The one who knew no sin became sin for us. Here, on Good Friday. Upon the cross.
To quote Luther (in place of confessing our Catechism): Christ was not only found among sinners, but of His own accord, and by the will of His Father, He would also be companion of sinners, taking upon Him the flesh and blood of those who were sinners, and plunged into all kinds of sin. When the law therefore found Him among thieves, it condemned and killed Him as a thief. we must wrap Christ, and know Him to be wrapped in our sins, in our malediction, in our death, and in all our evils, as He is wrapped in our flesh and blood. But some will say, it is absurd and slanderous to call the Son of God a cursed sinner. I answer, if thou wilt deny Him to be a sinner and accursed, deny also that He was crucified and dead. For it is no less absurd to say that the Son of God (as our faith confesseth and believeth) was crucified and suffered the pains of sin and death, than to say that He is a sinner and accursed. But if it be not absurd to confess and believe that Christ was crucified between two thieves, then it is not absurd to say also that He was accursed, and of all sinners the greatest. These words of Paul are not spoken in vain, “Christ was made a curse for us: God made Christ who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we in Him might be made the righteousness of God” . But because He bears the sins of the world, His innocence is burdened with the sins and guilt of the whole world. Whatsoever sins we have done or will do, they are now Christ’s. If it is not so, we will all perish for ever. Thus ; Christ was accounted the greatest transgressor that ever could be, having all sins counted as His. For being made a sacrifice for sin, indeed, for the sins of the whole world, is no longer seen as an innocent person and without sin, butas a sinner who bears the sin of Paul, who was a blasphemer and a persecutor; of Peter who denied Him; of David who was an adulterer and a murderer; and indeed, all the sins of all men in His body; not that He is Himself guilty of any, but that He received them, being committed or done by us, and laid them upon His own body, that He might make satisfaction for them with His own blood (amen?)
This we remember – Today.
Today we see God in flesh, our flesh. in humanity, our humanity. bearing pain. Bearing sin. Bearing punishment. Bearing Wrath. Bearing death. All of it – ours. Our sin, our punishment, the wrath we earned. The death we deserved.
Today, He bears it. Today He bears what is ours. Today He takes it away. Today He takes it for Himself. Not a share of it. Not some of it. Not the worst of it. But all of it.
Not for some of us. But for all of us. Not just for the disciples or the believers or His followers. Not for those who will believe in Him or for those who love Him or those who ask to be saved by Him. But for all. For the thief on His left as much as for the thief on His right. For Peter who forsook Him and for Judas who betrayed Him. For the apostates who turn away from Him. For the atheists who never turned to Him. For the liars, the swindlers, the thieves and murders. For all of them.
Today He takes on every sin. And every wrath. Every ugliness. Not the Grey sins only, but the black ones too. Today He identifies with them. Today, He becomes sin itself.
Today He has taken His claim upon the worst acts that human darkness have ever produced. And that is a hard reality to grasp.
And you know what? , that got me thinking – Recently, I watched a horror movie. Lords of chaos. About the history of black metal. Do you know what black metal is? It’s the darkest sub genre of metal music. About Satan, blasphemy, suicide, genocide, murder, etc. With blood curdling screams and instruments that sound like running sink taps. With imagery of baphomets and pentagrams, and upsidedown crosses. And in this movie, as you can imagine, About the history of the rise of black metal, there were scenes of church burnings, among other things (murder, scuidie, you get the idea). And of course, the church burnings offend me. They were hard to watch. To watch these young men (who were real , and really did these things) rip up bibles, in anger. And desecrate altars and tear down crucifixes and icons and to set them on fire and burn them down, some of the oldest Lutheran chruches in the world, GONE. It hurt. But you know what? As I watched these scenes of these young men tear the bibles to shreds and throw the crosses to the floor and urinate on the holy altar of Christ’s body and blood, – you could see the icons of Christ staring back at them. You could see His eyes on them. As they tried their absolute hardest to hurt Him. To curse Him. To spurn Him. As they poured out their anger out upon Him.
And you know what?… through it all I noticed something. Not something about them. But something about God. Its this – as they raged against Him – Did the icons change? Did the look of love in His eyes fade away in the face of their hatred? Did the desire for their salvation leave when they went too far? Did His face begin to frown when they went too far? No. It didn’t. His face remained fixed. He remained crucified for them. His desire for them stayed fixed even as they tore the paintings off the walls. His cross remained their redemption even when they trampled upon it. His love for them continued to rise from the grave even as they leveled His churches to the ground. And the look of love in His eyes never left. It never changed. Not for a minute. And not for a second.
