As followers of Jesus, we need to embrace Good Friday, which is a little bit like saying we need to embrace torture. Discover these four powerful refections on the cross for your Good Friday sermon.
From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. Matthew 16:21-25
4 Preaching Points for Your Good Friday Sermon:
Good Friday sermon point #1. Friday is the road to Sunday.
Good Friday is the day we remember the crucifixion of Jesus, but there’s more to it than remembering; our task as preachers is to call people to the Cross.
We want to embrace the resurrection, but Jesus calls us to the Cross, too. The famous sermon says, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!” More properly, the point of the story is that Friday is the road to Sunday.
There’s no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. There is no resurrection without the Cross. Our job as pastors is to tell the truth to His people: There’s a Good Friday for all of us.
Good Friday sermon point #2. Everyone has a problem with the cross.
The very idea of Good Friday causes us concern. The problem is that both his power and wisdom led him to the Cross, a brutal denial of everything he had done before.
Those who had seen his power wondered why he seemed powerless at his greatest need. Those who saw his intelligence wondered how someone so smart could miscalculate so badly.
Both sides missed what Jesus and his Father were saying: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies, it produces many” (John 12:24). Not just his words, his very life is a parable.
It wasn’t just the people of Jesus’ day who had a problem with the Cross.
The people we speak to week after week have a problem with the Cross. Religious-minded people want miracles and power. Intellectually minded people want wisdom and truth.
RELATED: N.T. Wright on Crucifixion
