Good Friday Service

I would like to welcome you all to Kongsvinger Lutheran Church for our observance of Good Friday. Something you need to be made aware of, and that is at the very end of the service, as I am leaving the sanctuary,

I'm going to take one of the doors, open it, and slam it hard. It is not because I'm having a temper tantrum.

It's because that really jolting, loud sound is to represent the closing of Christ's tomb.

That's the idea behind it. So you need to be aware that it's coming, and be prepared for that.

The order of service is in the handout that you have in front of you, and the hymns on the hymn board are correct.

And today we'll be reciting and reading together Psalm 22. However, we will not be chanting that tonight.

It's a very long psalm. Instead, we will be reading it by half verse. So you need to be aware of that as well.

And again, be advised at the very end of the service, I will be slamming a door. Congregation, please rise.

O Lord, open my lips. Make haste,

O God, to deliver me. Praise to you,

O Christ, Lamb of our salvation. Please remain standing for our psalm, Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? O my

God, I cry by day, but you do not answer. Yet you are holy.

In you our fathers trusted. To you they cried and were rescued.

In you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man.

All who see me mock me.

He trusts in the Lord, let him deliver him. Yet you are he who took me from the womb.

On you I was cast from my birth. Be not far from me, for trouble is near.

Many bulls encompass me. They open wide their mouths at me.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt, and my tongue sticks to my jaws.

For dogs encompass me. I can count all my bones.

They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them. But you,

O Lord, do not be far off. Deliver my soul from the sword.

Save me from the mouth of the lion. I will tell of your name to my brothers.

You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him.

For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him.

From you comes my praise in the great congregation. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied.

Those who seek him shall praise the Lord. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the

Lord. For kingship belongs to the

Lord. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship.

Posterity shall serve him. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn.

And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.

Amen. We will now sing hymn 450, verses 1 to 3.

You may be seated. Congregation, please rise.

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe.

They came up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them,

See, I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no guilt in him. So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilate said to them,

Behold the man. When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him!

Crucify him! Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.

The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the

Son of God. When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from?

But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you, and authority to crucify you?

Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.

Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. From then on Pilate sought to release him.

But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes

Caesar. So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat on the judgment seat at the place called the

Stone Pavement in an Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the

Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, Behold your king!

They cried out, Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him! Pilate said to them,

Shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar.

So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. Verses four to seven.

You may be seated. Congregation, please rise.

So they took Jesus, and he went out bearing his own cross, to the place called the Place of a

Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.

Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the

Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city.

And it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priest and the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the king of the

Jews, but rather that this man said, I am the king of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written,

I have written. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also his tunic.

But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another,

Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture, which says,

They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things.

But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister,

Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother,

Woman, behold your son. And then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture,

I thirst. A jar of sour wine stood there. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit.

Since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the

Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

He who saw it as born witness, his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, that you also may believe.

For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken.

And again another scripture says, They will look on him whom they have pierced. After these things,

Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission.

So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds in weight.

So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the

Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid

Jesus there. O Lord, have mercy on us. We have an advocate with the

Father. Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is put away.

We have an advocate with the Father. Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. The hymn is 451.

You may be seated. In the name of Jesus.

Jesus is now on the cross. He's finished his work. In fact, that's exactly what he says.

He says, it is finished. What is finished? What exactly is finished?

Jesus isn't saying, I am finished. He says, it is finished. Well, I think in order to properly answer this question, properly frame what we are here to commemorate, what we are here to remember, what we are here to observe, in order to do that properly we must again return to the scene of the crime in Genesis chapter 3 and recount the words and listen very specifically to certain words when the

Lord is handing out his punishment to that first gospel that we hear when God is cursing the serpent there are words that we've heard so many times well, it's easy for them to be overlooked for their impact to not quite hit.

It's kind of like, have you ever had a couch that sits in your favorite window you know, maybe in your front room and it gets the sunlight and after a few years that beautiful colored couch is now faded in particular spots as the sun has kind of caused it to be washed out by the power of the sun.