And the whole time as I watched this, with these young men and their anger and their hatred and their wrath thrown entirely against the one who loved them unto death, I thought to myself, the WHOLE TIME, that there was something PERFECTLY… “right” about this. Wrong as it was. Although everything they did was horrid. It was a desecration. It was insulting., to these holy things, these crosses, the icons, these altars, these bibles these churches, that this was exactly (somehow) what they were for. That somehow. This is what they were. This is the cross. The Gospel. The Word. This is Christ
Ans that’s an offensive thought, I know -, but it’s true. This is Christ.
The holiest thing, the one who knew no sin, taking our sin. Though He doesn’t deserve it. It’s a grave insult, a disgusting thought. A desecration of the holy. A great blasphemy. For St. Paul to say what he does, it’s no wonder that even the pagans had to behead him and that the jews had to Stone and flog him. It’s unthinkable. That we would call God sin. That we would identify the holiest Lord of glory witj genocide and murder and rape. And yet THERE IT IS. There is the man. There is every man. There is sin. There is every sin. There is hate. There is wrath. There is condemnation, and where is it? It’s on GOD. And there the wrath of God and the wrath of men and the hate and disgust of the world against all of this RAGED against Him. And there He was. Suffering it. Enduring it. Bearing it. For sinners.
He was cursed, mocked, beaten, tortured, whipped, stabbed, nailed to a cross and suffocated to death there. Nailed to a piece of wood to die there while enduring the insults of people who hated everything He did for them.
Did it stop Him? No. There He went to the cross for the ones who wouldn’t even join Him there to see Him off. Did it stop Him? No. There He died the death of the ones who took His own life. Did it stop Him? No.
This is what the cross is. It is man’s trampling on the holy. It is their spitting in the face of God. And it is Christ looking back at them in the love the whole time. Never once averting His eyes. Never once responding in anger. Never once striking back. But taking it. Absorbing it. Consuming it. And burying it in the grave.
No matter how much hate and unbelief and abandonment we threw at Him. No matter how much humanity vomited its crimes upon the cross. He returned back love ten thousand fold. No matter how hard we tried to scratch the compassion off of Christ’s face, it remained. We dug His heart out only for Him to give it wholly to us as a gift.
And so we have it. This is the cross. This is Christ. This is the Gospel.
We hated God. And He loved us. We killed God, and He resurrected us. We abandoned God. And He retrieved us. We forsook God. And He reclaimed us.
No matter how far away we ran His love ran faster. No matter how hard we tried to Hide, His grace found us. The grace of God is relentless. His love is a torrent of self-destructive violence. His compassion is an ocean that all our sin is going to drown in. No matter what. He will win
This is the cross. This is the death of God. It is the blotting out of Christ.
And it is His victory… His victory over our hate. Over our unbelief. Over our sin. Over everything that could ever separate us from Him.
The message I have for you on this good Friday, it is simply this: Some of you have said (over these past years) that you aren’t sure of your salvation (a concern I hear less and less as time goes by. Which means you’re listening). But I don’t want to hear it anymore ever again. Here’s why. Let me convince you of this.
I have heard confessions. I have heard crimes confessed. Adultery confessed. Blasphemy confessed. Manslaughter confessed. Evil confessed. And from these, I have heard despair of the supposed unreachability of God’s grace because of them. Why? What is the fear? That you went too far? There is no too far for God’s grace. Let me tell you how far we went, as the whole human race. We ran from God. We abandoned God. We betrayed God. For goodness sake we killed Him on the cross.
Not only did it not turn Him away from us. Not only did it not cancel His love for us. Not only did it not block His grace from us. It literally resulted in the total salvation and complete forgiveness of every sin for each and every one of us. The worst act we could ever possibly have done against God, was exactly the mechanism He used for our total, complete, and entire redemption and salvation.
There is nothing you can do. Nothing. You cannot get away from His grip. There is NOTHING you can do to run from Him. There is NOTHING you can do to hide from Him. There is NOTHING you can do to make Him hate you. You cannot escape His love. You cannot flee from His heart.
Friends, – He HAS you. And He will have you still – forever.
He is the victor. The crucified King.
I want for you Today: only this – TO SEE THAT in His cross.
For today, the one who knew no sin, becomes sin for us. Today. The author of life allows Himself to be put to death. Today, the heart of God is opened at the point of hatreds spear and out from its gaping wound pours His inescapable, unfathomable, undeniable love. And you are going to drown in it today.
You cannot get away. You are His. You cannot get away. He is yours. There is no other reality.
Now be silent and watch as it happens. Let us witness it.
