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Good Friday 2023: Why should people consider something as dark and terrible as the shame and violence of the cross of Christ? When Jesus was betrayed, condemned, abused, crucified, died, and buried. Because you can't fully appreciate the majesty and the beauty and the power of the resurrection without first gazing upon the hill of Calvary. Recorded on Apr 7, 2023, on Matthew 27 by Pastor David Parks.l Sermon Transcript Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our Good Friday service. I’m Pastor David, and whether you’re joining us in person or online today, I’d like to welcome you to Appleton Gospel Church. As a church, our mission is sharing good news, and I hope you experience that today, even as we consider something as dark and terrible as the shame and violence of the cross of Christ. But I don’t think we can fully appreciate the majesty and the beauty and the power of the resurrection without first gazing at the hill of Calvary and consider the atoning sacrifice of the Son of Man, offered on our behalf. The darkness of Good Friday makes the light of Easter Sunday shine all the brighter. I don’t have many announcements for you today other than to invite you all back for Easter. We have two services on Sunday, one at 9:00 am and one at 10:30 am. But for now, would you join me in prayer as we open God’s word? Let’s pray. If you have a Bible/app, please take it and open to Matthew 27. As we’ve done in years past, we’re going to read through the whole account of the suffering, death, and burial of Jesus on that first Good Friday. I would encourage you to follow along in your own Bible as we will not be putting so much scripture up on the screens. Or, if you’d like to just listen to the narrative, that would be fine, too. I’ll only make a few comments on each section as we go. So first, we see the Son of Man betrayed. Betrayed: Matthew 27:1-10 (NIV), “Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. 2 So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor. 3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” “What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.” 5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. 6 The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. 8 That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, 10 and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.” Jesus knew and had told his disciples on at least three different occasions before arriving in Jerusalem that he would be delivered over to the Jewish chief priests and teachers of the law (elders) who would condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentile rulers to be killed. He knew this would happen, but he still came. This wasn’t an accident; the cross was central to the mission of Jesus. Part of the Roman occupation of Judea at this time meant that the Jewish people could not carry out capital punishments on their own. The chief priests and elders had condemned Jesus but they couldn’t put him to death. This is why Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in Jerusalem, was involved. Jesus had also known that one of his closest followers, Judas Iscariot, was going to betray him. If you’ve ever been betrayed by someone close to you, you know how much that hurts. Judas had sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, but then later changed his mind and couldn’t live with what he had done....