A similar thing happens to us sometimes we become so familiar with the biblical text that what it's really saying the real words, the color and the nuance in them are somehow washed away by our familiarity with them so here again, the words of Yahweh as he is cursing the serpent because you have done this,

Yahweh says to Satan cursed are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life and here are the words

I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel ah, enmity oh, what a big word, that's a powerful word if you think about it one of the best stories ever told in human history the story of Romeo and Juliet it's big subtext if you would is enmity enmity between the

Capulets and the Montagues and it ends in tragedy for the two young lovers and it's so good of a story so well told and the enmity palpable that it's such an important part of the story that well, we have immortalized it as one of the best ever told and then you think of human history human history you'll note enmity is a big thing between the

Hatfields and the McCoys so much, enmity became such a culture and an attitude between those two clans that at some point they'd even forgotten why there even was enmity and then you think of the growing enmity in the world right now

NATO versus Russia and China and as enmity continues to grow one has to wonder if it'll come to arms armed conflict and war and if it does that enmity will result in how many millions billions of people,

I don't know how many of them will lose their life because of enmity but important to note here that God is not the one who launched the hostilities it was

Satan who launched the hostilities and he was the one who convinced a third of the angels of heaven to buy into his narrative that God, Yahweh was a meany, awful, terrible

God and that he did not have their best in mind and that Satan himself Lucifer would be the better candidate for God and so they wanted to depose

God and led a rebellion against God and God swept them from the heavens and brought them to earth and Satan's first move in the

Garden of Eden was to murder humanity made in the image of God by getting them to disobey

God's command and he succeeded Adam and Eve listened to the voice of the serpent actually

Eve listened to the voice of the serpent and then Adam listened to the voice of his wife rather than the voice of God and they became belligerents in this conflict that Satan had launched and you'll note something here in that context don't you think that it would have been completely feasible if God had basically said to hell with a lot of you all of you gone

Satan, you serpent, you're gone Adam and Eve, you're gone you're out of here but God doesn't do that he does something interesting

God says I'm going to launch hostilities against you

Satan and so the text reads I, God, will put enmity between you and your offspring and the offspring of the woman, the offspring of the woman is

Christ, so note this, when Christ comes into the world, born of the

Virgin Mary, he is going to suffer under Pontius Pilate as an act of war not an act of weakness this is his conflict and by his conflict he is going to mortally wound the serpent by bruising his head

Satan will never recover from it, Christ himself in the process will be bruised but his heel will be bruised so much is that such a mere flesh wound that if any

World War II soldier had received a shot in the heel he would have never thought to take a purple heart, it would have been a disgrace to do so, same with Christ this is such a mere flesh wound that he receives from the devil in the matter of this warfare and this battle that it is not appropriate for Christ to take a purple heart instead he takes the spoils but I'm getting ahead of myself in the sermon so we go back then to our gospel text with a proper context of what's going on,

Jesus is saying it is finished, what is finished the conflict is over, I have won Satan you have lost and you'll note he declares his victory just as he bows his head and dies, which makes you have to wonder if Satan was watching, kind of lurking off in some skanky little corner making sure to see

Jesus die and when Jesus says it is finished, you could say Satan going, stop no, abort mission we did it wrong, oh no it's too late right?

I think that's what went down, but I speculate I'm not allowed to do that from the pulpit you guys should reprimand me for doing so but you get the idea,

Christ is saying it is finished, what is finished the warfare is over, he has crushed the head of the serpent and the serpent fell for it, he went for it, hook, line and sinker because think of the way the world operates under the dominion of darkness two countries go to war, who's the one that wins?

