[AI translation] On this Good Friday, I would like to talk about just one aspect of the story we read. The mockery, the cruel mockery that surrounded the cross of our Saviour. Today, devout congregations flock around the cross, singing psalms of praise - as we do here - to the crucified Christ, while then, onlookers watched the death of a condemned prisoner. Their tongues were thrust at him, and they hurled harsh words at him with mocking laughter or angry hatred. Yes: this cruel mockery was part of Golgotha. The Spirit of Christ had said this centuries before, for it is fulfilled word for word what is written in Psalm 22: 'I am a worm and not a man, a mocker of men and a hater of the people. They that see me shall all mock me, and shall turn away their lips, and bow their heads." (Psalm 22:7-8) Now let's take a closer look at this scene.There on Golgotha, there is none of the stunned silence that one might unwittingly find at the scene of an execution, but a demonic din, shouting, scolding, mocking - which, at this very hour when the redemption of the world is taking place, is frighteningly terrible! We know from the Word read and from the reports in the other Gospels that the people who passed by, seeing the cross and the accusation above it, bowed with deep contempt, saying, "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!" At this the high priest, who was standing there, was seized with a fever of derision. They could not imagine why he should not now use his power for his own good, to come down from the cross, behold, he could no longer do so! Now he was helpless, "he saved others, but he could not save himself. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him." The Roman soldiers sent to the firing squad are also emboldened: "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" And even one of the two evildoers who were crucified with him scolds him, saying, "If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!" And in all this satanic confusion, amidst laughter and blasphemy, there hangs on the tree the Holy One of God, mocked, mocked, cursed, as if truly helpless, at the mercy of the wrath of men. And yet it was not helplessness that was manifested in his not coming down from the cross, but divine power beyond all human imagination! But who knew then what was happening there?
He alone, who is mockingly reviled! Therefore He answers everything with a royally dignified silence. He would rather be laughed at, mocked for His apparent impotence, than justify His divine power before them in a way that would mean renouncing the salvation of the world! For if he came down from the cross before all was done, he would leave mankind in the midst of certain ruin, of damnation. To tear His hands and feet from the cross - but He will perform an even greater miracle! Not now, but on the third day, Easter morning, when He will come out of the embracing arms of death in all His divine majesty. But now, with the same power with which He rose from the dead, He will remain on the cross to the end! Not that he had no strength, no power to come down from there, but for quite another reason: the scoffers were unwittingly telling the truth, proclaiming the eternal Word, when they cried out, "He cannot save himself!" Jesus really could not save himself, because he could not, he was not able to escape suffering and death at the cost of leaving the world and mankind in damnation! He could not save Himself, because He came into the world precisely to sacrifice Himself for Himself out of God's merciful will! He could not save Himself because His own heart, His heart of pity for us, would not let Him, because His love for sinners was greater than His instinct for life! He could not save Himself - but not because He was helpless, for He could do much more than that: He could stay on the cross and lose Himself! He knew that! But to leave the cross and let a lost world sink into eternal darkness: that he could not do!
Those scoffers claimed that when he came down from the cross, they would believe in him. Well, they might indeed have believed in him for such an absurd-looking stunt, but they would have got nothing out of it. In any case, we believe in him today precisely because he did not come down from the cross, because he suffered all the torments of hell and damnation! Yes, it is the basis of our faith that the only One who should not have suffered, suffers; who does not owe death, dies; who did not deserve it, yet goes down to damnation, willingly! Not for Himself, obviously, but for others: for the people who stood mockingly around His cross - that is, for us, for you and for me! Here it is revealed who we are, whether mockers or adoring worshippers. Sinners who can only be helped by such a terrible vicarious judgment! Who can only be saved from damnation by the redemptive death of divine love made flesh!
