Good Friday Passion Vespers 2023
Pastor Rogness preached at the Chief Service for Good Friday. This sermon was for our Passion Vespers, on Luke 23:34.
What’s your first reaction when someone hurts you? Isn’t it to be angry with that person? Perhaps you control your anger. But you may hold onto the memory of the bad thing. You keep it in your heart. We call that a grudge, and the more grudges we store up, the angrier and more bitter we become.
It takes a very special person—a person steeped in God’s grace—to react in a different way to these hurts. We don’t naturally want to forgive. If someone has hurt us, and then they apologize, maybe then we’ll forgive. But until then, we keep it, and it burns our soul like acid.
Now think again about what we heard in the Passion account today. Jesus does the opposite of what comes naturally to us. Jesus has a forgiving heart right away, without any cause for it in the other people. Jesus forgives His executioners while they are in the act of crucifying Him. He forgives His enemies, and His so-called friends. Peter. Pilate. Herod. Caiaphas. Annas. The Centurion. The Scribes. The Pharisees. The thief on the left. The thief on the right. You. Me.
In darker times, when Christianity had really lost its way, some used Good Friday as an opportunity to blame the Jews for the death of Jesus. Which doesn’t make any sense. It also misses the real point: When we hear the Passion story, we’re not supposed to look around for someone to blame. The person to blame is in the mirror. When you hear about soldiers hammering nails into the hands and feet of Jesus, realize that it was your sins, my sins being nailed into Him. It was our lies that whipped Him. It was our selfishness that jammed the thorns into His skull.
How would we respond? “You’ll pay for this!” Not so for Jesus. He prays, “Father, forgive them.” Jesus does not retaliate. He does not condemn. He forgives.
Not far from here is the Korean War Memorial. If you go see it, you’ll find these words engraved in large letters: “FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.” We could say the same thing about forgiveness. Forgiveness is not free. It is free to you and to me, but it was not free for Jesus – it cost Him. It cost Him His life.
Isaiah foretold Christ’s suffering: “I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.” Jesus has the beard ripped out of His cheek, but He turns the other one. Jesus washes feet like a slave, and in return He is spit upon. Jesus grows weary, yet says, “Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give You rest.” The people cry, “Crucify Him!” but He cries, “Father, forgive them.”
Jesus told us to pray for our enemies, and here we see Jesus practicing what He preached. Jesus prayed for us on the cross, and He continues to pray for us. Jesus is doing the work of a priest. Besides offering sacrifices, a priest also prays for the people.
When Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them,” our whole life is now wrapped up in that prayer. We have been forgiven. This prayer then becomes ours; we pray that the Father would forgive even our enemies, the people who are mean to us and do us harm. We pray for God to forgive them, and for strength to forgive them ourselves.
Our nature says, “Hate your enemies.” But today that nature is nailed to a cross and buried in a tomb. Today, this Friday we call “Good,” Christ prays for us: “Father, forgive them.” And on Easter, we will see how the Fathers answers that prayer. ✠INJ✠