Good Friday: Are You Close to the Cross or Safe from It?
From the Sermon preached on April 3, 2026 | Psalm 56 | EASTER SUNDAY
Good Friday confronts every person with a question that goes deeper than doctrine: not merely "Do you believe in the cross?" but "Where are you standing in relation to it?" In Luke 23:44–49, the evangelist Luke the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles records three groups who witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, and their three responses expose something honest and uncomfortable about the human tendency to manage our distance from the love of God. The cross is not an inkblot. There is a right response — and the sermon preached at Apostles Church Uptown on Good Friday 2026 pressed that question with pastoral care and real urgency.
What Did Darkness at Noon and a Torn Curtain Actually Mean?
Before Luke turns to the witnesses, he records three events in rapid succession that amount to nothing less than a cosmic rearrangement. At noon on the day of Jesus's crucifixion, the sun failed. It did not cloud over; it went dark. For three hours. The prophet Amos, writing in Amos 8, had described this exact phenomenon as the sign of divine judgment — the sun failing at midday on the day God comes to reckon with the unfaithful. Luke is drawing on that text deliberately. The judgment that belonged to the unfaithful was falling — but not on the unfaithful. It was falling on the one person in that scene who had been entirely faithful. Jesus bore the darkness that was ours to bear.
Then the curtain of the temple was torn in two. This was not a decorative veil. Ancient accounts describe the curtain separating the outer courts from the Holy of Holies — the innermost chamber where the presence of God dwelt — as approximately three feet thick. Access to that space was governed by purity laws, proper credentials, and the rituals of the Levitical priesthood. One wrong step and you did not come in. The tearing of that curtain is God's own interpretation of what is happening on the cross: the barrier is gone. The thing that managed your access to God has been destroyed.
This is genuinely good news — and also genuinely disruptive. Because many of us have built our own interior curtains. We feel we can pray when we've had a decent week. We feel we can take communion when we don't feel too hypocritical. We hold God at arm's length not because of the Levitical law but because of our own moral ledger. God is tearing that curtain too. Access to his presence is no longer granted by your performance. It is granted by Christ, and Christ alone.
One small honest step: Identify one place where your emotional or spiritual state has been acting as a gatekeeper to prayer or worship. This week, come in anyway — not because you've earned it, but because the curtain is torn.
Then the curtain of the temple was torn in two. This was not a decorative veil. Ancient accounts describe the curtain separating the outer courts from the Holy of Holies — the innermost chamber where the presence of God dwelt — as approximately three feet thick. Access to that space was governed by purity laws, proper credentials, and the rituals of the Levitical priesthood. One wrong step and you did not come in. The tearing of that curtain is God's own interpretation of what is happening on the cross: the barrier is gone. The thing that managed your access to God has been destroyed.
This is genuinely good news — and also genuinely disruptive. Because many of us have built our own interior curtains. We feel we can pray when we've had a decent week. We feel we can take communion when we don't feel too hypocritical. We hold God at arm's length not because of the Levitical law but because of our own moral ledger. God is tearing that curtain too. Access to his presence is no longer granted by your performance. It is granted by Christ, and Christ alone.
One small honest step: Identify one place where your emotional or spiritual state has been acting as a gatekeeper to prayer or worship. This week, come in anyway — not because you've earned it, but because the curtain is torn.
If you want to go deeper into what Apostles Church Uptown believes about grace and access to God, explore it here.
Why Do People Feel Convicted by the Cross but Walk Away Unchanged?
Luke tells us the crowd came to the crucifixion as a spectacle. They wanted something to see. What they witnessed was not what they came for, and they left beating their breasts — a gesture of grief, guilt, and unresolved conflict. They were close enough to feel something. They were not close enough to be transformed by it.
This is one of the most quietly devastating observations in the passage. The crowd is not indifferent. They are moved. They are conflicted. They go home unsettled. And yet: nothing changes. Their proximity to the cross provoked conviction; it did not produce worship. In the sermon, this pattern was held up as a mirror for the regular churchgoer. You can sing the songs and feel them. You can sit under good preaching and be genuinely encouraged. You can feel a pang of conviction — the real, honest awareness that something in you needs to change — and then manage it. Scroll past it. Justify it. Find a way to make the discomfort stop without ever actually letting it lead you to repentance.
