+ In Nomine Jesu +
Good Friday Noonday
The Rev. Evan P. Gaertner
March 21, 2008

“A Time of Suffering”

We gather this noontime in anticipation of the darkness of the cross that Jesus faced this afternoon. By this time in the day on Good Friday he had been betrayed, beaten, denied by his followers, tried before the chief priests, Pilate, and Herod. He has had to carry the very instrument of his death to a place called the skull. As Jesus is placed on that cross all of time collides. Our great intercessor Jesus brings the past of our sins and the future of our hopes together.

The darkness of our sin confronts the light of the day in that punishment on that cross. Darkness covered the land from the sixth hour until the ninth hour–From noon until 3pm. I remember eight years ago as I was observing Good Friday a great thunderstorm came over the church on Long Island where I was the vicar. The sky became dark and the noise of the thunder was louder than the sullen violin that was playing at that moment.

It was a Friday that they nailed Jesus to that cross. It is a Friday today. To many people a great deal of time separates us from that moment long ago. Many people today may view the darkness of that day when our savior cried loud from the cross as a darkness no different than that thunderstorm I experienced eight years ago. But this darkness was not just a product of nature it was the collision of time. A time of past and future that is real for us today. We need to have faith that Jesus pushed against the time of our sins with the time of hope he was inaugurating.

At the sixth hour the sun was at its height but remained hidden. Jesus experienced the separation from God that we have worked upon ourselves because of our sin. The wages of sin is death and Jesus was paying our bill.

Jesus in this dark place finds solidarity with our suffering. He carries the burden that weighs down humanity. He was not responsible for the injustice and suffering in the world that he found himself carrying. Jesus was innocent of your sin. He was not bound by the chains of your crimes. He went in freedom to that cross. No betrayer, guards, chief priests, or Roman governor could place him on that cross without him first seizing this moment.

Pilate had asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?”

Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”

We are Christians today because Christ has gone into the time of our sins, the time in which we are separated from the promises of God. Jesus willingly and completely joined in our suffering. The Word of God broke into our disobedience and broke the chains of sin.

Before God we had no words of defense for our sinfulness. Like Adam and Eve we may want to blame someone else. But I alone am responsible for my sin and I alone deserve the judgment of God for my sin. But in freedom Jesus Christ seized my judgment. On this Good Friday we remember that he stood condemned though he was without sin.

The Word of God came in the flesh to be the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I have words for when I am brought before our Lord in judgment. I can say in faith and trust, “Lord Jesus on the cross you told the truth, ‘It is finished.’ I join my words to your words Jesus. It is finished. Not by my hands, but by your hand you have saved me from sin, death and the devil. The claim that sin has over me is finished. In you I have life. The claim that death has over me is finished. In you I have life. The claim that the devil has over me is finished. In you I have life.”

Today I desire that you find your words of salvation in the Word of God that died for you. When someone asks you how you can be sure you are saved, you do not have to be convincing with fancy words or able to debate with great rhetorical skills. You need to trust in the Word of God found on that cross and know that in that word you have salvation.

With the Word of God as Lord over us we become his instruments in these last days. Jesus seized the time of our sins. He holds onto the time of ours and gives to us the time of hope.

Soli Deo Gloria