Thank you for you on this Good Friday. If I've not met you before, my name is Steve. I'm the
senior pastor here at St. Paul's, and I'd be grateful if you could have John 19 open in front
of you. And also, just for a bit of a heads up, John chapter 4 as well. You may need that as we
go through too. Let me just jump straight in and say, Easter is what Christianity offers a world
that is losing hope in its ability to fix itself. That's Easter. It's what Christianity offers you,
you who cannot change, you who cannot find peace, cannot find security, cannot find hope,
cannot find meaning. And so today and the next three Sundays, we as a church are going to be
looking at hope and the hope that Easter offers this world. And already, Deb has indicated this
time a year ago, we were in lockdown. We were not able to meet together as we are now because of
COVID-19. In the past year, we have been in the midst of the worst global pandemic in a century
and hopes even now of an early solution and for life to go back to normal is dashed again and again
and again and again. And the problem we know with this pandemic is not just sickness. Virtually every
sector in society will be impacted and will feel the repercussions of COVID-19 for years to come.
And especially the vulnerable in our society. They will bear the greatest burden once again.
Death, pandemics, injustice, family breakdown, social isolation, cancel culture, the threat of wars.
None of it has stopped. None of it has stopped while we have faced a global enemy against the life of
humanity. Which is confusing for us. In the West, particularly. For over two centuries now,
Western societies like ours have put hope in the progressiveness of history. To put it simply,
every day and in every way, we're getting better and better. And yet we're not.
It's the strong belief that came out of the age of enlightenment that every generation would
experience a better world than the one before it. The assumption is that via human reason, ingenuity,
science, once freed from the superstitions of beliefs from centuries past, we would have a better future
future together. Now we should have learned that lesson. We haven't. We should have learned that
lesson in the first four decades of the 20th century. In the space of four decades, we faced two world wars
like we'd never seen before. A global pandemic and the Great Depression. In fact, in the 20th century
alone, more people were killed in wars than all history prior combined.
What followed those four decades was the Cold War and the threat of nuclear holocaust.
And it seems that the greatest threat to our hope for a better world is not the natural environment
around us, but the various forms of evil that spring from the heart of the human being.
Science could come up with a vaccine for COVID-19, but it can't eradicate human evil.
Now by evil, I don't mean just the really big stuff like, you know, the Jewish Holocaust.
I mean the ordinary cruelties of self-interest day by day in business, racism, arrogance, pride,
dishonesty, corruptions, abuse, sexism, the countless acts of selfishness that we all practice day by day.
And that brings me to Easter.
And the hope for humanity.
The word the Bible uses for hope is so much stronger than the one that's used in the English language.
It means a profound certainty.
Profound certainty.
Christians are profoundly certain,
even in the midst of pandemics and hardships,
that God is guiding every twist and every turn of their life towards the resurrection of their bodies
and their souls for a new, eternal and perfect world where everything wrong doesn't exist.
It's a profound certainty.
And all of this profound, certain hope is fixed.
All of it is fixed to the explosive three days
where the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth,
happened around 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, Israel.
In time, in space.
It's a certain hope.
And so my plan today is to take us into the beginnings of those events
and really just focus on two things.
Two things that Jesus said on the cross in that Bible reading that was just read out to us.
And the first of those things reveals the nature of the hope that Jesus offers us.
And the second thing that he says is how we can take up the hope that he offers us.
So first of all, that's all I'm saying.
Two things.
Take a little while, but two things.
The nature of his hope,
the nature of his offer of hope.
At the end of the crucifixion.
So this is John 19.
If you want to dive into that, it'd be really helpful.
John chapter 19, the end of his crucifixion account.
We read this in verse 28.
Later, knowing that everything had been finished.
And so that the scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said,
I am thirsty.
Now, our first reaction to that is,
well, of course he's thirsty.
I mean, you know, it's the Middle East.
It's really sand and sun there.
It's really hot.
He's been crucified under the Middle Eastern sun.
He's losing lots of fluid.
In fact, one of the things that you died from in crucifixion was dehydration.
You died from dehydration amongst other things.
And so, but if we linger over those words a little bit,
we realize that in actual fact,
it might be something significant that's happening here.
Maybe there's something a little bit deeper.
We need to think about this.
You see, because Jesus has suffered an awful lot up until this point, right?
He has been beaten in the face with fists.
He has been lashed with a whip across his back in such a way.
His back looks like a chunk of steak.
He's had tent pegs.
No, no, no.
You know, not three-inch nails.
He had tent pegs driven through his hands and his feet.
He's had a crown of thorns squeezed over his head and lacerated his head.
He has endured all of that and he's not complained once.
Not once.
Not even a whimper.
He's accepted it.
He's submitted to it.
Not even an, ow, that hurt.
Nothing.
