A Sermon For Good Friday

Was Jesus crucified to satisfy and angry God?

I was not planning to preach a sermon this evening. The agreement that I have with our new church is that I will preach once a month while they are without a pastor. As I was planning the preaching schedule with the leadership, they decided that they wanted me to preach the last Sunday of March. That happens to be Easter Sunday. Surprise, surprise for their selection!

I had no misgivings about not preaching on Good Friday because the traditional reading of The Passion of Christ is sufficient for proclamation. However, three weeks ago after worship, one of the members of the congregation poured herself out to me and told me that she has great trouble with Good Friday because she does not believe that God’s wrath could be satisfied by the sacrifice of Christ. Though that is Lutheran orthodoxy (Luther did write of Christ “propitiating,” or satisfying God’s wrath) I have shared her concern for a long time.

I discerned our conversation as a sign from God that perhaps I was called to preach this evening. I dusted off my Good Friday sermon from 2015, which spoke to this parishioner’s concern and pain, and revised it a bit for this evening. In the sermon, I cite The Gospel of Nicodemus, an apocryphal, non-canonical (not in the Bible) writing from near the end of the third century. An excerpt is copied at the end of this sermon.

Blessed Good Friday to all!

TROUBLED BY SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT

(The Crucified One Threatens a Society that Neglects the Poor and Worships the Sword!)

      It has been difficult for me to preach on Good Friday.  And maybe that is a reason that it is good for me to preach on Good Friday!  I was not planning to preach this evening, but a few weeks ago a member of the congregation indicated that she is troubled about Good Friday in the same way that I am, that she wrestles with the same struggles that I have.  That was the affirmation that I needed to dust off one of my old sermons and rework it for tonight. 

To say it very plainly and directly, the more that I mature in faith, the more difficult it is for me to accept the orthodox Protestant doctrine of substitutionary atonement, also called satisfaction or propitiation.  You may not recognize the scholarly, theological dogma - substitutionary atonement - but I know that you get the concept; “Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins by satisfying an angry God.”  I acknowledge that I am in disagreement with the orthodox teaching that has dominated the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches since the early Middle Ages.  It is noteworthy that I am not alone.  I am reading more and more from other theologians who have the same concerns that I have.  Apparently, so does at least one member of this congregation…I suspect many more!  So, a Good Friday dusted off sermon! 

I will make my case.  I don’t believe that God was or is angry.  I don’t believe that God would put God’s child through that kind of suffering.  (Would any of you?...  Then how can we imagine that God would do it?...)  I don’t believe that God was separate from Christ, looking down from heaven with satisfaction on God’s face as Jesus died.  I believe that God suffered on the cross too.  If we profess a Trinitarian God – one in three and three in one – then how can we not believe that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit suffered on the cross?...

So then, the obvious question, “Pastor, if you don’t believe that Jesus died to satisfy God’s wrath, then why did Jesus end up on the cross?”  Very simply, Jesus died on the cross because He made enemies with the wrong people.  He threatened the powerful religious leaders who had the ability to convict Him in a sham trial.  He threatened the powerful civil leaders of the Empire who had the ability to carry out the death sentence. 

It all had to do with the core of Jesus’ message, the Kingdom of God.  Jesus was advocating a new social order that would overturn the status quo.  Jesus was imagining the common good of all, care for the most needy, peace as an alternative to violence, divesting of earthly things in pursuit of heavenly things, and the inclusion of all people in the community.  What Jesus had in mind was a threat to Roman colonialists and their Jewish collaborators.  Stated simply, “Jesus was a threat to a society that neglected the poor and worshiped the sword.”  In fact, Jesus is a threat to every society that neglects the poor and worships the sword!  I first preached those words in 2015.  Examine our world today.  You can tell me if they are still a relevant message on Good Friday 2024!...

Following the gospel stories, it is pretty clear that the plot against Jesus grew throughout His ministry.  St. John says it explicitly by placing the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of his gospel.  Overturning the tables of the oppressing economy will not go over well with the powerful benefactors of that economy.  After raising Lazarus from the dead, Caiaphas says that it is better that one die than the whole nation.  Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Hosea; Bonhoeffer, Gandhi, King, Jr., Archbishop Oscar Romero, Mandela and Novalny; prophets will become martyrs as they confront empirical power and the status quo.

Yes, Jesus could have called down a legion of fighting angels from heaven as he was mocked by His accusers, but that would not have squared with the Kingdom of God that was founded on the pursuit of peace.  Throughout His trial and execution, Jesus offered no words of hatred and no call for retribution…for that would have been inconsistent with the Kingdom.  In fact, among His final words in Luke’s gospel were His prayer, “Father, forgiven them…”  In the Kingdom that Jesus came to announce there is a law; the law of the cross.  The law of the cross is the law of love ready to die rather than to hate!  It is such love, such refusal to hate, such non-violence that will transform this world into the Kingdom of God.  Why crucifixion?  In this sacrificial love that is so apparent in His death, Jesus shows how we can break the cycle of sin that begets sin.  Is it possible?  Does it work?...

