Love Laid Down (Good Friday 2021)

I’ve genuinely been looking forward to tonight. My hope is that this time together is meaningful for you and sets you up to worship Jesus on Easter Sunday.

If you have a coin in your pocket, pull it out. It isn’t essential, but it helps. Kids, if you don’t have one, just imagine you’re holding a dime, or a quarter — or if you want to go big, a silver dollar.

One Coin, Two Sides

Hold it and look at it. On one side is the profile of a president — the side we call heads. On the other is some patriotic image, and since it differs across coins we simply call that tails.

Heads and tails. And yet it’s still one coin.

No matter what you do, you end up with a coin that has both. Even if you found a novelty quarter — one of those trick coins with heads on both faces, so you always win the toss — all I’d have to do is take a permanent marker to one side, and you’d discover you have a heads and a tails after all.

Tonight We Sit on the Dark Side

Tonight we’re studying a passage we’ll also look at on Sunday.

On Sunday we get the glorious heads side of the story. We’ll see something magnificent, and I hope you walk out in awe of the power of God.

But tonight we need to sit on the dark tails side.

We need to be in the garden of Gethsemane with Jesus. We need to go to Calvary and look up at the cross and see what is actually happening there.

Because to truly appreciate Sunday, you have to sit in Friday.

So we’ll look at the same text we’ll see Sunday — just through the filter of Friday, and the horror of the cross.

Written Six Hundred Years Early

Throughout tonight you’ll hear portions of Isaiah 53 read aloud.

Sit with this: Isaiah 53 was written six to seven hundred years before the events at the cross. Six or seven centuries.

And as you hear those passages tonight, you’ll be struck by the level of detail — by how precisely they describe what Jesus went through.

Isaiah describes one who grew up like a tender shoot out of dry ground, with no beauty or majesty to attract us — despised and rejected, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, one from whom people hid their faces. He says that this man bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, while we assumed he was being struck down by God for his own sake.

He describes him as oppressed and afflicted, yet silent — like a lamb led to slaughter, like a sheep silent before its shearers, never opening his mouth. Taken away by oppression and judgment, cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of God’s people. Buried among the wicked and with a rich man in his death, though he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

And then the line that holds the whole night: he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was laid on him, and by his wounds we are healed. All of us like sheep have wandered off, each turning to his own way — and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.

A Truth from John 10

To get the full weight of Isaiah 53, we need one truth from John 10 — the passage we’ll study Sunday.

Verses 17 and 18: For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.

On Sunday we’ll take the preceding sixteen verses as well, and you’ll find it isn’t a typical Easter passage at all — it’s about sheep and shepherds, robbers and gates. In fact, verse 6 tells us the crowd had no idea what he meant.

Which is understandable. Jesus was a carpenter whom people had come to know as a rabbi, and suddenly he’s calling himself a good shepherd.

So because they’re confused, he explains — and in that explanation he says that because he is the good shepherd, he lays down his life for the sheep.

Which, if you think about it, is not what shepherds do. A shepherd exists to protect the flock. A dead shepherd leaves the sheep completely vulnerable.

That’s why verses 17 and 18 matter so much. Jesus explains: this is why I came. I lay down my life for my sheep — and I do it of my own accord.

Willingly and Freely

Jesus went to the cross and all its horrors willingly and freely.

And that tells us three things.

One: Jesus Was Not Forced

I’ve heard skeptics of Christianity say they could never follow Jesus because the whole gospel story sounds like divine child abuse — a heavenly Father sending his Son to die. It strikes them as cruel, and they conclude they’d never want any part of that religion.

And Jesus says: no. That is not the case.

He was not sent against his will. He was party to the plan. He wanted to do it.

No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord.

Two: Jesus Was Not Surprised

Jesus was not in the garden of Gethsemane praying while his disciples slept — sweating drops like blood — only to suddenly look up and say, What’s that noise? Are those soldiers? Why are soldiers coming?