The one who kills the most who's able to win the one who stands on the battlefield after the battle is over is the victor of the battle not the ones whose corpses need to be buried, in fact

I always come back to this line because it's a beautiful line it's so stark and wonderful in teaching the way the world thinks in that movie

Patton you have what was the guy's name I forget the name of the actor now it just eludes me, but you know the guy it's

George C. Scott, there he is he's standing in front of this ginormous American flag because here in America we can't do anything small, everything has to be big, and there's

Patton whipping his troops up into a frenzy getting ready to lead them into battle in Europe and what does he say to his troops it is not your job to die for your country and you can hear everyone just going what?

it's not? No, it's not it's your job to make the other guy die for his country, so the way it works is that the person who's dead loses the one who is alive wins but Christ is the master of death, death cannot hold him and you'll note then that Satan brought humanity under his dominion by tempting us and we went for it, tempting us to disobey

God and you'll see that Satan tried to tempt Jesus to disobey God but did

Christ ever once sin, not even once in fact Christ was the sinless spotless lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world he was tempted in every way that you and I are tempted and yet is without sin so there he is suffering, bleeding on the cross and he cries out it is finished and he wins one of my friends,

Pastor Brian Wolfmuller had a wonderful sermon illustration I have stolen it from him so I have to give him credit and that is that he found a translation of Bach's, Johann Sebastian Bach's marvelous work titled

Saint John Passion and in Bach's Saint John Passion, Bach asks questions of Jesus while he is nailed to the cross and there's this wonderful thing that Bach does and that is that he sees

Christ say it is finished and him bowing his head and going into death as the affirmative answer to his questions, listen to how the questions go my beloved

Savior let me ask you since you have now been nailed to the cross and you yourself have said it is finished, it is accomplished have

I been set free from death it's a pathetic question but one that we all ask have

I been set free from death through your pain and death can

I inherit the kingdom of heaven next really great question is this the redemption of the whole world and then he says this you can indeed not speak for anguish but now you bow your head and silently say yes

Christ dying breath, his nodding of his head, his chin hitting his chest is yes to all of those questions question number one, have

I been set free from death, indeed we have we have been set free from death by Christ's death, he conquered death and you will remember this, the scriptures are clear and the scriptures never lie that when you were baptized, you were baptized into Christ's death and into his resurrection and Christ himself has promised us, anyone who believes in me will never taste death through Christ's pain and death we do inherit the kingdom of heaven it is through his redemption on the cross that is the redemption for the whole world, no one's sins are not atoned for, sorry

Calvinists, you're wrong here, Christ has bled and died for the sins of the whole world and Christ, I love

Bach's imagery, by bowing his head after he said it is finished and bowing his head in death, that's the answer to the question, the answer is yes absolutely to all of these questions, beautifully stated by Johann Sebastian Bach but it's important for us to note this our text doesn't end there tonight you'll note that I picked up preaching this gospel text where I left off from our midweek services but in order to do these texts correctly we have to consider what is written next and why it is written

I think there's a good reason why it is written because John in his day faced things that we face in our days, have you ever heard somebody attacking the word of God making little of it impugning its integrity, denying its inerrancy, denying its inspiration and its authority saying it is merely a human work, there's many a people who've done so and sadly been permitted to do it from pulpits but John here is pointing details out that we must pay attention to because he's making it clear that he's writing these things so that we might believe did you notice when we were reading

Psalm 22 together how it seemed like that Psalm could have been written after the crucifixion yet it was written at the time of David and there's things written in the prophets about Christ that predate him by hundreds of years and in some cases thousands and so we dare not look at such details blithely as if it's no big deal, we must recognize this,

Christ himself has said in this very gospel, the gospel of John that the word of God cannot be broken the word of God cannot be broken, it is not some fragile china vase that you stick on your mantle and pray that your kids don't knock it down with a baseball the word of God cannot be broken, hit it with a baseball shoot it out of a cannon, it doesn't matter what you do to it, it cannot be broken, it is indestructible, it is unbreakable, there's

Christ being arrested in the garden and what does what happens?

