Good Friday Tenebrae

Good Friday Tenebrae

April 15, 2022

Text: John 19

            Our Savior, Jesus Christ, thirsted for our salvation.  He thirsted to accomplish the Father’s saving will, His mission of mercy, the redemption of the world.  Jesus thirsted to atone for our sins.  He thirsted after righteousness… His own righteousness, imputed to us, which is to say, Jesus thirsted for our justification.  Jesus thirsted to have us as His own. 

            The bystanders lifted a sponge full of sour wine to His lips, but it was not this for which He thirsted.  He had had enough of the sour wine of God’s wrath, the foaming wine will-mixed, which He drained to the very dregs for the wicked and sinful world… for us, for our sins (Ps. 75:8).  Undoubtedly, He was physically very thirsty.  Having suffered the excruciating torment of the cross and the pangs of hell on our behalf, He was parched.  But here He thirsts to quench our need by what He pours out for us.  “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10; ESV).  Jesus thirsts to satisfy our thirst by pouring Himself out for the life of the world. 

            And now, He has done it.  Τετέλεσται.  “It is finished” (v. 30).  Not only our Lord’s suffering, but His whole divine, saving mission.  The Sacrifice.  The work of Atonement.  The Father’s wrath is finished.  It has come to an end.  It has been spent on Jesus.  The Scriptures are fulfilled.  All the prophecies.  All the types.  And the curse.  The curse has been broken, for Jesus bore the thorns and thistles and the bloody sweat of His brow to give us the Bread of Life.  Satan’s tyranny has been shattered, for in grasping the Savior’s heel, the serpent’s head is crushed (Gen. 3:15).  The woman’s offspring has done it.  The bonds have fallen from our hands and feet by virtue of Jesus’ holy wounds.  The Law’s accusations have been silenced by the blood of Christ.  Sin has been washed away.  Hell must give up its plunder.  In His thirst, Jesus has accomplished all of this.  “It is finished.”  And now, He will swallow death itself.  And death, too, He renders impotent, as He will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt on the Third Day.

            Thus, knowing that all was now finished, and having tasted the sour wine, the Lord bowed His head, and gave up His Spirit (John 19:30).  The action is all His.  He is in total control.  He gives His life willingly into death for us.  He decides when it will happen.  This is His great love for us.

            He gives up His spirit.  He exhales.  This is to say, His human spirit is now separated from His body, the definition of physical death.  “(T)he dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7).  But so also, this is an indication of the way He will pour out the Holy Spirit.  By His mouth.  By virtue of His death.  By the breath of His life.  By His speaking.  In the beginning, God breathed into Adam the breath of life.  He spirited into him His Spirit.  When the risen Lord Jesus stood among His disciples where they were locked away for fear, He breathed on them the Resurrection Life, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22), and then He sent them out to absolve and to preach.  They would speak His Words.  They would breathe out His breath.  And in this way, down to this very moment, in this very place, Jesus gives up His Holy Spirit to bring life and breath, faith, hope, and love to all of us who hear. 

            And then, the soldier’s piercing lance, and the water, and the blood (John 19:34).  The separation of the liquids shows death has occurred.  No need to break this One’s legs.  But so also, it shows the life of the Church.  Even as God put Adam into a deep sleep, and from his side formed Eve to be Adam’s Bride, so also God has put our New Adam, Jesus, into the deep sleep of death, and from His side forms a Bride for Christ, the Holy Church.  And that means us… you, and me.  Born of the water.  Nourished by the blood.  Called, enlightened, sanctified, and kept by the Spirit.  “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree” (1 John 5:7-8). 

            These three Jesus has poured out to slake our thirst, and in doing so, to slake His own.  Now, in preaching and Sacrament, He gives us the fruits of His cross.  Therefore, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters” (Is. 55:1).  You who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6), “come, buy and eat” (Is. 55:1).  Come to the font.  Come hear the Word.  Come to the Supper.  Without money, and without price, you shall be satisfied.  You know the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, “I thirst” (John 19:28).  So ask Him, and He will give you living water. Whoever drinks of the water Jesus gives, will never be thirsty again, but this water will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).  Indeed, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). 

            From His cross, our Savior, Jesus Christ, thirsted for this very thing.  And now… it is finished.  He accomplished it when He gave Himself into death for us.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.