A New Sacrifice

Good Friday, April 18

Have you ever witnessed a group of sheep being sheared? For those of us who grew up far away from the farm, we may have developed a romanticized view of it. We imagine that the sheep make their way to the pin and quietly give up their wooly coats. No muss; no fuss. And so we may read a verse like the one from Isaiah, which foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus, and see it as some type of normal experience.

One of our alumni, Bailey Pylant, recently began a new adventure as a sheep farmer (I would highly encourage you to follow her journey on Instagram), and the stories she tells about her experience with the sheep and the process can run chills up your spine. In reality, the sheep do not corporate. They push, they struggle, and they make a lot of noise.

That makes sense. The animal is being forced to do something it doesn’t want to do, and we would act the same way. Nobody wants to be manhandled. Nobody wants to be forced into something against their will. Nobody wants to be sent to slaughter. Except for Jesus.

As we reflect today on the significance of Good Friday, take a moment to read back through the description of this day with fresh eyes. Each Gospel writer gives us a unique glimpse of crucifixion as well as the trials that led up to the cross, and what should strike us is how quiet Jesus really was during these final moments.

Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus never lacked for words. He was the great teacher, the one who could humbly answer any question with a depth and authority nobody else could. His Sermon on the Mount is the most famous speech in the history of mankind, and the lesson he gave at the Last Supper is an amazing blend of instruction, kindness, and preparation. In fact, the next time you look through one of the Gospels, marvel at how many words are in red. Jesus spoke a lot.

In His final moments before death, however, He remained comparatively, and oddly, silent. His interactions with the High Priest and Pilate are fairly limited. Along the road to the cross, He comforts a group of mourners and warns them of the coming days. At the cross, He speaks forgiveness to His captors, and in the end, He commits His Spirit to His Father, claiming, “It is finished.”

For someone who said so much in His lifetime, the lack of words in this moment should be jarring.

Throughout history, we have stories upon stories of people giving their brave last words. Sometimes, they are words of defiance, as Nathan Hale did with his famous line, “I regret that I have only one life to give for my country,” or the famous scene in Braveheart where William Wallace cries out “Freedom” as he is being slaughtered. We think that at the end of life, our final words should inspire others, push them to pursue some lofty goal or cause, or, in the case of

unlawful incarceration, proclaim lasting innocence, thus condemning the execution as a miscarriage of justice. The words spoken are meant to sum up their life.

Yet here, in the last moments, Jesus remains silent. Why?

He does so because He knows the importance of this moment. He doesn’t need to resist, He doesn’t need to complain, he doesn’t need to teach, He doesn’t need to argue, and, in fact, He doesn’t need to inspire. He needs to be the sacrifice.

Through the rebellion of Adam and Eve, sin entered the world and with it the penalty for sin, which is separation and death. The seed of that rebellion, and in turn, the punishment for the sin, has been passed down from generation to generation to generation. Like those who condemned Jesus, as well as those who abandoned Him, mankind is hopeless against this penalty.

This sense of hopelessness, interestingly enough, is almost built into the DNA of humanity, and for centuries people have been trying to overcome sin’s penalty through sacrifice. Various cultures have developed forms religious expressions that center on sacrifice, often animal in nature but sometimes even human. None of these pagan expressions turn to the true God, yet it still demonstrates a sense of longing for connection with the divine through the act of sacrifice. Unfortunately, these sacrifices are in the end worth nothing.

In the Bible, we see the earliest forms of sacrifice to the true God taking place with Cain and Able, and moving on to Noah, Abraham, and others. Through Moses, God provides the Law for His people as sacrifice becomes institutionalized through the priests and Temple worship. While these sacrificial offerings demonstrated an way to remain connected to God through repentance, it was only a temporary, had to be repeated regularly, and in the end remove the penalty.

Jesus understood this cold, hard truth that no matter how hard man tried, they could never overcome the separation.

Throughout His earthly ministry, He used His words and actions to reveal the Kingdom of God. He explained the deep truths of who God is and how He cares for us, and He demonstrated the veracity of His words through signs and wonders. Through Him, we could see God.

Yet none of His previous words or actions could have any lasting meaning without the cross. The only way that we could know God, not just see God, was through sacrifice—not the old sacrifices that ultimately couldn’t overcome the separation, but rather a new sacrifice that paid the penalty in full and invites us to enter the Kingdom.

Going back to the question, why is He silent in this moment? Because at this moment, words won’t matter. What matters is action, and the only action that could be taken to secure a path for us to know God was through the Cross.

So Jesus steels Himself on the path to the Cross. He sets Himself up as a sacrifice. He resists any urge to struggle or argue. And He gives up His spirit.

This Good Friday, perhaps we should join Jesus in the silence. Take a break from all of the words we use to try to explain God. Take a break from all of the vain sacrifices we give to try to please

God. Take a break from our striving and instead silently look to the Cross, pondering the meaning of this incredibly moment.

Ask the Father to reveal to you the full significance of the new sacrifice, and then humbly and simply respond with gratitude.

We don’t need big speeches or brave final words. We need Jesus, and thank God that He sent Him to the cross.