John 19 – It is finished
Introduction – Good Friday or Day of Suffering?
As a Christian living in this world, there are often times when things are quite confusing.
And one of those times is Easter.
Just what is Easter about?
Where does this word come from? And what does the word even mean?
Does Easter mean a long weekend?
Does Easter mean one extra service during the week and compulsory overtime for the minister and all the volunteers?
Is Easter about chocolate eggs and easter bunnies?
Now, for those of us who understand Chinese, it might be less confusing, I suppose, because in Chinese, it’s not Easter but, Day of Resurrection.
But it can also make things more confusing!
For example, does it mean that bunnies hold the key to resurrection or that when bunnies die, they are resurrected every Easter?
Well, at least one person in this room doesn’t believe in easter bunnies.
Here is a photo of our family taking a photo with some Easter Bunnies for fun.
And here is Mr. Emmanuel, disgusted by the fact that his dad, being a minister, is forcing the whole family to take this dumb photo. And so, he kills the easter bunny once and for all.
Well, that’s Easter…but what about Good Friday?
What is so good about Good Friday?
Again, if you understand Chinese, you might be less confused. Because in Chinese, it’s not Good Friday but the Day of Suffering.
Why is the same Friday given two completely opposite names?
And so this morning, I want us to think about why today a Day of Suffering is and then why it is also, a Good Friday. And finally, I want to you to consider, what day is today for you.
So here are the three points for this morning.
1) A Day of Suffering
2) A Good Friday
3) What day is today for you?
A Day of Suffering (John 19:1-22)
So let’s begin with our first point, a Day of Suffering.
And as we turn to our Bibles, we see that it is a long and painful day for Jesus.
In the previous chapter, Jesus has just been tried by Pilate, the governor of the time, and he didn’t understand why Jesus was being brought before him, nor the crimes he had committed. Pilate believes that Jesus is innocent and prefers to set him free.
However, Pilate was, at the very least, responsible for social order.
And so, in our chapter today, in v. 1, we see Jesus being flogged under Pilate’s command.
And the soldiers also played their part as they crowned Jesus with a crown of thorns and clothed Jesus in a kingly robe as they continued to mock Jesus, slapping his face as they proclaimed, “Hail! King of the Jews.”
Pilate did all these reluctantly, thinking that this would be enough to please the people, especially the priests and the Jews. We know he did it reluctantly because both in v.4 and v.6, Pilate says he finds no grounds for charging Jesus.
Even though Pilate finds Jesus to be innocent, he thinks that a bit of blood and a bit of insult will be enough to please the people. And so he presents Jesus once again to the people and the priests in v. 5, saying, “Here is the man!” pointing to the bleeding, bruised, and broken man called Jesus. In other words, Pilate is saying, “Look at the punishments this nobody has received!” suggesting that this ought to be enough for someone who is clearly weak and powerless.
Yet the crowds shouted even more loudly at Pilate, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
At this point, Pilate is rather annoyed and expresses his hesitation by telling the crowd to take Jesus and crucify him themselves.
Yet the priests and the people insists that Jesus must be crucified because he claims to be the Son of God.
Pilate, being a Roman governor, believed that certain people could be' Sons of God’. The Romans believed that the ‘Sons of God' were born through the union between their immortal gods and a mortal woman.
And so when Pilate heard that Jesus might be a ‘Son of God, in v.8 we see that ‘he was more afraid than ever.’ He has just ordered him to be flogged!
Pilate then asks where Jesus came from. Basically, he wants to confirm if Jesus was a demi-god. But Jesus refuses to answer.
Pilate then loses his patience and reminds Jesus that his life is firmly in Pilate’s hands. Yet Jesus says to Pilate in v.11:
11 “You would have no authority over me at all,” Jesus answered him, “if it hadn’t been given you from above. This is why the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”
Now, it is not clear if Pilate understood the full meaning of what Jesus said, but from the following verse, we can see that Pilate believes that Jesus is innocent, and he should be released.
Nonetheless, Pilate hopes that time will help cool down the crowd a little bit, and so a few hours later, at noontime, as we see in v.14, he presents Jesus to the crowd again, hoping that they will spare Jesus.
Once again, they demanded that Jesus be crucified.
And when Pilate asks them, “Should I crucify your king?”
The Jews replied, “We have no King but Caesar!”
With this exchange between the Jews and Pilate, John highlights the blindness of God’s people and the hardness of their hearts.
God’s own people, Israel, has been hoping for their king. And sadly, when the king finally comes, Israel will not recognise their king.
They not only willingly submit themselves to sin, but they also enslave themselves to the pagan king Caesar.
Even though Pilate didn’t understand what was going on or why Jesus was so hated by his own people, he decided that it would be Jesus’ day of suffering, not his.
Because Pilate knows that Caesar is a very unforgiving king, and for Jesus claiming to be a king is an act of sedition. And if Caesar knows that Pilate ignored a case of sedition or treason, the one that would be crucified might be Pilate himself.
And so in v.16, we read, “Then he handed him over to be crucified.”
And sometimes, we gloss over the word ‘crucified’ too quickly, and we mustn’t do so today.
To be crucified means that Jesus, the Son of God, will have to carry his own cross and parade himself from Pilate’s court to Golgotha, where he will be lifted up. As Jesus marched on, the bystanders insulted and mocked him.
Now, the distance between Pilate’s court and Golgotha is only around 600 meters, but because of the turns and the city's terrain, the journey will take 40 minutes to walk. But that is for an average person in good health.
However, Jesus has just been badly flogged and beaten; his body is covered with open wounds, and blood is running down his face as the thorny crown is pressed against his head.
Moreover, Jesus had to carry his own cross as he was paraded throughout the city. Even though Jesus most likely just carried the horizontal crossbar of the cross, that piece of wood would still have weighed around 100 pounds.
