Good Friday 2025 Sermon

I will send my angel going before you to prepare the way for you.

" But the words are

a voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way.

And who is the one the way is being prepared for? When Isaiah chapter 40 verse 3, the unmistakable referent is God himself. Prepare the way for who? God! Mark 1.1? Who's the way for? Jesus Christ, our Lord, the Lord. As one New Testament scholar wrote,

The only question is whether we are meant to draw the obvious inference that what Mark is telling us is Jesus is, in fact, to be identified with the kurios of the Old Testament, the Lord, Yehovah, of whom Isaiah was speaking.

And the answer, by the way, is yes. And that sets the tone for everything Mark is going to give us in his book. That's the first one. Here's the second. But as I say, these are everywhere. Mark chapter 11. Mark 11 is the rather weird story of Jesus looking for figs on a fig tree and there are none. And so he curses the tree and the tree dies. It's a great Palm Sunday text. a great triumphal Sunday, triumphal entry text, but we are not at Palm Sunday. We're at Good Friday, so I won't do it in detail tonight. The reason why I bring it up is this. Amid everything else going on in that passage and the things we work through in interpreting it, you know there is an allusion to another Old Testament passage in Mark chapter 11 and the story of the fig tree? In Jeremiah 7 and 8, Jeremiah 7 and 8 is a passage describing judgment on sin. And Israel's unfaithfulness there is described in terms of there being no harvest when there should have been. No fruit when one would have expected fruit. And you know what God says? Jeremiah 8, 13.

When I would gather them, declares the Lord, When I would gather them, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree. Even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them.

No figs on the fig tree. When I would gather them, declares the Holy One of Israel. And here comes Jesus, and there are no figs on the fig tree. as the religious establishment of his people is rejecting him and being unfaithful to him. It's not just a story. It's not just a random side fact, by the way. No figs on the fig tree is meant to show us, if we know the Old Testament, this is God in the person of Jesus Christ. And on every page of the Gospels, it's the same thing. This is the message. over and over. This man is God in Christ. God has come. And so why did he come? Why did God put on human form? With everything that we've been singing already tonight and more, why did God, why would Yahweh of the Old Testament take on human nature? The answer is to reveal himself to us in a form we could see, The answer is to live life in front of us, the life we were meant to know and the life we were meant to live. And the answer why he would come, the answer is also Good Friday. We might say preeminently it is Good Friday. The answer is Acts 20, 28. He came to redeem a church for himself with his own blood. that in the words of Philippians chapter two,

having emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant and being found in human form,

God now has human blood that he may shed. God has added to himself the ability of being killed. He has made himself killable. and being found in human form, as Philippians 2 continues,

he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

You see, God meant to be your Redeemer, as well as your Creator. So he added to himself human flesh, that in that human body, he might go and offer himself in your place taking the judgment that you and I deserved, satisfying the wrath of God, destroying in that perfectly obedient human body the power of sin, the power of sin over you, the power of sin in you, and disarming the enemy and all the accusations he held against you. He came and put on human flesh to live and to die, so that when you would look at the cross of Christ, you would realize how great your sin is, and how holy God is, that our offense against Him was such that only that would satisfy the judgment. That only the sinless Son of God dying in our place, that that's what our sin deserved. That was the magnitude. He came so we would see the scope of our sin. And He came and put on human flesh so you and I would see the scope of His love. That a God so holy that that would be required of us, and yet so loving, so compassionate, so merciful, that He would go there in my place. This is God Himself. no mere man, this is God himself there, if he is so loving that he would do that for me, then as you behold and understand who Jesus is and what he is doing at the cross, you would be led to say, I will turn from self and turn toward him. And you will drop the knee and you will bow the eyes of your heart And you'll say, I'll give my all for him and no longer for myself. You see what's happening in that moment? He's purchasing you. He's taking you. He is obtaining you for himself, the church of his redeemed, and he is doing it through his blood shed for you. So look and see. Galatians chapter three, Paul says,

before your very eyes, Jesus was placarded. as crucified. He was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Now, you didn't see it physically. You weren't there. So how is it portrayed before your eyes? Well, you and I did not see it physically, but neither did many of those Galatians, if not all of those Galatians, that Paul was writing to. So how was he portrayed before their eyes? It was in the preaching of the Word. The opening of the message that this is God himself, This is the meaning of what He did. This is the depth of your sin. This is the magnitude of His love, leading you to repent and profess faith in Him. He is obtaining His church through His blood. That's what we hope for you. If you came in here tonight not knowing what the cross was all about, perhaps not knowing Christ and saving faith, that's what we hope for you. What if you came in here already believing? Already knowing that, what then? What do you do? Well, you cherish it. You cherish it, because this is everything. And if you even dare add an and to that, and cherishing it, what do you do? You take up your cross. Figuratively, but really, daily, even if no beams of wood touch your shoulders, laying down yourself in sacrificial self-giving, because if this is the pattern of your divine head, do you think it will be any different for you? He said, as much it would be.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

And you look at the cross giving way to resurrection, new life, and you realize this is how he works, And we come to understand self-dying death is victory in this world. So you, believer, expect a pattern of suffering and hardship in this life. You're okay with it. You're not caught off guard when it happens. And you believe what's coming after it, namely life after death. What do you do if you're a believer? You take up your cross and last. Even more specifically, what do you do in light of Christ's cross? You love the church. You love the people of the church. You pay attention to the church. You care for her because you look at the cross of Christ and you see how much God himself loves those sitting next to you. and those in church down the street from you, and those not yet in the church but one day will be soon, and you look at the cross and realize how much he cares and how much he did for her, and then you go and put your sin to death in his power, by his grace, and you do the same. Well did Isaac Watts pen the final words of when I survey the wondrous cross,

Love so amazing, so divine.

This is God himself.

Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. And care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

Let's pray together. Our Lord Jesus, very God of very God, we praise you for you are worthy of all worship. We thank you for dying on the cross in our place even before that, for taking on human form, that you might live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died, satisfying the righteous requirement of God, canceling the accusation that stood against us, and offering us new life in you, restoring us to right worship. O God, forgive us our self-centeredness and change us by letting us see your glory in humility and self-giving service that we might do for others as you have done for us. For your glory and honor, we pray. Amen.