"Good Friday: What the Lord Cannot Do" March 25, 2005

 

By Dennis Evans - Scripture Readings: Luke 23:32-49; 24:50-56

Imagine that there was a proverb that said, “You can’t use your Kayak and heat it too”. Truth is, it’s no different than a cake.

In this sense God’s in the same boat as we are. Since God is love, and since God loves the world, and since God loves us, he can’t have his kayak and heat it too. God can’t have certain things both ways.

Jesus being God, is in the same kayak. He can’t give us a ride in it and keep it warm at the same time. Since God is love, he can’t not be love. Since Jesus is love, he can’t not be love. If God and his Son live in love toward us, they have to put this first. In the scripture we have read. Since Jesus is love, he must save us, and, to do that, he cannot save himself.

The rulers said, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ of God.” (Luke 24:35) But that was the one thing that Jesus could not do. That is, he could not save himself if he was determined to do what he came to do.

Let’s see what Jesus came to do, as expressed in his words on the cross. These, by the way, are not all his words on the cross, but they are the ones Luke tells us about.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (23:34) If he could have waved his hand to indicate who should be forgiven, he would have waved it over the whole crowd. He would have waved it over the rulers of Israel who had hated him and hunted him and caught him at last and demanded his death on the cross. Jesus would have waved a forgiving hand over the crowd of those who chanted “Crucify! Crucify!” Soldiers. Roman governor’s palace. Friends standing far off. Peter.

What Jesus came to do was to make us forgiven sinners: to see two things, our sins and our forgiveness.

To forgiven us, Jesus made himself the victim of all our sins. The innocent. The vulnerable. It was always said that all sin was truly directed against God. Therefore, only God could truly forgive sins. If anyone would object to this, it became true in Jesus.

The rabbis have sometimes said that a human being can only forgive sins that have injured themselves. A human cannot forgive sins that have injured another. But in Christ all sins have injured God. 

If Jesus had saved himself, he would have had almost nothing to say about forgiveness.

Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (23:43) As humans it is beyond our mere nature to be able to survive death. Jesus was and is stronger than death, if we belong to Jesus, we cross a bridge we could not have built, we pass through a door we could not have opened. If Jesus had saved himself, there would be no bridge, no door.

Jesus said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (23:46) For Jesus, death was not an act of surrender; it was an act of faith. When we are in Christ this is true for us as well. And it is not exactly the whole truth to say that Jesus was giving his death as a gift. Jesus was giving his life as a gift. His whole life had been that way. When we belong to Jesus we belong to God in our death, and we belong to God in our life too, as long as we live.

If Jesus had saved himself, it could not have been said that he gave himself in his living and dying to God, in faith. And we could not have done this in faith, without him. The fact that he did not save himself is the reason we can live and die with confidence in God, no matter what.