Good Friday 2025
Reflections on Repentance
Message: Restored by His Sacrifice
What did king David see and hear and smell every time he went to the tabernacle? No doubt there were a variety of sounds: people talking, moving around, animals making noises. No doubt there were a variety of smells. Animals tend to bring with them certain odors. People could also. The scent of incense must have wafted past from time to time. As for sights, there was a bronze basin and a bronze altar. There were the linens and curtains that encased the inner rooms and surrounded the outer courtyard. There were the priests and the animals and the people. There was commotion.
And there was blood. There was no escaping it. It poured out of dying animal victims. It was sprinkled and splashed and poured in various places at various times. It dried on the altar and on the priest’s garments. Its stench punctuated the experience. Its bright reds and deep browns caught the eye. At times, perhaps even the sound of the pouring or sprinkling reached David’s ears.
No one should have ever mistaken what God was teaching his people at the tabernacle or at the temple that would one day replace it. The wrongdoing of the people required the sacrifice of an innocent victim. The sin of the people required the blood of lambs and bulls and goats. The guilt of the people needed atonement day after day after day, week after week, year after year. God took sin seriously. Deadly seriously.
I suppose even when David was hiding his sin he still made regular visits to the tabernacle. He had appearances to keep up. He had routines to maintain. How many times did he visit that place and ignore all the signs, all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells? How often had he closed his heart and his mind to the blood that cried out: “you deserve this and you deserve more”?
Repentance came when God led David away from that refusal to listen. Repentance came when God held David’s guilt before his eyes, and his heart knew that he deserved bloodshed. Repentance meant turning away, confessing, asking for—begging for—mercy. Repentance shouted in the Psalm: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me.”
In repentance, David did not depend on his offerings and sacrifices. He acknowledged that God wanted most a pure heart, a sacrifice of spirit. He wanted David to confess and know his unworthiness and to trust in God for forgiveness, for everything. He led David to confess that. And only when David’s heart was made right would God also be pleased with his sacrifices and offerings.
Tonight we are not going back to the tabernacle. We are going to what the tabernacle taught and what it represented. We are going to a place bathed in blood. It is there in the sights and
sounds and smells. But it is not the blood of lambs or bulls or goats. It is the blood of the one singular lamb. It is the blood of the promised Messiah, the prophesied sacrifice. It is the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Some come to this place and still try to hide their sins. Some just go through the motions. Some refuse to recognize that the blood streaming from Jesus cries out: “you deserve this.” Some fail to acknowledge that he is there for us. He is offered as the sacrifice for your sins and mine. We who were sinful from birth still struggle to ponder on the passion of Jesus with repentant grieving. We are here tonight to be restored by his sacrifice. We are here to repent and to be built up in faith and love. It is only through sorrow over our sins that God leads us to the joy of his salvation. So we pray, “Deliver us from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves us.” Amen.
Meditation: Sacrifice Promised
It was the same King. It was the same Spirit inspiring the words. It was a very different Psalm. We don’t call Psalm 22 a penitential Psalm. We call it a messianic Psalm. There is no mistaking the voice that speaks in and through these words. There is no mistaking the emotions captured, to which we can only relate in part. There is no mistaking the circumstance. There is no mistaking the straight line that runs through 1000 years of history to connect the words that fall from David’s heart and David’s pen and David’s lips to the words that fall from our Lord’s lips and from his heart on the cross.
David knew the promise passed down from centuries before, and he passed it along in ways that would endure for centuries. The sacrifice was so necessary and sin so serious that God would be forsaken by God. And because he was, you and I will never be forsaken by God. We can earnestly and confidently pray that God would not be distant from us but would quickly come to our aid.
Please join me in reading responsively from Psalm 22.
Meditation: Sacrifice Prophesied
If a straight line connected the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of King David to the events of 1000 years later, the same line runs through the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of Isaiah in between. Words about a servant. One who would suffer. One stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God himself. Does this sound familiar?
I hope and pray that it does. Perhaps it is familiar because you know some hymns by heart. Perhaps it is familiar because you have visited Golgotha before. Perhaps it is familiar because God has made known to you this great sacrifice for the sins of the world. But do not let it be too familiar. Do not take for granted what you are about to see and hear. “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses. And he was carrying our sufferings.” Do not suppose that he is there for others
only and not for you. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Do not exclude yourself from the truth that he is dying for the sins of the world. “It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.” You can be certain that this is for you because it is for the world. You can be certain that this is God’s plan because he told us, centuries before it came to be.
Meditation: Sacrifice for Us
At the tabernacle and at the temple, people presented sacrifices and offerings day after day. There was an endless supply of sin and guilt, so there was a steady demand for restitution and atonement. Every sacrifice was a prediction, a promise, and a prophecy about the one sacrifice to come. Every law that set Israel and Judah apart from the nations around them served the interest of God keeping his promise. Every rule and law that the people of God were required to follow showed them how prevalent and deadly and significant sin was. Generation after generation looked ahead through prophecy and pageantry to the Messiah, the promised one.
Too many from those generations misunderstood. They felt that they were accomplishing something. They felt that they were earning something. They felt that they deserved the love and favor of God. If only that were the case! If people could earn God’s love and favor, there would be no need for a greater sacrifice. There would be no need for Jesus.
There is and long has been a need for Jesus. From the fall of our first parents to our every moment of this life, the best that we can do is not good enough. The best of what we are is guilty and corrupt. On all who fall and all who fail, the law pronounces its decree: you are cursed.
Then one came who was guiltless and pure. From his conception through his life and ministry. Every moment. Every day. But he was cursed. And he was crushed. He was everything that the true prophets and true people of God had been waiting for. He was the only one on whom people could depend. Unfortunately, already in the very same century as his sacrifice, people introduced to him were turning away in order to rely on themselves and their works and their ways.
Today is not about the tabernacle or the temple. Today is not about obligating ourselves to being better and doing better. Today is about the one who did for us what we could never do. Today is about Jesus.
Meditation: Sacrifice Offered
The time had come. The sham trials had been conducted. Any objective witness had concluded his innocence, yet every trial resulted in the verdict: guilty of death. Execution.
The sacrifice was not brought to the temple and laid on the altar. The sacrifice carried his own cross to a hill named for the skull. No priest met him there, because he was offering himself.
The time has come for us to look upon him, to watch as he walks that way, as he is fastened to the cross, as the soldiers do as they have been ordered and then some. The time has come for us to gaze at the sign and know that it is not merely an accusation. It is the truth. This is the King of the Jews. This is the King of the Universe.
Meditation: Sacrifice Completed
Do you need any more evidence that Jesus did what he did for the sake of others, not himself? Even on the cross, he loved those his heavenly Father had given to him. There was his mother, watching in horror. There was the disciple who had been so close to him. So Jesus spoke. They would have each other as they were losing him. Only they were not losing him; they were gaining everything he had come to give them. He announced it. He proclaimed it. All was finished. The sacrifice bowed his head and died.
Meditation: Sacrifice Fulfilled
You may have noticed already: fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. The promises and prophecies were specific enough that the witnesses could be sure. The prophecies and promises were kept one by one in the actions of the soldiers and the words of Jesus. The evidence stacks higher and higher. This is the one on whom you can depend. This is the one God promised. This is the one God sent. Even the rules regarding the Passover lamb were fulfilled in Jesus, so the soldiers who wanted to make sure that all were off of the cross that day did not break a bone in his body. They pierced his side. It was finished. He was dead. The promises had been kept. The prophecies had been fulfilled.
Meditation: Sacrifice Honored
Seventy-two pounds of spices. Linen strips. A pristine tomb. This was not the rushed burial of a criminal. This was the respectful disposition of the body of a beloved teacher and friend. This was an honor that two formerly secret disciples could bestow. How tear-filled and how gutwrenching must this have been? We are left to assume, because the Sabbath comes quickly. Though they have come to bestow an honor, they act quickly and intentionally.
You should do the same. You have seen the sacrifice. You honor him as he makes your life a living sacrifice. You have people to love. You have good deeds to do. Your time is limited in which to do those things and to love those people.
But your time is not limited for honoring his sacrifice. This Sabbath Day will pass. Sunday will come soon. You will want to be at this same tomb on that day. You will want to see what happens next.
