Meditations on the Crucifix – Good Friday

Meditations for “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”

Good Friday

(Adapted from Kenneth Korby From CPRVol 15, Part 2, Series A “Meditating on the Crucifix”)

INI

Meditation #1 – Intro

The Crucifix is a long-standing fixture in the Christian tradition. By meditating on it, we fix our faith on this act of God to forgive. In this meditation, faith is strengthened. Thus, our election is strengthened. John 3:13-15 says, “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Hence, throughout Christian history, the faith and meditating on the passion of Jesus became synonymous. In many Catholic churches, and even some Lutheran churches, there’s the “stations of the cross” throughout the sanctuary. Each station is an invitation to take in the depths of love that Christ has for us. Each station is riddled with the sufferings of Christ.

While we don’t have that here, we do have a most glorious picture for our meditation – the crucifix. In some of his passion sermons, Luther invited folks to fix their eyes on the crucifix as they prayed or meditated on the Scriptures. Tonight, we will do the same as we sing “O Sacred Head Now Wounded”, which is a series of poems by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, made into a hymn by Paul Gerhardt. This hymn is a meditation on the body of Christ, set to a crucifix.

The point of this mediation is not to evoke pity for Jesus, nor strive in some physical and emotional way to “imitate” Jesus. Meditation is for nurturing the life of faith, training in the fear and love of God, and turning to Him in a life of repentance. So, if you weep, do not weep for Jesus’ sake. Weep for yourself. Because your sin, my sin, all sin, caused this. So, in this meditation, we renew our grasp on Jesus, through which we are cleansed, sustained, and preserved in the true faith to our end.

To meditate is to think with the heart, and love with the mind. It is to practice the discipline of listening to God tell us how He overcame His wrath by His mercy in the suffering and death of His beloved Son. To mediate is to be trapped in adoration and awe. You may have seen meditation in this way in a young child, who sees their father or mother do a seeming impossible task, and they just stare in complete wonder and awe. Or this meditation you’ve experienced in the love between a husband and wife – they stare into each other’s eyes with fullness and contentment, with awe and wonder, of the other. That is to mediate. That is to think with the heart, and love with the mind. One can hardly get enough of it.

Meditating on the crucifix is similar. We can’t get enough of it. Because Jesus’ great love is shown, in action – staring you in the face. You, are the recipient of such selfless love. And so, our meditations tonight look at each aspect of Jesus on the cross, as the hymn describes.

So let us now sing stanza 1 of our hymn. Pay attention to the first part of Jesus’ body that we meditate on: his head.

Meditation #2 – The Head of Jesus

Our meditation tonight begins with the head of Jesus – crowned with thorns.

Mankind thinks with their heads. Due to original sin, our thoughts are self-centered. Our thoughts are constantly filled with ungodly things – entertainments, pet sins, our stomachs, satisfying every pleasure or impulse that races through our bodies. That’s how we normally go about our days – until we get into trouble – and only THEN does God pass through our minds, our thoughts. Then, we attempt to manipulate God for OUR purposes. Because ultimately, we believe we belong to ourselves. And we think we know what way is best. When things don’t go our way, we believe God is unfair to us. Our bitterness drives us away from Him. Our bitterness leads to His absence from our thoughts.

But in Jesus’ time of trouble, what was His thought? What thought was in Christ’s head on the cross? His thoughts are about you. Not about Himself. His thoughts are good, not evil. Not full of malice.

What did Jesus think of Himself? Was He self-loving? I mean He was the Son of God afterall… Yet that important position wasn’t something to be grasped by Him. He didn’t lord His status over others. Instead of grasping on to His high position, He emptied Himself and became a slave, a servant. He thought of our lives, not his own. Because that’s what good servants do. His aim was to please His Father, and do the Father’s will in our stead.

The completion of the Father’s will ends with a crown of thorns. It’s bloody and gory. In that crown is pictured our hostile, prickly thoughts against God, against our neighbors, and sometimes, against ourselves. Our heads are full of ourselves thinking we know what to do and be. Yet Jesus bore all these evil thoughts we have.

Joyfully, we call this head, ours. For His thoughts toward God and us are what we pray will inform our thinking. We want to learn to think with the mind of Christ. For the thoughts of God toward us demonstrate the love of the cross.

Let us join in singing stanza two as we now meditate on the face of Jesus.

Meditation #3 – The Face of Jesus.

A hard glance of displeasure from Jesus’ eyes would be terrifying. At the cross, His face is stripped of its color. It’s discolored due to our sin and shame. Yet that face is the face of God’s glory and might. It’s the face of God who turns toward us to bless us with the fruit of His work.

Sinners rebel against this face of God. When we sin, whether we realize we do it or not, we mock, spit, jeer, and poke fun at God. We reveal ourselves to be really no different then the politicians, religious leaders, soldiers, and crowd who put Jesus to death.

But Jesus didn’t turn His face away from them in disgust. Neither does He turn His face away from you. He sets His face to go to Jerusalem’s cross, for the Father’s love was brought forth through Him.

The hatred of man is joined with the wrath of God against sinners at the cross. The color of Jesus’ cheeks is drained due to pain and despair. For death is cruel and saps life from the body. Lips have lost their color, just as they do at the moment of death. But what pours from those lips isn’t cursing and rage. Rather, He speaks grace, invitation, truth, and hope.

