Good Friday March 30, 2018
2018 Study of Pride (This study was sent out in advance of the Good Friday sermon.)
Good Friday
John 18:1—19:42
March 30, 2018
“The Death of Pride”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If God is good, then why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? You’ve heard this question before. You’ve thought this question before. This question just doesn’t go away. It was there in the very beginning when Satan tempted Adam and Eve. These aren’t his exact words but his question to them was, “If God is good, then why wouldn’t He let you eat of that tree?” It’s the basic question, “Why doesn’t God do what I think He should do?”
We ask it all the time:
“God, if you are really God, then why do you allow so much war? Why don’t you bring an end to war?”
“God, if you are really God, then why are people abused? Why don’t you stop it?”
“God, if you are really God, then why did you give me this addiction? Or give me this cancer? Or give me this disability? Or give me this depression? Why don’t you heal me right now?”
“God, if you are really God, why do children die? Why would any good God let children and babies die?”
“God, if you are really God, then why would you let anyone go to hell?” Are some of these your question? Because some of them are mine. “Why doesn’t God do what I think He should do?”
On Good Friday, the same question was asked. The Satanic question. It wasn’t specifically in our reading from St. John, but here is what they said from Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s Gospels.
“Save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.'” (Matthew 27:40-43; cf. Mark 15:30-32)
“The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” (Luke 23:36-39)
Jesus, if you are really the Son of God, then do what we think you should do. Jesus, if you are really God, do what we say and then we’ll believe in you. Do you hear what’s going on there? It sounds like an innocent question, “If God is good, why does He…,” but it’s actually the most evil of questions. It’s a question that Prideful and Arrogant sinners ask. The basis of it is this: “If God were only me, then the world wouldn’t be so lousy. I would do a better job.” Do you hear it?
“God, if you would obviously just listen to me, You might actually get something right.” All of this Lenten season we‘ve been looking at the seven vices—greed, envy, lust, gluttony, and so forth. They sound so evil. And yet today we come to the biggest beast of all that makes all of those other sins look like mere snowflakes. Here is the root of all sin. As C. S. Lewis calls it, the “anti-God”. Pride. Deadly pride. And we’re all guilty of it. “God, I would do a much better job than You.”
With pride, we get to complain about how lousy the world is and how lousy everyone else is—and completely avoid the fact that we’re pretty lousy ourselves. Pride is the sin which says, “I’m not the problem. God is the problem.”
So if Jesus is going to save you and me, which He is determined to do, He had better do something about our pride. He has to put our pride to death so that we can believe in God and be saved. So God Himself, Jesus Christ, had to be us. And so He did. He took all the sin of the world, all the pain of the world, all the suffering of the world, all the sickness of the world, all the death of the world—ALL OF IT—and then He put it on His own back and said, “This is MY problem.” “God, Your will be done.”
Where’s His pride?! Come on, Jesus! If you’re really the Son of God, then get off that cross! “No,” He says, “God’s will be done. God is good.” Are you there with Him on that cross? He is bloody, bruised, nails through His hands and feet, thorns piercing His head, thirsty, agonizing, laboring to breath. And all of it He is doing for you and me. All of it He is doing for sinners. He is carrying our pride, our greed, our lust, our vainglory. As Isaiah said, “He is wounded for our transgressions. He is bearing our griefs. He is carrying our sorrows.” And then we yell at Him, “Come on, Jesus! If you’re the Son of God, come down from there! Let Him come down from the cross, and THEN we’ll believe in Him! Ha!”
But Jesus remains silent. There’s nothing more to be said. God is good. And He trusts Him. So Jesus bows His head and says, “It is finished.” “Into your hands I commit My spirit.” And He dies. The death of our pride.
Today is God’s answer to all of our questions of, “Why, God?” Today is God’s answer to all of our questions of, “If you’re really God, then why don’t You…?” God says, “THIS is what I did. I have given My own beloved Son to take all of your pain and suffering and death so that you might be saved and have all of paradise.” Yes, this world is still suffering with sin and death and pain and suffering—but God has taken care of it. His decisive answer is Jesus Christ our Savior.
So bring your pride to the cross of Jesus. The cross is where pride goes to die. The cross is where we utter the words of faith with Jesus, “Your will be done.” At the cross, we confess today that God isn’t the problem. We are the problem. We have insisted over and over again, “MY will be done.” We have insisted that God do what we think He ought to do. But it’s all been paid for. Jesus has taken away your pride and given you faith.
Faith trusts God to be good. We know He is good. If God has given us His own Son Jesus Christ, how will He not give us everything else we need? (Romans 8:32) If God has loved you so deeply that He was willing to put to death His own Son, then how will He not love you through every day of this world? Through every heartache, every pain, every suffering, even through death?
God is good. Let it be heard and believed. God is good. He’s not like me, praise God. He didn’t come down from that cross on Good Friday and say, “MY will be done.” No, He is good. He loves you. He stayed on that cross, silently giving His last breath so that you and I could breathe forever in heaven.
If God is good? Just shut your mouth, Satan! God is good. And this Friday is Good Friday. In Jesus’ name. Amen.