Peter pulls a sword, lops off the ear of poor Malchus and Jesus says put that thing away how else is the scripture to be fulfilled?

The scripture cannot be broken so John writes since it was the day of preparation so the bodies would not remain on the cross on the sabbath, but the sabbath was a high day, the

Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away, and if you know your

Bible you know immediately there's a problem here and that is the scriptures clearly say that Christ's legs, any of his bones not a one of them would be broken

Jesus never had to put his arm in a cast, never had his legs broken, at least the scripture said that he would have none of his bones broken, and here's the thing since it's a sabbath day coming, you can't have these corpses hanging on the cross going into the sabbath, the sabbath begins at sundown we've got a problem, these guys on the crosses need to die, how are they able to keep themselves alive?

Well legs are necessary to do that because they're using their legs to push themselves up on the cross so that they can take a breath and then when their legs and their arms get tired, they come down and in this position they cannot breathe legitimately cannot breathe, and so they use their legs to push to take a breath and come down well now what happens is probably as awful as anything

I've ever heard of or seen in a terrible awful scary movie, have you ever watched a movie and you knew what was coming and it was going to be a gory awful mess,

I've learned that covering your eyes isn't enough, okay because the sound effects guys are making sure that you're getting this in like multi -sensory, not only just eyes but also with your ears and it's a horrible thing,

I've learned that when it comes to seeing things on the television that I don't want to see, I close my eyes and stick my fingers in my ear and go like this and I tell my wife give me a nudge when it's over because I don't want to see it but it's a high day so what do they do with those fellows, the soldiers came and they broke the legs of the first and holy guacamole that had to be awful to see and hear the breaking of his legs with what a mallet the size of Connecticut what an awful thing this had to be to watch so they came to the second guy one has to wonder who went first the guy who mocked

Christ or the one who said Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom and so then with the mallet they break the legs of the second and at this point

Jesus' promise comes true today you will be with me in paradise and Christ promised for one of these thieves is because they will be with him in paradise and they believe in him

Christ promises you will never die and so what Jesus spoke is true and now it's time for Jesus they come to Christ and he's already gone his spirit is left the only thing left is a corpse so they didn't break his legs but one of the soldiers they pierced

Jesus' side just to make sure that Jesus wasn't swooning that Jesus wasn't pretending to be dead if I just hold my breath long enough maybe they'll go away not at all the soldier pierces

Christ's side which is prefigured in Moses striking the rock and the water coming gushing out and when he pierced

Christ's side his lance broke the pericardium and out came blood and water which means that Jesus had been dead for a while already at this point and he who saw has borne witness his testimony is true and he knows that he's telling the truth why?

so that you may believe these things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the

Christ the Son of God and by believing you might have life in his name for these things took place so that the scripture might be fulfilled not one of his bones will be broken and again another scripture says they will look on him whom they have pierced note how wonderfully the apostle

John points us to the integrity of scripture and affirms Christ's words the word of God cannot be broken after these things

Joseph of Arimathea who was a disciple of Jesus secretly though for fear of the Jews he asked

Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus and Pilate gave him permission so he came and took away his body what an awful sight that had to be terrible

Mary his mother was at the foot of the cross and there's this wonderful piece of artwork love to invoke it on Good Friday of Mary holding the corpse of her son what a terrible awful day that had to be for her no parent should ever have to see a child die but her son died so that she might live it's his death that even redeemed her sins and yes

Mary was a sinner like you and I how do I know because she died just like all of us dies so they took away the body of Christ and now

Nicodemus is invoked the guy who visited Jesus at night Nicodemus who earlier had come to Jesus by night came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes about 75 pounds in weight which means he had spent the afternoon doing this preparing everything getting everything he needed to give

Jesus a proper Jewish burial and so Jesus received that so they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with spices as is the burial custom of the

Jews now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb which no one had yet been laid oh a garden a tree

