Places of the Passion: A Place of Praise

Good Friday, April 9, 2004

Rev. Ronald Burcham

Typed from audio transcript

The earth shakes. Temple curtains are torn from top to bottom. Graves are opened up, and dead people are walking around. What is this place where we've gathered tonight?

Certainly, it's a place of pain. We're surrounded by pain. There's the physical pain, the pain of the crucifixion, the pain of Jesus and the flogging He had to endure. We don't need to go into the details of that. If you've seen the movie, you've seen more than enough.

How about the emotional pain… the emotional pain of Jesus the man, not Jesus the Son of God… as He looks out at those who once clung to Him and worshiped Him and now mock Him, and laugh as He dies? What about the emotional pain of Mary as she looks at her son? A mother should never see her son die… but to die in such a way. What about the pain of the disciples… when Jesus needed them the most, they ran away. What of Peter, as he stares on, knowing that he denied his Lord three times, what of John, when Jesus looks at him and says, "John, take care of my mom." It's a place full of pain.

It's a place full of ridicule, people laughing at Him, sneering at Him. Those who are the religious leaders, those who are supposed to represent Him to His people, they stand at the foot of the cross. "You're so high and mighty, why don't you come down. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Son of God indeed." Then two of them from the lowest strata of society hang next to Him, guilty and yet they taunt Him with words. "Go ahead, save us and yourself." It is a place of ridicule.

It's a place of rejection… no, no, not just the rejection of the people who once followed Him, a rejection that goes deeper than that, a rejection of a Father of His Son. Do you recall what Jesus said of His Father in heaven? He said, "The Father and I are one." Yet today, He cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Father has forsaken His Son. The Father has turned His back on His Son. He's rejected His Son. Jesus hangs there all alone, rejected by man and rejected by God.

But mostly, this is a place of death. The stench of it is all around us as three men hang upon a cross, a slow, cruel, grueling death. You expect to see death at a crucifixion, but what you expect to see is you expect to see the guilty die and the innocent go free. The opposite is true here. Here, the innocent one is dying and the guilty ones are laughing and going free. Something just doesn't seem right and yet everything seems to be according to plan. Then, at the moment that death comes, when Jesus gives up His spirit and breaths His last, something extraordinary happens, something that you can't really explain, something that seems so far out of place. This turns into a place of praise. Of praise? It's a place of death. It's a place of rejection and pain, but a place of praise… and from all places… a Roman centurion… the man standing guard over Jesus? He goes from a deathwatch to being a disciple? The Roman centurion, St. Luke tells us, seeing what had happened, praised God, and said, "Surely, this was a righteous man." A place of praise? No, not the kind where you're dancing down the aisle shouting "Alleluia" kind of praise, not the type where trumpets blast and you sing for all that you have kind of praise, not even the kind of praise that puts a smile on your face, it was the praise that comes from being awestruck, awestruck from seeing the miraculous, from seeing the unbelievable.

Any time that the gospel writer, Luke, recorded one of the miracles of Jesus, he always used that same word, that word for praise. He began all the way in the beginning of his book when the shepherds had been greeted by the heavenly hosts and told to go to Bethlehem to see what God had done. As they saw the miracle of the birth of the Son of God, Luke records for us that they went back out to their field praising God. There was a funeral in the town of Nain. The widow is there with her son. Jesus interrupts the proceedings. "Your son is back to life again," and their mouths open up with praise. The leper who returns healed. The blind man who takes a good look at his Lord, the mute who certainly now can all of a sudden talk, they all open up their mouths in praise, because that's what happens when you see a miracle. Your mouths open up with praise.

And tonight the greatest miracle of all time has taken place, because tonight the great exchange has been seen before your very eyes. The righteous one of God takes on the sinfulness of mankind, and sinful mankind takes on the righteousness of God. The Son of God dies while all of mankind is granted life. The Father looks at us, and He sees our sin but He chooses to call us righteous. The miracle of all time took place tonight. This is not our work tonight. This is His work. This is His doing. This is His obedience. It's His love. It's His grace. How do you respond to that? There's only one way: a simple word, a word of praise, "Surely, this man is a righteous man and, by His righteousness, we are saved.

Tonight, as we gather almost 2,000 years later, let this be a place of praise for you. No, not that we're happy our Lord has died. We mourn the fact that the Son of God had to hang upon a cross. We're saddened by the fact of the pain that was inflicted upon Him and yet we know He hung there because of our sin. Because of my sin, He was nailed to that cross and we know that He died for us. We will not take away from His death. We will not be glad about it, but also we will not see it go for not. We will recognize the importance of what God has done for us this night. We will recognize the great exchange that has taken place.

You see, I don't know why all of you came tonight, whether it was devotion to God or obligation to family, but I do know when you leave this place, leave it as a place of praise because we have seen the miraculous. We have seen the great exchange because certainly, this is a righteous man and, by His righteousness, we have been saved. Amen.

Copyright 2004 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church