Good Friday 2025
Reflections on Repentance
Message: Restored by His Sacrifice
What did king David see and hear and smell every time he went to the tabernacle? No doubt there were a variety of sounds: people talking, moving around, animals making noises. No doubt there were a variety of smells. Animals tend to bring with them certain odors. People could also. The scent of incense must have wafted past from time to time. As for sights, there was a bronze basin and a bronze altar. There were the linens and curtains that encased the inner rooms and surrounded the outer courtyard. There were the priests and the animals and the people. There was commotion.
And there was blood. There was no escaping it. It poured out of dying animal victims. It was sprinkled and splashed and poured in various places at various times. It dried on the altar and on the priest’s garments. Its stench punctuated the experience. Its bright reds and deep browns caught the eye. At times, perhaps even the sound of the pouring or sprinkling reached David’s ears.
No one should have ever mistaken what God was teaching his people at the tabernacle or at the temple that would one day replace it. The wrongdoing of the people required the sacrifice of an innocent victim. The sin of the people required the blood of lambs and bulls and goats. The guilt of the people needed atonement day after day after day, week after week, year after year. God took sin seriously. Deadly seriously.
I suppose even when David was hiding his sin he still made regular visits to the tabernacle. He had appearances to keep up. He had routines to maintain. How many times did he visit that place and ignore all the signs, all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells? How often had he closed his heart and his mind to the blood that cried out: “you deserve this and you deserve more”?
Repentance came when God led David away from that refusal to listen. Repentance came when God held David’s guilt before his eyes, and his heart knew that he deserved bloodshed. Repentance meant turning away, confessing, asking for—begging for—mercy. Repentance shouted in the Psalm: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me.”
In repentance, David did not depend on his offerings and sacrifices. He acknowledged that God wanted most a pure heart, a sacrifice of spirit. He wanted David to confess and know his unworthiness and to trust in God for forgiveness, for everything. He led David to confess that. And only when David’s heart was made right would God also be pleased with his sacrifices and offerings.
Tonight we are not going back to the tabernacle. We are going to what the tabernacle taught and what it represented. We are going to a place bathed in blood. It is there in the sights and
sounds and smells. But it is not the blood of lambs or bulls or goats. It is the blood of the one singular lamb. It is the blood of the promised Messiah, the prophesied sacrifice. It is the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Some come to this place and still try to hide their sins. Some just go through the motions. Some refuse to recognize that the blood streaming from Jesus cries out: “you deserve this.” Some fail to acknowledge that he is there for us. He is offered as the sacrifice for your sins and mine. We who were sinful from birth still struggle to ponder on the passion of Jesus with repentant grieving. We are here tonight to be restored by his sacrifice. We are here to repent and to be built up in faith and love. It is only through sorrow over our sins that God leads us to the joy of his salvation. So we pray, “Deliver us from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves us.” Amen.
Meditation: Sacrifice Promised
It was the same King. It was the same Spirit inspiring the words. It was a very different Psalm. We don’t call Psalm 22 a penitential Psalm. We call it a messianic Psalm. There is no mistaking the voice that speaks in and through these words. There is no mistaking the emotions captured, to which we can only relate in part. There is no mistaking the circumstance. There is no mistaking the straight line that runs through 1000 years of history to connect the words that fall from David’s heart and David’s pen and David’s lips to the words that fall from our Lord’s lips and from his heart on the cross.
David knew the promise passed down from centuries before, and he passed it along in ways that would endure for centuries. The sacrifice was so necessary and sin so serious that God would be forsaken by God. And because he was, you and I will never be forsaken by God. We can earnestly and confidently pray that God would not be distant from us but would quickly come to our aid.
Please join me in reading responsively from Psalm 22.
Meditation: Sacrifice Prophesied
If a straight line connected the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of King David to the events of 1000 years later, the same line runs through the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of Isaiah in between. Words about a servant. One who would suffer. One stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God himself. Does this sound familiar?
I hope and pray that it does. Perhaps it is familiar because you know some hymns by heart. Perhaps it is familiar because you have visited Golgotha before. Perhaps it is familiar because God has made known to you this great sacrifice for the sins of the world. But do not let it be too familiar. Do not take for granted what you are about to see and hear. “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses. And he was carrying our sufferings.” Do not suppose that he is there for others
only and not for you. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Do not exclude yourself from the truth that he is dying for the sins of the world. “It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.” You can be certain that this is for you because it is for the world. You can be certain that this is God’s plan because he told us, centuries before it came to be.
Meditation: Sacrifice for Us
At the tabernacle and at the temple, people presented sacrifices and offerings day after day. There was an endless supply of sin and guilt, so there was a steady demand for restitution and atonement. Every sacrifice was a prediction, a promise, and a prophecy about the one sacrifice to come. Every law that set Israel and Judah apart from the nations around them served the interest of God keeping his promise. Every rule and law that the people of God were required to follow showed them how prevalent and deadly and significant sin was. Generation after generation looked ahead through prophecy and pageantry to the Messiah, the promised one.
Too many from those generations misunderstood. They felt that they were accomplishing something. They felt that they were earning something. They felt that they deserved the love and favor of God. If only that were the case! If people could earn God’s love and favor, there would be no need for a greater sacrifice. There would be no need for Jesus.
There is and long has been a need for Jesus. From the fall of our first parents to our every moment of this life, the best that we can do is not good enough. The best of what we are is guilty and corrupt. On all who fall and all who fail, the law pronounces its decree: you are cursed.
Then one came who was guiltless and pure. From his conception through his life and ministry. Every moment. Every day. But he was cursed. And he was crushed. He was everything that the true prophets and true people of God had been waiting for. He was the only one on whom people could depend. Unfortunately, already in the very same century as his sacrifice, people introduced to him were turning away in order to rely on themselves and their works and their ways.
Today is not about the tabernacle or the temple. Today is not about obligating ourselves to being better and doing better. Today is about the one who did for us what we could never do. Today is about Jesus.
Meditation: Sacrifice Offered
The time had come. The sham trials had been conducted. Any objective witness had concluded his innocence, yet every trial resulted in the verdict: guilty of death. Execution.
The sacrifice was not brought to the temple and laid on the altar. The sacrifice carried his own cross to a hill named for the skull. No priest met him there, because he was offering himself.
The time has come for us to look upon him, to watch as he walks that way, as he is fastened to the cross, as the soldiers do as they have been ordered and then some. The time has come for us to gaze at the sign and know that it is not merely an accusation. It is the truth. This is the King of the Jews. This is the King of the Universe.
Meditation: Sacrifice Completed
Do you need any more evidence that Jesus did what he did for the sake of others, not himself? Even on the cross, he loved those his heavenly Father had given to him. There was his mother, watching in horror. There was the disciple who had been so close to him. So Jesus spoke. They would have each other as they were losing him. Only they were not losing him; they were gaining everything he had come to give them. He announced it. He proclaimed it. All was finished. The sacrifice bowed his head and died.
Meditation: Sacrifice Fulfilled
You may have noticed already: fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. The promises and prophecies were specific enough that the witnesses could be sure. The prophecies and promises were kept one by one in the actions of the soldiers and the words of Jesus. The evidence stacks higher and higher. This is the one on whom you can depend. This is the one God promised. This is the one God sent. Even the rules regarding the Passover lamb were fulfilled in Jesus, so the soldiers who wanted to make sure that all were off of the cross that day did not break a bone in his body. They pierced his side. It was finished. He was dead. The promises had been kept. The prophecies had been fulfilled.
Meditation: Sacrifice Honored
Seventy-two pounds of spices. Linen strips. A pristine tomb. This was not the rushed burial of a criminal. This was the respectful disposition of the body of a beloved teacher and friend. This was an honor that two formerly secret disciples could bestow. How tear-filled and how gutwrenching must this have been? We are left to assume, because the Sabbath comes quickly. Though they have come to bestow an honor, they act quickly and intentionally.
You should do the same. You have seen the sacrifice. You honor him as he makes your life a living sacrifice. You have people to love. You have good deeds to do. Your time is limited in which to do those things and to love those people.
But your time is not limited for honoring his sacrifice. This Sabbath Day will pass. Sunday will come soon. You will want to be at this same tomb on that day. You will want to see what happens next.
