Good Friday 2020 – The Heart of The Father

Good morning, and welcome to the online Good Friday Service here at HMC. This morning as you sit around your computers, TVs, or smartphones to join in, remember that we are here to reflect and to celebrate. We come to reflect on the overwhelming, indescribable, uncontainable, never ending love of Jesus Christ that was put on display as He gave up His life for us on a Roman Cross 2000 years ago. We reflect on how that act of love changed our history. We reflect how that one love act changed our lives and continues to change our lives.

We also celebrate. We celebrate because of what Jesus Christ did 2000 years ago on The Cross. We can celebrate an unconditional love that becomes a source of hope, joy, and peace. We can celebrate an unconditional love that fixes our brokenness and brings relationship. We can celebrate an unconditional love that turns us from death to life eternal if we choose to accept and receive it. Today, we celebrate love through Christ, at the foot of the Cross.

As we sing, as we hear Scripture read, as we pray, and we take communion, lets reflect, but lets also celebrate that we can and have found love.

6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (ROM 5:6-8)

This morning, I want to share with you a story of the heart of a Father for His children.

In the beginning, The Father of all living things, God, created all that we see. He created life, He created us, and gave humanity breath. In His creation He was very pleased. He had a special relationship with humanity, unlike that of any thing else in all His creation. Humanity was created in His image. The first humans, Adam and Eve, got to enjoy the perfection God had created, and live in a mutually perfectly loving, perfectly personal, and perfectly whole relationship with God.

Then something called rebellion happened. When faced with a choice of honouring their Father’s command to not eat of a certain tree that was before them that the Father knew would bring death and the brokenness of all that was perfect, Adam and Eve chose their own pride. Picking their own path instead of God’s, in rebellion to what God said, they ate of that tree.

God, The Father had to respond. Because of their rebellion and sin, no longer could they enjoy the complete perfection in which God had placed them. The garden, the life, the relationship that they were designed for was all broken. But the story doesn’t stop there. That very day, even though God had to act on their rebellion and give them a needed consequence, the heart of the Father was filled with love for His creation. We see in Genesis 3:14-19 that before the Father spoke to Adam and Eve about their rebellion, He unfolded a plan to bring redemption, healing, and restoration to everything that was broken and destroyed by their rebellion. God promised a Saviour; a Saviour who would right the wrongs and put the broken pieces back together again.

At the right time, in our brokenness and helplessness, unable to fix ourselves, Christ came for us; the Heart of the Father was put on display for all to see. Jesus, the Son of God, yet God Himself; fully man and fully God came to Earth to live a life that was pure, undamaged by all the rebellion of humanity, free from any sin Himself so that He could fulfill the promise made by the Father thousands of years prior at the garden.

Today we remember how the heart of the Father was put on display through the love driven sacrifice of Jesus for all of humanity for all of history. We see this as Jesus, out of pure love, died for those who didn’t deserve it. He died for each one of His twelve disciples, many of whom had failed Him deeply, such as when they fell asleep on Him when they should have been keeping watch in the Garden of Gethsemane not once or twice, but three times. Or when the one who had said on the evening of Jesus’ betrayal that he would never abandon Jesus would go on to deny that he even knew Jesus three times before sunrise the next morning. Or the disciple who used his position as a way to embezzle money, and who for 30 pieces of silver (the modern day equivalent of a few hundred dollars in value) would hand Jesus over to the religious leaders to be sentenced to death.

Jesus also died for the mob that would violently arrest Him, or the religious leaders who would put Jesus on trial for bogus, made up, fake charges driven by a sense of revenge and anger. Jesus died for Herod, whose only interest in Jesus that day was to see this ‘magic man’ and mock Him. Jesus died for the soldiers who would mock Him, spit on Him, hit him, and pound a crown of thorns into His forehead. Jesus died for the soldiers who would almost beat the life right out of Him, to the point of being beaten beyond recognition. Jesus died for Pilate, the one who would sentence Him to death by crucifixion. He died for the criminal Barabbas who was released but should have been in Jesus’ place instead. He died for the ones who pounded each nail into His hands and feet to hang Him on that Cross. He died for the ones who would divide up his clothing to the highest bidder right in front of Him as He hung to die. He died for the ones who jeered at Him as He breathed His last in agony.

The whole time, Jesus could have stopped this. The whole time He could have walked away. But He didn’t. Rather than walking away, He prayed “Father Your will, not mine.” And as He hung on that Cross, He prayed that these people who did such horrible and unjust things would be forgiven for their ignorance. The heart of the Father was that His creation, His people who were broken by rebellion would be restored, redeemed to what they were made to be and restored to the relationship with Him that they were designed to have. He knew that the only way this could happen was for Him to come down in human form, Jesus Christ, and give up His life.

When Jesus said ‘It is finished’, breathed His last and died, He did so for all of humanity for all of history. He did it for all those who didn’t deserve it that day. He died for you, and He died for me.

The heart of the Father beat with so much love for all of us, for you, for me, for all of humanity that while we were all sinners, while we were all broken and had no idea that we needed help and likely didn’t want it either, He died for us.

In a moment, we are going to celebrate communion together. I will again read Romans 5:6-8. And then I am going to invite you to take a couple moments, as I play some music, to have silence in your home, to pray, to be thankful for the heart of the Father that pursued us to the point of Jesus willingly giving up His life out of love for us. Reflect on how His heart of love has changed you, and what it means for you today to be pursued by His love. And then serve each other the communion pieces together in your home, and hold on to them until we take them together in a few minutes.

6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (ROM 5:6-8)