Conviction that never reaches repentance is not a small thing. It is a form of spiritual stagnation, and the crowd in Luke 23 is its oldest portrait. The question the sermon asked is worth sitting with: When conviction comes, is that the moment you turn back and go home?
One small honest step: The next time you feel spiritual conviction — in church, in prayer, in reading Scripture — resist the impulse to escape it. Sit with it for five more minutes. Ask what it is leading you toward, not away from.
This is one of the most quietly devastating observations in the passage. The crowd is not indifferent. They are moved. They are conflicted. They go home unsettled. And yet: nothing changes. Their proximity to the cross provoked conviction; it did not produce worship. In the sermon, this pattern was held up as a mirror for the regular churchgoer. You can sing the songs and feel them. You can sit under good preaching and be genuinely encouraged. You can feel a pang of conviction — the real, honest awareness that something in you needs to change — and then manage it. Scroll past it. Justify it. Find a way to make the discomfort stop without ever actually letting it lead you to repentance.
Conviction that never reaches repentance is not a small thing. It is a form of spiritual stagnation, and the crowd in Luke 23 is its oldest portrait. The question the sermon asked is worth sitting with: When conviction comes, is that the moment you turn back and go home?
One small honest step: The next time you feel spiritual conviction — in church, in prayer, in reading Scripture — resist the impulse to escape it. Sit with it for five more minutes. Ask what it is leading you toward, not away from.
When you are ready to find a community that takes that honest work seriously, connect here.
What Can the Centurion Teach Us About Receiving God's Love?
The followers of Jesus stood at a distance. Luke is explicit and intentional with that phrase. These are people who had left their livelihoods to follow Jesus through Galilee, who had seen his miracles, eaten with him, watched him raise the dead. And at the cross, they were close enough to see but far enough to stay safe. The sermon was careful not to condemn them — they are fearful, not callous, and the grace extended to them is evident in the fact that they will become the nucleus of the early church, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. But Luke names their distance, and it deserves to be named.
And then there is the centurion. The man who executed Jesus. He had no theological framework for what he was witnessing, no prior investment in Jesus, no community of faith shaping his interpretation. He watched everything that happened — the darkness, the torn curtain, the last breath, the words from Psalm 31 — and he worshiped. He called Jesus righteous. He was speaking, as the sermon noted, better than he fully knew: the Greek word he uses carries the weight of sinlessness, of perfect faithfulness. The executor of Jesus is presented by Luke as the ideal worshipper at the cross.
The theologian David Benner writes that to truly know love and experience it, we must receive it in an undefended state. The centurion had no defenses. He had nothing to protect. He had no spiritual reputation to manage, no record of devotion to preserve. He just looked at the cross without a protective posture — and he was undone by what he saw. The followers had everything invested and kept their distance. The centurion had nothing invested and could not look away. The sermon closed with this question, worth carrying with you: What are the safety schemes and the salvation plans outside of Jesus that you are holding onto that keep you safe but also keep you distant?
One small honest step: Bring one specific fear or self-protective habit to God in prayer this week — named, not managed. Ask him to give you the courage of an undefended heart.
And then there is the centurion. The man who executed Jesus. He had no theological framework for what he was witnessing, no prior investment in Jesus, no community of faith shaping his interpretation. He watched everything that happened — the darkness, the torn curtain, the last breath, the words from Psalm 31 — and he worshiped. He called Jesus righteous. He was speaking, as the sermon noted, better than he fully knew: the Greek word he uses carries the weight of sinlessness, of perfect faithfulness. The executor of Jesus is presented by Luke as the ideal worshipper at the cross.
The theologian David Benner writes that to truly know love and experience it, we must receive it in an undefended state. The centurion had no defenses. He had nothing to protect. He had no spiritual reputation to manage, no record of devotion to preserve. He just looked at the cross without a protective posture — and he was undone by what he saw. The followers had everything invested and kept their distance. The centurion had nothing invested and could not look away. The sermon closed with this question, worth carrying with you: What are the safety schemes and the salvation plans outside of Jesus that you are holding onto that keep you safe but also keep you distant?
