God Is Dead - April 18, 2025 - Good Friday - Text: Luke 23:46

We have come to the end. We have come to see our God die. That is what happened on the cross, our God died. Maybe Nietzsche was on to something when he declared God to be dead. Putting the best construction on everything, maybe he was talking about Good Friday, but I doubt it. Anyway, we have come to the last hours of Jesus’ suffering on the cross. We have heard His words praying for forgiveness for those who put Him on the cross, not the soldiers who were simply doing their duty, not the crowd who cried “crucify Him,” but us, those of us here today. Yes, Jesus was praying for you and for me. Indeed, as we have heard and heard again, it was because of His love for us, because of our sin beginning in the Garden of Eden. It was because of God’s great love for all people that Jesus was on the cross. We heard the result of that forgiveness as He told the thief on the cross that today he would be with Jesus in paradise, and so we were assured of our own eternal inheritance in heaven. We heard Jesus care for His mother Mary as He fulfilled His fourth commandment duties and gave the disciple whom He loved, John to be her son. We heard Him cry in agony as He became an orphan, being forsaken by His Father in heaven. As we heard, the pangs of hell are complete absence from God and His love. We heard Him ask for a drink after all things had been completed, not necessarily to quench His thirst but so that He might speak His next words of declaration. Thus, we heard Him declare that “it was finished,” that the sins of the world had been paid for. And this evening we hear Him commit His Spirit back to His Father who had forsaken Him, as He loudly declared and cried out in victory, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.”
 

Jesus had completed His work. He gave up the glory that was His in heaven. He gave up full use of His divine power. He took on human flesh and blood even being born as a helpless infant. He lived a perfect life obeying all of God’s commandments perfectly, never sinning. He suffered all temptation even from Satan Himself and never sinned. He fulfilled all of God’s promises concerning Himself, as Messiah. He freely took all our sins upon Himself. He suffered the eternal death penalty of hell for us, in our place. He had asked for something liquid to clear His throat and now He is able to cry out. His cry was not a quiet, agonizing cry, for His suffering was complete. No, His cry was a peaceful, joyful cry. His cry was the confident cry of a Conquering Victor. The Battle was won.
 

Notice that Jesus cry was addressed once again to God as His Father. Earlier, He was forsaken by the Father. He had taken on the sins of the whole world, of all people of all places of all times upon Himself. He had become a curse and as such He could not stand before God the Father in His Holiness. God the Father left Him, so He was left alone to die on the cross, cursed with the sins of the world.
 

There is something else that we should mention about Jesus’ death. Whenever we see a portrait, a painting, a sculpture of Jesus on the cross, it is usually misrepresented. You see, Jesus died, not with a loin cloth around His waist as we picture Him, but in complete disgrace and humiliation for He was crucified in His nakedness. Remember, the soldiers at the foot of the cross cast lots for His clothes. We picture Him in a loin cloth because we cannot bear His shame. Yet, Jesus died in all His shame. He gave His life, completely for us.
 

Jesus suffered all that needed to be suffered. As we have reiterated several times, no more needs to be done to pay the price for our sins, no good works, no works of satisfaction, no nothing more needs to be done. And then Jesus cries out. His cry was to commit His spirit to His Father, in heaven. Jesus distress, His suffering is past, He is speaking in peace and joy, looking forward to and awaiting His homecoming in heaven.
 

And Jesus breathed His last. Jesus died. His was a usual, human death. Some people have a hard time understanding how God can die. I would ask you to think about us as human beings. We have a body and we have a soul. Some would say we also have a living spirit. An animal has a body and a living spirit but no soul. Our living spirit is the fact that our bodies can be kept alive even after we have died and our soul has left our bodies. Anyway, when we die our soul leaves our body and awaits it reunion in heaven. Jesus is a human, born in a human body. He is God. We might say His is not a human soul in a human body, but His is God in human body. So, when Jesus died His God soul left His human body to wait to be reunited at His resurrection. So, yes, our God in the flesh of the person Jesus died. He died and was buried.
 

God died, does that mean that we have no more God? Does that mean the devil has won? Does that mean the devil is now God? What does this mean? It means that while the devil was celebrating because he thought he had won, instead Jesus’ death reconciled us with the Father. Jesus death brought us back into a right relationship with the Father. As He bows His head to die, Jesus commits His spirit to the Father, after being forsaken by Him and after referring to Him as “God” earlier.
 

As the devil celebrates his seeming victory he has to come to grips with the fact that Jesus’ suffering won victory over sin, death and the power of the devil. The devil now has no power over us because Jesus has taken all that power away from Him. Certainly the devil can go around tempting the world to sin, and that is what he will continue to do until Christ returns, but with Christ as our victor we do not have to worry, because he has no power over us.
 

Jesus’ death was a true death. He was not lying only dead as a human, He died as true man and as true God. He suffered eternal death in hell and then He died. He died and then He descended into hell not for more suffering, but where He went to declare victory over the devil. As we confess in the Apostle’s creed, “[He] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead.” Thus, the devil’s victory celebration was rather short lived.
 

Ultimately, Jesus’ death means we have life, even eternal life. Because Jesus died we know that we will not have to die, at least not an eternal death in hell. Yes, while the Lord allows us to live in this world, until He should return, we will all die a physical death, but we have no fear of our physical death because we will not have to suffer hell. And as I always remind you, every day that we live in this world brings us one day closer to our own passing or to the Lord’s return, which will be sooner than we know and sooner than we might image. Also, as I have said before, because of Adam and Eve’s sin we are each one born with sin in our DNA, thus from the moment of conception we are destined to die because sin is what brings death and because we know that from the moment of conception a person can die we also know that from that moment the moment of conception we are accountable for our sins. Thus, we understand the importance of infant baptism. Finally, we know the rest of the story, thanks be to God. Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, so because He rose we know that we too will rise again.
 

This evening we come in shame as we realize that it was because of our sins that Jesus died on the cross. We come to remember and participate in His death. Tomorrow we sit and wait. We wait as the disciples did, until on Easter morning we will echo those words of comfort which we have heard since that first Easter morning, “He is risen! He is risen! indeed,” but for now I will leave out that last word of joy. To God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.