1.
In the
name of Jesus! Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the
message from God’s Word for us on this Friday we call GOOD is taken from Isaiah
52:13-53:12 and it’s entitled, “God
Justifies the Ungodly.”
2.
Many people believe that God
punishes bad people and rewards good people. But, the gospel says that God justifies the ungodly. What does that mean? It means
that God declares guilty people innocent. It means that God treats bad people
as if they were good people. That’s a scandal. Are you open to the miracle of
the gospel? However you define virtue and vice, you have a sense of right and
wrong because of the conscience God has given you. You form judgments. You
expect God to. But, how can he justify
the ungodly?
3.
It’s a good thing he does. Every
one of us is ungodly, and we know it.
We’ve failed to be the people we ought to be. A deep unease about ourselves is
why we live in denial. When we discover the excuses of our politicians, for
example, we demand their honesty. But do we require the same honesty of
ourselves? Isn’t cover-up the self-righteous strategy of every guilty conscience?
Isn’t that why we blame others? Finger-pointing is one of our favorite devices
for self-justification. The next time you have a fight with your spouse, one of
your other family members, a member of your congregation, your coworker, or
whoever, ask yourself this: Why are you
so passionate to be found right? Isn’t it because you’re not sure you really
are? Isn’t it because you need to reassure yourself?
4.
There’s a reason why we shift the
blame. Why we try to justify ourselves.
There’s a reason why our problems are always someone else’s fault. There’s a reason why parents
blame their children and husbands blame wives and so forth. The reason we
continually pass the buck is that we know we can’t bear our own guilt. We want
so desperately for others to bear it for us. So we dump it on them, without
even noticing what’s happening in our thoughts. This is a major source of
tension in our homes, workplaces, and churches.
5.
Every one of us needs a
scapegoat. In the gospel Jesus says to us, “I’m the
willing scapegoat of the world. At my cross, it’s my business to be crushed
under the unbearable guilt of others. It’s my role to bear away other people’s
guilt. That’s what I do, because I love guilty people. If you’ll trust me,
here’s the deal. I’ll take your sin, your guilt your shame and in exchange I’ll
give to you my righteousness and holiness.
Is that arrangement acceptable to you? Or, will you continue to cope
with your guilt by your own devices?”
6.
So do you believe what
Isaiah tells us on this Good Friday that God justifies the ungodly through
Jesus’ death on the cross? One reason why people will always
object to the Bible’s message is that it begins by telling them the truth about
their sin. It’s bound to make more enemies than friends because it always
humbles before it helps. It shames before it saves. Listen to some of the words
Isaiah used to explain the nature of the sin for which Christ suffered
punishment. In Isaiah 53:5 the prophet
writes, “He was pierced for our
transgressions.” God the Father had designed our first parents, Adam &
Eve, to belong to him. But, Adam & Eve, just like us, preferred to be
independent instead of finding their place in life surrendering to a loving
Father. They said to God, “Not your will be done Lord, but Adam &
Eve’s will be done.” So Isaiah 53:5
continues, “He was crushed for our
iniquities.” The word translated “iniquities”
refers to the load of guilt our sin brought upon us. Sin isn’t only the action
of breaking faith with God, it also makes us guilty before him.
7.
In Isaiah 53:6 the prophet writes,
“We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way.” Creatures designed for God have chosen instead to
turn in upon themselves and attempt to live independently of God. And God
considers that rebellion. It’s God’s nature to hate evil and to destroy it, not
because he has a violent temper but because evil is the opposite of what God
is. A holy God, who is without a trace
of wrong, punishes every sin. He’s therefore, a God who must punish you for
your sin. This is the harsh message God’s law announces.
8.
But, the message of God’s law isn’t
God’s final word to us.
The One who has the right to condemn us found a way to pardon us without violating
his own justice. God the Father worked out a costly solution involving the
principle of substitution. He asked
his Son Jesus to accept as his own our ungodly
status, to accept the curse that our sin had brought upon our heads.
9.
Isaiah paints a great picture of
what this exchange meant for Christ.
Jesus was despised, rejected by God and man, pierced, crushed, and wounded. He
endured the full punishment of the law, but not because he deserved it. No, we
deserved what he endured. So from his perspective, the exchange was brutal. In
exchange for our sins, we receive what we don’t deserve. Isaiah
reminds us that the cross of Jesus justifies ungodly people like us.
10.
Here in our text Isaiah is
telling us that Jesus paid a debt he didn’t owe because we owed a debt we
couldn’t pay. It
means that God has declared every person who ever lived to be perfectly covered
with Jesus’ perfection. Martin Luther puts these words into the mouth of the
Savior: “Sin has only two places where it
can rest—either on your neck, or on mine. If it rests on your neck, you bear
the punishment. If it rests on my neck, I bear the punishment, and you go free.
Choose, therefore, which it will be.”
11.
The cross of Jesus isn’t a dreamy
religious ideal. The cross is a power.
Through the cross Jesus is saving guilty
and ungodly people like you and me today. He treats transgressors as his
friends and shares his victory with his former enemies. He stands before the
Father, making intercession for the very ones who drove him to death. His cross
is a power that evil can’t conquer or even understand, but to God it’s
everything. Nothing will ever rob our Lord Jesus of his hard-won right to
justify the ungodly. Who else can love
you so miraculously and helpfully? Who else would willingly serve as your
scapegoat?
12.
We can respond in either of two
ways to what Isaiah tells us about the cross of Christ. One response is to say, “No, that can’t be true. It can’t be that simple.” Isaiah reminds
us that it wasn’t that easy or simple. On the cross Jesus did the most costly
thing ever. He suffered the hell of God’s holy wrath against sinners like us,
rather than we having to bear it ourselves. If there had been an easier way,
God would have found it.
13.
And, what’s the other response? We
believe the gospel.
We stop making excuses for our sins against God and our neighbor. We stop trying to self-justify ourselves. That
pile of garbage called our moral superiority over other sinners, which can’t
offset our guilt before God but only make things worse—we admit the ugly truth
of it all. We believe in Jesus crucified for sinners like us and receive his
grace with the empty hands of faith through God’s Word and Sacraments.
14.
So how should we respond to what
Isaiah tells us about Jesus our Suffering Savior this Good Friday? Isaiah reminds us that we all must admit that
we’ve all gone too far to get ourselves off the hook. Let Jesus your Scapegoat bear
your guilt away through his death on the cross, and God will never bring it up
again. Jesus’s cross justifies ungodly people like us. When you feel burdened by the guilt and
weight of your sins, take your sins to Christ. Tell him everything. This is his
promise: “If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). May
the message of the cross of Christ give you comfort that your sins are forgiven
through the blood that he shed for you on this Good Friday. Amen.
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