Good Friday
The story I am about to tell you is perhaps the most frequently used story in all of preaching. It has all the ingredients of a great sermon illustration: suspense, drama and emotion. The only problem is that it isn't accurate. Maybe you've heard it. It's the story of an engineer who operated a draw-bridge across a mighty river. With a control panel of levers and switches, he set into motion a monstrous set of gears that either lifted the bridge for the river traffic or closed it for the oncoming train.
One day the engineer took his young son to work with him. The fascinated boy hurled question after question at his dad. It was not until the span had opened to allow the passage of a ship that the father noticed the questions had ceased and his son had left the room. His pulse quickened. He looked outside. There was nothing below except the cold, gray concrete pier, disappearing into the river, churned white by the passing boat. Then he looked out and spied his son playing in the machinery; he was inspecting it like a government official and passing his chubby little hands, smeared with grease, over the armatures and shafts. The engineer was just about to go out and get the boy so he could swing the span shut, when a flashing light brought to his attention the approach of a passenger train.
There was not time to retrieve his son. The span must be closed. His heart leaped when he realized that his son would be crushed in the gears of that herculean machinery. A horrible dilemma mandated a horrible decision. Either his son would be killed or a trainload of hundreds of innocent passengers would be killed. With firm purpose, he reached for the closing lever.
A powerful story, isn't it? It's often used to describe the sacrifice of Jesus on Good Friday, and it is not without its parallels. It's true that God could not save man without killing his son. The heart of God the Father did twist in grief as he slammed the gears of death down on his Son. And sad but true, the innocent have whizzed by the scene of the crime, oblivious to the sacrifice that has just saved them from certain death.
But there is one inference in the story that's woefully in need of correction. Let me quote the prophet Isaiah. See if you can find the revealing phrase.
"He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, thought he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer." Isaiah 53:9-10
Did you see it? "It was the Lord's Will to crush him and cause him to suffer."
The cross was no accident. Jesus' death was not the result of a panicking, cosmological engineer. The cross wasn't a tragic surprise. The death of Jesus was anything but an unexpected peril. No, it was part of the original blueprint, written into the script, part of the plan from the beginning of time. The cross was the only way to rescue humankind from the deadly and eternal consequences of sin. That is why on this Good Friday we will give God our highest praise, our best worship and our utmost devotion.
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