball with me.

I mean, there's a little bit of mystery here because it is

Jesus, but I just imagine his humanness, how excited he was to

be around these men. He looked up to them.

These were heroes to him and he got to talk about the things of

God with these men in the temple.

And we could imagine a world where these men became pastors

to him and the Holy Family. They nurtured him in the faith

and his he started to reveal himself.

They celebrated his wisdom and insight.

They went from being his shepherd to being his followers,

and they championed him. But we know that's not the

story, is it? Sort of seeing him as one of

their sheep to be encouraged. They saw him as a threat, as a

problem. They branded him evil, they

warned people against him, they tried to trick him, they tried

to trap him, they tried to embarrass him, and now they're

trying to destroy him. But not only are they against

him personally, these words I just read, these words haunt me

every Good Friday when we say them, the chief priest answered.

We have no king but Caesar. And I wonder, what did it cost

these men to say those words? What did it cost you say?

They had been the ones who had taught Jesus and countless other

youth about how Moses had stood up to Pharaoh and all the gods

of Egypt and he had spoken truth to them and he had got the

people out of Egypt with acts of power.

How Daniel had stood up to Darius.

When Darius said you can worship nobody else, you must pray to

me. Daniel refused to pray to Darius

and God vindicated Daniel. How Esther for such a time as

this? How Esther liberated or

preserved the Jewish people from genocide by breaking the norms

of Xerxes court, by coming to him, by demanding an audience

with him? See, they knew that Yahweh is

the king of kings, he's the Lord of Lords.

Yet here, push has come to shove.

It's their time with a Pagan tyrant, and they sell out.

They give the game away. We have no king but Caesar, like

all the other conquered people, you know, to keep their

position, to keep the peace, to solve the problem, to get rid of

Jesus. They're willing to go against

the core teaching of their faith.

And I know some of you, some of us have had spiritual leaders in

our lives, men and women, and we've looked up to them and

they've shown us the way ways of God.

We've experienced great beauty in their presence and love.

And we've experienced, we've heard the words of life.

And then as we've gotten older and we've watched and we've

learned that maybe they were living a double life.

There's a whole nother side of them.

Or maybe they, like the priests, sell out, maybe for an

extramarital affair, and they walk away, maybe for money,

maybe for political power or position.

They give it all up and we're left kind of trying to put

together like, what's real and what's not?

Like, what do I do with my faith?

I looked up to these people. I believed in what they were

telling me. And now, now I don't know.

You feel the pain of betrayal. This is darkness.

This is the way of the enemy. Christ goes to the cross for the

sins of the world. When he had said these things,

one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand,

saying, Is that how you answer the high priest?

But maybe it was us. Maybe people look to us.

They knew we were Christians. You were Jesus follower.

You're one of those religious people.

What are you going to do? Are you going to turn the other

cheek? Are you going to follow the ways

of love and mercy? Are you going to stand up

against the vileness of this world and call it out for what

it is? Vileness.

And what if we just shrink back into the crowd and choose our

reputation? It's going to be awkward if I

say anything. This isn't really the place

those people watch us. And I thought you were

different. I thought this mattered to you.

I thought God was your hope and your salvation.

Instead, we choose our reputation.

We choose our pocketbook. We choose our career.

We have no king but our reputation or our job.

We choose smaller goals. We choose the easier path.

And we sell out Jesus light. It's not overcome by this

darkness. And while we were yet sinners,

the pure Lamb of God continues on to the cross for us.

Pilate. From then on, Pilate sought to

release him, but the Jews cried out.

Do you remember when, like, justice became a real thing to

you and you like, kind of got it?

Like maybe you were in a classroom and you saw somebody

get blamed for something and and you knew because you were in the

back row, like you knew they didn't do it.

You know, like, that's not right.

They shouldn't be blamed for that.

It was it was this other kid. Or maybe your mom came home and

she shared the news that, like, Kyle at work got the promotion

and she didn't get it. And you saw her tears and you

knew how hard she worked and how much she did for that company.

And you were heartbroken. And you said to yourself, if I'm

ever in charge, if I'm ever a boss, I'm going to be one of the

good guys. I'm going to stand up for the

people who deserve to be rewarded.

I'm not going to blame the innocent people.

We don't know a lot about Pilot. I know one thing.

You probably saw a lot of corruption growing up in Rome.

My guess is that at some point, as an idealistic teenager, he

had this thought. Maybe this is even as he was

getting into politics. I'm going to do it differently.

I'm going to do it right. I'm not going to be like all of

those other people who are only in it for themselves.

I'm going to care about justice. But here it is.

There's an innocent man. Crowds want him dead.

They're all crying for his death.

Pilot knows he's innocent. You can tell he's squirming.

He's trying to figure a way out. He has that 15 year old inside

of him saying you're going to be different, right?

You're not going to be like all the rest.

But you see, The thing is, the stakes are real for Pilot.

His patron back in Rome has just been executed by Tiberius.

He's kind of on the outs of the emperor.

Like he screws this up. It's going to be his job, It

could be his life. And it's just one man.

And he's not even. It's a different race.

It's a different religion. Like he doesn't know about this.

Where Jesus needs a leader, he gets a coward.

Pilot advocates his responsibility.

