Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] God's peace be with you. Saint Paul Lutheran Church saints on your way to the Good Friday service. It's March 29, the year of our Lord 2024, the 1990 1st anniversary of the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus. Back on the first Good Friday. We just finished our traori service, by the way, when I'm recording this. And what a beautiful time to commemorate the suffering that our Lord Jesus did for us. It reminds us of the timing of the crucifixion, that Jesus three roman trials to Pilate, then to Herod, and then back to Pilate, all occurred very early on Friday morning. The crucifixion lasted from nine until three, and then from three until sundown. They hastily took his body and prepared it for burial. And quick Joseph of Arimathea's tomb was opened, and they put Jesus in there, and they marked the spot so they could come back after the Sabbath on Sunday and finish the work of burial. We'll have our classic Tenebrae service tonight.
[00:01:05] Tenebrae is a latin word for darkness. So the service is pretty dark. I mean, literally dark. The lights are dimmed, the altar is covered in black, the crosses are covered with the black veil, and we're thinking about the death of Jesus and all that he did for us. The three readings are profound.
[00:01:27] Every good Friday we hear from Isaiah 53. We start in the end of chapter 52 and then go on to chapter 53. I think this is what we'll preach on tonight. We meaning I. I suppose I'm going to preach on this text. I'm thinking about the hymns, too. But this text, I think, more than any other, outlines this biblical truth, which becomes our. Really the benchmark of our christian confession, is that Jesus is not just suffering the wrath of the Romans or the anger of the Jews or the jealousy of the Pharisees.
[00:02:08] He's not even simply suffering for us, although that's true for our sins. He was smitten and afflicted. But Jesus is suffering the wrath of God.
[00:02:20] We considered him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. That's the Isaiah 53 truth. It's so profound that Jesus endures the wrath of God for sinners, for us, the epistle text. And this is one of these liturgies where, again, like Maundy Thursday, we're straight into it. So we have the procession of the cross and the collect, and then, whoof.
[00:02:46] Right in the Old Testament colicked hymn, go to dark Gethsemane. What a hymn. Go to dark Gethsemane. Whoo.
[00:02:56] Hebrews four and five.
[00:02:58] We have a high priest who's able to sympathize with us in our suffering and the collect.
[00:03:04] And then we'll hear the passion from John. We heard the passion from Luke in the traery service. We heard the passion from mark the other day. Now we hear the passion from John, John 18 and 19. And it's this beautiful way of reading the passion on Good Friday that's interspersed with hymns along the way. So we read ten verses and then O sacred head, now wounded, and then another 20 verses, and we have another hymn stanza back and forth. So it's a slow, contemplative reading of the passion from John 18 and 19 with o sacred head interspersed there. We added back, by the way, if you're keeping track, you might have noticed that the new hymnal lost a couple of stanzas of o sacred head. They trimmed down.
[00:04:00] There's often less stanzas. There's, I think, only one hymn that I know of that got longer when it moved from TLH to LSB. That's Okama, Okama manual. All the other hymns got shorter. We though, are adding back hymns, so if you look real close, you'll see a different font for those hymn stanzas that are added.
[00:04:19] That's a hot tip for you who listen to the Drive to church podcast. You're like, hey, look at that. There it is. It's a different thing to note, too. While we're hearing the passion from John, we don't stand for the gospel lesson until the end. And there's a couple of things that happen in the end. It's when Jesus, right before the crucifixion, John. Between John 1922 and 23 that we pause and stand, and then we'll wait for a little bit and then hear the hymn.
[00:04:51] And then even when Jesus dies, then we'll pause and then continue with the reading.
[00:04:59] There's a moment of silence before the sermon. Even this captures this contemplative, reflective character of the Good Friday service.
[00:05:13] And then we have two very special things that happen. The first is that Tenebrae sequence, which is where the seven last words of Jesus are read and the candles are extinguished and the lights go out.
[00:05:32] And then after that we have the bidding prayer.
[00:05:35] We've moved things around so that as the lights go out, the congregation will be singing, and then the choir will be singing at the end. Because by the end, I remember last year, the lights were so dim that nobody could see to sing. So I think we've got that fixed in the order of things.
[00:05:50] So as we hear the seven last words and the lights are dimmed. And then we have the bidding prayer. It's an ancient prayer. It's a bidding prayer because a bid is a request for prayer. And so it's a three part prayer. It's interesting. So the idea of a bidding, if you see a bidding prayer, this is what it means, is that someone will announce the petition, and then someone else will pray the petition, and then the congregation will conclude the petition. So in our bidding prayer, we'll stand or kneel. This is, again, the bidding prayer, is this classic prayer. And it's to be prayed on the main service on Good Friday. This prayer is appointed for this time. And so someone, I can't remember whose assignment it will be, will announce the prayer. For example, the first bid is, let us pray for the whole christian church, that our Lord God would defend her against all the assaults and temptations of the adversary and keep her perpetually on the true foundation, Jesus Christ. And then, pastor. So I'll do the praying, then the prayer. Almighty and everlasting God, since you have revealed your glory to all nations in Jesus Christ and in the word of his truth keep, we ask you in safety the works of your mercy, so that your church spread throughout all the nations, may be defended against the adversary and may serve you in true faith and persevere in the confession of your name through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. And then the congregation joins in. Amen. So you see the structure there. For the bidding prayer. The prayer is announced, and then the prayer is prayed.
[00:07:28] It's a nice form for prayer.
[00:07:31] I don't know where this bidding prayer comes from, but it's old. I mean, it's really old. Finishes with the. Our father, with the adoration and the concluding collect. And then the Christ candles removed. And we all sing the Agnus Dei. The Christ candle returns, and then everyone leaves in silence. It's very stark. So the Agnes day is. It's nice that it's so dark that we all have that memorized. O Christ, thou lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us. So we sing that all together in the dark. And that's how the service.
