Good Friday at
Epiphany on
Mark
Crossroad 8—Dead End?
What’s the longest trip you’ve ever
driven? Growing up on a farm in southeastern
For the past six weeks we’ve been traveling down crossroads that our Savior took
the last week of his life. In reality, the week we’ve traveled with him was only
a short jaunt of his journey. He had been traveling these roads to the cross from
the time he was in the cradle. In our lesson today, he reaches his destination.
Is the trip worth it? To be sure, it’s a breathtaking scene, but a different kind
of breathtaking. Our lesson says, “With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.”
At first,
this scene seems like a wasted trip. You mean to say that Jesus did everything he
did—taking on human flesh and setting aside full use of his glory—so he could hang
on a piece of wood? That seems as useless as traveling cross-country on an interstate
highway that winds up being a dead end. But while this Good Friday may at first
glance appear to be a dead end, we soon see it was not. It wasn’t a dead end for
a Roman centurion who traveled with Jesus on the crossroad to
For all intents and purposes, this had the makings of a typical day for the Roman
centurion. As a captain of the Roman army, he had often heard and executed the command,
“Crucify these men!” He expected that by the end of the day, whomever was entrusted
to his care would be dead. He expected a dead end as he escorted Jesus to the place
of the skull. And it didn’t faze him one bit. While our stomachs would feel squeamish
to carry out such a command, repetition led this man to carry it out without a second
thought. While we would feel sorry for the criminal who shrieked in pain as we drove
nails through his hands, you wouldn’t expect a word of sympathy or a feeling of
pity from this brute. If he fit the description of the day, his emotions were nonexistent.
He was a stone. A rock.
And not
only would that description apply to his emotions, more than likely it applied to
his faith as well. For the most part, the Romans at this time did not know about
the living God. Their worship centered around mythological figures, such as Mars,
the god of war, or Jupiter, the god of the sky. In addition to the numerous gods
and goddesses of mythology, the Romans regarded their emperors as gods. Caesar would
have been this soldier’s god. With a faith resting on mythological creatures or
human leaders, this centurion’s faith was dead.
But something
happened to this emotionally and spiritually dead soldier on this particular Friday.
There was something different about the prisoner he was guarding. And it wasn’t
just one thing. If this centurion had been assigned to watch over Jesus from the
time he was handed over by the Jews, this centurion would have heard Jesus explaining
to Pilate how his kingdom was not of this world. He would have seen Pilate struggle
to convince the people to let this man go because he couldn’t find any guilt in
him. He would have heard the sermon Jesus preached to a group of women on the way
to
It’s then,
after all these miraculous signs and wonders, that the Holy Spirit records another
miracle for us in his Word. On this Good Friday, we witness the miracle of faith
as the Holy Spirit sprouted life in a stone-dead heart. Our lesson says, “When the
centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died,
he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’” What seemed like a dead end was
the beginning of life. This crossroad was not a dead end for the centurion. But
what about for us?
As we stand here today in front of Jesus, hearing his cries and seeing how he died,
it has all the appearances of a dead end. The altar cloths are black. The hymns
are in minor keys. The mood is somber. The silence you hear on the way out will
be deafening. You have come here today for a funeral. You have come here today to
mourn the death of Jesus.
But there’s
something about this funeral that makes it more mournful than others. As we sit
in our pews, we cannot escape the thought that we had a hand in this funeral. We
cannot escape the anguish that our sins pinned Jesus to the cross. We can’t escape
the reality that those nails should have been driven through our hands. The blood
staining the ground should have been our blood. We should have been the ones suffering
the torments of hell and crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We should have been the ones with parched mouths, begging, “I am thirsty.” We should
have been the ones absorbing the insults of onlookers. We should have been the ones
who breathed our last and died. Because of our sin, this should be our funeral.
The Bible says,
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins” (Eph
2:1). This should be our dead end. But it’s not.
Why? Because
this was not a dead end for Jesus. It’s true, Jesus really died. As he breathed
his last, Jesus, the Son of God, died. As the hymnwriter says, “Oh, sorrow dread!
God’s Son is dead” (CW 137:2). It wasn’t a hoax. Jesus didn’t fake his death. When
we question whether this was a dead end or not for Jesus, we’re not questioning
the word dead. It’s the word end that we have an issue with. This Jesus, who was
dead on the cross, didn’t stay dead. This was not the end. That’s why today is not
just Friday, it’s Good Friday. Good Friday because of what would happen on Easter
Sunday. The dead Jesus, whom you came to mourn today, would be alive. And not only
would he be alive, he is alive.
And because
of that, this crossroad scene we gaze at with the centurion is not a dead end for
us. Rather, it’s the beginning of life, our life with Jesus. Listen to what the
inspired writer has to say about how Jesus’ death brings life to you and me: “Don’t
you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too
may live a new life. . . . Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also
live with him. . . . Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus”
(Ro 6:3,4,8,11).
You can
tell a lot about a person by the way he dies. Consider the example of Jim Bonham,
one of the heroes of the
In his
book Texas, James Michener imagines what the soldier’s appeal must have been:
“Outside were a hundred and fifty men Santa Anna has nearly two thousand already,
with more on the way … What we need is for every fighting man in Texas to rush to
the Alamo. Strengthen our perimeters! Give us help! Start to march now!”
No commitment
was given. The only assurance Colonel Fannin gave Bonham was that he would think
it over. The young Carolinian knew what that meant and he masked his anger and spurred
his horse on to Vicctoria.
Michener
imagines a conversation between Bonham and a young boy. “Where are you going next?”
the boy asks. “To the
We don’t
know if those words were said, but we know the trip was made. Bonham rode to battle
certain it would be his last.
So did
Jesus. You can tell a lot about a person by the way he dies. And the way Jesus marched
to his death leaves no doubt – he had come to earth for this moment. Forget any
suggestion that Jesus was trapped. Erase any theory that Jesus made a miscalculation.
Ignore any speculation that the cross was a last-ditch attempt to salvage a dying
mission. Disregard any notion that the cross was a dead end and a miserable failure.
For if
you have paid attention this Lent and listened to Jesus as we have traveled with
him on these crossroads, you know that Jesus died … on purpose. No surprise. No
hesitation. No faltering. The only thing that came to a dead end at
The crossroad
to
Praise
be to God that the road does not end at