Good Friday 2025
Reflections on Repentance
Message: Restored by His Sacrifice
What did king David see and hear and smell every time he went to the tabernacle? No doubt there were a variety of sounds: people talking, moving around, animals making noises. No doubt there were a variety of smells. Animals tend to bring with them certain odors. People could also. The scent of incense must have wafted past from time to time. As for sights, there was a bronze basin and a bronze altar. There were the linens and curtains that encased the inner rooms and surrounded the outer courtyard. There were the priests and the animals and the people. There was commotion.
And there was blood. There was no escaping it. It poured out of dying animal victims. It was sprinkled and splashed and poured in various places at various times. It dried on the altar and on the priest’s garments. Its stench punctuated the experience. Its bright reds and deep browns caught the eye. At times, perhaps even the sound of the pouring or sprinkling reached David’s ears.
No one should have ever mistaken what God was teaching his people at the tabernacle or at the temple that would one day replace it. The wrongdoing of the people required the sacrifice of an innocent victim. The sin of the people required the blood of lambs and bulls and goats. The guilt of the people needed atonement day after day after day, week after week, year after year. God took sin seriously. Deadly seriously.
I suppose even when David was hiding his sin he still made regular visits to the tabernacle. He had appearances to keep up. He had routines to maintain. How many times did he visit that place and ignore all the signs, all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells? How often had he closed his heart and his mind to the blood that cried out: “you deserve this and you deserve more”?
Repentance came when God led David away from that refusal to listen. Repentance came when God held David’s guilt before his eyes, and his heart knew that he deserved bloodshed. Repentance meant turning away, confessing, asking for—begging for—mercy. Repentance shouted in the Psalm: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me.”
In repentance, David did not depend on his offerings and sacrifices. He acknowledged that God wanted most a pure heart, a sacrifice of spirit. He wanted David to confess and know his unworthiness and to trust in God for forgiveness, for everything. He led David to confess that. And only when David’s heart was made right would God also be pleased with his sacrifices and offerings.
Tonight we are not going back to the tabernacle. We are going to what the tabernacle taught and what it represented. We are going to a place bathed in blood. It is there in the sights and
sounds and smells. But it is not the blood of lambs or bulls or goats. It is the blood of the one singular lamb. It is the blood of the promised Messiah, the prophesied sacrifice. It is the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Some come to this place and still try to hide their sins. Some just go through the motions. Some refuse to recognize that the blood streaming from Jesus cries out: “you deserve this.” Some fail to acknowledge that he is there for us. He is offered as the sacrifice for your sins and mine. We who were sinful from birth still struggle to ponder on the passion of Jesus with repentant grieving. We are here tonight to be restored by his sacrifice. We are here to repent and to be built up in faith and love. It is only through sorrow over our sins that God leads us to the joy of his salvation. So we pray, “Deliver us from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves us.” Amen.
Meditation: Sacrifice Promised
It was the same King. It was the same Spirit inspiring the words. It was a very different Psalm. We don’t call Psalm 22 a penitential Psalm. We call it a messianic Psalm. There is no mistaking the voice that speaks in and through these words. There is no mistaking the emotions captured, to which we can only relate in part. There is no mistaking the circumstance. There is no mistaking the straight line that runs through 1000 years of history to connect the words that fall from David’s heart and David’s pen and David’s lips to the words that fall from our Lord’s lips and from his heart on the cross.
David knew the promise passed down from centuries before, and he passed it along in ways that would endure for centuries. The sacrifice was so necessary and sin so serious that God would be forsaken by God. And because he was, you and I will never be forsaken by God. We can earnestly and confidently pray that God would not be distant from us but would quickly come to our aid.
Please join me in reading responsively from Psalm 22.
Meditation: Sacrifice Prophesied
If a straight line connected the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of King David to the events of 1000 years later, the same line runs through the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of Isaiah in between. Words about a servant. One who would suffer. One stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God himself. Does this sound familiar?
I hope and pray that it does. Perhaps it is familiar because you know some hymns by heart. Perhaps it is familiar because you have visited Golgotha before. Perhaps it is familiar because God has made known to you this great sacrifice for the sins of the world. But do not let it be too familiar. Do not take for granted what you are about to see and hear. “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses. And he was carrying our sufferings.” Do not suppose that he is there for others
only and not for you. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Do not exclude yourself from the truth that he is dying for the sins of the world. “It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.” You can be certain that this is for you because it is for the world. You can be certain that this is God’s plan because he told us, centuries before it came to be.
Meditation: Sacrifice for Us
At the tabernacle and at the temple, people presented sacrifices and offerings day after day. There was an endless supply of sin and guilt, so there was a steady demand for restitution and atonement. Every sacrifice was a prediction, a promise, and a prophecy about the one sacrifice to come. Every law that set Israel and Judah apart from the nations around them served the interest of God keeping his promise. Every rule and law that the people of God were required to follow showed them how prevalent and deadly and significant sin was. Generation after generation looked ahead through prophecy and pageantry to the Messiah, the promised one.
Too many from those generations misunderstood. They felt that they were accomplishing something. They felt that they were earning something. They felt that they deserved the love and favor of God. If only that were the case! If people could earn God’s love and favor, there would be no need for a greater sacrifice. There would be no need for Jesus.
There is and long has been a need for Jesus. From the fall of our first parents to our every moment of this life, the best that we can do is not good enough. The best of what we are is guilty and corrupt. On all who fall and all who fail, the law pronounces its decree: you are cursed.
Then one came who was guiltless and pure. From his conception through his life and ministry. Every moment. Every day. But he was cursed. And he was crushed. He was everything that the true prophets and true people of God had been waiting for. He was the only one on whom people could depend. Unfortunately, already in the very same century as his sacrifice, people introduced to him were turning away in order to rely on themselves and their works and their ways.
Today is not about the tabernacle or the temple. Today is not about obligating ourselves to being better and doing better. Today is about the one who did for us what we could never do. Today is about Jesus.
Meditation: Sacrifice Offered
The time had come. The sham trials had been conducted. Any objective witness had concluded his innocence, yet every trial resulted in the verdict: guilty of death. Execution.
The sacrifice was not brought to the temple and laid on the altar. The sacrifice carried his own cross to a hill named for the skull. No priest met him there, because he was offering himself.
The time has come for us to look upon him, to watch as he walks that way, as he is fastened to the cross, as the soldiers do as they have been ordered and then some. The time has come for us to gaze at the sign and know that it is not merely an accusation. It is the truth. This is the King of the Jews. This is the King of the Universe.
Meditation: Sacrifice Completed
Do you need any more evidence that Jesus did what he did for the sake of others, not himself? Even on the cross, he loved those his heavenly Father had given to him. There was his mother, watching in horror. There was the disciple who had been so close to him. So Jesus spoke. They would have each other as they were losing him. Only they were not losing him; they were gaining everything he had come to give them. He announced it. He proclaimed it. All was finished. The sacrifice bowed his head and died.
Meditation: Sacrifice Fulfilled
You may have noticed already: fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. The promises and prophecies were specific enough that the witnesses could be sure. The prophecies and promises were kept one by one in the actions of the soldiers and the words of Jesus. The evidence stacks higher and higher. This is the one on whom you can depend. This is the one God promised. This is the one God sent. Even the rules regarding the Passover lamb were fulfilled in Jesus, so the soldiers who wanted to make sure that all were off of the cross that day did not break a bone in his body. They pierced his side. It was finished. He was dead. The promises had been kept. The prophecies had been fulfilled.
Meditation: Sacrifice Honored
Seventy-two pounds of spices. Linen strips. A pristine tomb. This was not the rushed burial of a criminal. This was the respectful disposition of the body of a beloved teacher and friend. This was an honor that two formerly secret disciples could bestow. How tear-filled and how gutwrenching must this have been? We are left to assume, because the Sabbath comes quickly. Though they have come to bestow an honor, they act quickly and intentionally.
You should do the same. You have seen the sacrifice. You honor him as he makes your life a living sacrifice. You have people to love. You have good deeds to do. Your time is limited in which to do those things and to love those people.
But your time is not limited for honoring his sacrifice. This Sabbath Day will pass. Sunday will come soon. You will want to be at this same tomb on that day. You will want to see what happens next.