For Lutherans it would be inconceivable for me to talk about Easter tonight.  Tonight, we must fully invest in the cross and only in the cross.  The “A” word must remain buried for two more days.  But let me take you beyond the cross without going to the empty tomb.  On Good Friday we are so taken, so stirred by Jesus’ suffering and death that perhaps we miss an important word of hope.  Even before the stone is rolled away, something is stirring!

What happened after Jesus died and before he was buried?...  Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, leading members of the Sanhedrin, the religious power brokers that convicted Jesus, came to take His body down and bury it.  What a witness of faith!  What courage!  I am enamored with these two!  What was going on throughout the gospel story under the surface that the evangelists did not report?...  They were being converted to the Kingdom!  There must have been more “Nic at night” clandestine meetings with these members of the Sanhedrin that we were not aware of!  These two good and righteous men were coming to believe Jesus and His message.  Imagine their inner conflict as members of that powerful religious body!

A little trivia for you; Joseph of Arimathea is a saint in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.  “Big deal pastor, so is everybody else in those churches!”  Ah, he is also a saint in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.  His day is July 31 and on this score I would have to say that our friends in Missouri have it right.  In those churches, Joseph of Arimathea is the patron saint of….you guessed it, funeral directors!

Like so many biblical characters, we want to know more about Joseph.  We want to know what happened after his courageous act on Good Friday.  A third-century apocryphal New Testament book titled The Gospel of Nicodemus tells a story that we might have hoped for (excerpts on the back cover of the worship folder).  Joseph was discovered by the Sanhedrin and imprisoned.  Jesus liberated him in a miraculous act like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being rescued from Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace or St. Paul in the Philippian jail.  Joseph witnesses to the Jewish leaders, they repent and then witness to the Roman leaders.  It’s a nice story if it were true.  More importantly, we have before us from Scripture what is true; even before Easter sunrise, the mustard seed of the Kingdom was growing!

Yes, orthodox Lutheran faith says that in Christ’s death we are forgiven, redeemed, and reconciled to God.  I believe that.  But redeemed for what?...  Jesus was a threat to oppressors and good news to the oppressed.  Jesus was a threat to a society that neglected the poor and worshiped the sword…  How does that message of the Kingdom ring this evening?...  How does it speak to your life?...  God is still calling for faithful disciples with the courage and conviction of Joseph and Nicodemus today.  Will you take up the cross?  Will you honor the crucified One?  Will you trust that love for your neighbor will defeat use of the sword?  Will you live and teach the subversive message of the Kingdom in our nation, in our community, at this moment in?  That is what the cross evokes in me tonight.

The Gospel of Nicodemus

(an excerpt)

And likewise Joseph (of Arimathea) also stepped out and said to them (the Jewish elders): Why are you angry against me because I begged the body of Jesus? Behold, I have put him in my new tomb, wrapping in clean linen; and I have rolled a stone to the door of the tomb. And you have acted not well against the just man, because you have not repented of crucifying him, but also have pierced him with a spear.  The Jewish elders then captured Joseph, and imprisoned him, and placed a seal on the door to his cell after first posting a guard. Joseph warned the elders, "The Son of God whom you hanged upon the cross, is able to deliver me out of your hands. All your wickedness will return upon you."….

Once the elders returned to the cell, the seal was still in place, but Joseph was gone. The elders later discover that Joseph had returned to Arimathea. Having a change in heart, the elders desired to have a more civil conversation with Joseph about his actions and sent a letter of apology to him by means of seven of his friends. Joseph travelled back from Arimathea to Jerusalem to meet with the elders, where they questioned him about his escape. He told them this story; On the day of the Preparation, about the tenth hour, you shut me in, and I remained there the whole Sabbath in full. And when midnight came, as I was standing and praying, the house where you shut me in was hung up by the four corners, and there was a flashing of light in mine eyes. And I fell to the ground trembling. Then someone lifted me up from the place where I had fallen, and poured over me an abundance of water from the head even to the feet, and put round my nostrils the odor of a wonderful ointment, and rubbed my face with the water itself, as if washing me, and kissed me, and said to me, Joseph, fear not; but open thine eyes, and see who it is that speaks to thee. And looking, I saw Jesus; and being terrified, I thought it was a phantom. And with prayer and the commandments I spoke to him, and he spoke with me. And I said to him: Art thou Rabbi Elias? And he said to me: I am not Elias. And I said: Who art thou, my Lord? And he said to me: I am Jesus, whose body thou didst beg from Pilate, and wrap in clean linen; and thou didst lay a napkin on my face, and didst lay me in thy new tomb, and roll a stone to the door of the tomb. Then I said to him that was speaking to me: Show me, Lord, where I laid thee. And he led me, and showed me the place where I laid him, and the linen which I had put on him, and the napkin which I had wrapped upon his face; and I knew that it was Jesus. And he took hold of me with his hand, and put me in the midst of my house though the gates were shut, and put me in my bed, and said to me: Peace to thee! And he kissed me, and said to me: For forty days go not out of thy house; for, lo, I go to my brethren into Galilee.

The Gospel of Nicodemus. Translated by Alexander Walker, is a manuscript from the Apocryphal New Testament, thought to have been written near the end of the third century.