Sermon for Holy Good Friday

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Jesu Juva

“Unbroken Life, Broken Death”

Text: John 18-19

 

In the (+) Name of Jesus. Amen.

Since the last time we gathered on Good Friday, about one year ago, there have been many deaths in our world. Deaths in our congregation - Nancy, Roy, Philip. Deaths of family members. Deaths in our world due to war or other violence or crime. Deaths that came at the end of a long life, and deaths that came when life had just begun. I think it fair to say that no one in the world went unaffected by death this past year. Or any year. And so it has been since sin entered the world. For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

That truth itself should belie the popular (and I would say demonic) belief that some sins aren’t so bad; I’m not hurting anyone. It is simply not so. Every sin breaks life and brings death. Either that’s how fragile life is, or how deadly sin is - or both. And we cannot change that or fix it. 

But there is one who can. 

And that is why we have gathered this night. That in this world of fragile and broken life and strong and pervasive death, we have and proclaim hope. That there was someone whose life was not broken by sin, so that when He entered death, He broke death. He undid what had been done in the beginning when death came into this world of life, and so brought life into this world of death. A life that death in all its rage and fury cannot end.

And that one was the one who created life in the beginning, the very Son of God Himself, Jesus of Nazareth.

When death came looking for Him, He did not deny; He confessed I am He. And death fell to the ground. Every knee shall bow to Him, after all (Philippians 2:10), even if they don’t want to. And He would not fight off death, for He came to break it by dying. So, put your sword into its sheath, He said. He will drink this cup.

Those who thought they had power over Him, the power of life and death, to save Him or crucify Him, questioned Him. But Jesus does not answer as one subject to their authority, but as the one in authority. For indeed He is. No one takes His life from Him. He lays it down of his own accord. This is the charge He received from His Father (John 10:18): to die and break death. So He speaks the truth. Truth they don’t want to hear. Truth that is inconvenient. Truth they do not know, as Pilate himself confessed. He speaks truth for He is truth. 

But this light of truth shining in the darkness of our world of sin and death they cannot stand. Give us Barabbas instead. A man like us. A man of death. And what to do with the one who is unbroken life? Snuff Him out. Crucify Him.

And as Cain lifted his hand against his brother, so they then lifted their hands against their brother, Jesus. Impaling His head with thorns, striking Him with their fists, trying to break this unbroken life. Pilate tries to save his own life and career by crucifying Him. It’s another of the ironies of this story. That’s the only way Pilate’s life really could be saved . . . and the life of the soldiers, and the Jews, and ours. So Pilate delivered Him over to them to be crucified. To them, the chief priests. For they were the ones, after all, who had to kill the Passover Lamb. 

So the one who is unbroken life goes to the place of death. He had been there before. In the room of a dead little girl (Mark 5). At a funeral procession in the city of Nain (Luke 7). At the grave of His friend Lazarus (John 11). And each time, every time, life won. Should this time be any different? Granted, it looks different. But the one who is unbroken life is in control and winning, even when dying. For the truth is that here, the real funeral will be for death, not Jesus.

So death nails Him down, mocks His kingship, and robs Him of His clothes. He knew they would. He said they would. And Scripture must be fulfilled. And then He leaves His mother to the care of another. The love of a dying man, OR . . . is that not what a man does when he goes to create life? A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). Jesus is dying to break death and re-create life. 

And when He dies, it is finished, He says. His life? No. Death. Death is finished. Tetelestai, the word He speaks which means it is finished, is the word that means all has been paid in full. What has been paid in full? The wages of sin. It is paid, finished, completed, and therefore so is death. Unbroken life enters death, and death will be forced to yield its prey. 

And not just Jesus - but ALL its prey! For Jesus breaks death not just for Himself, but for us all. He bows His head and gives up His Spirit - that is, He hands over His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life (Nicene Creed) - to His Bride, to His Church, that we, too, have life. Life again. Life in the forgiveness of our sins. Life that triumphs over death.

