Sermon for Good Friday

A little girl at my dinner table recently asked me a question about Jesus over supper, “Why did Jesus choose to die?” It’s a good question spoken at an age where this issue becomes important. You see, most of her life, her mom and I have been trying to express how when we talk about God we are talking also talking about Jesus and when we talk about Jesus we are also talking about God We remind her again and again that Jesus died to forgive her sins and that since Jesus loves her, then God loves her. The lesson must at least be making some headway or else this question, at dinnertime, might not have come up.

When you hear about a murder in the newspaper, on the internet, on the radio or on TV, do you ever ask this question, “Why did that person choose to die?” No. Most of the time, nobody deliberately chooses to die. Especially at the hands of somebody else. Ernest Becker explains in his book, “The Denial of Death” that even those heroes who choose to fight in wars by jumping out of boats and running out into the line of fire can only do so because they feel pity for the person running next to them because they are worried that the other person might get hit by a stray bullet. If we could possibly be aware enough to truly consider our own death, no one would ever get out of the boat. No one would ever step out of their house. But when Jesus dies on the cross, there is a need within all of us to ask this question,:”Why did Jesus choose to die?”

We are driven to ask this question only when we realize somewhere within us that Jesus is more than just one of us, he is God himself. And for God himself to be on that cross, the creator of heaven and earth, well, there must be more to it than a simple homicide that you’d hear about on the news. Unfortunately, this also betrays something even more interesting about both that little girl at my table, and about all of us in fact: she is already trying to wiggle out of her responsibility regarding the cross, just like the rest of us sinners. “Why did Jesus choose to die?” it’s a question we sinners like to ask, because if we can explain to ourselves and to each other why God wanted to die then it gets us off the hook. Then we can sing the hymn, “Were you there when they crucified my lord,” and smirk to ourselves that “no, we weren’t there.” We can place the blame of Jesus’ death on someone else.

Our reading this evening from the book of Isaiah references this way of thinking, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for OUR transgressions, crushed for OUR iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” We like to put the blame on God for Jesus’ death. The gospels tell us that Jesus knows he is heading for Jerusalem to suffer and die, so how can we be culpable? Why would it be our fault? Jesus must have chosen to die and we had nothing to do with it. We weren’t even there!
In fact, as Isaiah writes down a few verses later, “It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.” If God wanted his son Jesus to die, who was really going to stop him, not I. Yes indeed, none of us would have stopped the death of Jesus. We would have run away like the rest of the disciples, looked on from a distance, or deny Jesus in the heat of the moment.

“He was wounded for OUR transgressions, crushed for OUR iniquities.” Why did Jesus choose to die?” It wasn’t that Jesus chose to die as if he didn’t want to rather live, but Jesus had to die, it was necessary for him to die as scripture puts it, because you and I would have it no other way. He came to earth forgiving sins, casting out demons and healing the sick and so he was killed for it. Jesus didn’t whip himself to the point of death, hammer nails into his body and raise himself up on the cross—sinners like you and me did this to him. Perhaps the only good answer to the question, “Why did Jesus choose to die?” is this, “Because there was no other way to get through to you and me.” He had to choose to give us the choice to kill him, so that when he was resurrected from the dead, we would realize what we had done. So that we might realize the length and depth and breadth of our sin and then, finally, understand the full extent of what he had done on the cross.

Jesus chose to die for you, by being born on Earth and letting you kill him, so that you might realize that even though you are completely responsible for his death, just as much as any person alive 2000 years ago, Jesus has wiped your sins away in the blood of his cross. You made you choice to kill Jesus Christ and now he has made his choice to give you eternal life.

Ironically, as Jesus is dying, he says, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But the truth is, sinners back then and sinners today know exactly what we are doing, given the choice, sinners want Jesus dead. What we don’t know, is that by making our choice, God can finally make his choice once and for all in a way that we might all understand and believe. We cannot hide our sins any longer, Jesus’ blood is on our hands and on our children’s children. Thankfully, though, that same blood washes us clean in the sight of God. We have made our choice and God has made his choice. By his bruises we are healed. Amen.