{"id":1047,"date":"2013-03-30T08:01:14","date_gmt":"2013-03-30T12:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1047"},"modified":"2013-03-30T08:01:14","modified_gmt":"2013-03-30T12:01:14","slug":"good-friday-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/good-friday-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Friday Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good Friday 2013<\/a>
\nIsaiah 52:13-53:12
\nHebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9
\nJohn 18:1-19:42
\nMarch 29, 2013<\/p>\n

The news is devastating. Jesus, the one they thought to be the Messiah, has been arrested, beaten, mocked, scourged, and crucified.\u00a0 He is now dead.<\/p>\n

How could this be?<\/p>\n

He was supposed to defeat the enemy.\u00a0 The Israelites were ready to be rid of the Romans.\u00a0 Now, it seems, he has defeated by them.<\/p>\n

Or so it seems\u2026.<\/p>\n

Jesus was not defeated by the Romans.\u00a0 In fact, Pilate gets a bad rap for being responsible for the Crucifixion of Jesus.\u00a0 Yet he is the one who repeatedly says \u201cI find no guilt in him.\u201d\u00a0 Pilate only has Jesus crucified to satisfy the \u201cmob\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a good reason but, again, it is not his desire to crucify Jesus.<\/p>\n

We see prophecies fulfilled like the dividing of his garments.<\/p>\n

In Jesus\u2019 Passion, the words of Isaiah of the Suffering Servant are fulfilled, \u201cso marred was his look beyond human semblances\u201d and he had no stately bearing and he was spurned.<\/p>\n

All this is fulfilled in Jesus\u2019 Passion.\u00a0 Jesus willingly submitted to it.<\/p>\n

Jesus knew what was going to happen.\u00a0 As John tells us, when it was time for his arrest, he went out to them.<\/p>\n

So perhaps we can find comfort in knowing this is the fulfillment of God\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

But we can ask ourselves why.<\/p>\n

In human terms, Pilate asks for a charge to which the crowd gives a non-answer \u201cIf he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

We find the beginnings of the answer in the words of one of the people responsible for Jesus\u2019 Crucifixion, Caiaphas.\u00a0 Caiaphas said \u201cthat it was better than one man should die rather than the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caiaphas got it right but for the wrong reason.\u00a0 He thought it best for Jesus to die so he would not cause trouble with the Romans.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

For the real reason we turn to God\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

Jesus was not crucified to satisfy human power.\u00a0 Remember Jesus\u2019 words \u201cYou would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above.\u201d<\/p>\n

We find the answer from God in the same place we heard prophecies about Jesus\u2019 Passion, in the words of the prophet Isaiah.<\/p>\n

Isaiah writes, \u201cYet it was our infirmities he bore, our sufferings that he endured\u2026. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our sins have offended an infinite God and thus call for an infinite price of restitution.\u00a0 We are finite creatures and cannot offer an infinite sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Christ can\u2026 and does.<\/p>\n

Jesus really does defeat the real enemy, sin.<\/p>\n

Jesus died for our sins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good Friday 2013 Isaiah 52:13-53:12 Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9 John 18:1-19:42 March 29, 2013 The news is devastating. Jesus, the one they thought to be the Messiah, has been arrested, beaten, mocked, scourged, and crucified.\u00a0 He is now dead. How could this be? He was supposed to defeat the enemy.\u00a0 The Israelites were ready to be …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Good Friday Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[29,26],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-gT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1048,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions\/1048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}