One small honest step: Bring one specific fear or self-protective habit to God in prayer this week — named, not managed. Ask him to give you the courage of an undefended heart.
Conviction vs. Closeness: Two Ways of Standing at the Cross
Kept at a Distance | Drawn into Closeness | |
Conviction without repentance | Conviction that leads to worship | |
Proximity to Jesus for comfort | Proximity to Jesus through cost | |
Managing access by performance | Access by grace through Christ alone | |
Interior curtains of self-assessment | The curtain torn; nothing withheld | |
Feeling moved but returning home unchanged | Being undone and unable to look away |
For Anyone Sitting with This in New York City
New York does not lack for religious experience. Churches, synagogues, and meditation centers fill blocks across the Upper East Side, East Harlem, Morningside Heights, and Washington Heights. What is harder to find is a place where the question of your distance from God is taken seriously — not with guilt as the instrument, but with grace as the ground. Apostles Church Uptown gathers on Sunday mornings at Regis High School on the Upper East Side precisely for people who have felt something in the direction of faith and are not sure what to do with it. If that is you, you do not have to have the right answer before you come. The curtain has already been torn.
The Cross Does Not Leave You Where It Found You
Luke 23 is not a story about what happened to Jesus. It is a story about what the cross does to every person who stands near it. The darkness bore witness that judgment was being absorbed by the faithful one. The torn curtain declared that the barrier between you and God is gone. And the centurion — the least likely worshipper in the scene — demonstrated that the cross can undo even the most defended heart when it is received without a protective posture. That is the love of Christ: undefended, costly, and entirely sufficient for you.
If you are new to Apostles Church Uptown and want to take a first step, plan your visit here. And if you want to stay connected with what is being taught and how this community lives it out week by week, sign up here for the weekly newsletter.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Good Friday mean and why does it matter?
Good Friday marks the day Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. In Luke 23, the events surrounding his death — darkness at midday, the tearing of the temple curtain, his final words drawn from Psalm 31 — are presented as cosmic and covenantal, not merely historical. The cross is where the judgment owed to human unfaithfulness was absorbed by the one person who was entirely faithful.
How can I get closer to Jesus if I keep feeling spiritually distant?
Spiritual distance often comes not from indifference but from self-protection. We stay far enough from the cross to avoid the pain of conviction or the cost of repentance. The centurion in Luke 23 is a remarkable example of the opposite: a man with no religious framework, no stake in the outcome, who simply looked at Christ without a protective posture — and was undone into worship. Closeness to Jesus begins with bringing down your own defenses, not building up your credentials.
Why do I feel convicted at church but nothing ever seems to change in my life?
The crowd at the crucifixion is Luke's portrait of exactly this dynamic. They were close enough to feel something and walked away beating their breasts in guilt — but they went home. Conviction that does not lead to repentance stops short of its intended destination. The difference between the crowd and the centurion is not the intensity of what they felt; it is whether they allowed the weight of the cross to land on them fully.
What does the torn temple curtain mean for me today?
The curtain in the Jerusalem temple was approximately three feet thick and separated the outer courts from the Holy of Holies — the chamber where God's presence dwelt. Access was tightly governed by purity, ritual, and credentials. When it tore at the moment of Jesus's death, it was God's own interpretive act: the barrier is gone. This applies not only to the Levitical restrictions of the Old Testament but to the interior curtains many of us construct — the sense that we must perform well enough, feel spiritual enough, or behave consistently enough before we can approach God. Christ's death removes all of those. You come in by grace alone.
How do I receive God's love fully without fear?
The theologian David Benner, quoted in this sermon, writes that to truly know love and experience it, we must receive it in an undefended state. That is not a command to stop being afraid but an invitation to stop letting fear determine your distance. The centurion did not know enough to be afraid of what he was doing. He simply could not look away from the beauty of what he had witnessed. You can begin by naming the specific fear that is keeping you at a distance — and bringing that very fear, unmanaged, to the cross.
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