Good Friday Message: Jesus Frees the Guilty

JESUS FREES THE GUILTY

My little boy Cooper got his first Easter egg from a friend the other day.
It was a fantastic chocolate tractor and I’d estimate that it had enough energy to keep him awake for about 3 days straight.
Well after eating the exhaust pipe, Cooper started to get kind of vocal about having more- even though it was definitely not going to happen right before bed.
But in his world this refusal was a complete injustice. A violation of his human rights as a child. It was just not fair.

Well when did you first learn to say, “It’s not fair!”
One thing I’m sure of is that none of us need to be taught how to protest.
None of us need a lesson on how to complain when our life isn’t going the way we WANT it to.
IT’S NOT FAIR!
“It’s not fair” we hear ourselves scream inside when we start to suffer, or when pain kicks in.
I can tell you pretty confidently that I hate pain.
In fact faced with suffering you probably won’t hear me say “Well that’s a really challenging issue to deal with!” or “I need time to get over this – time is a great healer.”
All of us rage against pain.
We appeal to some kind of JUSTICE, which we know exists (without being taught) – so that we can complain that things aren’t fair to us.
It’s literally as if we’re appealing to a judge, who’s presiding over our situation, to give us some mercy: change his verdict and let us off this current hassle (or ‘injustice’)
And the first words that come to our mind, to our mouth are:
“It’s not fair God- fix it- make it right”.

Well one of the reasons that I love Easter, is that we get to meet the God who takes the cry for justice seriously.
We get to see in God someone who is equally committed to both love and to justice.
Someone who will go as far as it takes to deal with suffering, with injustice.
Even if it means accepting our pain upon himself to see that justice happen.

Well ____ read us a pretty famous bible passage this morning.
It’s an eyewitness account of that first Easter.
An eyewitness account of the final moments of Jesus life, of Jesus’ mission.
And importantly for us it’s an eyewitness account of two people with only hours to live, who meet a king- and who are eternally impacted in very different ways.
The author Max Lucado says of these men: “It’s an inexplicable dilemma- how two people can hear the same words and see the same saviour, and one sees hope and the other sees nothing but himself”
What will you see and hear as we meet this king on a cross this morning?
How will today- this Easter, change you forever?

Well let me quickly pray for us as we prepare ourselves to really come face to face with Jesus.

JESUS & HORRENDOUS INJUSTICE

Well a cross these days is mostly seen in jewellery or decorating a church, but a cross 2000 years ago was a very different thing.
If you were on a cross you were a criminal. The worst of the worst being publicly shamed AND done away with - all at the same time.
And in our passage today we find two people facing this moment of shame for a life spent causing pain and suffering to others.
Two people hanging beside a king.
Hanging beside the one who is believed by His followers to be the God of all creation.
Now being executed on an old tree he’d made.
How did it happen? Why did it happen? How do we respond to something like this?
Well maybe if we look at the men on either side of Jesus some of this might get a little clearer.

Well let’s look at our first thief.
Here is a guy whose world is blurred by the ugly lense of cynicism.
Hanging on a cross, faced with a long painful death his words are bitter and acid to the very end.
We aren’t told exactly what this guy did to land on a cross but we can be sure it’s not a case of being wrongfully accused.
But rather than see himself for who he really was, he uses his last breath to rage against the only one who can help him.
”Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself AND US!” he says to Jesus.(39)
“If you are the Christ, or whatever, then get to Work!”
Even confronted by his own sin this man blames others.
Even now, when he’s finally held accountable for the damage and the destruction he’d created in the lives of people all around him, he can’t face the truth.
He feels wronged. “It’s not fair.”
Well it wasn’t fair – he was right about that: IT WASN’T FAIR ABOUT JESUS.
But about himself? He was way off.
Here was a man who couldn’t fear or respect God, because he saw himself deserving more.
Ignoring what he’d done: the selfishness, the greed, the arrogance… like any of us have shown- was the easiest path for him.
And so, clouded up with pride, He misses seeing God with a clear view. He misses the opportunity to let his end be just the beginning.
He misses the chance to be with the king in paradise that very day.