And when this unbroken life enters into death, still He confesses life! When His side is pierced, out flow blood and water. The blood and water that still give life and cleanse us from our sins today. The water of the Font, the Blood of the Altar, the Body of the Cross, the unbroken life giving us life through these means. 

Joseph and Nicodemus end this part of the story in the same place it had begun - in a garden. That where death arose, there life might also rise again. And that’s exactly what will happen three days hence. The unbroken life remains unbroken, and death dies. Neither the gates of hell, the tomb’s dark portal, the watchers, nor the seal could hold Him (LSB #487 v. 4). 

This we know. So even though we sit in the darkness, we will pray to the Light. Even though we know the victory, we will hear the Reproaches. For this is a night of opposites, with opposing forces, arrayed in battle. Light and dark. Life and death. Scorn and love. Sadness and joy. Punishment and salvation. Condemnation and forgiveness. But the battle has been won. Life won. This we know.

So we can die unfearing. The angels will bear us home, to Abr’ham’s bosom. Our bodies will be kept safe in peaceful sleep until our own third day. And then our graves will be broken, broken open in Life, at the Life’s reappearing. And then our eyes with joy will see what faith has believed all along - our Saviour and our fount of grace and Life, our Lord Jesus Christ. And we will praise Him without end (LSB #708 v. 3). The Unbroken Life, unbroken still. And unbroken forever.

In the (+) Name of Jesus. Amen.

Sermon for Holy Maundy Thursday

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Jesu Juva

“The Feast Awaits!”

Text: Luke 22:7-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 10:15-25

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus knew His death was imminent. It was the day on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And HE was THE Passover Lamb. The once and for all Lamb. For every family in the world. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It was time for the Passover.

But the thing about the Passover . . . you don’t just celebrate it - you eat it. And that’s what Jesus instructed the disciples He sent into the city to say, when they found the man in whose house they would gather. They were to ask: The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?

Now they spoke this way because the eating was an important part of this night. Remembering and eating. On the night of the first Passover, in Egypt, the Lamb was slain, its blood was poured out and smeared on the doorposts of their houses, and then the lamb was roasted and eaten. The blood was important, but the Passover was incomplete without the eating. The eating of the sacrificial lamb.

And that is so because that first Passover in Egypt, important as it was, wasn’t the real thing. It foreshadowed another. The true and greater and final Passover was still to come. And it would take place now, on this night. When the Lamb of God would be sacrificed to rescue not just a nation from their slavery in Egypt, but to rescue the world from our slavery to sin and death. So blood would be shed, but this too:

The Lamb must be eaten.

So there, that night, in that room, Jesus gathers His disciples. He tells them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. This Passover. Not another old Passover, but this new Passover of the New Covenant. This is why He came. This is His desire. To save them from sin and death. And He is about to do so. 

But just as the first Passover pointed forward to another and greater Passover, so too this new Passover is pointing forward to another and greater Passover Feast. That’s why Jesus speaks of its fulfillment. He says, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. . . . And then, I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. It is important to remember the past, but it is also important to look to the future, to the fulfillment. And it is also important for the disciples to eat the Passover now.

So they do.

Jesus feeds them the Body and blood of the true and final Passover Lamb. 

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Now in the old Passover, there was no drinking of blood. That was forbidden. For the life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:10ff). And our life comes not from any animal - our life comes from God alone. So when the Passover Lamb is the very Son of God, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, whose blood is life-giving, the reason for the prohibition is fulfilled and no longer in effect. So with this new Passover, there is both eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Lamb. And this Passover Lamb and this eating and drinking rescue us from our slavery to sin and death and give us freedom and life.

And now it was imminent. In mere hours Jesus would be dead and the new covenant sealed - once and for all - with His blood.