Good Friday 2025
Reflections on Repentance
Message: Restored by His Sacrifice
What did king David see and hear and smell every time he went to the tabernacle? No doubt there were a variety of sounds: people talking, moving around, animals making noises. No doubt there were a variety of smells. Animals tend to bring with them certain odors. People could also. The scent of incense must have wafted past from time to time. As for sights, there was a bronze basin and a bronze altar. There were the linens and curtains that encased the inner rooms and surrounded the outer courtyard. There were the priests and the animals and the people. There was commotion.
And there was blood. There was no escaping it. It poured out of dying animal victims. It was sprinkled and splashed and poured in various places at various times. It dried on the altar and on the priest’s garments. Its stench punctuated the experience. Its bright reds and deep browns caught the eye. At times, perhaps even the sound of the pouring or sprinkling reached David’s ears.
No one should have ever mistaken what God was teaching his people at the tabernacle or at the temple that would one day replace it. The wrongdoing of the people required the sacrifice of an innocent victim. The sin of the people required the blood of lambs and bulls and goats. The guilt of the people needed atonement day after day after day, week after week, year after year. God took sin seriously. Deadly seriously.
I suppose even when David was hiding his sin he still made regular visits to the tabernacle. He had appearances to keep up. He had routines to maintain. How many times did he visit that place and ignore all the signs, all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells? How often had he closed his heart and his mind to the blood that cried out: “you deserve this and you deserve more”?
Repentance came when God led David away from that refusal to listen. Repentance came when God held David’s guilt before his eyes, and his heart knew that he deserved bloodshed. Repentance meant turning away, confessing, asking for—begging for—mercy. Repentance shouted in the Psalm: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me.”
In repentance, David did not depend on his offerings and sacrifices. He acknowledged that God wanted most a pure heart, a sacrifice of spirit. He wanted David to confess and know his unworthiness and to trust in God for forgiveness, for everything. He led David to confess that. And only when David’s heart was made right would God also be pleased with his sacrifices and offerings.
Tonight we are not going back to the tabernacle. We are going to what the tabernacle taught and what it represented. We are going to a place bathed in blood. It is there in the sights and
sounds and smells. But it is not the blood of lambs or bulls or goats. It is the blood of the one singular lamb. It is the blood of the promised Messiah, the prophesied sacrifice. It is the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Some come to this place and still try to hide their sins. Some just go through the motions. Some refuse to recognize that the blood streaming from Jesus cries out: “you deserve this.” Some fail to acknowledge that he is there for us. He is offered as the sacrifice for your sins and mine. We who were sinful from birth still struggle to ponder on the passion of Jesus with repentant grieving. We are here tonight to be restored by his sacrifice. We are here to repent and to be built up in faith and love. It is only through sorrow over our sins that God leads us to the joy of his salvation. So we pray, “Deliver us from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves us.” Amen.
Meditation: Sacrifice Promised
It was the same King. It was the same Spirit inspiring the words. It was a very different Psalm. We don’t call Psalm 22 a penitential Psalm. We call it a messianic Psalm. There is no mistaking the voice that speaks in and through these words. There is no mistaking the emotions captured, to which we can only relate in part. There is no mistaking the circumstance. There is no mistaking the straight line that runs through 1000 years of history to connect the words that fall from David’s heart and David’s pen and David’s lips to the words that fall from our Lord’s lips and from his heart on the cross.
David knew the promise passed down from centuries before, and he passed it along in ways that would endure for centuries. The sacrifice was so necessary and sin so serious that God would be forsaken by God. And because he was, you and I will never be forsaken by God. We can earnestly and confidently pray that God would not be distant from us but would quickly come to our aid.
Please join me in reading responsively from Psalm 22.
Meditation: Sacrifice Prophesied
If a straight line connected the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of King David to the events of 1000 years later, the same line runs through the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of Isaiah in between. Words about a servant. One who would suffer. One stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God himself. Does this sound familiar?
I hope and pray that it does. Perhaps it is familiar because you know some hymns by heart. Perhaps it is familiar because you have visited Golgotha before. Perhaps it is familiar because God has made known to you this great sacrifice for the sins of the world. But do not let it be too familiar. Do not take for granted what you are about to see and hear. “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses. And he was carrying our sufferings.” Do not suppose that he is there for others
only and not for you. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Do not exclude yourself from the truth that he is dying for the sins of the world. “It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.” You can be certain that this is for you because it is for the world. You can be certain that this is God’s plan because he told us, centuries before it came to be.
Meditation: Sacrifice for Us
At the tabernacle and at the temple, people presented sacrifices and offerings day after day. There was an endless supply of sin and guilt, so there was a steady demand for restitution and atonement. Every sacrifice was a prediction, a promise, and a prophecy about the one sacrifice to come. Every law that set Israel and Judah apart from the nations around them served the interest of God keeping his promise. Every rule and law that the people of God were required to follow showed them how prevalent and deadly and significant sin was. Generation after generation looked ahead through prophecy and pageantry to the Messiah, the promised one.
Too many from those generations misunderstood. They felt that they were accomplishing something. They felt that they were earning something. They felt that they deserved the love and favor of God. If only that were the case! If people could earn God’s love and favor, there would be no need for a greater sacrifice. There would be no need for Jesus.
There is and long has been a need for Jesus. From the fall of our first parents to our every moment of this life, the best that we can do is not good enough. The best of what we are is guilty and corrupt. On all who fall and all who fail, the law pronounces its decree: you are cursed.
Then one came who was guiltless and pure. From his conception through his life and ministry. Every moment. Every day. But he was cursed. And he was crushed. He was everything that the true prophets and true people of God had been waiting for. He was the only one on whom people could depend. Unfortunately, already in the very same century as his sacrifice, people introduced to him were turning away in order to rely on themselves and their works and their ways.
Today is not about the tabernacle or the temple. Today is not about obligating ourselves to being better and doing better. Today is about the one who did for us what we could never do. Today is about Jesus.
Meditation: Sacrifice Offered
The time had come. The sham trials had been conducted. Any objective witness had concluded his innocence, yet every trial resulted in the verdict: guilty of death. Execution.
The sacrifice was not brought to the temple and laid on the altar. The sacrifice carried his own cross to a hill named for the skull. No priest met him there, because he was offering himself.
The time has come for us to look upon him, to watch as he walks that way, as he is fastened to the cross, as the soldiers do as they have been ordered and then some. The time has come for us to gaze at the sign and know that it is not merely an accusation. It is the truth. This is the King of the Jews. This is the King of the Universe.
Meditation: Sacrifice Completed
Do you need any more evidence that Jesus did what he did for the sake of others, not himself? Even on the cross, he loved those his heavenly Father had given to him. There was his mother, watching in horror. There was the disciple who had been so close to him. So Jesus spoke. They would have each other as they were losing him. Only they were not losing him; they were gaining everything he had come to give them. He announced it. He proclaimed it. All was finished. The sacrifice bowed his head and died.
Meditation: Sacrifice Fulfilled
You may have noticed already: fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. The promises and prophecies were specific enough that the witnesses could be sure. The prophecies and promises were kept one by one in the actions of the soldiers and the words of Jesus. The evidence stacks higher and higher. This is the one on whom you can depend. This is the one God promised. This is the one God sent. Even the rules regarding the Passover lamb were fulfilled in Jesus, so the soldiers who wanted to make sure that all were off of the cross that day did not break a bone in his body. They pierced his side. It was finished. He was dead. The promises had been kept. The prophecies had been fulfilled.
Meditation: Sacrifice Honored
Seventy-two pounds of spices. Linen strips. A pristine tomb. This was not the rushed burial of a criminal. This was the respectful disposition of the body of a beloved teacher and friend. This was an honor that two formerly secret disciples could bestow. How tear-filled and how gutwrenching must this have been? We are left to assume, because the Sabbath comes quickly. Though they have come to bestow an honor, they act quickly and intentionally.
You should do the same. You have seen the sacrifice. You honor him as he makes your life a living sacrifice. You have people to love. You have good deeds to do. Your time is limited in which to do those things and to love those people.
But your time is not limited for honoring his sacrifice. This Sabbath Day will pass. Sunday will come soon. You will want to be at this same tomb on that day. You will want to see what happens next.