On the way, Jesus would have struggled and fallen as he made his way to Golgotha, and the soldiers would have hurried Jesus along with more flogging.
And when Jesus finally arrived in Golgotha, the cross would be assembled, Jesus would be helplessly laid on the cross. Then, the nails would be hammered through his hands and legs in a way that would support Jesus’ body after he was lifted up.
But the suffering does not end there, because as Jesus was lifted up, his body weight would weigh him down and close his chest. So, for Jesus to open his chest and breathe, he would have to use the nails as support and to pull himself up. Every breath would just add more pain and agony for Jesus.
The day of suffering will finally end with Jesus’ death.
Friends, we live in a country, in a society, where death is far removed from us. We have hospitals, palliative care wards and nursing homes. And death sometimes seems more like an abstract idea than a concrete reality.
And as we look upon Jesus’ suffering and his death on the cross, we know that God truly knows suffering, and God truly knows death, and he knows them both to the full. Our God is a God who can sympathise with us in our suffering, even unto death.
So today, indeed, is the Day of Suffering as the East, or as the Chinese remembers it.
But why, in English, does the West remember today as Good Friday?
Friends, it is very comforting and very good to know that we have a God who knows death, but it’s ultimately what God has achieved in the death of Christ that makes today a Good Friday.
So, let’s spend some time reflecting on how Jesus has fulfilled the promises of God in the second half of our passage today.
A Good Friday (John 19:23-37)
Last Friday, I was invited to join Nick Hadges at James Cook High School just across the street to hand out some hot cross buns and to participate in his lunchtime group.
And during lunchtime group, one of the students made a comment that Christianity is about God teaching us how to live, just like in any other religion.
To which I quickly replied, “No, my friend, Christianity is not about what we have to do, it is about what is done.” Then, I invited him to consider Jesus’ dying words.
In v.30, with his dying breath, Jesus says, “It is finished.”
Although we can’t wait to celebrate on Easter Sunday how good Jesus’ resurrection is and shout to one another, “He is Risen!”
We must first consider fully how good Good Friday is, that Jesus suffered and died in our place.
We must first consider the life that Jesus lived and the death that Jesus died, lest we forget the life we ought to live ourselves and the death that Jesus died for the lost.
On Tuesday, Jenny and I brought some of the youths to watch King of Kings. It was an animated movie about the life that Jesus lived and about the death that Jesus died.
The movie was very accurate to the gospels and showed how, even though Jesus was the chosen messiah, protected by angels, filled with the Spirit, and the one pleasing in God’s sight. Jesus was to be crowned with humiliation, and he would be lifted to his death.
Though this might be a surprise to some, this was certainly not a surprise to Jesus and certainly not a surprise to God.
Jesus has foretold his death more than once in front of his disciples.
And often, in the gospels, the turning point in Jesus’ ministry is when Jesus is recognised as the Messiah, and then the gospel story takes a U-turn and aims straight for the cross.
The reason for this is that humanity has taken a U-turn at the very beginning.
When God created Adam and Eve, everything was good; it was very good.
Until they took a U-turn and chose to listen to the serpent, to Satan, and ate the forbidden fruit. And so, as Paul says in Romans 5, this is how, through Adam, we have all sinned, and we shall all die.
But we know that Jesus, even though he is fully man, he did not sin!
Indeed, Jesus was the true Adam, the perfect man who was perfectly obedient to God. Yet it is by his perfect obedience that he leads himself to the cross.
Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life of obedience so that he could be the perfect sacrifice for our sins.
All these happened, was so that Scripture may be fulfilled. And this is the main thrust of these verses, and John stresses this in v.24, v.28, v.36, and v.37.
Jesus’ death, and even his resurrection, was foreshadowed as early as Genesis 3:15. When God cursed the serpent, which is Satan, God said that one of Eve’s children would strike the serpent’s head and destroy Satan once and for all, yet the serpent would only strike the child’s heel.
Jesus, who is the Son of man, in the line of Adam, will destroy Satan and the power of sin with his death. His death fulfilled the promises made in the Old Testament, and it was an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Earlier this week, I was blessed to speak to a Jewish lady for 45 minutes; she believes in Judaism, has never read the New Testament, and believes they are still waiting for the Messiah.
And in our conversation, all I was trying to tell her is exactly this: how the promises in the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus.
And when I was speaking about the Day of Atonement and said we Christians have the Day of Atonement as well, she was shocked! She asked, “Christians keep the Yom Kippur?” And I replied her, “Yes, our Yom Kippur (which means Day of Atonement) is Good Friday! Jesus’ death is the sacrifice that atoned for the sins of the world, once and for all!”
And this is good news for us all.
What day is today for you? (John 19:38-42)
And so, as we finish, I want to ask you, what day is today for you?
In the last few verses, we see Nicodemus, who used to be on the side of the chief priests, come to show respect to Jesus at his burial. But John is not clear if Nicodemus finally believed in Jesus or not.
However, John was very clear as to why he recorded the death of Jesus.
In v.35 it says, “He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows he is telling the truth.”
Friends, today is a Day of Suffering because sin and death are real. It is as real as the death that Jesus has died. However, today is a Good Friday because Jesus has taken our sins and died in our place on the cross.
So I want to ask you this, what day is today for you?
And if you have not yet trusted in Jesus, I encourage you to flee from your day of suffering and place your trust in him.
Because, you will see in two days, death is not the end. A glorious hope awaits all those who put their trust in Jesus, for they will not only share in Jesus’ death but also in his life and glory.
And for those of you who call Jesus their Lord and Saviour, every day is a Good Friday because your sins have been atoned for. Rejoice, give thanks, and live out the forgiveness that you now have in Christ Jesus, Amen.
John19