Sermon for 4/15/22: Good Friday (St Mark Passion series)

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Creation Groans in Expectation
Mark 15:33-39

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

 
        For three hours—from the sixth hour until the ninth hour—the sky darkened over the land while Jesus hung on the cross. The other Gospels include this detail while also mentioning that the earth shook and graves were opened. To understand why, we must consider several important prophecies found in the Old Testament. For example, Amos declares that the day of the Lord will be a day of judgment: “And it shall come to pass in that day…that I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight…” Zephaniah describes it as “a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness…” Here is what we need to understand: human sin did not only impact the relationship between God and his human creatures, and the relationship between a man and his neighbor; it impacted the whole of creation.

When God created Adam, He created man from the ground, and He provided for us from the earth. He gave us a place to live on the earth. He gave us the responsibility for the care of His other creatures and His earth. But Adam and Eve were not content to live as creatures who lived from God’s gifts and depended on His goodness. When they sinned in their attempt to become more than creatures—to become like God—God handed out the death sentence He had promised. How did He execute judgment? He cursed the earth, making it difficult for them to wrest their life from the earth. And eventually, they would return in death to the dust from which they were created.

When God executed judgment, creation comes apart at the seams. All one has to do is skim through the Old Testament to see how this happens time and time again. The flood is, of course, the best-known example: God returning the earth to a state where it was formless and empty, just as it was before God spoke the Word to create the heavens and the earth. There was also the plague of darkness which accompanied the first Passover, where Moses stretched out his hand over the land and darkness covered the land for three days as a sign of God’s judgment. But perhaps the most descriptive, the most reminiscent of the flood, is found in Hosea: “Therefore the land will mourn; and everyone who dwells there will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea will be taken away.” When God exercises judgment, creation falls apart.

And that’s exactly what happens on this day. On Good Friday, God poured out His anger against His human creatures who ruined the harmony of His creation. But the Son of God stood in the place of the human race. He died on our behalf. The rest of creation felt it. In the presence of God’s anger, the created order turns into chaos. And so the sky darkened and the earth shuddered.

What makes this all the more devastating is that the judgment doesn’t fall upon a mere human creature, one who is only human. It falls upon the Son of God, the One through whom all things were made. The One through whom all things were made now dies as a human creature. And with His death, creation crumbles. It’s remarkable that the Son of God would be sent into His own creation by His own Father for this purpose. The Son of God became a human creature to rescue God’s prized human creatures, and with them to rescue His whole creation. Only months ago we celebrated the birth of the Son of God into the creation He Himself had made; now, as a human creature, the Son of God, the Agent of creation, now dies for His creation.

But since the death of the Son of God involved the entirety of creation, it did not end there, for Death has no claim on Jesus. And so the darkness of Good Friday would be replaced by the light of Easter morning. The unraveling of creation brought about by the wrath of God against sin would be replaced by the new creation; creation would be reconciled to God. As St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Just as Adam brought about death and corruption for all human creatures and, indeed, for all creation, so Jesus would bring about new life and renewal, beginning with His human creatures and extending to all creation. God would raise Christ from the dead. As the One who embodied the entire human race in bearing the Father’s righteous wrath against sin, Jesus then rose from the dead, raising the entire human race with Him. Sinful humanity has been redeemed. Corrupted creation has been restored. We are made a new creation. The darkness of the curse of sin will be shattered by the rising of the Christ, the Word made flesh, the Light of the world. In the name of the Father and of the (†) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always.  Amen.