Good Friday 2025
Reflections on Repentance
Message: Restored by His Sacrifice
What did king David see and hear and smell every time he went to the tabernacle? No doubt there were a variety of sounds: people talking, moving around, animals making noises. No doubt there were a variety of smells. Animals tend to bring with them certain odors. People could also. The scent of incense must have wafted past from time to time. As for sights, there was a bronze basin and a bronze altar. There were the linens and curtains that encased the inner rooms and surrounded the outer courtyard. There were the priests and the animals and the people. There was commotion.
And there was blood. There was no escaping it. It poured out of dying animal victims. It was sprinkled and splashed and poured in various places at various times. It dried on the altar and on the priest’s garments. Its stench punctuated the experience. Its bright reds and deep browns caught the eye. At times, perhaps even the sound of the pouring or sprinkling reached David’s ears.
No one should have ever mistaken what God was teaching his people at the tabernacle or at the temple that would one day replace it. The wrongdoing of the people required the sacrifice of an innocent victim. The sin of the people required the blood of lambs and bulls and goats. The guilt of the people needed atonement day after day after day, week after week, year after year. God took sin seriously. Deadly seriously.
I suppose even when David was hiding his sin he still made regular visits to the tabernacle. He had appearances to keep up. He had routines to maintain. How many times did he visit that place and ignore all the signs, all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells? How often had he closed his heart and his mind to the blood that cried out: “you deserve this and you deserve more”?
Repentance came when God led David away from that refusal to listen. Repentance came when God held David’s guilt before his eyes, and his heart knew that he deserved bloodshed. Repentance meant turning away, confessing, asking for—begging for—mercy. Repentance shouted in the Psalm: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me.”
In repentance, David did not depend on his offerings and sacrifices. He acknowledged that God wanted most a pure heart, a sacrifice of spirit. He wanted David to confess and know his unworthiness and to trust in God for forgiveness, for everything. He led David to confess that. And only when David’s heart was made right would God also be pleased with his sacrifices and offerings.
Tonight we are not going back to the tabernacle. We are going to what the tabernacle taught and what it represented. We are going to a place bathed in blood. It is there in the sights and
sounds and smells. But it is not the blood of lambs or bulls or goats. It is the blood of the one singular lamb. It is the blood of the promised Messiah, the prophesied sacrifice. It is the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Some come to this place and still try to hide their sins. Some just go through the motions. Some refuse to recognize that the blood streaming from Jesus cries out: “you deserve this.” Some fail to acknowledge that he is there for us. He is offered as the sacrifice for your sins and mine. We who were sinful from birth still struggle to ponder on the passion of Jesus with repentant grieving. We are here tonight to be restored by his sacrifice. We are here to repent and to be built up in faith and love. It is only through sorrow over our sins that God leads us to the joy of his salvation. So we pray, “Deliver us from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves us.” Amen.
Meditation: Sacrifice Promised
It was the same King. It was the same Spirit inspiring the words. It was a very different Psalm. We don’t call Psalm 22 a penitential Psalm. We call it a messianic Psalm. There is no mistaking the voice that speaks in and through these words. There is no mistaking the emotions captured, to which we can only relate in part. There is no mistaking the circumstance. There is no mistaking the straight line that runs through 1000 years of history to connect the words that fall from David’s heart and David’s pen and David’s lips to the words that fall from our Lord’s lips and from his heart on the cross.
David knew the promise passed down from centuries before, and he passed it along in ways that would endure for centuries. The sacrifice was so necessary and sin so serious that God would be forsaken by God. And because he was, you and I will never be forsaken by God. We can earnestly and confidently pray that God would not be distant from us but would quickly come to our aid.
Please join me in reading responsively from Psalm 22.
Meditation: Sacrifice Prophesied
If a straight line connected the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of King David to the events of 1000 years later, the same line runs through the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of Isaiah in between. Words about a servant. One who would suffer. One stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God himself. Does this sound familiar?
I hope and pray that it does. Perhaps it is familiar because you know some hymns by heart. Perhaps it is familiar because you have visited Golgotha before. Perhaps it is familiar because God has made known to you this great sacrifice for the sins of the world. But do not let it be too familiar. Do not take for granted what you are about to see and hear. “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses. And he was carrying our sufferings.” Do not suppose that he is there for others
only and not for you. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Do not exclude yourself from the truth that he is dying for the sins of the world. “It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.” You can be certain that this is for you because it is for the world. You can be certain that this is God’s plan because he told us, centuries before it came to be.
Meditation: Sacrifice for Us
At the tabernacle and at the temple, people presented sacrifices and offerings day after day. There was an endless supply of sin and guilt, so there was a steady demand for restitution and atonement. Every sacrifice was a prediction, a promise, and a prophecy about the one sacrifice to come. Every law that set Israel and Judah apart from the nations around them served the interest of God keeping his promise. Every rule and law that the people of God were required to follow showed them how prevalent and deadly and significant sin was. Generation after generation looked ahead through prophecy and pageantry to the Messiah, the promised one.
Too many from those generations misunderstood. They felt that they were accomplishing something. They felt that they were earning something. They felt that they deserved the love and favor of God. If only that were the case! If people could earn God’s love and favor, there would be no need for a greater sacrifice. There would be no need for Jesus.
There is and long has been a need for Jesus. From the fall of our first parents to our every moment of this life, the best that we can do is not good enough. The best of what we are is guilty and corrupt. On all who fall and all who fail, the law pronounces its decree: you are cursed.
Then one came who was guiltless and pure. From his conception through his life and ministry. Every moment. Every day. But he was cursed. And he was crushed. He was everything that the true prophets and true people of God had been waiting for. He was the only one on whom people could depend. Unfortunately, already in the very same century as his sacrifice, people introduced to him were turning away in order to rely on themselves and their works and their ways.
Today is not about the tabernacle or the temple. Today is not about obligating ourselves to being better and doing better. Today is about the one who did for us what we could never do. Today is about Jesus.
Meditation: Sacrifice Offered
The time had come. The sham trials had been conducted. Any objective witness had concluded his innocence, yet every trial resulted in the verdict: guilty of death. Execution.
The sacrifice was not brought to the temple and laid on the altar. The sacrifice carried his own cross to a hill named for the skull. No priest met him there, because he was offering himself.
The time has come for us to look upon him, to watch as he walks that way, as he is fastened to the cross, as the soldiers do as they have been ordered and then some. The time has come for us to gaze at the sign and know that it is not merely an accusation. It is the truth. This is the King of the Jews. This is the King of the Universe.
Meditation: Sacrifice Completed
Do you need any more evidence that Jesus did what he did for the sake of others, not himself? Even on the cross, he loved those his heavenly Father had given to him. There was his mother, watching in horror. There was the disciple who had been so close to him. So Jesus spoke. They would have each other as they were losing him. Only they were not losing him; they were gaining everything he had come to give them. He announced it. He proclaimed it. All was finished. The sacrifice bowed his head and died.
Meditation: Sacrifice Fulfilled
You may have noticed already: fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. The promises and prophecies were specific enough that the witnesses could be sure. The prophecies and promises were kept one by one in the actions of the soldiers and the words of Jesus. The evidence stacks higher and higher. This is the one on whom you can depend. This is the one God promised. This is the one God sent. Even the rules regarding the Passover lamb were fulfilled in Jesus, so the soldiers who wanted to make sure that all were off of the cross that day did not break a bone in his body. They pierced his side. It was finished. He was dead. The promises had been kept. The prophecies had been fulfilled.
Meditation: Sacrifice Honored
Seventy-two pounds of spices. Linen strips. A pristine tomb. This was not the rushed burial of a criminal. This was the respectful disposition of the body of a beloved teacher and friend. This was an honor that two formerly secret disciples could bestow. How tear-filled and how gutwrenching must this have been? We are left to assume, because the Sabbath comes quickly. Though they have come to bestow an honor, they act quickly and intentionally.
You should do the same. You have seen the sacrifice. You honor him as he makes your life a living sacrifice. You have people to love. You have good deeds to do. Your time is limited in which to do those things and to love those people.
But your time is not limited for honoring his sacrifice. This Sabbath Day will pass. Sunday will come soon. You will want to be at this same tomb on that day. You will want to see what happens next.