Well let’s look at our second thief.
Lucado says this about this guy
“His situation is pitiful. He’s taking the last step down the spiral staircase of failure. One crime after another. One rejection after another. Lower and lower he descended until he reached the bottom- a crossbeam and three spikes”
Unlike his fellow prisoner this is a man who knows how he arrived at this place. He can see his life flashing before his eyes and finally sees the truth. He can see the mistakes. The choices that took him away from God. The decisions that hurt people he loved. That left them a far second to his own needs, his own wants.
This man sees what I genuinely believe is the hardest thing in the world for a person to see. He sees the real Him.
In the darkest moment of his life. A moment when I could easily hear him saying “It’s not fair” this guy finds a truth some of us spend a lifetime trying to run from.
He is a sinner.
Like you and me he is not the person he is meant to be.
He didn’t live the way God called him to live.
Like us, he probably didn’t even live up to his own standards.
It’s a cold reality check for him and for us that:
Some of the pain, some of the brokenness, some of the tragedy in our world, is caused by us. By our words. By our choices. By our actions.
It’s a truth that many of us will spend a lifetime resisting. Maybe this guy did too.
But hearing the mocking and self-absorption of the other man, the lies he’s told himself for years start to fade away.
Facing death- this man encounters someone that changes everything.
He meets God on a cross.
And his response to the other thief shows just how affected he is by the encounter.
“Don’t you fear God?!” he says to the other thief. “ You share the sentence, AND we are getting what our deeds deserve. But THIS MAN, has done nothing wrong.”
This is a man who understands.
Knowing he’s just one more sinner, guilty as charged, there is no argument to have – especially not: “It’s not fair.”
It’s completely fair to this man.
If it’s unfair to anyone. It’s unfair to Jesus.
So how could this have happened?
Why was Jesus nailed to a tree, a cross that Friday?
How could the God of the universe be held down by nails?

The thief on the cross knew this “we are getting what we deserve. This man has done nothing wrong” he says.
God made a choice.
God loves you and I more than I believe we will ever really understand. I simply don’t think we are able to grasp such an enormous, passionate love.
But he loves us too much to let all the suffering and pain and sin in the world just go on. Just be ignored.
Imagine a judge whose daughter has been out on a drinking binge one Friday night. Driving home early Saturday she’s still not in a good place to drive and in a sleepy moment the car mounts the gutter for a split second. Just a second. But it’s the second that a six-year-old boy has just walked out to practice on his lawn for his very first soccer game. A tragedy.
How do you think the boy’s family would feel if the judge had excused his daughter and let her off because he loved her?
But don’t we sometimes ask that of God?
“It’s not fair,” we scream. “If you really love us - let us off”.
But a perfect judge. A perfect God is one that loves you just as you are, but will not let you hurt yourself or others through sin.
A perfect God will always settle for nothing less than justice.
Whatever the cost.
That’s what held Jesus on a tree.
No nail could have kept him there against his will.
A witness who stood at his cross heard Jesus cry at the very end:
”Father into your hands, I commit my spirit.”
He did it by choice.

As Max Lucado comments
“ We are guilty and he is innocent”
“We are filthy and he is pure”
“We are wrong and he is right”
“He is not on that cross for his sins. He is there for ours.”

Often at huge sporting events that are televised you’ll see a guy holding a big placard with JOHN 3:16 written on it.
In the Sydney Olympics coverage, there was a guy in every crowd holding it up: JOHN 3:16.
It’s not just a random choice, or because it looks neat on a sign.
This person has made a decision.
“If I can communicate one thing to people, to make them understand the Christian message what would it be?”
It’s this very thing: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

A lot of bizarre things happened that Friday that Jesus died.

If you read our passage along with the other Gospels then you see that even the world itself reacted.

The earth shook, an unnatural eclipse made the sky dark, a thick curtain in the temple tore apart, people who had died were seen walking around. Even more amazing is that if you read other parts of the Bible- like Amos 8 you’ll see that these very things were predicted for centuries.

Clearly a miracle happened on that deserted hill, among those three crosses.

But the greatest miracle. The moment that changed history more than any other is that the way to forgiveness was finally opened for us all.

Opened to anyone who is willing to see who he or she really is.
Opened to anyone whose eyes have cleared from pride to see that we need Jesus to take the punishment we deserve.
Opened to anyone who will say thank you and follow the king

One thief met the king and because of his pride went away to an eternity of hopelessness.
Another thief met the king, and saw the truth. Saw that before God he was a beggar who deserved nothing. But was given everything.

Jesus words to this man were “Today you will be with me in paradise”
And a guilty man walked free into eternity.

This morning, we have also come face to face with the king.

How will you respond?