“Sounds of the Passion”
Original sermon given on Good Friday, April 18, 2025 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
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“Sounds of the Passion”
John 18.1—19.42
John 18.1—19.42
In the name of the Living God and the crucified Christ. Amen.
On Good Friday we normally focus particular attention on the sights we behold. We “see” the Passion of our Lord this week. The great hymn “Jesus, I Will Ponder Now” (which we sang to begin worship) bids us cherish the image of his suffering pain and death. We prayed in this hymn, “Make me see Your great distress, anguish, and affliction… Make me see how scourge and rod, spear and nails did wound You.” This is indeed a beautiful way to meditate upon what our Lord has done for us — to pause and cherish the image and sights of all that unfolds this week is indeed edifying for us, if it is also difficult.
But there is also another way to reflect on the sufferings of Jesus today, besides meditating on its sights. We also can meditate on its sounds. While we can ask, “What would things look like had we been there to see it?” we can also ask, “What would it all sound like, if we had been there to hear it?”
Listen with me for a few moments: what did Good Friday sound like? Weapons clamoring in a garden, an ear sliced off a servant. Can you hear a cross being dragged through the streets and a man stumbling and striving to carry it? There is lots of shouting. You hear as God’s voice thunders from heaven, “I have glorified my name and will glorify it again.” The crowd’s cries out “Crucify Him!” The soldiers shout mocking words at the crucifixion. Amid the intensity of all this noise, if we listen carefully, we can hear the whimpers and pleadings of a mother who is seeing her own son killed before her eyes.
And what are the sounds of a man being crucified? We see them so often on Good Friday, but can we also hear them? What does a whip tearing flesh sound like? Or thorns pushing into a skull bone? Or nails piercing flesh? What does the sudden sound of blood mixed with water flowing to the ground sound like? How awkward might the sounds be of trying to remove a body spiked to wood up in the air? And then there’s the cold three-day sound of a silent tomb…
This is not enough, however. If we hear only this, we’ve only heard a grotesque human tragedy, one done tens of thousands of times in history, and nothing more. These are simply the sounds of the means of the passion. Most importantly, faith hears this week the sound of the motives of the passion. That is, we have not truly meditated upon these things until we listen past these sounds and perceive one thing behind it all: the heart of God. The heart of God beating in love for me, for you, and even for the whole world. More than anything, these sounds of the passion are signs of the passion our God has for sinners of every place, in every time, in every predicament.
In 1519, Martin Luther set out to write a “Meditation on Christ’s Passion.” It was a rather busy time for him, those early days of the Reformation, but he labored to complete it because it felt it so important to correct some misreadings of the significance of the Passion. It was an instant publishing success and became a classic work on the topic. He wrote that we must pass beyond merely contemplating our Lord’s sufferings, but we must perceive “his friendly heart and how this heart beats with such love for you that it impels him to bear with pain your conscience and your sin. Then your heart will be filled with love for him, and the confidence of your faith with be strengthened.”[1]
Let’s look and listen today. And let’s see and hear and perceive the heart of God beating for us in every sight and sound of suffering. Good Friday must be more than reflecting on the pathetic death of an innocent man; it must be more than just a fascination with the brutal torture of the son of God; it must be more than just feeling bad for poor abandoned Jesus. The Holy Spirit calls us to see, perceive and hear our Salvation being accomplished here: God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself. By his wounds we are healed; in the death of Christ we hear our forgiveness declared, we hear our salvation pronounced, we hear what God really has to say to us sinners: I love you, you are forgiven, not even the worst of this world can separate you from me.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] A Meditation on Christ’s Passion, 1519, WA 2, (130) 136–142. Translated by Martin H. Bertram, http://www.lutheranmissiology.org/Luther%20Meditate%20Passion%20of%20Christ.pdf