Good Friday 2025
Reflections on Repentance
Message: Restored by His Sacrifice
What did king David see and hear and smell every time he went to the tabernacle? No doubt there were a variety of sounds: people talking, moving around, animals making noises. No doubt there were a variety of smells. Animals tend to bring with them certain odors. People could also. The scent of incense must have wafted past from time to time. As for sights, there was a bronze basin and a bronze altar. There were the linens and curtains that encased the inner rooms and surrounded the outer courtyard. There were the priests and the animals and the people. There was commotion.
And there was blood. There was no escaping it. It poured out of dying animal victims. It was sprinkled and splashed and poured in various places at various times. It dried on the altar and on the priest’s garments. Its stench punctuated the experience. Its bright reds and deep browns caught the eye. At times, perhaps even the sound of the pouring or sprinkling reached David’s ears.
No one should have ever mistaken what God was teaching his people at the tabernacle or at the temple that would one day replace it. The wrongdoing of the people required the sacrifice of an innocent victim. The sin of the people required the blood of lambs and bulls and goats. The guilt of the people needed atonement day after day after day, week after week, year after year. God took sin seriously. Deadly seriously.
I suppose even when David was hiding his sin he still made regular visits to the tabernacle. He had appearances to keep up. He had routines to maintain. How many times did he visit that place and ignore all the signs, all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells? How often had he closed his heart and his mind to the blood that cried out: “you deserve this and you deserve more”?
Repentance came when God led David away from that refusal to listen. Repentance came when God held David’s guilt before his eyes, and his heart knew that he deserved bloodshed. Repentance meant turning away, confessing, asking for—begging for—mercy. Repentance shouted in the Psalm: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me.”
In repentance, David did not depend on his offerings and sacrifices. He acknowledged that God wanted most a pure heart, a sacrifice of spirit. He wanted David to confess and know his unworthiness and to trust in God for forgiveness, for everything. He led David to confess that. And only when David’s heart was made right would God also be pleased with his sacrifices and offerings.
Tonight we are not going back to the tabernacle. We are going to what the tabernacle taught and what it represented. We are going to a place bathed in blood. It is there in the sights and
sounds and smells. But it is not the blood of lambs or bulls or goats. It is the blood of the one singular lamb. It is the blood of the promised Messiah, the prophesied sacrifice. It is the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Some come to this place and still try to hide their sins. Some just go through the motions. Some refuse to recognize that the blood streaming from Jesus cries out: “you deserve this.” Some fail to acknowledge that he is there for us. He is offered as the sacrifice for your sins and mine. We who were sinful from birth still struggle to ponder on the passion of Jesus with repentant grieving. We are here tonight to be restored by his sacrifice. We are here to repent and to be built up in faith and love. It is only through sorrow over our sins that God leads us to the joy of his salvation. So we pray, “Deliver us from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves us.” Amen.
Meditation: Sacrifice Promised
It was the same King. It was the same Spirit inspiring the words. It was a very different Psalm. We don’t call Psalm 22 a penitential Psalm. We call it a messianic Psalm. There is no mistaking the voice that speaks in and through these words. There is no mistaking the emotions captured, to which we can only relate in part. There is no mistaking the circumstance. There is no mistaking the straight line that runs through 1000 years of history to connect the words that fall from David’s heart and David’s pen and David’s lips to the words that fall from our Lord’s lips and from his heart on the cross.
David knew the promise passed down from centuries before, and he passed it along in ways that would endure for centuries. The sacrifice was so necessary and sin so serious that God would be forsaken by God. And because he was, you and I will never be forsaken by God. We can earnestly and confidently pray that God would not be distant from us but would quickly come to our aid.
Please join me in reading responsively from Psalm 22.
Meditation: Sacrifice Prophesied
If a straight line connected the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of King David to the events of 1000 years later, the same line runs through the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of Isaiah in between. Words about a servant. One who would suffer. One stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God himself. Does this sound familiar?
I hope and pray that it does. Perhaps it is familiar because you know some hymns by heart. Perhaps it is familiar because you have visited Golgotha before. Perhaps it is familiar because God has made known to you this great sacrifice for the sins of the world. But do not let it be too familiar. Do not take for granted what you are about to see and hear. “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses. And he was carrying our sufferings.” Do not suppose that he is there for others
only and not for you. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Do not exclude yourself from the truth that he is dying for the sins of the world. “It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.” You can be certain that this is for you because it is for the world. You can be certain that this is God’s plan because he told us, centuries before it came to be.
Meditation: Sacrifice for Us
At the tabernacle and at the temple, people presented sacrifices and offerings day after day. There was an endless supply of sin and guilt, so there was a steady demand for restitution and atonement. Every sacrifice was a prediction, a promise, and a prophecy about the one sacrifice to come. Every law that set Israel and Judah apart from the nations around them served the interest of God keeping his promise. Every rule and law that the people of God were required to follow showed them how prevalent and deadly and significant sin was. Generation after generation looked ahead through prophecy and pageantry to the Messiah, the promised one.
Too many from those generations misunderstood. They felt that they were accomplishing something. They felt that they were earning something. They felt that they deserved the love and favor of God. If only that were the case! If people could earn God’s love and favor, there would be no need for a greater sacrifice. There would be no need for Jesus.
There is and long has been a need for Jesus. From the fall of our first parents to our every moment of this life, the best that we can do is not good enough. The best of what we are is guilty and corrupt. On all who fall and all who fail, the law pronounces its decree: you are cursed.
Then one came who was guiltless and pure. From his conception through his life and ministry. Every moment. Every day. But he was cursed. And he was crushed. He was everything that the true prophets and true people of God had been waiting for. He was the only one on whom people could depend. Unfortunately, already in the very same century as his sacrifice, people introduced to him were turning away in order to rely on themselves and their works and their ways.
Today is not about the tabernacle or the temple. Today is not about obligating ourselves to being better and doing better. Today is about the one who did for us what we could never do. Today is about Jesus.
Meditation: Sacrifice Offered
The time had come. The sham trials had been conducted. Any objective witness had concluded his innocence, yet every trial resulted in the verdict: guilty of death. Execution.
The sacrifice was not brought to the temple and laid on the altar. The sacrifice carried his own cross to a hill named for the skull. No priest met him there, because he was offering himself.
The time has come for us to look upon him, to watch as he walks that way, as he is fastened to the cross, as the soldiers do as they have been ordered and then some. The time has come for us to gaze at the sign and know that it is not merely an accusation. It is the truth. This is the King of the Jews. This is the King of the Universe.
Meditation: Sacrifice Completed
Do you need any more evidence that Jesus did what he did for the sake of others, not himself? Even on the cross, he loved those his heavenly Father had given to him. There was his mother, watching in horror. There was the disciple who had been so close to him. So Jesus spoke. They would have each other as they were losing him. Only they were not losing him; they were gaining everything he had come to give them. He announced it. He proclaimed it. All was finished. The sacrifice bowed his head and died.
Meditation: Sacrifice Fulfilled
You may have noticed already: fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. The promises and prophecies were specific enough that the witnesses could be sure. The prophecies and promises were kept one by one in the actions of the soldiers and the words of Jesus. The evidence stacks higher and higher. This is the one on whom you can depend. This is the one God promised. This is the one God sent. Even the rules regarding the Passover lamb were fulfilled in Jesus, so the soldiers who wanted to make sure that all were off of the cross that day did not break a bone in his body. They pierced his side. It was finished. He was dead. The promises had been kept. The prophecies had been fulfilled.
Meditation: Sacrifice Honored
Seventy-two pounds of spices. Linen strips. A pristine tomb. This was not the rushed burial of a criminal. This was the respectful disposition of the body of a beloved teacher and friend. This was an honor that two formerly secret disciples could bestow. How tear-filled and how gutwrenching must this have been? We are left to assume, because the Sabbath comes quickly. Though they have come to bestow an honor, they act quickly and intentionally.
You should do the same. You have seen the sacrifice. You honor him as he makes your life a living sacrifice. You have people to love. You have good deeds to do. Your time is limited in which to do those things and to love those people.
But your time is not limited for honoring his sacrifice. This Sabbath Day will pass. Sunday will come soon. You will want to be at this same tomb on that day. You will want to see what happens next.
