Good Friday—The Annunciation
Dear friends in Christ. There are two kinds of Church Festivals. There are the fixed festivals—they happen every year on the same day, like Christmas is always 25 December. There are also moveable festivals—they happen each year on a different date, like Easter you never know from one year to the next. Today is a very special and unique day. We have the coming together of two major events/ festivals for our salvation. Every year the Feast of Our Lord’s Annunciation is 25 March, 9 months before Christmas—a fixed festival. This year, because of when Easter falls, today is also Good Friday. With these two events we have, on the same day, both the beginning event for our salvation and the event it led up to and that brought about our salvation—Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross.
Today is the Annunciation of our Lord when the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be the mother of the long promised Savior, the divine Savior and thus the Mother of God. When Mary said to the angel [Lk. 1.38], Let it be to me according to your word, from that moment of into all eternity, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is also true man. That’s the moment we find captured in the creed as we confess about Jesus: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary And was made man. And today we ponder the other great mystery of our faith made possible by the annunciation with the incarnation of our Lord—the death of God Himself to bring about the forgiveness of the sins of the world—your sins, my sins, the sins of all people ever to live. What a blessing for us today to gather here in our Lord’s house to hear and ponder on the same day these two great mysteries of the faith.
Our text begins simply enough: Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene… and the disciple whom He loved standing by. What a glorious picture of Christ’s Church down through the ages faithfully standing by His cross when all around there is only despising and contempt of Christ by the world!
And here’s also the picture of us here today: we are pondering our Lord’s holy Passion, gathering around our Lord’s cross to receive the blessings He brought about on the cross and gives us in His holy word and sacrament.
As we stand by the cross of Christ, what do we see? Do we see divine holy splendor? Hardly! We see suffering, shame and death. What do we see? A ghost/ phantom? No! We see a man, true man! The very fact that we see a true man on the cross is because Jesus is true, 100% man born of the virgin Mary.
Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother. Here’s the Annunciation in all its beauty, as the angel told Mary [Lk. 1.31]: And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. Jesus is true man born of a true woman; Jesus is truly one of us! Seemingly nothing too extraordinary—a son and a mother; but let’s look a little more closely. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son.” With these words Jesus was entrusting the care of His mother to His disciple, John. The annunciation—Jesus is the real son of a real mother. But here Jesus’ words go deeper. Here, He doesn’t call her, “mother” or “mom.” Instead He calls her Woman. Disrespect? Hardly! Jesus is pointing out with that simple word, Woman, just who Mary is and thus who He is who is on the cross. Here Jesus reminds us of the first promise God gave of the coming Savior as He was cursing Satan who had led Adam and Eve into sin [Gn. 3.15]: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your descendants and her Descendant; He shall crush your head, and you will bruise His heel. Did you notice-- and the woman? Jesus is identifying Mary as the woman. What woman in this prophecy? The one whose Descendant/ Child would crush Satan underfoot—although He, the Descendant/ Child would be bruised/ wounded in the process. That’s what was happening here! Jesus, the Descendant/ Child of the woman was crushing Satan’s head, destroying him and his power. And how was He doing it? There on the cross! But on the cross as Jesus was delivering that mortal blow to the devil, Jesus was wounded—merely wounded for He would rise again from the dead.
He said to His mother, “Woman.” How can we see fail to see this connection? In Eden, when led into sin, Eve was standing by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree with the forbidden fruit from which sin and death arose. Here, Mary is standing by the tree of the cross from which life springs forth. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother. What a beautiful connection between the Annunciation—Mary being chosen to be the mother of the Savior, the woman/ virgin long foretold—and Good Friday, the day her Son, God Himself, would die for the sins of the world and bring forgiveness of sin and life.
And as we read: Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, we are pointed to Jesus’ true humanity—that He is true man—in another way: Mary’s sufferings. This is real motherly suffering. She could not leave the cross because love for her Son held her firmly there. In earlier years she pondered and treasured in her heart all the miraculous events—like the Annunciation—surrounding her Son’s birth. When Jesus was 40 days old and she and Joseph brought Him into the temple, she heard Simon prophesying about Jesus and telling her [Lk. 2.35]: Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also, of her own sufferings because of His sufferings. That’s what she was now enduring. One of our Lutheran theologians [J. Gerhard] put it like this centuries ago: She sees Him hanging on the cross, but cannot touch Him; sees Him dripping with blood, but cannot remove it; sees Him wounded over His entire body, but cannot bind His wounds; hears Him cry, ‘I thirst,’ but may offer Him nothing to drink. Her sufferings are because Jesus is truly her Son; Jesus is true man, born of a real woman/ a real mother. There is and can be no doubt, Jesus is true man—the true God became also true man to be our Savior. That’s the point of the Annunciation which we celebrate today.
2. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene… and the disciple whom He loved standing by. What do we see in our text? What’s Good Friday about? Jesus suffering and dying on the cross. His blood is being shed. But what are suffering and dying, and blood? Things that Jesus could do only because He is also true man, born of the virgin Mary. God is spirit. He doesn’t have body and blood. But Jesus does because He is true man. God can’t die—but Jesus, the God-man could!
Not only that, but remember—Jesus came to be our Substitute. In order to be our Substitute—under God’s law, fulfilling it for us; and in suffering and death for sin—Jesus had to be like us, one of us, in every way. And thus true man!
But Jesus isn’t just true man, isn’t just Mary’s Son. He is also true God. That’s what Gabriel announced to Mary. Hers wasn’t just any baby/ son. She would be the Mother of God. As Gabriel told her [Lk 1.35]: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Although Jesus is true man as much as any of us are true human beings, He’s more! He’s true God. Our comfort is in Gabriel’s words to Mary. Notice, Jesus was not conceived in the usual manner. Mary is the virgin. But the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and fashioned from her what would be from then on into all eternity the human nature of the Son of God. By this Jesus was kept free from the corruption of Original Sin, which the rest of us are infected with from the moment of conception on. From the moment of conception on, Jesus was keeping for us completely and perfectly God’s holy Law—and He could because He is sinless—free from the corruption of original sin and as God unable to sin. What comfort for us! For when we, in spirit, stand with the women and John at the cross and see Jesus suffering and dying—we can be certain that it was not for His sins that He was suffering God’s wrath and condemnation. He had no sins! But He was suffering for our sins. Our sins were placed on Him. Our sins He willingly assumed and made His own.
Even here in our text, we see Jesus’ perfect fulfillment/ keeping of God’s holy Law for us. Even as He is suffering God’s wrath and damnation over sin—our sin—He is still to the very end obeying God’s holy law. There’s not one moment He wasn’t; He never “slipped”—even for a second. Here on the cross we hear: When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.
Jesus loved to the end and He obeyed the commandments to the end—all for us and our salvation. Even here, He was not filled with thoughts of self and His own suffering; He did not look to Mary, His mother, for comfort. Instead He turned His heart to her in love and in her suffering, and in perfect loving fulfillment of the 4th Commandment on loving and honoring parents Jesus entrusted her to “another son”—His disciple John so that even here she could feel safe and secure. Let us never think that there was just even once that Jesus did not obey the commandments—for us and our salvation.
Jesus suffered and died on the cross not for His sins, but as the world’s sinner—and that’s what made His suffering so terrible, the physical pain was dwarfed by this spiritual suffering of hell. His perfect love of us sinners kept Him on the cross suffering God’s punishment until every vial of God’s wrath had been fully emptied out on Him instead of us. Not only did Jesus show His love by what He went out and actively did—fulfilling the commandments—but also by willingly suffering and dying for us.
His was the perfect once for all sacrifice for the sins of the world because not only did the sinless God-man keep God’s law perfectly without sin, but the blood He shed was the blood of God Himself. Yes, God is spirit—but Jesus is also true man with blood to shed. Because it was divine blood that Jesus was shedding it has infinite value and worth for the sins of all. St. Paul describes the Church as [Ac 20.28]: purchased with [God’s] own blood.
Let there be no doubt that Jesus, our suffering Savior, is the true God and the only Savior of the world. To be sure, with Jesus suffering, bleeding and dying, it doesn’t look like He is the true God. But remember He is the God-man. That’s what the Annunciation teaches us; that’s why the Annunciation sheds such a comforting light on Good Friday. The Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity became also true man precisely so He could suffer and die for the sins of the world. The wonderful thing is that precisely in His suffering and death Jesus shows Himself to be who He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. About a week before the 1st Good Friday, Jesus said [John 12.27,32], Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I came to this hour….And I, if I am lifted up from the earth [by the cross of crucifixion], will draw all peoples to Myself.
Today, both the Annunciation and Good Friday, gives us the beginning and end of Jesus’ work to save us; and we learn who it was who died on the cross that first Good Friday to save us from our sins: Jesus the God-Man. INJ