Sermon for Good Friday

Hebrews 4:14-16 (Good Friday—Series A)

“We Can Now Come Near”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

April 3, 2026

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is from the Epistle Reading recorded in Hebrews 4:

¹⁴Therefore, because we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast the confession. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in every way like us, but without sin. ¹⁶Therefore, let us come near to the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

          Why do Christians around the world gather to observe Good Friday, the day Jesus died? Services on this day are not funeral services or memorial services for Jesus. We do not come together as God’s people simply to remember that 2000 years ago Jesus died in excruciating agony of body on soul on a Roman cross outside the city of Jerusalem. Good Friday is not meant to be a day of historical remembrance like December 7, Pearl Harbor or April 19, Lexington and Concord. While we do remember and give thanks for the death of Jesus, we do so with the purpose of hearing His Word. And by hearing what the Lord says to us in Scripture, we might better understand, believe, and confess what Jesus’ death accomplished for us in our current reality. The hymnwriter put it this way, “The death of Jesus Christ, our Lord, We celebrate with one accord; It is our comfort in distress,Our heart’s sweet joy and happiness.”[1]

          Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, and death are for us Christians true comfort, sweet joy, and the happiness of faith. By His agony and bloody sweat, by His cross and passion, by His precious death and burial, Jesus grants us access to God the Father “so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” The author of Hebrews speaks of “our weaknesses” in today’s text so that we might come to understand better our need of mercy and grace.

          In the Book of Hebrews, “weakness” does not refer to physical weakness, disability, or sickness, but to human vulnerability and weakness in the face of temptation that results in sin and from sin. You and I suffer from the weaknesses that come from our sins against God, the physical and spiritual infirmities that disable us and disqualify us from God’s presence. Psalm 24:3-6, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Yahweh? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully” (Psa. 24:3-4). Only those people who are physically blameless and spiritually pure can approach God with the full assurance of His acceptance. Sinners who attempt to come before God in an unclean condition, with their sins still clinging to them, desecrate His holiness and incur His wrath.

          And that is how you and I exist in our natural, sinful condition. Since the fall into sin, the will of mankind is so blind and corrupt that we can choose only to do evil. We are spiritually dead by nature, enemies of God and naturally hostile toward Him.^[2] 1 Corinthians 2:14, “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.” To come into the presence of the holy God in this fallen condition would be immediate death. Consider Moses on Mt. Sinai when God was about to pass by him. “And [God] said, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live’” (Ex. 33:19-20 ESV).

          The death of Jesus and His resurrection from the dead changes this reality. Your entry into God’s presence depends completely on Jesus. As the Father’s Son, who reigns with Him and the Holy Spirit over heaven and earth, the Lord Jesus speaks God’s Word to us from heaven to earth. He has given us the Scriptures, breathed out by the Holy Spirit, with the Good News of our new reality before God our heavenly Father. You and I have a High Priest who is perfectly able to sympathize with our spiritual weakness and our sinful uncleanness.

          Jesus’ sympathy doesn’t mean that He just “feels” what we feel and as we feel. The word συμπαθῆσαι (sympathesai) implies that Jesus suffers with us. The Son of God became fully human so that He might join us in our suffering and suffer what we suffer at the hands of sin and death. Jesus as our High Priest is uniquely “without evil, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Heb 7:26). But He took on human flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin so that He might stand with sinners in our temptations. Jesus stood alongside humanity in the Jordan River and received a baptism, not for His own sins, but for ours as our substitute. He willingly went to the horrible death of crucifixion to endure death and the God-forsakenness of hell, not for His own sins, but in order to pay the debt of sin that we owe with His own death in our place. Jesus suffered with and for sinners and took upon Himself their sin and removed it from us all. Hebrews 9, “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Heb. 9:26 ESV).

          Jesus Christ, God’s Son, our Savior, in His perfect life and death suffered all that we ever suffer—without sin. He took all the sin, all the suffering of God’s wrath and punishment against sin, and was not overtaken by it. Sin’s toxicity did not poison Jesus in His dealings with sinful humanity. He overcame sin and death for you and me with His perfect life and death. His resurrection from the dead proves that His sacrifice on Good Friday was complete. “It is finished!” Forgiveness for all sin has been won for you and me. Death no longer has power over us.

          The Word of God that we have come to hear this day bestows upon us comfort, joy, and happiness. It not only declares us forgiven but also delivers to us personally the very forgiveness of sins that Christ won for us with His death and resurrection. Jesus bridged the gulf between heaven and earth, joined sinful humanity in our alienation from God, perilously and at great cost, so that He might rejoin us safely to God our Father.

          Our new reality is that, as the forgiven and redeemed children of God, we are privileged to “come near to the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Like a good King, God the Father makes Himself available to His people. We are no longer separated from Him because of our sins. We have full and complete access to Him through our great High Priest, Jesus Christ. He has “passed through the heavens” in His resurrection and ascension and has been enthroned at the right hand of the Father. Jesus has opened up the way for us to enter into God’s heavenly house so that we might go into that place and enter it together with Christ.

          In the Divine Service, we as a congregation of God’s people in Christ have access to heaven here on earth through our Crucified and Risen Savior. We come near to the throne of God’s grace as we hear the Good News preached into us through the sermon. We come before God’s throne here to receive gifts from Him not only through His Word but also through His Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

In the Divine Service, we receive God’s mercy and grace through these Means as the Spirit delivers the gifts of Jesus’ cross to us personally—forgiveness of sins, eternal life, rescue from death and the devil, salvation. The Lord strengthens of our most holy faith so that we do “hold fast the confession” that Jesus Christ died for us and rose for us. He is our great Hight Priest who welcomes us to come to the Father’s throne of mercy to find a gracious Father waiting with open arms to give us His gifts of forgiveness and life.

          Why do Christians around the world gather to observe Good Friday, the day Jesus died? On Good Friday Jesus made full atonement for the sins of the whole world by His sacrificial death. At His death, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom to show that the way to God’s heavenly throne, the throne of grace, was open for all redeemed and forgiven sinners through faith in Him as our Lord, Savior, and Hight Priest.

          Through Jesus, you and I as God’s people can now come near to the Father at all times, but especially in the Divine Service, in order to receive grace and mercy from Him. In and through Jesus, the great High Priest of our confession (Heb. 3:1), continue to receive pardon for your sins and ask for any other help you may need—when, where, and as you need it. And all of it is a free gift from your heavenly Father through His Son, Jesus Christ, in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

     [1] LSB 634, “The Death of Jesus Christ, Our Lord.” St. 1.

     ^[2] Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 477.