Good Friday 2025
Reflections on Repentance
Message: Restored by His Sacrifice
What did king David see and hear and smell every time he went to the tabernacle? No doubt there were a variety of sounds: people talking, moving around, animals making noises. No doubt there were a variety of smells. Animals tend to bring with them certain odors. People could also. The scent of incense must have wafted past from time to time. As for sights, there was a bronze basin and a bronze altar. There were the linens and curtains that encased the inner rooms and surrounded the outer courtyard. There were the priests and the animals and the people. There was commotion.
And there was blood. There was no escaping it. It poured out of dying animal victims. It was sprinkled and splashed and poured in various places at various times. It dried on the altar and on the priest’s garments. Its stench punctuated the experience. Its bright reds and deep browns caught the eye. At times, perhaps even the sound of the pouring or sprinkling reached David’s ears.
No one should have ever mistaken what God was teaching his people at the tabernacle or at the temple that would one day replace it. The wrongdoing of the people required the sacrifice of an innocent victim. The sin of the people required the blood of lambs and bulls and goats. The guilt of the people needed atonement day after day after day, week after week, year after year. God took sin seriously. Deadly seriously.
I suppose even when David was hiding his sin he still made regular visits to the tabernacle. He had appearances to keep up. He had routines to maintain. How many times did he visit that place and ignore all the signs, all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells? How often had he closed his heart and his mind to the blood that cried out: “you deserve this and you deserve more”?
Repentance came when God led David away from that refusal to listen. Repentance came when God held David’s guilt before his eyes, and his heart knew that he deserved bloodshed. Repentance meant turning away, confessing, asking for—begging for—mercy. Repentance shouted in the Psalm: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me.”
In repentance, David did not depend on his offerings and sacrifices. He acknowledged that God wanted most a pure heart, a sacrifice of spirit. He wanted David to confess and know his unworthiness and to trust in God for forgiveness, for everything. He led David to confess that. And only when David’s heart was made right would God also be pleased with his sacrifices and offerings.
Tonight we are not going back to the tabernacle. We are going to what the tabernacle taught and what it represented. We are going to a place bathed in blood. It is there in the sights and
sounds and smells. But it is not the blood of lambs or bulls or goats. It is the blood of the one singular lamb. It is the blood of the promised Messiah, the prophesied sacrifice. It is the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Some come to this place and still try to hide their sins. Some just go through the motions. Some refuse to recognize that the blood streaming from Jesus cries out: “you deserve this.” Some fail to acknowledge that he is there for us. He is offered as the sacrifice for your sins and mine. We who were sinful from birth still struggle to ponder on the passion of Jesus with repentant grieving. We are here tonight to be restored by his sacrifice. We are here to repent and to be built up in faith and love. It is only through sorrow over our sins that God leads us to the joy of his salvation. So we pray, “Deliver us from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves us.” Amen.
Meditation: Sacrifice Promised
It was the same King. It was the same Spirit inspiring the words. It was a very different Psalm. We don’t call Psalm 22 a penitential Psalm. We call it a messianic Psalm. There is no mistaking the voice that speaks in and through these words. There is no mistaking the emotions captured, to which we can only relate in part. There is no mistaking the circumstance. There is no mistaking the straight line that runs through 1000 years of history to connect the words that fall from David’s heart and David’s pen and David’s lips to the words that fall from our Lord’s lips and from his heart on the cross.
David knew the promise passed down from centuries before, and he passed it along in ways that would endure for centuries. The sacrifice was so necessary and sin so serious that God would be forsaken by God. And because he was, you and I will never be forsaken by God. We can earnestly and confidently pray that God would not be distant from us but would quickly come to our aid.
Please join me in reading responsively from Psalm 22.
Meditation: Sacrifice Prophesied
If a straight line connected the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of King David to the events of 1000 years later, the same line runs through the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of Isaiah in between. Words about a servant. One who would suffer. One stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God himself. Does this sound familiar?
I hope and pray that it does. Perhaps it is familiar because you know some hymns by heart. Perhaps it is familiar because you have visited Golgotha before. Perhaps it is familiar because God has made known to you this great sacrifice for the sins of the world. But do not let it be too familiar. Do not take for granted what you are about to see and hear. “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses. And he was carrying our sufferings.” Do not suppose that he is there for others
only and not for you. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Do not exclude yourself from the truth that he is dying for the sins of the world. “It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.” You can be certain that this is for you because it is for the world. You can be certain that this is God’s plan because he told us, centuries before it came to be.
Meditation: Sacrifice for Us
At the tabernacle and at the temple, people presented sacrifices and offerings day after day. There was an endless supply of sin and guilt, so there was a steady demand for restitution and atonement. Every sacrifice was a prediction, a promise, and a prophecy about the one sacrifice to come. Every law that set Israel and Judah apart from the nations around them served the interest of God keeping his promise. Every rule and law that the people of God were required to follow showed them how prevalent and deadly and significant sin was. Generation after generation looked ahead through prophecy and pageantry to the Messiah, the promised one.
Too many from those generations misunderstood. They felt that they were accomplishing something. They felt that they were earning something. They felt that they deserved the love and favor of God. If only that were the case! If people could earn God’s love and favor, there would be no need for a greater sacrifice. There would be no need for Jesus.
There is and long has been a need for Jesus. From the fall of our first parents to our every moment of this life, the best that we can do is not good enough. The best of what we are is guilty and corrupt. On all who fall and all who fail, the law pronounces its decree: you are cursed.
Then one came who was guiltless and pure. From his conception through his life and ministry. Every moment. Every day. But he was cursed. And he was crushed. He was everything that the true prophets and true people of God had been waiting for. He was the only one on whom people could depend. Unfortunately, already in the very same century as his sacrifice, people introduced to him were turning away in order to rely on themselves and their works and their ways.
Today is not about the tabernacle or the temple. Today is not about obligating ourselves to being better and doing better. Today is about the one who did for us what we could never do. Today is about Jesus.
Meditation: Sacrifice Offered
The time had come. The sham trials had been conducted. Any objective witness had concluded his innocence, yet every trial resulted in the verdict: guilty of death. Execution.
The sacrifice was not brought to the temple and laid on the altar. The sacrifice carried his own cross to a hill named for the skull. No priest met him there, because he was offering himself.
The time has come for us to look upon him, to watch as he walks that way, as he is fastened to the cross, as the soldiers do as they have been ordered and then some. The time has come for us to gaze at the sign and know that it is not merely an accusation. It is the truth. This is the King of the Jews. This is the King of the Universe.
Meditation: Sacrifice Completed
Do you need any more evidence that Jesus did what he did for the sake of others, not himself? Even on the cross, he loved those his heavenly Father had given to him. There was his mother, watching in horror. There was the disciple who had been so close to him. So Jesus spoke. They would have each other as they were losing him. Only they were not losing him; they were gaining everything he had come to give them. He announced it. He proclaimed it. All was finished. The sacrifice bowed his head and died.
Meditation: Sacrifice Fulfilled
You may have noticed already: fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. The promises and prophecies were specific enough that the witnesses could be sure. The prophecies and promises were kept one by one in the actions of the soldiers and the words of Jesus. The evidence stacks higher and higher. This is the one on whom you can depend. This is the one God promised. This is the one God sent. Even the rules regarding the Passover lamb were fulfilled in Jesus, so the soldiers who wanted to make sure that all were off of the cross that day did not break a bone in his body. They pierced his side. It was finished. He was dead. The promises had been kept. The prophecies had been fulfilled.
Meditation: Sacrifice Honored
Seventy-two pounds of spices. Linen strips. A pristine tomb. This was not the rushed burial of a criminal. This was the respectful disposition of the body of a beloved teacher and friend. This was an honor that two formerly secret disciples could bestow. How tear-filled and how gutwrenching must this have been? We are left to assume, because the Sabbath comes quickly. Though they have come to bestow an honor, they act quickly and intentionally.
You should do the same. You have seen the sacrifice. You honor him as he makes your life a living sacrifice. You have people to love. You have good deeds to do. Your time is limited in which to do those things and to love those people.
But your time is not limited for honoring his sacrifice. This Sabbath Day will pass. Sunday will come soon. You will want to be at this same tomb on that day. You will want to see what happens next.
