For me, for me, for me!

[AI translation] What Jesus told his disciples in these words was fulfilled in him on Good Friday. And the astonishing thing here is not that it all came true so eerily, but that it emphasizes so emphatically and without contradiction the necessity of His suffering and death. The emphasis here is almost not on suffering and death, but on the need! The Son of Man must go to Jerusalem, suffer much and be killed! There is some immutable, supreme, divine lawfulness here! That Good Friday 2000 years ago, as a divine plan, had to happen!It was as if Jesus had written in big, invisible letters over the whole of Calvary in advance that it must, it must, it must be so! And it was this must, this very must, that offended Peter, and that is why he protested against it so vehemently: 'God save me, Lord, this must not happen to you!' As if to say: Why is this necessary, why must this be? And it is not a question of a man protesting against suffering, but of a man's incomprehension of the divine plan of salvation!
In the mind of a man today, Peter's protest would perhaps be: what was all this Good Friday Calvary for? Could not the matter of our redemption have been settled in a different, simpler way? Why did it require a crown of thorns, a whip, mockery, shame, so much humiliation, and above all, why did it require blood? Would not the whole matter of redemption have been more effective, more popular, more acceptable without this bloody cross? According to human taste, according to human thinking, undoubtedly! And yet Jesus says it must! When I now seek the answer to this question from the Word of God, I shall say nothing new, but shall only utter three very simple words, often heard, very seriously, and elucidate their meaning!
The first word is: because of us! That is, because of you, because of me, Jesus had to suffer so much and die such a horrible death! Is that true? - Yes! You know it would be no different today than it was on that Good Friday. I don't blame the men, the chief priests, the scribes, the Roman soldiers, Pilate and Herod, who tortured Jesus 2000 years ago and killed him on the cross! I know that the world is no better today, and that the same thing is happening to Jesus in essence today - at least in different forms, but in different ways - as happened to him then. Jesus' eternal destiny in this earthly world is mockery, humiliation, suffering, death! And now I feel that everyone agrees with me, because now everyone is thinking how evil this world is and how bad people are! Truly, truly, all the injustice, all the innocent suffering, all the murderous passions between spouses, between people living in the same house, between neighbouring peoples, between continents, all the immorality, the theft, fraud, drilling and all the evil that we hear and read about every day in the newspapers, that we witness in this corrupt world: all of this is nothing other than the daily crucifixion of the temper, morality and spirit represented by Jesus. This world knows nothing but to kill Jesus again and again! Yes! It is true! And it is truly horrible!
But what is even more terrible is that you, along with me, are always torturing and killing Jesus! Neither I nor you are any different from the people who took the lead on Good Friday. Don't think that this is just rhetorical hyperbole, priestly phraseology! All the characters in that Good Friday scene are still alive today, so much so that you can recognise them all - yourself! The high priest's servants, for example, repeatedly slapped Jesus in the face. It must have been horrible when a wicked man slaps God in the face! Well, have you never done it? You knew that it was a sin to murder an unborn child, and yet you did it; you knew that it was forbidden for you to go where you longed, and yet you entered; you knew that you should not let your passions run wild, and yet you did it: is not this a slap in the face of Jesus?
It must have been horrible to have Jesus' last garment torn off, and to have been scorned, spit upon, humiliated, as the mockery of some worldly mockery. And have you never behaved like that? Or when you do not represent Jesus in a way that makes him attractive, beautiful, true before the world, when you, by your vile behaviour or your shoddy work, give people the opportunity to mock Jesus, God, to disbelieve in him, to turn away from him, to hate the church: this is exactly the same as putting him up there in shame, as the scorn of the world
Jesus is here, let them spit on him, kick him!
It must have been horrible when one Roman soldier put a crown of thorns on his head and another drove nails into the living flesh, into his hands and feet. Well, when you hurt someone, when you hurl insulting, harsh words at them, which you don't know what wounds you are inflicting on their soul: how are you any different from that Roman soldier? For Jesus said, 'What you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did to me. So you identify yourself with another man to such an extent that what you do to one man, he feels and appreciates as if you had done it to him. So all your harshness, spite, anger, hatred, gloating, unlovingness towards anyone, hurts Jesus like the lashes that made his holy body bleed!
For just one day, observe yourself: the Jesus who would love with your heart, help with your hand, save with your money, comfort with your word - the Jesus who would live and work in you: how many times you tie him up so he can't move, how many times you silence him, even kill him and bury him deep down so he can't see or hear anything, so you can do what you want without interference! - Isn't the apostle Peter right when he told the crowd gathered on the first Pentecost that Jesus "being taken, you will kill him by crucifixion with your wicked hands" (Acts 2:23)? This hand reaches all the way down here, pointing at us: you have killed Jesus, the Holy One of God, by your wicked hands, crucifying him! Do you know why Jesus had to suffer and die so painfully? For you and for me! The necessary consequence of our sins was that bloody Good Friday! You are the reason! You put Jesus on the cross!
