Good Friday – 2020 – John 19:16-30

INTRO> We are living in such times that are making us choose was is crucial. Is going to the store today crucial? Is eating this meal crucial or should we save that for latter? We are having to choose between what is crucial and what isn’t.

APP> Today is crucial, Good Friday is Crucial, the cross of Jesus Christ is crucial.

Big Idea > The Cross is crucial.

APP> The history of the word “crucial” Means “cross”. This Day has impacted our culture in ways in which it doesn’t even know, people get off of work today and don’t even know why. People call it Good and don’t even know why but as Christians we view this day as crucial to our faith.

We make two great errors in the Church when in comes to the cross:(*Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, pg 44)

• • • We go beyond it. (Church in Corinth, Spiritual Gifts, Rush to Easter)
    • We stand above it. (Church in Corinth didn’t teach the cross., Paul corrects them)
    • We live in it. (The is the essence of the NT, a “crucified life”

APP> Martin Luther the great reformer had a statement in his “theology of the cross” that said, “The cross tests everything.” For us as Christians, it isn’t Christian if it doesn’t involve a bloody, brutal cross. I want to look at 3 broad things in these verses. 1) The method of the cross 2) The man on the cross 3) The message of the cross

1. The method of the cross.

• • • John mentions the word “cross” or “Crucified” 8x in these verses. He is trying to tell us something.
    • There is a level of horror about crucifixion and the cross itself that we just can’t understand inner culture. It’s like wearing an electric chair around your neck
    • Crucifixion was invited by the Persians around 500 BC but it was perfect by the Romans. Jesus no doubt would have seen men crucified in his life growing up.
    • The physical, emotional, social, physiological and spiritual agony that Jesus went through is so painful that there is literally a word that trie to encapsulate it, excruciating = from the cross.
    • Jesus is betrayed by a friend, in intense emotional pain in the garden of gethsemate, sweating drops of blood. He is is then arrested illegally, walks miles, then is thrown into a filthy Roman prison cell and doesn’t sleep at all as we he.
    • After he is condemned he is then “scourged”.(PIC)  There were 3 levels, Jesus gets the worst of it. Most people didn’t survive the scourging. Thorns shoved onto his head, bleeding profusely.
    • Then he carries the cross bar, 6-7ft, weighing 75-125lb, (PIC) his bloody raw back. He falls and receives a chest contusion. Dehydrated, bloody, heart bruise then he gets outside the city.
    • He then has 5-7in railroad spikes nailed into his wrists and feet, some of the most sensitive nerve endings
    • Then the real torture begins, crucifixion was a slow death by suffocating (PIC) Out in the heat, people spitting cursing, bodily fluids everywhere
    • He is mocked and offered sour wine on a sponge that Roman solider would use to clean themselves after they went to bathroom, then when Jesus breathes his last, a spear is shoved into his side, and blood and water pour out

APP> The method of the cross shows us the magnitude of God’s love over our sin.

2) The man on the cross.

• • • • “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” Just from a historical perspective, we know that this man, Jesus is innocent in any crimes and this is unjust.
      • From a theological view, it’s hard to describe what’s happening here. This is the spotless lamb of God, this is the second person of the Trinity, always existing.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by[a] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

APP> The man on the cross is the greatest man that ever lived and we killed him.

3) The message of the cross.

• • • John uses a phrase 3x “to fulfill the scriptures”
    • Then Jesus says, “It is finished”
    • What is finished, what is being fulfilled.

APP> GOSPEL.. Creation.. Abraham… Exodus, passover… prophets, sacrafice…

APP> JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR SIN!

Big Idea > The Cross is crucial.

Ancient prayer called, “The Jesus Prayer”

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me a sinner.”