I know a place where there was a garden and there was a tree and you'll note that all of this invokes the book of Genesis that reminds us that Satan overcame us in his hostilities against God and against humanity made in the image of God Satan defeated us by virtue of a tree in a garden and yet Jesus conquers

Satan by virtue of a tree in a garden the tree of the cross so because it was the day of Jewish preparation since the tomb was close at hand they laid

Jesus there but what does it all mean the assigned Old Testament text for Good Friday is taken from the prophet

Isaiah chapter 52 starting at verse 13 and let me read this because you'll note that Isaiah wrote these things 600 plus years before Christ was conceived in the womb of the

Virgin Mary I can't even tell you what I'm going to be doing tomorrow don't even ask me what's going to be taking place in the

United States next year I have no clue how about 600 years from now will there even be a

United States I don't know but Isaiah 600 years before Christ ever walked the earth wrote these things about his crucifixion and wrote them with such great detail that he gives us the key to understanding what it all means and it comes back to what we read in Genesis 3 about that enmity part but that little part comes in at the end of this text so consider this then with me as the interpretation of these things that we ponder and consider today behold my servant shall act wisely and he's talking about Christ he shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted now if you think for a second well that sounds like Jesus is ascension

I know that it does but you're wrong in thinking so and the reason why is because what follows next remember context context and context so my servant will be high and lifted up he will be exalted and as many as were astonished at you his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind he's describing the crucifixion

Christ high and exalted lifted up what is the shame for everybody crucified on crosses is instead for Christ his glory his exaltation he is the one that propitiates the wrath of God who stands in the gap between heaven and earth and assuages

God's justice fulfills it and brings to an end the hostilities by bleeding and dying in our place and so listen then to how he describes what happened to Christ while he was being beaten and scourged and punched in the face and having his beard plucked out and that crown of thorns pressed into his head as many as were astonished at you his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind we learn from Isaiah 600 years before Christ is crucified that when he was brought into the praetorian guard that what the

Roman soldiers did to him so marred him that you wouldn't have even recognized

Christ one has to wonder if Pilate didn't have that that thing put over his cross saying that this is

Jesus the king of the Jews one has to wonder if the reason why he had them do that was because you wouldn't have recognized him after they were done with him that's what

Isaiah says his form beyond that of the children of mankind so shall he sprinkle many nations kings shall shut their mouths because of him for that which has not been told them they now see and that which they have not heard they now understand what wonderful words it says that this messiah would sprinkle many nations indeed he has sprinkled us in this nation of ours whether we come from Norway or from Poland or from Germany or China it doesn't matter

Christ has sprinkled us and made us clean with his blood in the waters of our baptism so who has believed what he has heard from us

Isaiah asks and to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground he had no form or majesty that we should look at him no beauty that we should desire him

Jesus grew up like every other little boy liking little boy things doing little boy things learning his

Aleph, Beths and Gimels and Daleths he went to school he helped his mom in the kitchen he did the chores that his parents assigned for him and if you were to show up in Nazareth you'd be hard pressed to pick

Jesus out from any of the other boys because he looked just like every one of them but then it goes on and listen to what he says and we know that this is true because we've read the eyewitness accounts that are found in the gospels

Jesus he was despised and he was rejected by men not any old men but like the actual religious leaders of Israel which shows their complete sinful corruption the people who are supposed to be leading the nation of Israel in the true worship of the true

God when he shows up in human flesh they murder him despised and rejected by men indeed

Jesus a man of sorrows acquainted with grief we know this is also true from the gospel of John because when

Christ was at the tomb of Lazarus he wept his guts were wrenched by what had happened to his good creation that those who love each other are ripped away from each other by death itself and Christ went and rescued

Lazarus from the tomb and freed him from the grave and as one from whom men hid their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not can you not hear the crowd yelling crucify him crucify him