So there would be no more Passover lambs. No more would be needed. For this one has atoned for our sin and died our death. Our sins are forgiven, remembered no more. And where there is forgiveness, there is no longer any offering for sin. It is finished. Done. Complete. You are free!

So on this day, the day of the new Passover, it is for us to eat the Passover. And Jesus, who opened the new and living way for us to God, through the curtain, through His flesh . . . Jesus, our great high priest, is here to feed us. And we draw near in full assurance of faith, for our hearts [are] sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water - the pure water of Holy Baptism. We know that there is here for us a meal unlike any other. A meal which gives life now and life forever. A meal which forgives sins and gives salvation. This is our Passover to eat and to drink.

But how shall we do so? We do this in remembrance of Jesus, yes. We eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus in reverence, yes. We repent and receive the forgiveness of sins in faith, yes. And we look forward to the fulfillment, to when the kingdom of God comes, yes. All that is true. But I want to add to all that this thought for you this night:

We should go to the Lord’s Supper as though we are going to our death, so that when we come to our death, we may go as though we are going to the Lord’s Supper.*

Because we are!

This is the last Lord’s Supper any of us may eat. Death may come upon us, or Jesus may come again. But this not the last feast of the Lord we will eat. For when we die, or when Jesus comes again, we will be going to the Lord’s Supper in heaven, the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom. So when we come to the altar here, we are remembering our Lord’s death and practicing for our own. So that when death comes upon us, we not fear, but know we are going from feast to feast, from life to life, and from faith to sight. To the feast that has no end.

That is what this night is all about. The past, the present, and the future. The new Covenant, the new Testament, of the new creation. The great and final Passover in Jesus’ blood. And you are the honored guest. Come, eat and drink, and live. It is all FOR YOU.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

* - This a quotation from John Pless, Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 35, Part 2 (2025), p. 25. He gives no attribution for the quote, only that “a wise Christian once said . . .”

Meditation for Holy Wednesday

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Jesu Juva

“This Is Our King”

Text: Revelation 1:5b-7

 

In the (+) Name of Jesus. Amen.

He made us a kingdom. That’s what we just heard, in the reading from Revelation.

Usually when we think of kingdoms, we think of countries or lands. But He made US a kingdom. God’s kingdom is not a place, but a people.

He made us a kingdom by freeing us from our sins by His blood. Kingdoms rise and fall by wars and battles, and this kingdom is no exception. The battle was fierce and the warfare long. There was blood shed. The blood of God. 

There had to be. This could be no bloodless coup, no bloodless battle. For to be in His kingdom, to be priests to His God and Father, we needed the forgiveness of our sins. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. 

So Jesus did. He shed His blood for us. Because He loves us. In love He created the world. In love He redeemed the world. And in love, He comes now to save you and me. His love would let Him do no less. 

And He is coming again, with the clouds. He is with us now. He is not absent, just unseen. But when He comes again, every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. For some it will be in dread. For us, it will be in joy. 

This week, we remember that He was pierced. His head with a crown of thorns. His back with the end of the whip. His hands and feet with nails. And His side with a spear. And His blood that flowed from those wounds that brought Him death brought us life. 

This week we hear the story again, and we picture in our heads what it was like. But one day we will see. For when He returns the holes will still be there. Not as signs of our sin, but as testimonies of His love. 

I think of our soldiers who have returned from war, often horribly maimed. Some are blinded, some have lost limbs, some with traumatic brain injuries. When Jesus returns, He will not be like that, a horribly maimed Saviour - in His resurrection He is glorified. Yet He kept the holes. They are as precious to Him as you are. He keeps the holes that we see Him forever as the God who so loved the world that He bled and died for us. And that seeing Him like that, we thank and praise Him for such love. That to save a slave, God gave His Son.

