Prophecies fulfilled, Good Friday

Sermon for Good Friday

Today is like no other day in history. On this one day, not quite 2,000 years ago, an innocent Man—the only truly innocent, sinless Man in history, a Man, who was also God our Creator—suffered, died, and was buried. That makes this day unique. But it’s unique also in another way. No other day in history has been described ahead of time with as much detail and with as much accuracy as Good Friday, as, one by one, the prophecies about the coming Christ were fulfilled in the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus. Let’s take a moment to consider just a few of them.

Isaiah 53:8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away, but he did not open his mouth. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, makes this verse’s meaning a little clearer: “In His humiliation, justice was removed from Him.” We saw that last night before the Sanhedrin. We saw it today before Pontius Pilate. No justice for Jesus, only humiliation and unjust condemnation. As Peter wrote, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. You and I were the unjust. But the Just One allowed Himself to be condemned so that sinners like Barabbas, sinners like you and I, could go free.

Meanwhile, we’re told about Judas’ remorse and his returning of the 30 pieces of silver, which he threw into the house of the Lord, and with which the priests then purchased the potter’s field. Zechariah 11: So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter. “That princely price they set on Me.” It’s all the life of Jesus was worth to Judas. It’s worth even less than that to many. How much is His life worth to you? What would your words and actions reveal? I’ll tell you. They would reveal that many things in this life have been worth more to you than Jesus, worth more to you than your God. So repent and, unlike Judas, turn to the Lord Jesus for forgiveness. And then mean the words of the last stanza of the hymn you just sang: Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a tribute far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Psalm 22: For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me. They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots. An incredibly vivid depiction of a crucifixion before crucifixion even existed. Even the soldiers’ dividing Jesus’ garments among themselves was prophesied 1,000 years before it happened as the Holy Spirit painted the picture for us through the words of the Prophet-King David. The cross was always in God’s view, and now He wants it always to be in view for us, too, that we may know the price of our redemption and the love of God who willingly paid that price for us.

Also Psalm 22: All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, “He  trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!” Even the mockery the Christ would receive at the foot of the cross was prophesied by King David. The sentiment of the religious leaders then is like the sentiment of so many still today. If you trust in God, nothing bad is supposed to happen to you. If God truly delights in you, then He will save you from all earthly harm, and from shame and disgrace. If He doesn’t, then He must not delight in you, or He must not be a good God, or He must not exist. But looks can be so deceiving. It often looks like God has abandoned His own. But in truth, Jesus was never so pleasing to His Father as when He bore the sins of the world and received the punishment for them. Doing the will of God often comes with great pain. But in the end, it will always be worth it.

Also Psalm 22: My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws…And they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. The final moments of the cross are depicted in the Psalm. He’s almost done, and He knows it. But He has to complete the picture drawn by the Holy Spirit through King David, so He asks for a drink, because He has a loud shout yet to make, declaring the great “It is finished!” that declares His atoning work complete. All the suffering needed to earn mankind’s salvation had been suffered. No further payment for sins can possibly be made.

Also Psalm 22: For He was cut off from the land of the living. The Scriptures prophesied ahead of time the death of the Christ. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone, and yet it surprised nearly everyone, except for old Simeon who held that same Jesus in his arms some 33 years earlier and warned Mary about this day: Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul, too. And so our Savior died, having fulfilled every last prophecy. But there were still prophecies to be fulfilled. Even though the soldiers had been ordered to break the legs of the three men being crucified to help them die faster, before the sun set, they came to Jesus and found Him already dead. So, not having the faintest idea they were fulfilling the Scriptures, they chose not to break His legs, but to pierce His side instead, fulfilling the words of Moses in Exodus 12: None of his bones shall be broken, making the connection between the Christ and the Passover Lamb; and also the words of Zechariah in chapter 12, They will look on the One whom they have pierced.

Then Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus acquired Jesus’ body, and Joseph, a rich man, laid Jesus in his own, newly hewn tomb, so that Isaiah’s prophecy could be fulfilled: And they made His grave with the wicked—but with the rich at His death.

The reason for it all, for all the suffering and for the death of the Christ, was also prophesied in Holy Scripture. Isaiah spelled in out for us in chapter 53: But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. The wounds we had earned for our transgressions were all endured by Jesus during those six hours He spent on the cross. The peace with God that He earned is now offered to us freely, through faith. The healing we all needed was earned for us by Jesus, who gave up His own health and comfort and offered His body to the stripes and scourges and blows that we deserved for our sins.

Now, through faith and Holy Baptism, you have been united with the death of Christ, buried with Him through Baptism into death, that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, you, too, should walk in a new life. And if a person has never been baptized and has never learned the great significance of this day, then now is the time, time to repent, time to trust, so that each and every one of you can say with the Apostle Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Yes, all of history was leading up to this Good Friday, as shown by the Old Testament prophecies. And now the Lord God has led you here to hear this Gospel again, the Gospel of Christ crucified, to call you again to repentance and faith in Him, and to assure you that, if the Father did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Jesus, graciously give us all the things we need, both for this life and for the next? Amen.