Isaiah practically heard the words himself he wrote of them here surely

Christ has borne our griefs and he's carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken and smitten by God and afflicted but he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities and upon him was the punishment the chastisement that brought us peace we have all participated in the devil's dominion and we have all participated in his rebellion against God and God himself has brought the hostilities to an end by bringing peace through Jesus is piercing through his crushing through his punishment and chastisement that he endured for you and for me on the cross is by his stripes that we are healed all we like sheep we've gone astray and we've turned everyone to his own way isn't that what sin teaches us to do it's my way or the highway yeah

I wanna do what I wanna be what I wanna be I'm gonna do it my way if I want to self identify as a turnip then you have no right to tell me

I don't belong in a salad such is the way of sin but the

Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all he was oppressed he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth and indeed we've read this we've been reading this over this

Lenten season how Jesus while on trial said not one single word in his own defense to try to bring to a halt the injustice that he was suffering and going through he didn't even say one word in his own defense to try to get

Pilate to stop what was happening why? because Christ is willingly laying down his life he's waging war his enmity with Satan is at an all time high while he is on trial and what he is doing is a great act of war an act of godly aggression to bring to nothing the dominion of darkness and Satan and his tyrannical reign over humanity but he does so by not saying oh man these are weapons that Satan has never considered the weapon of silence the weapon of passive obedience he opened not his mouth and like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep before it shears a silent he opened not his mouth by oppression and judgment he was taken away and as for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living stricken for the transgression of my people and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth are you sure this was written 600 years before Jesus walked the earth of course it was passages even in the

Dead Sea Scrolls yet it was the will of God to crush him he has put him to grief when a soul makes an offering for guilt he shall see his offspring he shall prolong his days and the will of the

Lord will prosper in his hand out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and he shall be satisfied there's

Jesus hanging on the cross suffering in complete agony in darkness naked bleeding with every breath agonizing pain in all different directions shooting through his body and yet in the midst of this

Isaiah tells us that Christ in the middle of all of that is satisfied how this is an act of enmity an act of war and he knows that by enduring this every second he is on the cross the grip of Satan upon us his infamous grip is being loosened and will finally be broken and he knows then that you and I will be freed from his power his dominion his tyranny and brought into the loving kingdom of our

Heavenly Father all by his merit by his work by his suffering so it says that he will be satisfied and in fact he is and by his knowledge shall the righteous one my servant make many to be accounted righteous and that's the truth you and I sinners the whole lot of us but Christ has redeemed us and he has clothed us in his own righteousness and our faith like Abraham's faith is counted as righteousness and he bore all of our iniquities so that we can be pardoned and forgiven therefore

God says I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong oh wait a second isn't spoil something that soldiers divvy up among themselves after winning a battle indeed it is and so you'll note the text clearly says

I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong which means he won the victory when he said it is finished

Isaiah prophesied that this was a battle that would be won and afterwards there's booty aplenty and he's gonna divide all of that with us so he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death he was numbered with the transgressors yet he bore the sin of many and he makes now intercession for the transgressors that being the case then we recognize now in the darkness of this good

Friday Christ is dead his body laid in the tube tomorrow is holy

Saturday and as we ponder what has taken place for us note that Christ will enjoy a true

Sabbath rest on Saturday but we will reconvene in the darkness again because with the darkness we recognize the new day has already begun and so we will reconvene tonight to consider what happens next but we can't do anything until in the name of Jesus Amen please rise for the prayers of the church oh sorry my apologies we now sing hymn 454 and we end with the prayers of the church you may be seated

Lord have mercy Lord have mercy Christ have mercy

Christ have mercy Lord have mercy Lord have mercy our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever

Amen the Lord be with you let us pray almighty and everlasting

God you willed that your son should bear for us the pains of the cross and so remove from us the power of the adversary help us to remember and give thanks for our

Lord's passion that we may receive forgiveness of sin and redemption from everlasting death through Jesus Christ our