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 John 19:17-30, it’s entitled, “New Death,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Once sin came into the world, with but the two special exceptions of Enoch and Elijah, death has never failed to take the life of every person who has ever lived—even Moses, even Samuel, even David and all the prophets. No one has ever had the power to overcome death.
3. That is, until Jesus. Though not noticeable to the world, when the Lord bore the cross on the way to Golgotha, it was a sign of his being able to bear death as if conducting a victory march. His processional with the cross was leading to a victory over the devil himself (Gen 3:15). Once Jesus was lifted up on that cross, multiple languages on the inscription above Jesus’ head proclaimed him “King,” the family of God was affirmed, and Jesus announced victory with the words “It is finished” (John 19:30). This death was like none other. It was a new death. Our Enemy, Death, Met a New Death that defeated death.
4. How could the devil have the audacity, way back at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, to confront the Son of God in the wilderness? The answer is easy: the enemy was the reigning champion against nearly any and every human being who had ever lived up to that point. In his dark insanity, the devil was convinced he could overcome the Lord Jesus Christ. He had taken down the first Adam—who was a perfect man without sin—and it would be just a matter a time (in his corrupted mind) that the second Adam, Jesus, would also succumb to his destructive weapons called “sin” and “death.”
5. Though Satan’s temptations against Jesus were overcome during the forty days in the wilderness (Mt 4:1–11), in his madness, the devil still waited for an opportune time for what he assumed would yet be eventual victory over the Messiah. For him, it was at The Place of a Skull, which symbolized death, that he believed Jesus would finally be overcome.
6. But Jesus knew what he was doing. The Holy Scriptures reveal: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:14–15).
7. No wonder the soldiers mocked Christ by taking his garments and dividing them, then casting lots for the Lord’s tunic. There was no doubt in their minds: Jesus was going to die. Death had never left any doubt about its outcome. But, neither the soldiers nor anyone else could have imagined what was about to occur. Something that had never happened before in the face of death. The old death was about to encounter a new death, the death of the Son of God, who can’t be defeated.
8. There’s an old saying, “Give him a taste of his own medicine.” This was carried out in the most glorious way at Golgotha. Jesus entered this horrible suffering leading to death in order to conduct the most magnificent victory over evil the universe has ever known. The light of the world, Jesus (Jn 8:12), intentionally entered the darkness of death so that the light of God would overcome the darkness of death. Jesus permitted himself to be nailed to the cross so that death would meet a new death: the death of death. That is, the author of death, the devil, was conquered by the death of Jesus Christ. The devil’s death was defeated by Jesus’ death that led to life.
9. Martin Luther, in his Galatians lectures, used a patristic metaphor that Gregory of Nyssa had used centuries earlier: “The kingly authority of the divinity is given to Christ the man, not because of his humanity but because of his divinity. For the divinity alone created all things, without the cooperation of the humanity. Nor did the humanity conquer sin and death; but the hook that was concealed under the worm, at which the devil struck, conquered and devoured the devil, who was attempting to devour the worm. Therefore the humanity would not have accomplished anything by itself; but the divinity, joined with the humanity, did it alone, and the humanity did it on account of the divinity” (AE 26:267).
10. Simply put, the devil saw the human nature of Jesus and considered him as all the men before him. His humanity was the “worm” Luther referred to. The enemy had no suspicions about devouring the worm. He had done it a million times before. But what the devil didn’t see was the “hook” underneath the human nature of Christ, that is, the divine nature, true God who was enfleshed. So when the devil swallowed up the human nature of Jesus into death, death unintentionally swallowed God, the light of the world. And this light, the darkness of death could not hold. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5).
11. Death was fully confident that it had swallowed yet another worm, but after swallowing, death was swallowed by the “Author of life” (Acts 3:15), one strong enough to bind the strong man who brought death (Mt 12:29).
12. Therefore, death has completely changed for those baptized into Christ. On account of Jesus going to the cross on that first Good Friday, Christians now confess with Paul: “ ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ ” (1 Cor 15:54b–55).
13. Everything has been transformed for the people of God who hold to Jesus, who holds to them. Because Martin Luther understood that Christ defeated death already on the Good Friday cross, he could write: “ ‘Law, if you are able to bite me, bind me, and plague me, I will put another Law above you, that is, another tyrant and tormentor, who will accuse you, bind you, and oppress you in turn. You are indeed my tormentor. But I have another tormentor, namely Christ. He will torment you all the way. When you have been tormented all the way by Him, then I am free.’ Likewise, if the devil whips me, I have a stronger devil, who will whip him in turn. And when the more powerful devil battles and conquers the powerful one, I am set free. Thus grace is a Law—not to me, because it does not bind me, but to my Law; this it binds in such a way that it cannot bind me any longer. . . . See this very joyous duel: the Law battling against the Law, in order to become liberty to me; sin battling against sin, in order to become righteousness to me; death battling against death, in order that I might have life. For Christ is my devil against the devil, that I might be a son of God; He destroys hell, that I might have the kingdom of heaven” (AE 26:164).
14. For this victory of the new death of Christ over the old death, it’s small wonder that God’s providence proclaimed Jesus “King,” even on his cross. The King of kings and Lord of lords proved to have all authority in heaven and on earth (Mt 28:18), and as a result, the day is coming when “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10–11).
15. Also, it’s not surprising that Jesus would make his mother and his disciple John into a new family, representing the new family of the church delivered from the old death. The Lord knew that he would be victorious over death, so he began building his church right there at The Place of a Skull, because he said before, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18).
16. But the greatest sign of the new death over the old death was what Jesus said just before he died: “It is finished” (Jn 19:30). His mission was finished. The work that the Father had sent him to do to save us poor sinners was finished. Because something else was finished: old death was finished. Its reign and rule was no more. It is now finished, so that when Christians die, they do not die in accord with the old death but in accord with the new, that is, in the death of Christ that conquers death, so that now when Christians die, they do not die, but live. 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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