Good Friday: The Journey Jesus Makes

Sermon Notes/Quotes:

Do you feel the world is broken? (We do)
Do you feel the shadows deepen? (We do)
But do you know that all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through?
(We do) 
Do you wish that you could see it all made new? (We do)”

“For sin is – a ruthlessness, a hurting, a breaking away from God and from the rest of humanity, a partial alienation, or act of rebellion....Sin has a willful, defiant or disloyal quality: someone is defied or offended or hurt. To ignore this would be dishonest.” -John Stott

The terrible, tragic fallacy of the last hundred years has been to think that all man's troubles are due to his environment, and that to change the man you have nothing to do but change his environment. That is a tragic fallacy. It overlooks the fact that it was in Paradise that man fell. - Martyn Lloyd Jones

Romans 5:8

Isaiah 53:5

2 Corinthians 5:21

Colossians 2:13-15

“My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”

The movement of Holy Week is a pattern upon which we must build our entire lives. Our destination is the empty tomb. We are bound for glory. However, the way of death is the way of life. Salvation is impossible without sacrifice. We must hold together that which we constantly seek to fragment and tear apart. Good Friday is good only in light of Easter Sunday. The joy of Easter comes only by way of the cross." - Holy Week Devotional by Dwell

1 Peter 2:24-25

“When we lose the centrality of the cross, Christianity morphs into a religion of self-improvement and becomes about us, about our accomplishments, and about getting our act together.” - Elyse Fitzpatrick

“I wonder if the common Holy Week emphasis on our making a journey to the Cross might not better be reversed by emphasizing, instead, the journey that Jesus has made to us, from the Father’s side to humiliation and rejection in "the far country," on our behalf and in our place.” - Fleming Rutledge

“To confess your sins to God is not to tell God anything God doesn’t already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. WHEN YOU CONFESS them, they become the bridge." - Frederick Buechner

Galatians 2:20

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer