Sermon for Good Friday, 2026
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
This is the hour.
He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. And this is the work, this is the doing, and this is what is accomplished. For what is laid upon Him is not only what they do; it is what you—your sin and your guilt and your death, all of it—lay upon Him. He does not set it aside or hold it away or leave it unnamed and untouched; He takes it up and carries and bears it in His body. He goes, bearing the Cross, as both priest and victim, the One who offers and the One who is offered, so that what is borne and what is carried and what is nailed and what is lifted up is yours. It is driven into Him, piercing Him through. And thus atonement is made, sin is covered, guilt is answered.
This is the hour; the Day is fulfilled here in His crucified flesh, not wanting, not waiting, not repeated.
And still there is no relief yet, as the weight of all the waiting and the “not yet” and the hiding and the resistance and the forsaking and the division and the giving, and with it the questions and the doubts and the worries and the troubles wrought by sin, all of it there, all of it upon Him, as He hangs, suspended between heaven and earth, forsaken, until there is nothing left to give, nothing left to carry, nothing left to endure.
And then—
“It is finished.”
Readings:
Old Testament: Isaiah 52:13–53:12
Epistle: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Holy Gospel: John 18:1–19:42
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