This is the face of the Lamb of God. His eyes are like magnets for His beloved. Look at Peter – at the judgment scene in the courts, Jesus locked eyes with Peter after He denied Jesus three times. So do His eyes lock with yours, His face turned toward you, inviting you to come back to Him. Come back to life. So that at the last day on the judgment seat, we shall see His face. The one who sentences us for all eternity is the same one who has bought you with His life. He intercedes for you before the Father. Turn your face frequently then, in your meditation to the face of Jesus. There, you will see God’s salvation for you.

Let us join in singing stanza three as we now meditate on the exchange of Jesus.

Meditation #4 – The Exchange of Jesus

Now, we meditate on the glorious exchange of the cross: Jesus takes our sin. He takes death’s punishment on sin in our stead. And we receive His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

In this exchange, we humble ourselves as Christ humbled Himself. We empty ourselves before the cross in the confession of sins. As the hymn says, “mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.” Jesus bears the burden of your sin on Himself. We don’t say this to evoke pity for Jesus. That’s not honoring or meditating the cross. You honor Him by letting Him take the enormity of your sinful burden. You don’t cling to it. Jesus absorbed it. Let it be His. For this purpose, He was sent. He was sent to take your sin, and have mercy on sinners. So, in our confession, we say with the hymn – “Look on me with Favor, and grant to me thy grace.”

Because that’s the exchange – your sin, for His grace. Your hell-deserved actions, for the unfair bestowment of His righteousness upon you. Through which, you find life with God. You are clothed with righteousness which is foreign to you. It belongs to God. For He is our guardian, at the cross. From His lips come forth forgiveness, not condemnation. God’s plans and purposes set forth from the first Adam in Genesis, find fulfillment here in the second Adam, by which all mankind finds redemption, atonement, and life.

Let us join in singing stanza four as we now meditate on the heart of Jesus.

Meditation #5 – The Heart of Jesus

Now we turn our meditation to the heart of Jesus, our Good Shepherd. A shepherd’s heart is unique. His heart is completely self-giving. His attention and devotion are solely set on protecting the sheep. At all cost. A shepherd will sacrifice his life and safety to protect the sheep. From wolves, bears, and other predators, a shepherd, as a guardian, never wavers from His duty.

The Good Shepherd protects you at His cross. He protects you from the devil, who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to have you grasp on to your sin, that he may drag you down to hell with him. But the shepherd protects you from him with His own life – completely self-giving and self-sacrificial.

Consider how the loving heart of Jesus allowed Himself to be stretched out on the cross. In these outstretched arms, we consider two things: 1) his embrace of the whole world to himself. And 2) the shadow of his wings is the place of your hiding safety.

For from underneath these outstretched arms, the side of Jesus is pierced. And out flows the rivers of mercy – the water for your baptismal cleansing. The blood for your atonement. The mercy of Christ is so vast. We weep – not for him, but for us – for from that side flow the gifts of life for you.

Let us join in singing stanza five as we now meditate on the feet of Jesus.

Meditation #6 – The Feet of Jesus

Jesus walked a long road to the cross. The Gospels show Jesus’ footsteps and face set toward Jerusalem, toward the cross, that He may be the perfect sacrifice and finish the road of salvation. Now these feet, wounded by the sins of man, achieve their final goal at the cross.

What is the goal of our feet? Ultimately, our face, our feet, should be set towards life with God. But the journey back to God is a long way. It is far from the place of death, which is a road all of us shall pass through. Weariness and fatigue plague the faith of many Christians. Our love grows cold, and we possibly outlive our waning love for God.

Yet the enduring love that Jesus has for you lasts to the end. His love at the cross is the flame at which you re-ignite your flame of love for Him. Such love we have for God though is not based in “feeling” or emotion. Such love for Christ looks to, holds, clings to, learns from, and walks wherever the feet of Jesus trod.

The journey God takes you on goes through the valley of the shadow of death. But we trust where our Shepherd brings us.

Let us join in singing stanzas six and seven as we now meditate on the death of Jesus.

Meditation #7 – The Death of Jesus

“Soul and Body Languish” says the hymn. Certainly this describes the sufferings of man. Weariness plagues us in this life, but the suffering intensifies at the moment of death. Whatever our sufferings may be – the death of dreams, the starvation of hope in the world, neglect of the soul, troubles with our families, or the fatigue that comes from self-sacrificing so much. We call to our Savior to conquer the weariness we cannot. To take away the anguish of our bodies and souls through His victory on the cross. In this, we find refuge in the death of Christ as we go throughout this life.

Yet we also find refuge in the death of Christ as we approach physical death. Our last stanza shows us a heart of faith as death approaches. It’s a classic text used for the for meditation as one nears death. It is said that the author of this hymn, Bernard of Clairvaux, when he was dying, there were monks surrounding his bed, praising him for what he had done in life. But he hushed them and told them to hold a crucifix before his eyes.

He wrote: In death, remind me of your passion dear Jesus. My eyes shall then behold thee and my eyes shall be fixed upon thy cross. Then by faith, I shall enfold thee.

Pastor Joshua Ralston