[00:08:11] That's how the service concludes. So that's what's.
[00:08:14] That's what's waiting for you at church now maybe just to think about the seven last words a little bit, because these are. We've been thinking. We just had the Trehori service. Thinking about it. We'll have it again, the Tenebrae sequence tonight. Thinking about this. Here's a couple of things to note, just maybe some kind of facts. First to think about, we have seven words recorded from us from the four gospels, but they're not all in one GoSPel. They're from all different gospels. In fact, interestingly enough, there's only one word according to Matthew and Mark. If you read Matthew and Mark and said, what did Jesus preach on the Cross? It would just be one thing. And it's the same thing. It's the fourth word. What Matthew says is eli eli lama sabachthani.
[00:09:03] What Mark says, eloi eloi lama sabachthani. So there's an extra o in there, Eli in Matthew, eloi in Mark. And why the difference? Because Matthew is giving us the Hebrew. Mark is giving us the Aramaic. So it looks almost the same to us, but those two languages are slightly different. So in ArAmaic, eloi eloi lama sabachthani. In HeBrew, eli eli lama sabachthani. And probably Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek. And that was left.
[00:09:38] Mark is the gospel that gives us a handful of the aramaic sayings of Jesus. So, like Tabitha Combe and, oh, I can't remember the other ones where Jesus gives us the original Aramaic that Jesus spoke. That's Mark. He's the one that gives that to us. So both of those highlight this fourth word, which is the first phrase of psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And that is the question of tonight.
[00:10:05] It's an amazing thing that Jesus wonders why he's being forsaken by God.
[00:10:13] I mean, it seems like he knows beforehand it's necessary for the son of man to suffer, to die the third day, to rise again. For this reason, the son of God was manifest. He might destroy the works of the devil. So he knows why he's here.
[00:10:29] He knows he's going to take the place of sinners on the cross. So why does Jesus not know on the cross? Or was it just a pretend question? And that's how this is maybe just between us, that most theologians take this as just a kind of a picture, that Jesus really isn't asking a true question. He knows why he's before. Second, he's just kind of. He feels it in the agony. He kind of cries out. But I think we have to take it as a true question that Jesus doesn't. For those 3 hours of darkness, that Jesus doesn't know why he's suffering. He's so deep in his affliction that he knows that he didn't do anything wrong.
[00:11:13] And he knows God's wrath is being poured out on him.
[00:11:17] And he knows that God is merciful to people in the past and that this doesn't make any sense to him.
[00:11:24] Our fathers, if you read the whole psalm 22, it's there. Our fathers trusted. They trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you, and you heard their cry, but I'm a worm and not a man. This is the why. Ah, now we know. And this is the thing. While that knowledge is hidden from Jesus for those minutes of deep, deep agony, we know why he's suffering for our sin.
[00:11:47] And to imagine that if Jesus knew why he was suffering, there would be some relief for him.
[00:11:53] But so that his suffering would be complete, he even hides from himself the purpose of his suffering, that it's for us whom he loves and the length of his suffering that it's just for a while. All that's hidden, all he knows, is that he is enduring the wrath of God that he doesn't deserve.
[00:12:16] It's good to note on this word, too, that Jesus doesn't pray. My father, my father, why have you forsaken me? As if the atonement being accomplished was the suffering of the son from the Father.
[00:12:34] No, it's not as if only God the Father is angry at sin. God the Son and God the Holy Spirit equally share in holiness.
[00:12:46] And so the three persons of the Trinity, the entire godhead, is equally angry at sin.
[00:12:54] And so God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all three persons of the Holy Trinity, are pouring out their wrath on Christ. That means Jesus is suffering even his own wrath over sin.
[00:13:09] And we got to mark that distinction. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's an amazing thing.
[00:13:15] So that's the middle, fourth, and maybe the most important word. That's the holy of holies. It occurred to me when Pastor Leblanc was preaching that word today in darkness, that the holy of holies in the Old Testament would have been totally dark. And when the earth goes dark, the Lord is bringing us into the holy of holies, all those standing in front of the cross, that is the holy of holies.
[00:13:35] Now, the other six words, then, come from Luke and John. So we have three words from Luke and three words from John. So we'll hear those tonight from John. Cause we'll hear the gospel according to John. And so we have in John. Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. That's John himself, who receives Mary into his home and becomes her caretaker. That's the third word from the cross. And then John gives us also the fifth and 6th word. I thirst. It's finished.
[00:14:08] It's finished is the tetelestai. It's over.
[00:14:12] He's accomplished that affliction and forsakenness, that he's suffering is done.
[00:14:20] Jesus has accomplished it, and he knows he's accomplished it. So there's that cry of triumph. It's finished.
[00:14:27] Luke gives us, therefore, three words, and two of them are prayers. Luke gives us the first word and the last word of Jesus, both prayers to God the father. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.
[00:14:40] And Father, psalm 31. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
[00:14:46] And Luke gives us the second word also.
[00:14:49] Truly, truly, I say to you, today you'll be with me in paradise. To the malefactor, crucified to the side of Jesus.
[00:14:59] So Luke, Luke, John, Matthew, and Mark.
[00:15:03] John, John, Luke. That's the order. And that would be a good thing, just as a christian discipline, to memorize those seven words, because we consider, and we contemplate these words all the time, these last seven sacred sermons that Jesus preaches from the pulpit of his cross. And we rejoice in that.
[00:15:28] We'll rejoice in it tonight. Thanks. We'll see you soon. That's Friday. Drive to church. God's peace be with.