He knew exactly why they were coming. He knew Judas would be leading them. He knew everything that was about to unfold.

In fact, if you read the Gospels carefully, it becomes almost startling — it reads as though Jesus is directing events to bring himself to the cross.

Three: Jesus Did Not Deserve It

And in my opinion this is the most important of the three.

Scripture says Jesus is the only person who ever lived without sin. He committed no crime against another human being. He committed no offense against heaven.

Jesus didn’t earn so much as a slap on the wrist.

And he received the death penalty.

He wasn’t forced. He wasn’t surprised. And he absolutely did not deserve this.

Then Why?

Which leaves the obvious question. Why would he do it?

He tells us in verse 18: no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

This was the plan. Jesus wanted to do this.

But that only raises a harder question: how? What could possibly motivate a human being — let alone God — to go and die in the place of other people?

If you were with us on Palm Sunday, you heard the answer. We looked at Jesus walking toward Jerusalem knowing exactly what awaited him, and asked what drove him.

The answer is love. Love is what drove Jesus to the cross.

Love Is What Kept Him There

So when you hear Isaiah 53 tonight and take in the horrors Jesus endured, remember that love is what kept him there.

It was love that made him stand and let soldiers spit in his face and mock him.

It was love that let them press a crown of thorns onto his head.

It was love that let him lie there while they drove nails through his wrists.

You have to understand — this is the man with all authority. We’ve been watching it all through Mark. He calms storms. He casts out demons. He commands the sea.

And he didn’t stop any of it. He let it happen. Because of love.

Don’t Rush to Sunday

On Sunday we get the glorious side. We’ll return to verses 17 and 18 and see the astonishing power of Jesus.

But tonight we have to stop looking ahead to Sunday and simply sit here.

Jesus went to that cross willingly, because of our sin. The penalty for sin is death. Jesus went and died for us. He took it. He paid it.

So tonight, thank him for it. Consider everything he endured, so that you can grasp how grave our sin actually is — and in grasping that, understand how great his love actually is.

Don’t hold back tonight. Sing. Pray. Confess. Listen. And when we come to the communion elements, enter fully into it.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father, this is your night — just as it was your night two thousand years ago.

Jesus, how you did this is unfathomable. It’s almost unthinkable. And you did it because you loved us that much.

Humans were your creation. You placed your image in us. And we had the audacity to spit in your face, to rebel, to sin — and that sin kept us eternally separated from you.

And rather than take offense, rather than make us bear our own punishment and its consequences, you came to this earth to be fully human, to live the only sinless life ever lived — and then to die the sinner’s death.

So move powerfully among us tonight. Let us see Jesus vividly and remember what he did. Use the words of Scripture, use these songs, use even the whispers of your Spirit to draw our hearts and minds — so that we would know you are God, that you are good, and that you love us. Because we see that love with terrible clarity at the cross. In Jesus’s name, amen.

A Confession, Prayed Together

It is at the cross that we see the body of Jesus broken. It is at the cross that we see the blood poured out.

So before we come to the table, we’re going to spend time in confession — because our sin is why he went there.

We confess to you, Jesus our Lord and Savior, that we have betrayed and denied you, forgotten and doubted you. We have betrayed you with our silence, denied you through our actions, forgotten you in our minds, and doubted you in our hearts. And so we have failed to proclaim your gospel, failed to live out your teaching, and failed to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Forgive us, O God, and help us truly to repent. Help us to remember your willing sacrifice, to recall your abundant forgiveness, and to know your unending love. In your name, Jesus the Christ, the one crucified in our place, we pray. Amen.

And then take a minute of silence. If something is weighing on you — if you know there’s an area where you have not been giving all of yourself to God — this is your time. Confess it privately. Let it be on your heart and mind as you prepare to receive the elements.

Sit in It

So sit in the knowledge of what Jesus has done for us. Love laid down.

Leave quietly tonight. Spend this weekend thanking him. And prepare your heart to come and worship him on Sunday.