Welcome to worship today at Morrison Zion Lutheran Church.  We exist to glorify God.  We have set out to do this by gathering around the Gospel so that we may grow in the Gospel and go to others with this Gospel.

Now is the day of God’s favor.  Now is the day of salvation.  Amen.

In Christ, dear fellow redeemed:

Did you notice the progression in the Psalms, in the Isaiah reading, and in the Lamentations from Jeremiah the prophet that we just read?  Psalm 2 starts out with the nations taking their stand against God and against His Anointed One—that would be Christ.  That’s what we’ve read throughout our Lenten season in the Passion History of our Savior.  We see them encircle Him and attack Him.  And this was written a thousand years before it happened.

In Psalm 22 (the Good Friday Psalm) we heard much of what we heard earlier today as we listened to the Seven Words from Jesus on the Cross.  You see what the Messiah would have to go through described in intricate detail of His suffering, of everything He would have to endure to pay for the sins of the world.

In Psalm 27, did it remind you at all of Jesus’ trial?  False witnesses rise up against Him and yet through it all “The LORD is my light and my salvation.  Of whom shall I be afraid?  What can man do to me?”

A thousand years before it happened, the Holy Spirit had the psalmists give a picture of what Jesus would go through to live in our place and to die in our place to take away the guilt of our sin.

Then we hear in Isaiah this desperate plea from our God, not to put off being close to Him, not to say that we can do it later but seek the Lord while He may be found.  Jesus did this, not just for the world, He did this for YOU!  Why would you not want to be close to the One who loves you that intensely and intimately that He would go through all of that?  That’s His desire.  But what does He see?

The Lamentations of Jeremiah the prophet, not just the nations taking a stand against Him, but His people, His chosen, those who were His treasured possession that He had spent so much time and energy on getting them to the right place at the right time so that the Messiah could be born.  And what did they do?  They turned their backs on Him.  They wandered away from Him.  And they blamed Him, much like we do today.  And yet, through it all, even though that fire that went into His bones (the last reading that we had from Jeremiah), we see what the Messiah knew He was going to have to do for us.  “My bone is on fire because sin has been tied up in a yoke and placed on me.”  That’s what Jesus did for you.

So now, as Jesus is there, on the cross, and He takes the wine vinegar, gathers His breath to utter His next to last statement, He says “It is finished.”  He’s not talking about His life.  He’s not just talking about His 33 years here on this earth.  He’s talking about what the psalmists talked about.  He’s talking about what Isaiah talked about.  He’s talking about what Jeremiah talked about.  He’s talking about the plan that the Father, the Son and the Spirit had before the creation of the world to take away your sins; to pour out the Spirit into your heart through this message so that you would know the guilt of your sin is finished.  It has been removed completely and absolutely, not by you, not by your efforts, not by your intentions but by a Savior who had talked about this for thousands of years and then entered time and from the cross uttered one word that is recorded for us in the Greek language:  “Tetelestai.”  (“It is finished.”)  It’s the word a shop keeper would write on a bill when it was paid in full.  The guilt of your sin is removed.  Jesus endured all of this because He wants you in heaven.  Amen.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ^{(Philippians 4:7)} Amen.