4/18/25 Good Friday Sermon
I’ve been thinking about what it is we mark on Good Friday— one of the most painful and profound moments in our faith. Because Good Friday confronts us with the deepest mysteries of what we believe:
What does it mean to worship at the foot of the cross?
What is it we hold in our hearts as we come to this night?
What kind of love meets us in a moment like this?
Certainly, the crucifixion of Jesus is central to tonight —but there are layers beneath the surface, deeper truths we’re also naming.
I think that maybe one of the most profound truths we can name tonight is that sometimes horrible tragedies happen.
And that, somehow, God can use those tragedies in ways that surpass our understanding.
We’re acknowledging that following Christ doesn’t guarantee protection from suffering. But it does mean we are supported through it—carried by the One who has suffered with us, and for us.
We’re acknowledging that God does not abandon us in the dark moments of life—
that even in silence, even in shadow, God is present—sometimes hidden, but always near.
And we’re acknowledging that suffering is not a sign of God’s absence, nor of our failure—
but sometimes, it’s the very ground where grace begins to take root.
Where love grows brave.
Where we learn, not despite the pain, but sometimes through it, what it means to trust.
We’re acknowledging that God doesn’t promise to protect us from our sufferings. But Instead, God promises us a Savior who walks with us through it—
who knows what it means to weep, to bleed, to be betrayed.
Let’s be honest tonight—the world is broken.
Maybe it always has been.
And in a world like that, even goodness can be dangerous.
Acts of mercy can bring rejection.
Justice can provoke resistance.
Love can lead to a cross.
People betray those they love.
Trust can be shattered with a word.
Conviction can collapse when the crowd turns hostile.
Like Peter, we deny what matters most when it’s no longer popular.
Like Judas, we misjudge the cost of our actions.
Like the disciples, we fall asleep in the hour when love calls us to stay awake.
The story of Good Friday is not just ancient history.
It’s our story too.
We know what it is to live in a world where justice falters,
where truth is ridiculed,
where darkness sometimes seems to win.
And yet…
And yet, There’s this moment in the Gospel of John—
after the meal is finished,
after the feet are washed,
after Judas walks out into the night—
Jesus, knowing full well what is about to happen—
knowing the betrayal, the denials, the abandonment—
turns to his friends and says:
“Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
That’s the command.
That’s the heart of it all.
Not perfection.
Not power.
Not escape.
But love.
Love in the face of failure.
Love in the midst of fear.
Love even when we know it might break our hearts.
He doesn’t ask us to be perfect in our love—only willing.
Willing to keep choosing love.
Willing to let it guide our hands, our voices, our lives.
Willing to love even when it costs us something.
And maybe that’s what we affirm tonight.
That even in the brokenness—
especially in the brokenness—
love matters most.
A seed must fall and break before it can grow.
A cocoon must tear before wings unfold.
The communion bread must be ripped apart for grace to pour out.
And on the cross, Jesus’ body is broken so that life can rise from death.
Maybe that’s the strange truth of Good Friday:
that in the breaking, something holy is set free.
That through the worst the world can do,
God reveals what love looks like when it refuses to die.
No matter how hard the world tries to crush love,
it keeps pouring out—
unstoppable, uncontainable—
threatening to transform this world into something more beautiful,
something more whole. Something more holy.
And if that’s true—
if love keeps pouring out even when crushed,
if it refuses to die,
if it rises from the wreckage and remakes the world—
then we have a calling, too.
We are the ones who carry it now.
We are the ones who bear that love in our bodies,
in our voices,
in our choices.
we are the ones who choose to live as if love has the final word.
These were his words to us—
Love one another.
Not a suggestion,
not a sentiment,
not a slogan—
but a command:
“Love one another.”
And so we do.
We love not because it is easy,
but because it is the only thing worth doing.
We love not because the world is safe,
but because love makes us brave.
We love not because we will win,
but because love itself is the victory.
And we choose to live it.
To embody it.
To build our lives around it.
Even in the face of betrayal.
Even in the grip of grief.
Even when hope is threadbare and the night is long.
We love.
Because love walked the road to Golgotha.
Because love was broken on a cross.
Because love hung between two thieves and still found words of mercy.
Because love did not run away.
And if love would not abandon us in death,
then we will not abandon love in life.
So when the powers rage,
when cruelty roars,
when the darkness says, “This is the end”—
we will answer with our lives:
No. This is where love begins.
Because even now—
especially now—
Love wins.
No matter the cost.
No matter the silence.
No matter the tomb.
Love. Wins.
And we will live for that love.
We will share that love. We will bear witness to the light of that love that the darkness cannot extinguish.Because in the end love always wins.
Amen.
