1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this Good Friday is taken from Mark 15:33-34, it’s entitled, “Real Life after Good Friday,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. The most important text in the Bible, the fourth word from the cross: “Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ” I say “the most important text,” because it begs the most important question we will ever ask, “Was that about me?”
3. Ironically, we spend most of our time asking lesser questions about what others do that might affect our lives. One of our latest worries is identity theft. Now that so much information about us is electronic, criminals don’t have to break into your house or business to steal from you. They just steal numbers online and get into your credit cards and bank accounts, and, except for the bills you have to pay, they become owners of your finances. Which is scary enough. But can you imagine how scary it would be if criminals found a way to become you? Our worst nightmare!
4. Hollywood has taken a few cracks at this. One comedy called Trading Places, in which a successful Wall Street stockbroker and a local homeless scam artist are forced to swap lives as an experiment on human nature for a one-dollar bet. One more recent drama called Face/Off, where a criminal surgically trades faces with a man whose life he wants. He’s still evil, but he’s stolen the other man’s life. In both movies, the schemes fail because finally it’s impossible to do the most frightening thing of all: trade souls.
5. Of course, trading faces, bodies, or even souls would never happen in real life. We know that because of the order of God’s universe. AI threatens to do such a thing, but that lame attempt will be nothing more than blasphemy against the Incarnation. You can’t switch souls with somebody else. You can’t switch histories with somebody else. The world would be chaos. And our Creator is the exact opposite of chaos. In Christ, all things hold together (Col 1:17).
6. Now this would never happen in real life, but could you imagine what it would be like to live your life responsibly and work hard, get married, raise a family, and then suddenly trade bodies with a condemned criminal on the night of his execution? You know who you really are, but try and convince any of the guards! You can’t sit by the fireplace in the safety of your own house with your own loving family. You’ve traded bodies. Traded histories. Traded fates. Certain death looms, while you scream, “Why?!!”
7. And this would never happen in real life, but imagine that while you can’t wake up from that nightmare, the criminal who stole your body lands in a dream from which he need never be awakened. Someone who has lived not responsibly but carelessly, hasn’t worked hard but has stolen from those who did, who didn’t bring life into the world and didn’t invest love into those lives but took lives instead—that evil soul is in your body, in your house. Enjoying your life, the fruit of your hard work, and the requited love of all those you’ve loved. Somebody has gotten away with murder.
8. Of course, that would never happen in real life. And we know that because of the order of God’s universe. Even a solar eclipse is part of that order. When the orbit of the moon puts it directly between the sun and the earth, the sun’s light is blocked. A full moon is part of that order too. When the earth is between the sun and the moon but not blocking any of the light of the sun from striking the moon, you see the full circular face of the moon. So, obviously, you can’t have a full moon and a solar eclipse at the same time. The relative position of the moon to the earth is a quarter-million miles difference. As far as the east is from the west. The only way the sun could cease to shine over the earth during daytime when there’s also a full moon night would be for God to overrule his own laws of geometry. It would take a miracle.
9. I say all that only because Jesus was crucified on Passover. There was a full moon. That’s how the Jews determined when to celebrate Passover. But “when the sixth hour [noon] had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour [3 p.m.]” (Mark 15:33). It was no solar eclipse. It was a miracle. Luke wrote, “The sun died” (Lk 23:45). Quit, stopped, failed. It was a darkness like the three days of darkness that plagued Egypt before the slaying of the firstborn, except this was three hours of darkness over the whole land. And while the darkness in Egypt was darkness that could be felt by many, this darkness was felt by One . . . because the Lamb was sacrificed in that thick darkness, and there was blood on crossbeam and post, but this time everyone else was passed over, except the Lamb. The blood-marked Firstborn was slain. But beyond the upheaval of the sky and the earth, beyond any of his own laws of nature that the Lord miraculously upset that day, the unthinkable happened. “At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ” (Mark 15:34).
10. The triune God embraced the very chaos that was foreign to his nature! The Only-Begotten hung in the darkest chaos! Crucified, and worse! Surprised by an unthinkable nightmare. Mugged with an evil soul, just like mine, just like yours—ridden with the sins of the whole world! He is condemned and cursed. His own sinless history given away! To whom? For what? The sinless Son of God must die in sadness; The sinful child of man may live in gladness; Man forfeited his life and is acquitted; God is committed. (LSB 439:5)
11. Jesus endured the most horrible dread from which there is no waking until it is finished: He exchanged entities with you and me—we the condemned. He who knew no sin became sin for us! What tremendous crisis called for this dread solution? That was the atonement price in order that we become the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor 5:21). You are reconciled to God. He cried, “Eloi!” so that we could be surprised by joy and cry, “Abba!” You are children of the heavenly Father and enjoy Jesus’ life, the fruit of Jesus’ hard work, and the requited love that Jesus deserves. It’s the Blessed Exchange.
12. But here’s the wonder above all wonders: the impossible, unthinkable travesty that happened to Jesus on that Good Friday afternoon was not identity theft. No one took his life. He laid it down of his own accord. “I’m the one you want. Let these others go!” (Jn 18:8). What manner of love has the Father lavished on us that we should be called the children of God? (1 Jn 3:1). This was a manner of love that intended the impossible, unthinkable miracle that happened to you on that Good Friday afternoon. Believe John’s answer to his own question: “We are God’s children now” (1 Jn 3:2). Welcome to real life after Good Friday!
13. There’s the answer to the most important question you’ll ever ask: It was about you all along. The prospect that we sinners could be baptized into that Friday death takes the word Good to a whole new level. Since the beautiful Son, who always pleased his Father, not just here but from eternity, was lifted up like the serpent on a pole (Jn 3:14), since the Lord was pleased to bruise him and put him to grief and make his soul an offering for sin (Is 53:10), then surely . . . “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12). Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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