So thanks and praise mark this Holy Week. We will thank and praise Jesus for all this, even though we see now only with the eyes of faith. This is not a week of mourning and sadness, but a week of solemn thanks and praise. So we’ll thank and praise Him tomorrow as we eat the Body and drink the Blood that was offered up on the cross for us. We’ll thank and praise Him on Friday in the darkness as we remember when the one who is the Light of the world was snuffed out in death. We’ll thank and praise Him on Saturday that all His words and promises of old are fulfilled in Jesus.

For He has made us a kingdom, and this is our King, to whom thanks and praise are due. A good and gracious King. A loving and merciful King. A King who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for us. The work is done. The gifts are given. And we thank and praise Him for them. We do so now. And we will do so forever.

In the (+) Name of Jesus. Amen.

Meditation for Holy Tuesday

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Jesu Juva

“The Good Confession”

Text: 1 Timothy 6:12-14

 

In the (+) Name of Jesus. Amen.

Faith is a fight. Fight the good fight of the faith, Paul told Timothy. The Christian life is not lived in a plush palace, but on a battlefield. And on that battlefield, we have three very fierce enemies. 

The first is, I suppose, the most obvious: the devil. Peter likened him to a prowling lion, looking for someone to devour. The devil isn’t just a prankster, trying to trip you up, trying to make you sin, just so he can laugh at you. As Peter said, he wants to devour you! End your life! Your life in Christ. And he is consistent and persistent. If you think he isn’t, or isn’t attacking you, then either you’re not paying attention, or he is being very subtle and sneaky. He is always plotting and planning your downfall.

The second fierce enemy we have is the world. And by world is meant all the people and institutions and religions and beliefs that are not of Christ. These are teachings that undermine your faith in Jesus and His Word. For example, the teaching that God did not create the world; that this all happened by chance. That babies in the womb are not little boys and little girls from the moment they are conceived. That your sexuality is fluid, your gender is fluid, and it is good for you to live that way. That all religions are really the same. All these teachings - and more! - are not harmless. They are attacking your faith, to end your life in Christ.

And then the third fierce enemy we have is our own sinful nature. That old, sinful, rebellious Adam in us that doesn’t want to follow Jesus and His ways, but wants to go our own way and do our own thing. That old sinner in us that thinks we know better than God what we need and how we should live. 

Each one of those enemies alone engage us in fierce battle. But all three together is the fight we face! What’s a Christian to do?

Well, as Paul told Timothy in the Scripture we heard today: make the good confession. That is how we fight! With words. But what words? What does that mean?

The word confess here means, literally, to say the same thing. So we confess our sins. God has said that I am a sinner, and I say the same thing: yes, I am a sinner. We confess the Creed. God has said who He is and what He has done for us, and I say the same thing: yes, this is who You are and what You have done for me.

But the thing about confession is not just that you confess, but what you confess. The devil and the world want us to say the same thing as them - that would be a bad confession! Paul told Timothy, to make the good confession, just as Jesus made the good confession before Pontius Pilate. And that confession is to confess the truth of God’s Word. 

Jesus did that, for when He was baptized and when He was transfigured, His Father said from heaven, This is my beloved Son! And Jesus said the same thing - that He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah, the King of the Jews. And He did so even before the one who had the power to crucify Him: Pontius Pilate. 

And that is the good confession that we make today. The devil wants us to confess his lies by what we say and how we live. The world wants us to confess their lies by what we say and how we live. And even our own sinful nature wants to confess those lies by what we say and how we live because it would make my life so much easier! Well maybe easier, but not better. 

So we make the good confession today, that God’s Word is the truth. And no other. That there is only one God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the best confession of all, that the Father sent His Son into the world, born as Jesus, to save us from our sins. To make that confession will always be a fight against those who disagree with it. But that is a fight worth waging. For that is the only confession that can give life. 

So we confess this Holy Week who our God is: the God of the cross. And there’s no other God. He is the God who fought for us, bled for us, died for us, and won. And we say the same thing. And with Christ and His forgiveness, we win.

In the (+) Name of Jesus. Amen.