It is only here, at the cross, in the suffering and death that He took upon Himself in our place, that we truly know what great sinners we are! That is, people who, in God's judgment and perhaps in our own conscience, have lost our way, lost our way and lost ourselves, who are not just a little bit in debt to God, but hopelessly in debt to Him. And we are prisoners, more oppressive prisoners than the inmates of prison cells: prisoners of our own pride, desires, instincts, fears, unbelief! And we are the sufferers, the ones who suffer most from ourselves, what we make difficult for ourselves and for others. We live in the shadow of the death and eternal judgment we are heading towards. Yes, such sinners we all are! Jesus knew it, He knew it about those who stood around His cross then, and He knew it about those who are now gathered around His cross here on this Good Friday! And that is why he could not keep himself, that is why he did not come down from the cross! That is why he took it all, the full judgment of God's wrath for sin. Can we imagine what it must have meant to bear, to suffer the hellish torment of millions in one life, in a few hours?
When I was a child, we used to do this thing where we would collect the sun's rays with a magnifying glass and try to project them onto our skin. You couldn't stand to be burned for a single moment. Thus was concentrated on Christ the burning fury of God's wrath for the sins of mankind there on the cross! And thus the scoffers unwittingly proclaimed the most blessed divine good news, when they mockingly cried out to him, "He saved others!" Behold, even in this dreadful hour, even in the most wicked tempers, they cannot deny that the Saviour of many is this mocked, mysterious man hanging on the cross! It is through unbelief that God proclaims to the world that the pierced hands of Christ are loosening the strong bonds of sin for many. Therefore he could not save himself to save others! All who look up to him in faith as Lord Saviour!
Let me therefore proclaim what the whole New Testament proclaims: you are saved, brothers and sisters! Let me proclaim what the Apostle Paul wrote to one of the churches: by grace you are saved! So, what Christ has done is not just a little encouragement, a little relief, a little comfort for us, but salvation, redemption! You are saved! It's not that we might someday be saved in some way, no: we are saved! We are! Yes, we! Not only other people, some who are better, more faithful than we are, but we are, all of us! One by one! Look now in your spirit at the cross, at our Saviour, Jesus Christ, the condemned, the executed! Look at him and see and understand that what he did and what he suffered, he did for you and for me, for all of us. He took upon himself our sins, our captivity and our suffering. And not in vain! He took it upon Himself to take it from us. The door of the prison of our sins, of our sufferings, is open even if we strangely do not want to come out of it! We are free, God has made us free, even if we inexplicably do not want to avail ourselves of this freedom. It is all right for God that we should now go out differently from the way we came in. Cleansed, redeemed, liberated, rejoicing, comforted, starting a new life in the power of forgiveness, overcoming temptations, loving people, serving the glory of God! He has set us free to live for Him! It is true that the cross of Calvary on which Jesus was crucified has long since disappeared from the earth, long since rotted away, but the blessed shadow of that cross is cast wide and mightily upon the earth, in it all who seek it will find forgiveness of sins, divine protection, the strength to bear their burdens, and therefore salvation - whoever truly seeks it!
"He saved others!" is the derision, and it is true, it is true! But why always others, why not you? Why should it not be true: He has saved me too! - Perhaps because you have never really asked from your heart for His saving power to become real in you! For see that God loves us, that Jesus died for us, that we are saved at the price of His death, that the door of our prison is opened: all this is true without our cooperation, and we do not need to beg for it. But so that we can accept all this by faith, so that all this can be validated in us, so that we can begin to live it and by it, so that we can believe it not only with our head and our lips but with our heart and our whole life, so that others may see it in us, so that we may truly leave here a different person than when we came in, so that our whole being may be immersed in the divine reality of salvation, this is why we must pray! No man in the world has ever prayed in vain for this! That is what that other evildoer among the many scoffers did: he prayed. He only asked with a soft sigh, "Lord, remember me!" With the heart, truly, that only a man on the point of death can speak. And he breathed in eternal life. So close to the rest was grace, divine love, forgiveness, redemption! So close to us! A world-renowned medical scientist once said that a true praying man stands before God as a canvas before a painter, as marble before a sculptor. If you now thus place yourself before the Christ who could not save himself, you will be among the "others" whom he saved.
On that old Good Friday they cried out on the cross, "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." Let us cry out like this: Son of God, may your mercy and grace come down to us from the cross!
Amen
Date: 30 March 1956. Good Friday afternoon.