So why now, why now at the end of all of that, does he say,
actually I'm feeling thirsty.
There's something deeper going on here.
Something a bit deeper than just mere, I need a drink.
And what's going on deeper here is,
is a connection to something happened that much earlier in John's gospel,
in John chapter four.
Early in this biography, Jesus encounters a woman at a well.
She's a Samaritan woman.
And she is a mortal enemy of the Jewish people in the first century.
And she is surprised, as she goes to draw water from the well,
that Jesus says to her, a mortal enemy,
can you give me a drink?
Jesus says to her in chapter four, verse 13,
everyone who drinks from this water,
the water that you will draw from this well,
will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks the water that I give them,
will never thirst again.
Indeed, the water that I give them,
will become in them a spring of water,
welling up to eternal life.
So again, even as he asked for a drink of water in John four,
he's talking about here something that's much deeper than mere physical thirst.
That's because in the Bible, thirst is a metaphor for emptiness.
It's a metaphor for spiritual emptiness
that comes when we do not put God, our creator,
at the center of our life.
For instance, Psalm 42,
as the deer pants for the streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Where can I go and meet with him?
You see, it's one thing to believe that God exists,
as the vast majority of our world still does.
But it's quite another thing to have him as the central reality of your life.
It's not belief in God,
an intellectual assent that God exists,
that our souls need so much as meeting God,
knowing God, experiencing God.
Without meeting, knowing, experiencing God,
without him being the central reality of our life,
we thirst.
We die.
That is, it's possible to have a belief in God,
but have something else as the central defining reality for your life.
If I may continue this metaphor a little bit more,
these other things,
success, approval, comfort, friendship, family,
sex and romance, influence, money,
a whole range of things,
power,
the actual drink that we are pouring into our souls to quench the thirst,
the emptiness that we feel on the inside.
We are hoping that these things will fill us up
and satisfy us and give us hope.
And the point that Jesus is getting to
is if we attempt to quench the thirst of our soul
with anything else than the love and the beauty
and the comfort of God in Jesus Christ,
then we will thirst again and again and again and again forever.
Only God in Jesus can fully and satisfyingly quench the thirst of our emptiness.
Everything else is like drinking seawater.
It just simply makes you more thirsty.
And so back in John 4
and Jesus meeting with this Samaritan woman,
Jesus says,
the water that I will give them
will become in them a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.
And so the woman hears this
and he goes,
Sir, give me that water right there.
Give me that water
so that I don't thirst
and I don't have to keep coming here,
drinking,
you know,
drawing the water here.
What's amazing here,
Jesus wants to give it.
She immediately wants it
and then Jesus doesn't give it to her.
Not straight away.
Instead,
what appears to happen
is that Jesus seems to change the subject in John 4.
He says to her,
well,
go and get your husband.
And her reply is,
well,
actually,
I don't have a husband.
And Jesus says,
you're absolutely right.
You have no husband.
The fact is,
you've had five husbands
and the man you're currently with
is not even your husband.
She wants to take up the offer of eternal life.
He changes the subject.
Brings up her broken,
messed up love life.
Why?
What are you doing,
Jesus?
Why be so harsh
at this point with her?
Why change the subject
and be so harsh?
And yet he isn't.
He isn't changing the subject.
And he's being incredibly tender.
He's pointing out to her
that all her messed up love life
is simply a result
of her looking
to men
to give her
what only God
can give her.
To use the metaphor again,
her life
has revealed
she's been drinking
sea water
all her life
in the form of relationships
with blokes.
and she is thirsty.
She is never satisfied.
And Jesus offers her fresh water
that will fill her up
and satisfy her forever.
The reason her life
is going so poorly
is because when
we look to someone
or something
other than God
for the love
and the significance
and the beauty
and the security
and the hope,
we will thirst
again
and again
because it will never
ever
satisfy.
You will thirst
for eternity
if you live your life
that way.
What she needed
was God
as the living reality
at the center
of her life.
She needed to have
the love of God
at the center
of her life
so she didn't need
to look
to the love of men
to give her
what only God
can give her
to truly satisfy her.
So Jesus was not
so much confronting her
but in actual fact
lovingly convicting her
and putting her
to a greater hope.
And what is interesting
about this Samaritan woman
is that she had
belief in God
but it wasn't enough.
Jesus wasn't
the center of her life.
God was not
the defining reality
of her life
and Jesus
in this encounter
helped her to see it.
Other things
were more important.
That's the background
of John 19
so let's just
flick back now
to John 19
and the crucifixion
of Jesus.
That is the reason
why Jesus
is thirsty.
His thirst
is a picture
of what he is
really going through
on the cross.
On the cross
Jesus Christ
is experiencing
the ultimate thirst
as the prophet
Nahum
in the Old Testament.
Centuries before
he put it like this.
Who can withstand
his indignation?