The second word is: for us. The wonderful thing about this whole story of suffering is that God uses this bloody consequence of our sin, the death of Jesus, for our good. What we have done against him, he uses it all for our good. He accepts the death of Jesus - for which you and I were the cause - as satisfaction and redemption for our sins! So, when Jesus suffered and died for us, he paid for us, repaid on our behalf, made restitution! For who among us could satisfy God, who would not be hopelessly in debt to Him, who would not have a good account in heaven?!
Do you know why there is so much unrest, unrest, imbalance in us? It is because, even if we do not think about it, we feel that we have not given to God what is God's, nor to man what is man's! We owe! This makes us unconsciously uneasy. The foreboding that one day, in a great reckoning, all will be revealed, the whole debt! And we also feel that there is no way we can get our accounts straight. All the good and beautiful deeds of which we were so proud, which gave us prestige in the eyes of the people, did nothing to reduce that particular debt. Neither did trying to give up some pleasure, enjoyment, passion, nor trying to live religiously, to pray regularly, to take communion... We can't produce, we can't squeeze out of ourselves something that would be a valid means of payment before God for our debt to Him!
Can you see yet why that bloody scene on Good Friday, why Jesus had to suffer and die like that? It's because the only valid means of payment for your sin before God is the innocent, holy life of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Triune God. There is something poignant about the way God settles this matter: all the evil that you and I and other people have ever done against Him and against each other, He takes it all upon Himself, He appropriates it as if it were His debt, as if He were the debtor, as if He Himself had done all the wickedness that we have done. He, the innocent, stands in our place, allows Himself, as if He were to blame for everything, to be accused, condemned, punished with death - for us! So if you've ever come to the realization that you can't pay, that you're incapable, let me tell you now: you don't have to, because someone else, Jesus, has done all the accounting for you. Look: it is no longer a debt that the Lord is demanding of you, but that you believe and accept with gratitude that all your debts have been paid by the death of Jesus. For all that happened there on Good Friday: it happened for you!
And the third word that follows from the first two is for us. That is, for you and for me, Jesus had to suffer and die for the sake of our renewed life! A great divine blood transfusion also took place at Calvary. When a healthy person gives his blood freely to a sick person, this fresh blood brings new life into the dying person's veins. And the blood of Jesus: what a wonderful life-giving power for the soul! It is always the case that when a person accepts that Jesus gave his blood for him, this holy, mysterious blood begins to work in him as a life-transforming, renewing power! And if you, at this very moment, standing before the cross of Christ in your soul, could truly say from the depths of your soul: Yes, Lord, You have wounded me for my sins, You have corrupted me for my transgressions, You have the penalty of my peace: then you can now go out of the temple as a man redeemed by Christ! The Isaiah passage just quoted continues, "By his stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:6) It does not say in the future tense that we shall be healed, but in the past tense: that we are healed!
So if you believe in Jesus as your Saviour, you are healed! It did not mean that his fate was changed, but that he could accept his fate with a changed spirit. It wasn't that he didn't have to die, but that he died in a different way. It was not the world around him that changed, but a whole world changed in him! Because he died as one who was healed! It often happens that after an operation, when the doctor says that the patient is cured, he can get out of bed and go home: the patient does not dare to obey, he thinks he cannot get up and stand up! But if he obeys, he is surprised to find that he succeeds. Well, believe that you are cured! And then dare to come out of this temple healed, dare to obey Christ, and then you will see that you will succeed! For you have the strength to do all things, to continue a whole new, changed life in Christ who strengthens you! You were worth it to stop living in sin, to live for God, because only by the power of His blood can you live for God!
You have heard these three words many times: for you, in your place and for you. Can we accept this now - not with our heads, but with our hearts! Just think, what if God were to ask us now: Why did it have to be this way, if even this does not affect you, that everything that happened on Good Friday happened because of you, for you and in your stead?
Let us now try to turn our souls towards Jesus and tell Him with true faith and thanksgiving:
Jesus, Saviour of the world,
Giver of my salvation,
Son of God crucified,
The price of my sin hanging on a tree:
Jesus, let me return to you,
To die with you, to live with you.
Me of your great love,
Take me to thee by thy holy grace,
Take strength from your cross,
And absolution from my sins.
Jesus, let me return to you,
To die with you, to live with you.
(Canto 342, verses 1 and 5)
Amen
Date: Good Friday, April 15, 1960.