"Why did He Die?"

Sermon: Good Friday year A

The Rev. Matt Kennedy

The Church of the Good Shepherd

Before I was ordained, back when I was living in Texas I worked as a youth minister for a pretty big Episcopal church. I'll never forget my first Sunday. I was told by the assistant rector, a guy about my age (I was 25 at the time), not to plan anything my first time out, but to just to walk in and have a conversation, get to know the kids and see if I can find out where they are in their faith; did they know Jesus personally? What sort of things did they know about him? I was a relatively new believer at that point, I accepted Christ into my life about 3 years before and I was still really excited and pumped up like any new convert would be and I was ready for a great conversation about Jesus and I walked in there ready to go.

Now, if you've ever worked with teenagers, then you can probably imagine the kind of excitement and energy coursing through those young teenage bodies at 9:00am on a Sunday morning. It was like I was talking to the dead. No matter what I said or how much enthusiasm I put into it, I was met with vacant hollow stares. Finally, exasperated I asked, "If ya'll (it was Texas) are so bored why are you here?"

Some of the kids mumbled something about their parents making them come, but one guy lounging on the couch, kind of lifted up his arm in such a way that I assumed he wanted to say something, but it looked like he had a bag of weights hanging off his elbow. So I said, "Yes? Did you want to say something?"

"Yeah," he said, "we're here because Jesus died on the cross for our sins."

When I heard that I nearly jumped out of my skin, "Yes! That's right! He did!"

Finally we were getting somewhere, "So, that's great, what does the fact that Jesus died on the cross for your sins mean to you?"

He was quiet for a minute, he kind of curled his lip a bit, almost a sneer but not quite, "Dude, I don't know, but that's the answer to every other question in church isn't it?"

Turns out he had no idea, either what that fact meant in an objective sense; that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, or what that fact meant to him personally.

Well, I know that many of you here have been to church all of your lives, and I know that for as long as you've been going to church you've heard teachers, pastors, priests, bishops and deacons tell you time and again that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. So often perhaps that the words might have become rote and their meaning faded. Well, the statement, "Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins," is the most important statement any human being can make pointing to the most important event in human history. I'm not exaggerating. To say that, to speak those words, and mean what you say has eternal ramifications. To understand why I'm going to explain what those words mean in two ways.

First, I'll explain what they mean in an objective sense. Does everyone here know what I mean when I say objective? Mathematics is objective. It's not my opinion or my belief that one plus one equals two, it is objective fact regardless of what I think or believe about it. Then I'll talk about what it can mean to you personally as an individual if you truly come to believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross not only for our sins, but for your sins.

So let's get started. Let me start with something that Jesus said in his sermon on the mount. It's kind of a scary quote so hold on. It's found in Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect therefore as your father in heaven is perfect." Let me tell you why this passage scares me.

Before I became a Christian I just assumed that if there was a heaven I was headed there. Why? Well because, while I'm not perfect, if God just takes all of my good deeds and all of my bad deeds and weighs them together on a scale, well, he'll see that overall the good outweighs the bad and he'll let me in. So long as I do enough good to make up for the bad, I'll be okay.

But guess what? According to Jesus, God incarnate, that's not how God operates. God's standard is perfection. "Be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect."

Jesus is not giving us anything new either, listen to Psalm 24:3, "Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart." Clean hands and a pure heart. You and I can make it into heaven only if our heart is pure, meaning that internally, in our thoughts and attitudes we are without blemish. And our hands are clean, meaning that we have in our actions done nothing wrong.

Man, God seems kind of harsh. Well no not really. God is a God of perfect justice. That means that every sin I commit has to be dealt with in a just way. I can't just make up for a bad things I've done by doing a good thing. Think of it this way. Let's say a man puts on a ski mask, takes a weapon of some sort, holds up a bank, and walks out with a bag full of cash? Would it be any excuse for this bank robber to say that while driving his getaway car he obeyed all the traffic signals? No. He's supposed to obey the traffic signals, his good driving cannot make up for his armed robbery. Justice demands that each transgression of the law be dealt with. Well if this is true for human laws and human judges, how much more so for the perfect Judge and who has given us his perfect law? Well, God is perfectly and for that reason our obedient thoughts, words, and deeds, cannot erase our disobedient ones. God, by his very nature must do justice.

