Sermons 2026

GOOD FRIDAY SERMON OUTLINE

Introduction: Everything is for us.
I. The love of God is before us on the cross.
II. The Word made flesh now gives His life for us.
III. Be His own, live under Him, and serve Him.
Conclusion

SERMON

Tonight, we will continue to look at the ancient hymn “O Love, How Deep” and see the love of God before us on the cross as we heard in John 19:28-30.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to His mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished,” and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. (John 19:28–30)

Jesus was at work for us throughout His life and ministry. Everything Jesus did, He did for you. His incarnation and birth, His daily breath and work, His Baptism, temptation, and bloody sweat, His betrayal and rejection, and now—even now—His very death on the beloved, shameful cross. As we heard in the hymn O Love How Deep:

5. For us by wickedness betrayed,
For us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death;
For us He gave His dying breath.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Mary, is suspended between Heaven and Earth on the cross. He is suffering, bleeding, and dying. His thinking is all about your and my salvation, as He says with His last dying breath, tetelestai, or in English, “It is finished.” [Brief pause.] That completion, that finishing, that fulfillment is the pivotal point upon which all of the history of the world pivots. It is that point when God’s divine plan for us and for our salvation came to its glorious culmination. Tetelestai: “It is finished.”

If the essence of God is love and mercy, then this death, this giving up of His spirit, is the greatest act of love there has ever been. This love is not merely a good feeling that comes and goes, depending upon the whim of our emotions. No, this love—agape —is a selfless, unconditional love is wholly unlike any other love that the world has ever known.

We get glimpses of this type of love at times upon this earth: the love of a mother for her infant child, the bond of friendship between soldiers at war, the love of a husband and wife after fifty years or more of holy matrimony. All of these are images, if you will, of the love that Jesus has given and shown to us on the cross. As Jesus Himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

It is difficult for us to imagine this self-giving love, this sacrifice of the ages. This sacrifice is so foreign to us. We live in an age where sacrifice means nothing, the very notion of giving something up is almost laughable. Why should I sacrifice any part of my possessions, and income, much less my very life for you or anyone else?

Because this very kind of self-sacrifice was built into us in creation. God made us to live and give of ourselves for the good of the world and everyone around us. When we lost that impulse, because of the Fall,  that drive to be there for someone else no matter what, we lost the very essence of what it means to be human and the very essence of what it means to be divine.

Jesus, the one who is both God and man, both divine and human, brings us back into a right relationship with God. Jesus is God and man in one person. In that lovely unity, Jesus reconciles a just and holy God with sinful man. A reconciliation that came at a terrible price.

So it is that Jesus, the very Word made flesh, who breathed life into all things, breathes His last dying breath.

Dr. Luther reminds us why Jesus did all of this for us in the Small Catechism. He says,
That I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. (Small Catechism, Creed, Second Article)

Jesus breathed His last on the cross so that you may be and live and serve. You are His own, His beloved, His precious one. You live under Him, for He is your King who has died for you. Serve Him not because you must, but because Jesus has freed you from the shackles of sin and Satan and death forever.

Tetelestai: “It is finished.”  Everything for your salvation, forgiveness, and life forever with Him is completed.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep, your hearts, and minds, in Christ Jesus. 
Amen.