As you know, the church year has seasons, and each season has a dominant theme. It is also true that standing next to each season’s theme is the ultimate reality, the ultimate theme to which all things in the Christian faith must return: namely, the cross of Good Friday of Jesus Christ.
The season of Epiphany is about the Son of God who revealed Himself to the whole world in the person and work of Jesus the Nazarene, Jesus the Christ. Epiphany celebrates the fact that the light has come into the darkness, and that the darkness could not overcome it. The word means to make manifest, to have a revelation: something is revealed, knowledge comes to a person that changes everything. Metaphorically, a light comes on, and now the person understands something he previously did not comprehend.
Our opening hymn this morning, “Thy Strong Word,” celebrates that kind of epiphany. It was written by Dr. Martin Franzmann (1907-1976), one of the LCMS’s best Bible scholars and musicians, published in 1969. “Thy strong word did cleave the darkness; at Thy speaking it was done.” In this hymn we sing of three eternal truths: God the Father, God the Son, light of light begotten, and the cross, the crucifixion of Jesus on Good Friday.
Now that is not what it looks like, is it? Each and every Good Friday service in this building, we celebrate the Tenebrae, the service of darkness. It does not look bright. It is a service of God’s judgment against our sin and the crucifixion of His very own Son. The church goes dark, and then the slamming of the book signifies the darkness and closing of the tomb. It is not until Easter sunrise that the cross and the darkness of Good Friday give way to the resurrection and the glorious light.
Until then, everything appears to be darkness. And that often happens in our own Christian lives, does it not? Circumstances, darkness, and woe can consume us and drive us to despair. Many people, Christians included, do not look upon Christ or themselves or the world with the vision given in the Word of God. They see things with natural eyes; they think with the natural mind. Many Christians shy away from crucifixes like ours. They do not like a cross with the body on it; they find the symbol uncomfortable and dark.
A few decades ago I expressed my opinion that every faithful congregation should have a crucifix on the wall behind the altar. A Pietist Lutheran replied, “Jesus didn’t stay on the cross, so Christians ought not make it the centerpiece.” By that standard, St. Paul was a lousy preacher, for he wrote by the Holy Spirit, “I determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
The natural man looks upon the work of Jesus and the work of the Church as something supposed to be filled with happy-clappy good deeds, a glorious life of successful ventures and positive attitudes. The idea that God does His greatest work in suffering, on and under the cross in the life of the Christian, makes no sense to the world, and very little sense to Christians themselves. The cross is foolishness to the unbeliever, and to many Christians as well.
But to look rightly on the cross, that is, to have a true Christ-centered epiphany, St. Paul says we must be spiritually enlightened. “We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” Notice: taught by the Spirit. It is catechesis. Where are those spiritual truths found? In the text of the Bible. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” Spiritually does not mean separate from the biblical text; it means in it.
The cross is our epiphany. It is the place where Jesus atoned for our sins and declared, “It is finished.” And it was in Christ’s crucifixion, in the moment we ourselves are claimed by the Gospel through the spoken and baptized Word, that we are snatched from darkness and made children of light. This does not happen by adopting human wisdom and philosophies, but only by the words of God and the Holy Spirit enlightening and working in us those words.
Paul did not show up in Corinth to entertain or put on a great performance, to be contemporary or relevant. He did not conduct revival meetings. He was all about catechesis: preaching, teaching, doing the hard work of educating and enlightening people with the biblical text. “I did not come to proclaim the testimony of God with fancy display of words or wisdom. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling. I did not use clever words to persuade you, but I let the Spirit demonstrate its power, so that your faith might not depend on the wisdom of men but on the power of God.”
The visible church today is filled with people who know how to market the building and the message, who know how to manipulate emotions and move a crowd. They think they know how to read and teach the Bible, but they are missing the theological epiphany that is the cross. And the cross is an epiphany that leads to one epiphany after another; it opens a whole world of understanding.
Paul understood what an epiphany is: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” But we speak wisdom to those who are mature. The writer to the Hebrews is amazed that after all the preachers and teachers they had, they were still drinking milk rather than eating steak. This is where the season of Epiphany meets Good Friday: in the crucifixion there is the key to all understanding of the Old and New Testaments.
Epiphany is about God in Christ manifesting Himself before Jew and Gentile alike. To this end the season often contains readings about the miracles Jesus did, so people would know He was the Son of God. Those miracles were obvious: the blind received sight, the deaf heard, the dead were raised, the lame walked. But the greatest of all miracles, the one that can only be seen with the eyes of faith and believed with the heart of faith, is the atoning sacrifice. You see a crucified Jesus, but only by faith do you come to believe and understand that in that act alone the sins of the world have been atoned for. There is no proof of that; it is a theological truth that must be believed.
To know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified does not mean it is the only topic for the Christian. Paul himself touches on almost every human activity: marriage, divorce, lawsuits, conflicts, eating meat sacrificed to idols, parents and children, respect for government, the hope of the resurrection, spiritual gifts, freedom in Christ, church discipline, and especially love and service to the neighbor. Every aspect of human life is dealt with under the cross and in the cross of Good Friday.
Many think we should only talk about Jesus dying for our sins and be silent about everything else, avoiding topics of cultural relevance, avoiding politics, which is nothing other than the ordering of good human conduct. Some have left this church over thirty years for that reason: “Don’t mix religion and politics.” But to restrict our interest to just Jesus and what a nice guy He was to die for our sins misses Paul’s point. To know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified means every aspect of life is revealed in the cross. All of it is paid for; all of it is redeemed.
Our failure to help our neighbor keep his life, family, money, property, name, and reputation is paid for on the cross. We cling to the cross because the cross enlightens everything else; it is the light. “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Name a topic and I will show you how the cross speaks to it.
You want to talk about sin? The cross shows just how seriously God the Father took our sin: He killed His own Son to atone for it. “Ye who think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great, here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.” The cross also shows what kind of God we have and what He has done for our salvation: He did not spare His Son but gave Him up for us. How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?
If He loved us enough to take on flesh and die for us in that flesh and rise in that flesh, then He will certainly save us when He comes in glory. The cross is the key to all wisdom, and once you have it, the Gospel reveals one epiphany after another and changes our whole relationship, even our relationship to the Law. Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
In the cross we see both Law and Gospel. The cross teaches us how to live under both, in relationship to God our Father and to our fellow human beings. Those who do not understand the cross view the Law as bad, a constant reminder that they do not measure up. But in the Gospel it becomes life to us; we delight in walking in it. The new nature delights in denying oneself, taking up one’s cross, and following Christ, and delights in loving and serving the neighbor.
So the two lessons this morning: “Let your light shine before others, so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” And, “Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
The cross opens one epiphany after another, one revelation after another. The cross reveals God’s character of love, how He works all things, even bad things, for our good. Do not ever move beyond the cross. Rather, allow the cross to cast its light on all topics, all circumstances. Always be ready to say with St. Paul, “I decided to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” because that is where all your sins have been atoned for and you have been made new, so that people see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Amen.