Who can endure
his fierce anger?
His wrath
is poured out
like fire.
On the cross
Jesus
was getting
what the whole
human race
deserved
for putting
its evil
in putting
everything else
apart from
God
at the center
of their lives.
He was getting
what we deserve
for our life
of ignoring
our created God.
He was experiencing
the divine
justice.
It was like
a million
Middle Eastern
sons
burning
down on him.
He is thirsting
thirsting
in our place
so that we
can have
living water.
He is dying
of spiritual
thirst.
He is being
emptied.
The one
who was always
full
was being
emptied
so that we
can be filled.
He is experiencing
the agony
of being separated
from God
the fountain
of living water
so that we
can have
direct access
to the fountain
of eternal
living water.
Jesus experienced
the agony
of separation
of love
from his
father.
The experience
of his
fire of judgment
so that we
can experience
his presence
and love
and the
never ending
refreshment
of the water
of eternal
life.
He got
what we
deserve
so that we
can get
what only
he rightly
deserves.
He suffered
so that we
can have a
river of life
welling up.
That is his
favour,
his love,
his approval,
his acceptance.
That is the
nature
of his
offer of hope
for us
this Good
Friday.
So secondly,
how do we
take it up?
The last
thing that
Jesus breathes
on the cross,
the last thing
he says is
in verse 30.
It
is
finished.
Now
Jesus is
using a
word here
that means
totally paid
for.
Totally
paid for.
It's a
word that
you used to
write across
an account
in the
first century.
Paid in
full.
See,
one of the
great
and wonderful
paradoxes of
history
is that
here
on the
cross
just
outside
of
Jerusalem
is the
helpless,
powerless,
almost dead,
dependent
Jesus
on a
cross
and his
last words
that he
uttered,
I did it.
I've
triumphed,
I've
accomplished
it,
it's
finished.
And what
he's
accomplished
for us,
what he
describes,
is beautifully
described for
us a little
bit later
in the
New
Testament.
It
says,
Christ also
suffered once
for sins,
the righteous
for the
unrighteous,
to bring
you
to God.
You see,
there's this
infinite
chasm between
us and
God and
Jesus has
done
everything
required.
He has
paid every
debt that
we owe
to God,
dealt with
every single
bit of
shame and
guilt and
sin.
He's
accomplished
it all,
there's
nothing
more to
pay.
There is
nothing more
that we have
to do to
bridge the
gap between
us and
God.
And so
contrast,
contrast
Jesus'
last word
here with
the last
word of
Buddha.
The last
word of
Buddha,
strive
without
ceasing.
Jesus,
it's
finished.
I've
thirsted for
you and
it is
finished
versus
strive
without
ceasing.
Now let
me say,
there's a
lot of
admirable
things about
Buddhism,
like the
self-denial
and the
recognition
that selfishness
is one of
humanity's
biggest
problems.
But if you
know anything
about
Buddhism,
you would
know that
the
eightfold
path of
Buddhism is
extremely
hard and
incredibly
demanding and
you would
never actually
have hoped
that you've
done enough.
Strive
without ceasing.
Keep
going and
you may get
enlightenment.
fulfillment.
That's why
these last
words of
Jesus here
is so
important.
I've done
all the
striving for
you.
I've done
everything to
bring you to
salvation.
I've thirsted
so that you
might be
fully satisfied.
Religion is
where you
give God a
performance and
hope and
hope that he
might wishful
thinking,
that he may
in fact bless
you.
The core
message of
Christianity,
the core
message of
Easter,
the good
news of
Easter,
which is why
it's called
Good Friday,
is that God
blesses us in
Jesus Christ
and we get
to live,
to love and
serve him,
the only one
who has
already given
us every
love,
every blessing
and every
acceptance.
Jesus has
done it all,
fulfilled it
all.
Any effort
on our
behalf to
make his
completed,
finished work
any better
actually makes
it worse.
Anything that
we think we
contribute makes
it worse.
It unpacks
it, any
effort, any
striving.
When Jesus
says it is
finished, what
he actually
means is it
is finished.
finished, we
cannot receive
his salvation
and act as
if we can
add to it.
So let me
just go on a
little bit of a
tangent here.
There are two
kinds of people
in this world
who attempt to
add to the
finished work of
Jesus.
There's the
one kind of
person is the
beat myself up
person and the
other person is
prove myself
person.
There's the
self-beaters and
the self-provers
and all of us
on one way or
another on a
scale there.
The self-beater is
the one every
time someone
criticizes, they
are just going to
crumble.
They are
devastated and
they beat
themselves up.
Every time they
do something wrong
and make a
mistake, they
beat themselves
up.
In fact, it's
quite possible that
you did something
30 years ago and
you're still
beating yourself
up about it.
You cannot get
past it.
You feel bad
about it.
