The hymns we’ve done today may not have been all
that familiar to some of you. They’re certainly not among the most
popular or happiest hymns we sing. We
don’t sing them very often, and the fact is that we don’t like to sing them
very often. They’re sad hymns.
They’re hymns that tell of the killing of Jesus Christ.
Which, of course, is why we sing them today. Today is
Good Friday. Today is the day we
celebrate the death of the Savior, Jesus Christ.
And that’s an odd phrase, is it not? We celebrate the
death of the Savior. Is there any other
religion that celebrates the death of its leader? I cannot think of
one. They may commemorate it somehow,
but celebrate it? If there’s any other
religion that does that, I’m not aware of it.
And of course, the reason for that is that Christianity is
the only religion whose leader did not stay dead. And we know that. We know that both Jesus’ death and Jesus’
resurrection were part of God’s plan for our chance for salvation. And
because we know that, we celebrate. We
don’t celebrate the fact that Jesus was tortured and killed. We celebrate the fact that Jesus had the
courage and the faith and the love to follow the plan of God the Father, even
though he knew he was going to be tortured and killed. We celebrate that
God’s plan was followed and came true.
It’s interesting, though, that nobody was celebrating at
the time. Obviously the disciples were not celebrating. They were hiding, on the run, scared for
their lives. But no one else seemed to be celebrating, either. Even the people who were directly involved in
Jesus’ death do not seem to have been happy about it.
Pilate was not happy. We’re told that he was afraid
of Jesus. He tried to get out of having Jesus killed. He told the
people he could find no basis for the charges against Jesus. He tried to
get the people to let him release Jesus to them. But ultimately, Pilate could not stand up to
those who wanted Jesus killed. But even in that, he had a notice attached
to the cross that said, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”. Pilate was not happy at all about the role he
played in this.
The Roman soldiers probably come the closest to being happy
about this. They divided up Jesus clothes, each taking a share. But even in that, they did not take any
particular joy in Jesus being killed. It was just a job to them. It was one of their duties as soldiers. You can just hear them shrugging their
shoulders and saying, “Jesus lives, Jesus dies, it’s all the same to me.
I get paid the same either way.”
The soldiers were just out there doing their jobs and getting what they
could for it.
Even the Jewish leaders don’t seem to be happy. You’d
think they would be, right? After all,
they’d finally gotten what they wanted. They’d been trying to figure out
a way to kill Jesus for a long time. Now
they’d finally gotten it done. And yet, if they were happy, if they were
celebrating, the Bible does not tell us about it. In fact, the main concern of the Jewish
leaders seems to have been just to get this over with as quickly as possible.
They went to Pilate and asked to have the legs broken of those who were
being crucified, so they’d die faster.
And I understand that they wanted the bodies taken down before the
Sabbath, but still. It sounds like the
Jewish leaders were not proud of what they’d done. They just wanted to
put the whole thing behind them as fast as they could.
I don’t think Jesus was very happy on that first Good
Friday. I suspect, and I hope, that despite that pain, Jesus found some
satisfaction in the day. Because after all, this was the day Jesus
won. Jesus withstood all the
temptations he had been subject to while he was on earth, and they were pretty
substantial temptations. He withstood the temptation to run away or to
shut up when things got hard. He withstood
the temptation to compromise or to water down his message. He withstood the temptation to use his divine
power to establish an earthly kingdom, as so many people wanted him to do.
He withstood all those and many other temptations. Jesus stayed faithful to the plan God the
Father had laid out for him.
But still, I doubt that Jesus was very happy at the time.
How could he be? No one would be
happy about being tortured and killed. Jesus was killed in a very painful
way, and that was done deliberately. And
don’t think that Jesus, as the Divine Son of God, could not feel pain. He
could and he did. Jesus went through
agony on the cross. We probably don’t
think about that often enough--the incredible pain that Jesus went through just
to save sinners like you and me.
It’s kind of odd, when you think about it. Here’s
this day that we now call “Good Friday”, and yet at the time, it looks like no
one thought it was good. Literally, nobody. As far as we can tell from the Bible, no one
was happy on that first Good Friday.
It’s like the sadness of the day was so profound, so pervasive, that it
affected everyone, even the people who were making it happen.
These days, it seems like society puts a very high value on
happiness. You can read all kinds of quotes from all kinds of people
telling you that the most important thing in life is to be happy. That we
should do whatever makes us happy. That
if something makes you happy, then it does not matter what anyone else thinks.
Society tells us that nothing should be more important than our
happiness.
That’s not a Biblical concept. Jesus did not say that
our main goal should be to be happy. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not
saying there’s anything wrong with being happy. I’m a pretty happy person
myself. I think God likes it when we’re
happy. But Jesus did not say “Do
whatever makes you happy.” Jesus did not say happiness is the most
important thing in life. Jesus said the
most important thing is that we love God.
Jesus said the most important thing is that we love our neighbor.
Jesus said the most important thing is to treat others as we would like
them to treat us. Jesus said the most
important thing is to go and make disciples.
Now, if those things make us happy, that’s great. And
I hope they do. But even if they don’t,
we’re still supposed to do them. Jesus did not say love God if it makes
you happy. Jesus did not say love your
neighbor if it makes you happy. Our happiness has nothing to do with
it. These are things we’re supposed to
do because Jesus told us to do them. And because Jesus is the divine Son
of God, this is God telling us to do those things. And that, in and of itself, should be enough
reason for doing these things--because God told us to. Whether they make
us happy is irrelevant.
Now again, I hope doing these things does make us happy.
But it won’t, at least not all the time.
Quite honestly, there are times when I really don’t feel like showing
love to my neighbor. There are times when I know I should go and do
something to help someone, but I’d really rather stay home and watch the ball
game. There are times when I know I
should go and visit my parents in the nursing home in Armour, but I’d really
rather not make that eight-hour round trip. I may, after it’s all said
and done, be glad that I made myself get up and do those things anyway, but at
the time, getting up and doing what I’m supposed to do does not always make me
happy. And maybe that’s true for you sometimes,
too.
Jesus was not happy that he had to die on a cross. In
fact, he prayed that God the Father would let him avoid doing it. But
when the time came, Jesus did it anyway.
Jesus did what God the Father wanted him to do. Jesus did it out
of love--love for God the Father and love for each and every human being who’s
ever been or ever will be.
That’s the example for us to follow. There are times
when God asks us to do something and we’re not happy about it at all. In
fact, sometimes we might pray that God would let us avoid doing it. But when the time comes, we need to do it
anyway. We need to do what God wants us to do. And we need to do that out of love--love for
God and love other human beings.
There’s nothing wrong with being happy. But happiness
should not be the ultimate goal for a Christian. The goal of a Christian
should be to follow wherever God leads us, even if he leads us to a cross.
That’s what Jesus did. That’s what
God wants us to do, too.
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