Sam Bush, “Worst Case Scenario: A Sermon for Good Friday”
In 1971, the playwright William Inge published his novel My Son is a Splendid Driver that takes place in Depression-era Kansas and is about a well-respected family that is thrown into crisis. First, the oldest son nicks himself shaving and dies of infection. Next, the father contracts a sexually-transmitted disease through an affair, then transmits it to the mother who is completely undone by her shame. In this worst-case scenario, religion does nothing for her. She says, “Church isn’t the place to go with your troubles but a place to go when you’re feeling good and have a new hat to wear.” Her younger son, the narrator, says their minister would have been red-faced with embarrassment if she had told him her story. He then says, “Most of our morality, I was beginning to think, was based on a refusal to recognize sin. Our entire religious heritage, it seemed to me, was one of refusal to deal with it.”
Well, on this Good Friday, we have little choice but to deal with the reality and the consequence of our sin. We may sometimes be able to hide that there is something deeply wrong in us, but it all comes out today. Morality goes out the window. Today, we come to terms with the truth that you and I are not basically good people that just need to make good choices. A few days ago, on Palm Sunday, we, the congregation, were faced with a choice to either set Jesus free or a criminal named Barabbas and we didn’t hesitate. Today, we recognize we are each guilty of rejecting and crucifying the God of grace in favor of religion and respectability.
We also bear witness to how God, unlike us, does not refuse to deal with sin. He subverts our entire religious heritage - the belief that our own piety and virtue will bridge the gap between us and God.
How does God deal with sin? Maybe you noticed the detail at the beginning of John’s Gospel reading. It says, “Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon.” Why would he say that? Well, it’s intentional. He is noting that it was the time when the Passover lambs would begin to be sacrificed in Jerusalem. You see, Passover commemorates God’s rescuing His people from slavery in Egypt. In the Book of Exodus, the Israelites are instructed to leave a mark of lamb’s blood above their door. It was plain and simple: any household that did not have the blood above the door, the firstborn son would die - no exceptions, not even Pharaoh’s house; if a household did have the mark, the Angel of Death would pass over. In other words, God’s people were saved by the blood of a lamb. We’re not talking metaphorically. We’re talking about actual blood. This is how they were delivered from bondage and death.
By saying it was about noon on the Preparation for the Passover, John’s Gospel is coming full-circle because in chapter one - at the very beginning - Jesus is introduced as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Not only John’s Gospel but all of Scripture is coming to a head. As Isaiah says, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.”
As the nails were being driven into his wrists, it is likely you would have heard the bleating of lambs in the distance. On Good Friday, Jesus takes all the symbols of the Passover and points them to himself. As we quote Paul’s letter to the Corinthians every Sunday, “Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.” On the Cross, Jesus is not your life-coach or your helper. He is our substitute - the righteous for the unrighteous. God’s forgiveness is more than a metaphor. It was an event that happened at a specific time and place. This is how we were delivered from sin and death.
When I was a teenager, there was a popular series called The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Expert Advice for Extreme Situations. In it there were detailed instructions on what to do in case the pilot of the plane blacks out and it's up to you to land the jet. There was a step-by-step procedure for how to deliver a baby in a taxicab. It was funny because it was full of scenarios that will never happen to most people (one scenario advised what to do if you happen to fall in quicksand which, by God’s grace, is no longer a serious threat). But the series was based on that idea that, in a worst case scenario, you need to know what to do.
Good Friday presents the ultimate worst case scenario. God dies. He not only dies; he dies at our own hand in the most grotesque and humiliating manner. And yet, Good Friday shows that in our ultimate worst case scenario, there is nothing to be done. In this most extreme situation, there is no advice; there are no instructions. Rather, we witness what has been done on our behalf. Jesus’ final words are “It is finished.”
The Dutch impressionist Vincent Van Gogh once said, “It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that, whenever we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation - of loneliness, poverty and misery, the end and extreme of things - the thought of God comes into one’s mind.” On Good Friday, Jesus entered into indescribable desolation. He entered into loneliness, poverty and misery. He entered into the end and extreme of things.
What does that mean for you? It means that dark is not dark if God is there. In the presence of God, darkness becomes light. It means in your own worst-case scenario, God has already lifted the curse and saved you. It means the Cross is the one place to bring your troubles and your sin because there your sins have been dealt with, taken to the grave and buried forever. As the author of Hebrews reminds us, it means, as redeemed sinners, “We have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus.”
Or, as the old hymn Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted proclaims, “Lamb of God, for sinners wounded, sacrifice to cancel guilt! None shall ever be confounded who on him their hope have built.” Amen.