In fact, you
only feel good
about yourself
when you are
feeling bad
about yourself.
You're a
beat yourself up
person and you
need to know
this Good Friday
that Jesus was
beaten up from
you and it
was finished.
He paid for
your sins.
Why do you
still keep
trying to pay
for them?
It is finished
attempting to
add anything
to what
Jesus done
simply detracts
from it.
The other
person is the
self-prover.
They usually
feel much
better about
themselves than
the self-beater.
They're often
proud, self-made
person.
You've done a
little bit of
success in life,
you think it
means something.
The need to
have money,
success,
possessions,
family,
career, in
order to
feel secure
and significant
means you
are trying to
add to
Jesus' work
to make us
all secure
and acceptable.
The message
of Christianity
is that we
are all,
every single
one of us,
is a sinner
saved by grace
if we trust
in the
finished work
of Jesus
who has
thirsted for
us.
what
Christianity
tells us,
what
Isa
tells us,
is our
hearts
are more
evil than
we ever
dare to
believe.
That's what
the cross
tells us.
Our hearts
are more
evil than
we ever
dare to
believe and
we are
more loved
than we
ever dare
hope or
imagine.
At exactly
the same
time,
the person
who tries
to prove
themselves
doesn't
understand
that they
can never
do it
because in
fact they
are more
evil than
they could
ever possibly
imagine.
Conversely,
people constantly
trying to
atone for
their flaws
by beating
themselves up
never will
because they
are already
loved and
affirmed more
than their
wildest dreams
could ever
hope.
God
humbles the
one and
affirms the
other.
It is
finished.
Jesus'
death on
the cross
doesn't
make us
a contributor
to our
salvation.
It is
our
salvation.
All of
our overwork
and anxiety
and constant
striving,
our lack
of gratitude
and rejoicing
is because
we do not
know that
it is
finished.
It's
done.
the amazing
truth of
Easter is
summarised
really
succinctly
in a
little bit
later in
the New
Testament.
Here is a
trustworthy
saying that
deserves full
acceptance.
Jesus Christ
came into
the world
to save
sinners
and he
did it.
It's
finished.
is there
any more
wonderful
news for
people like
us who
know we
cannot measure
up to the
demands of
our own
conscience,
let alone the
demands of
our own
holiness,
while still
living in
fear of what
this future
of this world
might hold.
Easter is
full of hope
for the
self-beaters
and the
self-provers.
it is full
of hope
for you.
It is
finished
in Jesus.
So see
your need
met in
him and
centre your
life on
him.
The hope
of Easter
is summed
up so
wonderfully
and possibly
the most
famous Bible
verse of
all.
God so
loved the
world that
he gave
his only
son that
whoever
believes in
him should
not perish
but have.
eternal
life.
One of the
things that
we get to
do as
a bunch
of people
gathered in
a room like
this today
is to
celebrate in
a visual
form the
death and
the resurrection
of Jesus
with the
communion
elements.
We get to
do this
together,
have a
physical
reminder of
the hope
that we
have in
Easter.
Can I
just say
that if
you are
someone who
trusts in
the Lord
Jesus,
you are
someone who
got your
life centred
on Christ
right now,
then I
would invite
you to
participate in
these elements
right now.
If you are
someone who is
with us today
and you are
just not
sure where
you are or
if you might
be clear you
don't know
where you are,
can I just
encourage you to
let these
elements go
past you?
Take this
opportunity right
now to
reflect on
what we have
just seen in
John 4 and
John 19
and find
that the
thirst of
your soul
is only
ever satisfied
in Jesus
Christ.
And as
we receive
these elements,
bow your
head and
receive Christ
for the first
time.
Do that
today.
But
acknowledging
that we
are flawed
and we
are sinful
people,
up on the
screen,
we're going
to say a
prayer
together
acknowledging
our need
for
no,
it's not
on the
screen.
So let
me instead
lead us in
that prayer.
Bow your
heads.
This is for
the kids
amongst us
as well,
so I've
sort of
made it
easier for
them to
grapple with
some of
this language.
Oh
Father God,
we are
sorry for
living,
for
ourselves,
for loving
other things,
other people
more than we
love you,
and forgetting
to pray and
asking you to
forgive our
sins.
Father,
forgive us.
Wipe away
our guilt
and our
sadness.
Take away
our shame.
Change our
hearts to
love what you
love and to
turn away from
what you
hate.
Thank you
for your
love,
for your
never-stopping,
unbreaking,
always and
forever love.
Thank you
for our
life of
freedom that
we have
because Jesus
died.
Thank you
for our
hope in
Jesus that
never changes,
that never
fades away.
Thank you
in Jesus
that we
never thirst
and are
fully satisfied
forever
in such
a way
that the
well of
water of
life just
flows into
us.
And so
in Jesus
name we
give you
thanks.
Amen.