Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 25, 2016 | Good Friday

Transcript

March 25, 2016 | Good Friday · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This afternoon and evening, we are reliving Story, the story of the final hours of Jesus.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Story has really four main episodes: the rest in the garden, the trials overnight before Roman and Jewish authorities, the violent torture, and then the public crucifixion.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know which of these episodes stands out to you or impresses you the most, but I must say the thing that sort of scars me the most is the sheer bloodiness, the violence of it.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons we have a Good Friday service each year is so that you and I will never grow so callous, so inoculated to the violence of Good Friday that we stop flinching as we watch the nails being pounded home through his wrists and through his feet.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to remember, and Good Friday is here to remind us, that the gospel is a violent story.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus had told his disciples a parable, a story not long before, that illustrated this.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: He said that once there was a man, a landowner, who'd owned a big vineyard, and he had improved it, and he had built a wall around it, and he had erected a stone tower in it for defense, and then he had leased it out to some tenants.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it was generous, and he hadn't charged him any rent.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: He said, instead of rent, what I'll do is I'll split the grapes with you come harvest time.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: You you do the work, and you know, then it'll be your crop, uh, but you know, we'll we'll split the grapes.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and so at harvest time, uh the the owner, the landowner, you know, he sent three of his employees to come and collect the grapes.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the tenants were greedy, and they they just refused not only to give them grapes, but then they beat them up and they stoned one of them half to death and they killed one of them.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh and when they you know dragged back to the landowner, he said, gotta be a mistake here, and he sent more servants, and the same thing happened to them.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, This is crazy, this is unbelievable.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: They must not understand that they represent me, you know, and my authority.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so he said, I know what I'll do, I'll send my son.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so he sent his son, uh, Jesus tells a story, and as the son approached, the tenants, he had completely underestimated, you know, the depth of greed and violence in their heart and their wickedness.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, as they saw him coming, they said, Here comes the son.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one who actually is the heir, he's gonna be the next owner of the vineyard.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's kill him, and and then we'll get the vineyard.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and they did, they bashed his head in and they killed him.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and Jesus said, that's the story of the world.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: What the world is and what the world does.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was true that God was the landowner, and he'd sent his prophets, he'd sent his messengers, he'd sent his people, you know, in the Old Testament times, and the world had either ignored them or they beat them up or they killed them.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so then God sent his son.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And his son, Jesus, was the opposite of a violent person.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, he could have uh he could have wielded lightning and thunder and and compelled, you know, the tenants, us, you know, to follow him.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he he had an army back in heaven.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: We know he had an army of angels, you know, tough guys, and they're, I'm sure, perched over the you know, gate, looking, waiting for the slightest sign from Jesus while he was on earth, you know, to come, you know, and clean house.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus never gave that sign.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was the most nonviolent person you could say who's ever lived.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not, no, no, not even self-defense, never defended himself.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the weird thing is, or the sad thing is, or the thing that we're supposed to remember Good Friday is, is that is that though Jesus embodied the best, he brought out in us the worst.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Though Jesus embodied kindness, he brought out our cruelty.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Though he embodied nonviolence, he brought out our violence.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: His story is a violent story.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so is ours.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: We, who are the tenants, all of the stories down here on earth are stories pretty much bathed in blood, aren't they?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Earlier this month, I was at the library and grabbed the book, The Mayflower, as called.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a long time since I read about our ancestors, you know, who came over the pilgrims, Plymouth Rock, you know.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and um I thought I'll read about them.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Ketchup.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: My heroes, or something.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, so um I'm only a little more than halfway through, and I must tell you there are two feelings that override every chapter that I get.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And one is feeling of admiration for these our forefathers in 1620, 1630, 1640, their guts, their grit, their courage.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the other feeling I have is sadness because around the feet of Miles Standish and William Bradford and all these other people, I so admired are pools of blood.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: America was conceived in blood, and as you know, 150 years later, American Revolution, all kinds of violence and blood.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: God says, no surprise.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you were all conceived in blood.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Six chapters into the Bible, Genesis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, God looks down and he complains, I filled the earth with birds and beasts and humanity, and now it is filled with violence.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it is, isn't it?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Over a million and a half people this year around the world will be violently murdered, killed in some way.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nearly 1% of the world's population, 60 million people will be refugees fleeing from that violence.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Today is a day of mourning in the country of Belgium because this last Tuesday, Islamic terrorists set off nail bombs in the airport and the metro station, over 30 innocent people, over 300 others, over 30 killed, over 300 injured.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we're told that there will be five times as many killed simply by Islamic radicals this year as just five years ago.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's escalating.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just out there, it's here at home in America, isn't it?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can't go through a month in America without turning on the news, and I mean this literally, every single month last year, the news of a mass rampage killer.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then there are some cities.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Chicago is having the most unbelievable, horrible year of knifings and murders ever.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just exploded for some reason two a day.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: 140 so far.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Who needs to go out on the streets?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: The average American child by the age of ten has witnessed a thousand TV murders.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: We are a violent, violent people.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's uh appropriate then that the gospel is a violent story.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: This really doesn't fall into the same category as the previous violence, but I must say I was shocked to pick up a magazine last week and read a headline that said 2016 promises to be the most violent election campaign ever.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently there's a lot of fist fights and stuff going on at rallies today.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think God says to us as we think about all of our violence, he says, feel free to be ashamed of all this, folks, but don't be shocked by it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: For ever since the beginning, you have been a violent people.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of people you are.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the cross is not just some happenstance, bad accident, sad thing that happened outside a Mideast town one Friday afternoon.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It is the way that actually the world welcomed my son Jesus ever since his birth.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, Herod tried to kill him when he was just out of swaddling clothes.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You have that grisly story at the beginning of the gospel of horsemen galloping and mommies with little boys in their arms running in Bethlehem, and weapons flashing, and infant blood flowing, and lifeless little boys clasped to bloody breasts by their sobbing mothers while only five miles away, fat King Herod sits, sipping wine the same color of the blood that he's shedding.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And his parents grab Jesus and run like refugees to Egypt, fleeing the violence.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But when he comes back and begins his ministry, the violence returns.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's cast him off a cliff, crucify him.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is a violent story.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, today is the very worst day of all.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because this morning they used unbelievable torture on our Lord.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: They not just whipped him, but beat him so badly that now his face is utterly unrecognizable.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then he dragged the cross outside town to the garbage dump outside Jerusalem, where he is publicly and violently crucified.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: But he had to be, didn't he?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because no one can save us, a bloody, violent people, without himself passing through blood and passing through violence, no matter how non-violent he is, for our story is one of violence.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And today, Good Friday, is meant to remind us of that.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: To remind us that last night our Lord invited us into an upper room where he washed our feet.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then taking the bread, he said, This is my body broken for you.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And after that, the cup saying, This is my blood shed for you.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that was entirely appropriate.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because it couldn't be for you, and it couldn't be for me if there weren't some blood on it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're a bloody violent people.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it took a broken body and shed blood to save us.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: For sending your son into this violent world and allowing us to put him to a violent death.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then handing us the elements of celebration to remind us that this death is what saves us forever.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.