Good Friday 2025
Reflections on Repentance
Message: Restored by His Sacrifice
What did king David see and hear and smell every time he went to the tabernacle? No doubt there were a variety of sounds: people talking, moving around, animals making noises. No doubt there were a variety of smells. Animals tend to bring with them certain odors. People could also. The scent of incense must have wafted past from time to time. As for sights, there was a bronze basin and a bronze altar. There were the linens and curtains that encased the inner rooms and surrounded the outer courtyard. There were the priests and the animals and the people. There was commotion.
And there was blood. There was no escaping it. It poured out of dying animal victims. It was sprinkled and splashed and poured in various places at various times. It dried on the altar and on the priest’s garments. Its stench punctuated the experience. Its bright reds and deep browns caught the eye. At times, perhaps even the sound of the pouring or sprinkling reached David’s ears.
No one should have ever mistaken what God was teaching his people at the tabernacle or at the temple that would one day replace it. The wrongdoing of the people required the sacrifice of an innocent victim. The sin of the people required the blood of lambs and bulls and goats. The guilt of the people needed atonement day after day after day, week after week, year after year. God took sin seriously. Deadly seriously.
I suppose even when David was hiding his sin he still made regular visits to the tabernacle. He had appearances to keep up. He had routines to maintain. How many times did he visit that place and ignore all the signs, all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells? How often had he closed his heart and his mind to the blood that cried out: “you deserve this and you deserve more”?
Repentance came when God led David away from that refusal to listen. Repentance came when God held David’s guilt before his eyes, and his heart knew that he deserved bloodshed. Repentance meant turning away, confessing, asking for—begging for—mercy. Repentance shouted in the Psalm: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves me.”
In repentance, David did not depend on his offerings and sacrifices. He acknowledged that God wanted most a pure heart, a sacrifice of spirit. He wanted David to confess and know his unworthiness and to trust in God for forgiveness, for everything. He led David to confess that. And only when David’s heart was made right would God also be pleased with his sacrifices and offerings.
Tonight we are not going back to the tabernacle. We are going to what the tabernacle taught and what it represented. We are going to a place bathed in blood. It is there in the sights and
sounds and smells. But it is not the blood of lambs or bulls or goats. It is the blood of the one singular lamb. It is the blood of the promised Messiah, the prophesied sacrifice. It is the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Some come to this place and still try to hide their sins. Some just go through the motions. Some refuse to recognize that the blood streaming from Jesus cries out: “you deserve this.” Some fail to acknowledge that he is there for us. He is offered as the sacrifice for your sins and mine. We who were sinful from birth still struggle to ponder on the passion of Jesus with repentant grieving. We are here tonight to be restored by his sacrifice. We are here to repent and to be built up in faith and love. It is only through sorrow over our sins that God leads us to the joy of his salvation. So we pray, “Deliver us from bloodshed, O God, the God who saves us.” Amen.
Meditation: Sacrifice Promised
It was the same King. It was the same Spirit inspiring the words. It was a very different Psalm. We don’t call Psalm 22 a penitential Psalm. We call it a messianic Psalm. There is no mistaking the voice that speaks in and through these words. There is no mistaking the emotions captured, to which we can only relate in part. There is no mistaking the circumstance. There is no mistaking the straight line that runs through 1000 years of history to connect the words that fall from David’s heart and David’s pen and David’s lips to the words that fall from our Lord’s lips and from his heart on the cross.
David knew the promise passed down from centuries before, and he passed it along in ways that would endure for centuries. The sacrifice was so necessary and sin so serious that God would be forsaken by God. And because he was, you and I will never be forsaken by God. We can earnestly and confidently pray that God would not be distant from us but would quickly come to our aid.
Please join me in reading responsively from Psalm 22.
Meditation: Sacrifice Prophesied
If a straight line connected the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of King David to the events of 1000 years later, the same line runs through the words the Spirit inspired in the heart of Isaiah in between. Words about a servant. One who would suffer. One stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God himself. Does this sound familiar?
I hope and pray that it does. Perhaps it is familiar because you know some hymns by heart. Perhaps it is familiar because you have visited Golgotha before. Perhaps it is familiar because God has made known to you this great sacrifice for the sins of the world. But do not let it be too familiar. Do not take for granted what you are about to see and hear. “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses. And he was carrying our sufferings.” Do not suppose that he is there for others
only and not for you. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” Do not exclude yourself from the truth that he is dying for the sins of the world. “It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.” You can be certain that this is for you because it is for the world. You can be certain that this is God’s plan because he told us, centuries before it came to be.
Meditation: Sacrifice for Us
At the tabernacle and at the temple, people presented sacrifices and offerings day after day. There was an endless supply of sin and guilt, so there was a steady demand for restitution and atonement. Every sacrifice was a prediction, a promise, and a prophecy about the one sacrifice to come. Every law that set Israel and Judah apart from the nations around them served the interest of God keeping his promise. Every rule and law that the people of God were required to follow showed them how prevalent and deadly and significant sin was. Generation after generation looked ahead through prophecy and pageantry to the Messiah, the promised one.
Too many from those generations misunderstood. They felt that they were accomplishing something. They felt that they were earning something. They felt that they deserved the love and favor of God. If only that were the case! If people could earn God’s love and favor, there would be no need for a greater sacrifice. There would be no need for Jesus.
There is and long has been a need for Jesus. From the fall of our first parents to our every moment of this life, the best that we can do is not good enough. The best of what we are is guilty and corrupt. On all who fall and all who fail, the law pronounces its decree: you are cursed.
Then one came who was guiltless and pure. From his conception through his life and ministry. Every moment. Every day. But he was cursed. And he was crushed. He was everything that the true prophets and true people of God had been waiting for. He was the only one on whom people could depend. Unfortunately, already in the very same century as his sacrifice, people introduced to him were turning away in order to rely on themselves and their works and their ways.
Today is not about the tabernacle or the temple. Today is not about obligating ourselves to being better and doing better. Today is about the one who did for us what we could never do. Today is about Jesus.
Meditation: Sacrifice Offered
The time had come. The sham trials had been conducted. Any objective witness had concluded his innocence, yet every trial resulted in the verdict: guilty of death. Execution.
The sacrifice was not brought to the temple and laid on the altar. The sacrifice carried his own cross to a hill named for the skull. No priest met him there, because he was offering himself.
The time has come for us to look upon him, to watch as he walks that way, as he is fastened to the cross, as the soldiers do as they have been ordered and then some. The time has come for us to gaze at the sign and know that it is not merely an accusation. It is the truth. This is the King of the Jews. This is the King of the Universe.
Meditation: Sacrifice Completed
Do you need any more evidence that Jesus did what he did for the sake of others, not himself? Even on the cross, he loved those his heavenly Father had given to him. There was his mother, watching in horror. There was the disciple who had been so close to him. So Jesus spoke. They would have each other as they were losing him. Only they were not losing him; they were gaining everything he had come to give them. He announced it. He proclaimed it. All was finished. The sacrifice bowed his head and died.
Meditation: Sacrifice Fulfilled
You may have noticed already: fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. The promises and prophecies were specific enough that the witnesses could be sure. The prophecies and promises were kept one by one in the actions of the soldiers and the words of Jesus. The evidence stacks higher and higher. This is the one on whom you can depend. This is the one God promised. This is the one God sent. Even the rules regarding the Passover lamb were fulfilled in Jesus, so the soldiers who wanted to make sure that all were off of the cross that day did not break a bone in his body. They pierced his side. It was finished. He was dead. The promises had been kept. The prophecies had been fulfilled.
Meditation: Sacrifice Honored
Seventy-two pounds of spices. Linen strips. A pristine tomb. This was not the rushed burial of a criminal. This was the respectful disposition of the body of a beloved teacher and friend. This was an honor that two formerly secret disciples could bestow. How tear-filled and how gutwrenching must this have been? We are left to assume, because the Sabbath comes quickly. Though they have come to bestow an honor, they act quickly and intentionally.
You should do the same. You have seen the sacrifice. You honor him as he makes your life a living sacrifice. You have people to love. You have good deeds to do. Your time is limited in which to do those things and to love those people.
But your time is not limited for honoring his sacrifice. This Sabbath Day will pass. Sunday will come soon. You will want to be at this same tomb on that day. You will want to see what happens next.