So the picture looks pretty bleak. But it's not just you and I who have failed to live up to God's standard. No one has ever had clean hands or a pure heart and no one ever will. Listen to what Paul says in Romans chapter 3 to summarize God's assessment of humanity in general and each of us in particular: "There is no one who is righteous, not even one...all have turned away...there is no one who does good, not even one...." (Romans 3:11-18) And I only read the nice parts.

So, you, me, all of humanity has failed to meet God's standard and stand guilty before his throne, deserving of punishment. That punishment according to scripture is death, physical death--the death of our bodies, and spiritual death--the eternal separation of our souls from God in hell. "The wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) And, God, being perfectly just must carry out the sentence.

But there's one more thing to consider. God also loves us. He loves us infinitely. He created each and every one of us to live in perfect harmony with nature, with each other and with him. He created us to love and to be loved by him forever. And he wants each and every one of us to fulfill this purpose, to be with him here and then when we die, to be with him in heaven for eternity. So there seems to be this dilemma between God's love and God's justice. On the one hand he loves us perfectly and wants to be with us forever and on the other hand on account of our sin his perfect justice demands that we be punished and remain separated from his holy hill for eternity. What to do?

Well, that's where the cross comes in. When you look at the cross of Christ and you see the intersection of the hard wood and the nails and the man Jesus hanging there between heaven and earth, you see the God's perfect justice and God's perfect love perfectly revealed. God became man, took every single human sin, of thought, word and deed, from the first to the last, from the beginning to the end of time, and placed the full weight of it on himself and then in our place, as our substitute bore the punishment that we all deserve.

This is called substitutionary atonement. God became a human being to die for the sins of humanity, while remaining God, so that he could bear the full infinite weight of them and the infinite punishment they deserve.

When God in Jesus died on the cross and he cried "It is finished" that is what he meant. When he breathed his last, he took every sin with him to the grave and is where they remain, dead, buried, forgotten and forgiven.

Though we all remain sinners, we now through faith in Christ can have clean hands and a pure heart, not because we magically become sinless, we don't, we're still sinners, but because our sins are taken away and nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ. Listen to how Paul describes it, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

We can be counted as righteous in God's sight because His Son died on our behalf.

That is the objective truth of the matter but what does it mean for you? Here's Paul again, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law has been made known," in the cross of Jesus Christ, in other words, God has made known a way to be counted as righteous even though you don't follow the law.

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." This saving righteousness is available to everyone , but it can only come to you if you believe, if you place your faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, but there is only one way for his death to mean anything at all for you and that is if you personally give your life to him and trust in him alone for your salvation.

What does that mean? well it doesn't mean just understanding the facts that I have given you today, it means opening your heart to the person of Jesus Christ and accepting his sacrifice on your behalf.

It's not just understanding in your mind, it's a trust a commitment, a total surrender of your heart. For as Paul says, "It is with your heart that you believe and are justified."

Jesus died on the cross for your sins not just to save you from punishment but also because he loves you more than life itself and wants to have a personal relationship with you that will last forever.

If you are here today and have never made that commitment it could be that God has brought you here for just that reason. He loves you and he wants more than anything to take all your mistakes, all of your sins, all of the guilt of your past, no matter how heavy and dark, all of your burdens and lift them onto his shoulders and nail them to his cross and then embrace you into his loving arms forever.

Let us pray:

Thank you lord for dying on the cross to save us from the consequences of our sins. Thank you for loving us enough to not only die for us, but to desire to live with us in our hearts.

Now Lord, I pray that you will lead anyone in this room who has not invited you into their heart to do so now and to pray this prayer along with me in their heart.

Lord Jesus I am a sinner. But you died on the cross to save me from the eternal consequences of my sins and this day I repent and I put my life in your hands. I want to be with you forever. Come into my heart Lord Jesus and make your home there. I give my life to you. I pray this in your holy Name.

Amen.