Like let the crowds decide. Like how about A or B?

Whatever you choose, I'm not going to be the leader.

I'm going to bail here. I see you're innocent, but I'm

not going to call it. I'm going to let the crowds have

their way. It's so much easier.

Just let this one guy die. You know, some of you have had

to suffer because God put somebody in charge and they gave

them a responsibility to promote and protect the innocent, to

punish the guilty, to work for justice and human flourishing.

They were called to be a leader and they were a coward.

They chose to enrich themselves. They chose to protect their

friends. They chose to ignore the people

they saw as weak, as unimportant, and you had to

suffer because of those choices, because they didn't do their

duty. This is darkness, my friends.

This is the way of the enemy. Christ goes to the cross for the

sins of the world. Maybe you think like I'm.

I'm not a governor. I'm not an American governor.

So I'm, I'm good here. You know, we all, we have

responsibility for the dignity of our neighbor to promote the

common good. We all have opportunities to

choose to be on the side of justice.

Aren't you? Just let it slide, just this one

time. I'm not going to do the work.

I'm not going to ask the question.

And praise God, we get it right sometimes.

And sometimes we do stand up and we do let our voices be heard,

but sometimes we choose ridicule and anger.

We forget the dignity of those people who are on the other

side. We allow ourselves to choose

self-interest over the common good, to cheer for our team and

our side, to look past the, you know, the kind of queasy things

our team does. And we're just excited to see

them advance, or disappointed to see them not advance our

selfishness, loving ourselves and not loving our neighbors.

Jesus light is not overcome by this darkness.

And while we were yet sinners, the Good Shepherd continues to

the cross for us. Then Pilate took Jesus and

flogged him and the soldiers, they twisted together a crown of

thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in purple robe.

They came up to him saying Hail King of the Jews, and they

struck him with their hands. And those cowards and those

sellouts and all those people who failed to show up, they took

Jesus. And there they crucified him,

and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between

them. But also, but also for all those

who fail to show up, for all those who sell out, for all the

cowards. Jesus went out bearing his cross

to the place called the place of a skull, which an Aramaic is

called Golgotha. And there they crucified him,

and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between

them. When Jesus had received the sour

wine, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave

up his spirit. Epilogue Later in the Gospel of

John we read these words. Then John said to Peter, it is

the Lord. And as soon as Simon Peter heard

him say, it is the Lord, he wrapped his outer garment around

him and jumped into the water. Peter would write these words.

He himself, Jesus himself, bore our sins and His body on the

tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his

wounds. You have been healed on the

other side of the cross. Peter found a restored

relationship with Jesus. Peter found healing on the other

side of the cross. We're going to be able to come

to the cross tonight and I ask you, come and ask for healing.

We've all been scarred by the darkness and the sin of this

world. We all need Christ to heal us.

You can find that healing at the cross.

Peter found that healing at the cross.

He didn't stay in shame. He didn't stay in failure.

Come and ask God to adopt you into His Holy Family.

Find a brother in Christ when he was the way, the truth, and the

life. In the Acts of the Apostles.

We read these words and the Lord continued to increase, and the

word of God continued to increase, and the number of

disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many

priests became obedient to the faith.

Saul the Pharisee would testify for our sake.

He made him Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we

might become the righteousness of God.

On the other side of the cross, there's a place for all of those

priests. So it's just months later,

priests are coming to be saved. There's room for the Pharisees

on the other side of the cross. They can be part of the

community. In fact, God goes out of his way

to find Saul and say, Saul, I want you to be included in this.

I want you to don't, don't miss this, join the team.

Saul, who we also know is the apostle Paul, after his

conversion, he would write these words, We bring our sin to the

cross and we receive the righteousness of God.

Even if we've sold out, we can bring that to the cross.

We get the righteous. What an amazing verse.

What an amazing exchange. Come tonight, bring your sins to

the cross. Let Christ make you new.

Deceive the righteousness of God.

A new start, a fresh start. If those priests could get a

fresh start, you can get a fresh start further in the book of

Acts we read. Then the pro council believed

when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the

teaching of the Lord. The author of Hebrews would

testify in Hebrews Chapter 11, that great chapter of faith.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

But as it is, they, the the faithful men and women and the

faithful pro councils desire a better country, that is a

heavenly 1 Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God,

for he has prepared for them a city.

There's good news at the cross even for high Roman officials.

Now in this passage it's not Pontius Pilate, it's a man named

Sergius Paulus. Sergius had a similar or even

higher rank than Pilate had. When he responds to the Gospel,

he finds in the teaching of the Lord a calling higher, more

urgent than serving the Roman Empire, an empire that would

outlast the Roman Empire. If you're looking for purpose

tonight, if you need to have your hope renewed, you're

looking for something to believe in.

Come to the cross of Christ, ask him to give you purpose.

If denying disciples, if Pharisees and faithless priests,

if Roman governors can find healing, they can find

forgiveness, and they can find purpose at the cross of Christ,

and so can you. So can I.

Come, John, have the final words here.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming

into the world. He was in the world, and the

world was made through Him. Yet the world did not know Him.

He came to his own, and His own people did not receive Him, but

to all who did receive Him, who believe in His name, He gave the

right to become the children of God, the name of the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.