Sermon for Good Friday, April 18, 2025
The God of love and peace will be with you. Amen.
Psalm 51:14-17 14Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me. My tongue will shout for joy about your righteousness. 15Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16For you do not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17The sacrifices God wants are a broken spirit. A broken and crushed heart, O God, you will not despise. (EHV)
Restored by His sacrifice.
Dear broken and crushed hearts,
Even though he tried desperately to hide it for a time, when confronted by the prophet, Nathan, David finally faced the guilt of his grave sin including the murder of an innocent man. Brought to repentance by a metaphor of another man’s terrible crime, David could only plead for mercy. With his spirit crushed by the weight of his guilt, David no longer tried to hide his sin from the Lord. Bereft of any excuse, David then prayed this prayer. My friends, that is exactly where we want and need to be.
By nature, the sinner always wants to hide from justice. No one truly wants to be punished for the wrong he or she commits. We much prefer to imagine ourselves innocent. Even if we admit some guilt, our natural inclination is to try to buy our freedom from punishment by lifting up some good thing we might do, an act of charity, perhaps; an act of service to the less fortunate, or by some sacrifice given to honor whatever deity we want to serve.
Sacrifices offered to the gods were not limited to Israel. In fact, it never seemed unusual to the Israelite people that God would demand sacrifices at His temple. However, there always remained a great difference between sacrifices offered to appease idols and the worship God insisted upon among His chosen nation. The sacrifices God commanded Israel to bring brought God no benefit. Indeed, He declared through the Psalmist, “I do not need to take a bull from your barn or goats from your pens, because every animal in the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand mountains … If I were hungry, I would not tell you, because the world is mine, and all that fills it.” (Psalm 50:9,10&12)
Therefore, repentant David was correct in recognizing that our sacrifices never buy forgiveness. Instead, God instituted sacrifices in Israel to teach the people about the truly atoning sacrifice He would make of His Son. God gave Jesus, His own beloved, holy Son into cruel death to pay for the sins of the world. In return, God expects only that we repent of our sins and believe in the Savior Son. Thus, David wrote, “For you do not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.” Later, when people asked Jesus what they should do to serve God, He told them, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the one he sent.” (John 6:29)
Like you and me, David deserved God’s wrath. At the same time, David believed God’s promise that a Savior was coming into the world to redeem him from his sin. One thousand years later, that promise was effected as Jesus humbled Himself to take our place of suffering and death, so that we can receive the mercy of the God who loves us unreservedly. God demands no payment from us nor any retribution for the pain we caused Jesus, but rather, in return for His mercy, “The sacrifices God wants are a broken spirit. A broken and crushed heart, O God, you will not despise.”
David prayed, “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me. My tongue will shout for joy about your righteousness. Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” David was a great warrior king. He had as much power as any ruler on earth, and riches beyond measure, but David couldn’t do anything to make himself right with God. No sacrifice or service would buy forgiveness. No price he could pay would free David from condemnation.
Only God’s mercy could design a way to replace our guilt with the righteousness of His Son. And, that’s exactly what Jesus accomplished for you and me, and King David, that day on a cross outside of Jerusalem. As the crowds mocked and jeered and shouted, “Crucify Him!” Jesus silently bore the abuse we deserved. In His great love for His friends, Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice. However, when Jesus offered up His life for our guilt, He suffered not just the death of His body, but also the pain of hell, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) as His Father in heaven turned His face away from the Son to make Him feel the full wrath our sins had earned. As His enemies celebrated, Jesus took our sins to the gates of hell and silenced the devil’s claim on us forever.
Tonight, dear friends, we remember Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. We remember the agony He endured in our place. We remember the grief of Jesus’ mother and the shame of His disciples who ran away. We remember the blood streaming from His body, the nails driven through His hands and feet, His parched lips announcing, “I thirst.” We remember Jesus committing His spirit into His Father’s care as He laid down His life, the soldier’s spear piercing Jesus’ side after He drew His last breath, and finally, our dearest, most trustworthy Friend laid in a borrowed tomb after He gave His all to win our freedom forever.
As we remember all of that, remember even more that Jesus’ death is not the end for Him nor for us. Remember that because of God’s love for us, and Jesus’ willing embrace of our need for a Savior, that when Jesus declared, “It is finished,” He proclaims to the world that we are Restored by His sacrifice—fully, finally, and forever, forgiven and freed from sin’s curse. Remember, also, that on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead in triumphant victory over our every enemy, giving undeniable proof in heaven and on earth that we are Restored by His sacrifice. Amen.
May God be gracious to us and bless us. May his face shine on us. Amen.