Jesus Christ Crucified - The Doorway to Easter

A Good Friday Sermon

John 18:1-19:42

April 3rd, 2026

We’ve reached the pinnacle of the Church year. Everything has been building to this point in time in Jesus life. The Crucifixion. All through the season of Lent the bloody Cross of Jesus has been on the horizon. It’s form has intensified throughout the 40 days of Lent as the image of Jesus suffering and sacrifice began to take shape with every step closer to Good Friday.

Passiontide took us to another level in the journey with the Passion reading on Palm Sunday. Our eyes focused on the Cross. Last night the altar was stripped. It was meant to be shocking and a bit sad. It was about betrayal and sin and false accusations. It was a stripping away of that which we don’t deserve.

We don’t want the altar bare. We want the paraments covering and confessing the season. We want Jesus on the altar in the Sacrament. The bread, the wine, the body, the blood. We want the cross with a corpus. Jesus Christ crucified is the object of our faith.

Tonight everything is black. Darkness. Death. Tonight the suffering and death of Jesus reaches its climax. The Tre Ore service earlier today is held during the exact time Jesus hung on the Cross and died, from the sixth hour to the ninth hour, 12 noon to 3pm. So in real time, Jesus is right now dead and in the tomb. Night is falling. The women are mourning. The men are scared and hiding and denying their God.

In the dark at night the demons dance because they think they won. They didn’t. Jesus died. But Jesus lives. Evil is defeated. Sin is vanquished. It is finished. The thief is in paradise with Jesus.

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The suffering and death of Jesus should always be on our minds. We should speak of it often. Always remember it’s eternal significance. Ponder the horrific but glorious tragedy that saved us from the wrath of God. Tonight is about the wrath of God as much as it is the suffering and death of Jesus.

If God’s wrath didn’t need to be appeased there would be no need for the suffering, the bloodshed, and the death of Jesus. But God was angry. We had turned away from His will, from His love. We fell into sin. God’s good creation corrupted, broken. We did it. His anger was justified. God demanded blood. A life had be sacrificed.

God is love. God is a love so complete that what He demanded He provided. What kind of God is this? What kind of love demands death and blood and then dies the death and sheds the blood He demands to save us? This is our God.

He could have consumed us. We deserved it. Easter should have never come. But Easter was always going to come. The promised seed to crush the head of the serpent was the answer. Jesus took up our flesh in order to be the life, to shed the blood, to stand between us and God. To appease the wrath. To make atonement. He is the substitute. He is the pleasing aroma to God.

Christ was lifted up between heaven and earth, between us and God. God poured out His wrath upon His only Son for the sins of the world. Your sins. My sins. The wrath we deserved Jesus took into Himself. Nothing else is needed. We are accepted in the eyes of our God on account of Jesus one sacrifice. What love is this?

Tonight is not a night to feel sad for Jesus because of His brutal suffering and death. Jesus doesn’t want your sadness. He wants your sin.

Our sin and corruption is the reason for the intense contemplation on Jesus suffering and death tonight. The goal and purpose of focusing on Jesus suffering and death is to consider the greatness of our sin that took such a tragic event to appease God and undo what we have done.

Meditating on this holy suffering and death is meant to bring great affliction to our soul and deep sorrow over our sin. It is the suffering of the conscience under the full weight of the Law, contrition, that kills the old Adam. Any sadness tonight should be over our sin and corruption.

Our corruption isn’t a minor blemish. It is a full and total corruption of God’s good creation. A corruption that could only be undone by God’s own flesh and blood through death. The perfect sacrifice. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus didn’t run away from our sin. He wanted our sin. So He took it and He endured the abuse. The kiss of betrayal in the Garden. His innocent body flogged within inches of death. The twisted crown of thorns put on His head and driven deep into the flesh. And the blood flowed. The mocking. The blows with the hands. The shouts of crucify Him. The nails pounded into His hands and feet. The body lifted up. His garments divided. The writhing and unimaginable pain. The suffocation as He hung on the tree. The spear driven into His side. The Spirit given up. The author of life killed by His own creation.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

What a God is our God. What a love with which we are loved.

Good Friday is a tragic, beautiful night. The greatest night in the whole Church year. In the Crucifixion of Jesus the Law and Gospel dance in perfect harmony. Not mingled not confused. A most brilliant light is the bloody Cross of Jesus. The tree of death becomes the tree of life. The death of Jesus is the new creation. Jesus Christ crucified is the doorway to Easter.

See in the death of Jesus what you’ve done. See what you deserved. Feel the full weight of your sin and imperfection. Mourn your brokenness and failure. But don’t despair in your guilt and shame. Turn again and see your Savior. See your sins laid on Jesus, nailed to the tree in His body. See your sins washed away in His blood, never to return.

It is finished. The victory is won. Jesus triumphed through death. Victory won in His resurrection. Tonight is good. Death is killed. The serpent’s head is crushed. Easter always comes.

In the Crucifixion of Jesus we see the most beautiful Gospel imaginable. It is the foolish Cross that is the power of God for salvation for all who believe. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. God’s love is not seen apart from Jesus suffering and death. Tonight is tragic and joyful. We need both. The tragedy only happened once. It had to happen. The joy it brings is eternal.

The contemplation of Christ’s suffering and death on this Good Friday is what the whole Christian life is about. It is Law and Gospel. It is wisdom from above that is foolishness to the world. It is our righteousness, and sanctification and redemption. There is nothing greater in this broken world. It is our life won and gifted to us through faith.

That is Good Friday. It is tragedy. It is glory. It is joy. It is forgiveness. It is eternal peace. It is salvation. It is the doorway to Easter. Praise be to Jesus. In Jesus name. Amen.