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March 6, 2005
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The Cross
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"The Wounds of the Cross"
Isaiah 53
- Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
- He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
- He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
- Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
- But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
- We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
- He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
- By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
- He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though 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, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
- After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life£ and be satisfied;
by his knowledge£ my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
- Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,and made intercession for the transgressors.
NIV
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We have spent the first weeks of the season of Lent focused upon the purpose God has for our lives, and that purpose only exists because of what God accomplished in Jesus Christ upon the cross, so for the next weeks the cross will be our focus.
We are familiar with the cross - almost too familiar. And today many would have us be done with it. Would you hang an electric chair or guillotine around your neck? Some scoff. One pastor in Tigard area wants no cross on the church building they are constructing, anymore, he says, than he would want an electric chair displayed there.
Perhaps such attitudes as these display what God predicted, that the message of the cross will be considered foolish by the Gentiles and will be a stumbling block to the Jews.
We are going to approach the subject from the book of Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah was a prophet in Israel, a man used by God to foretell what would be happening to the people of Israel if they refused to repent from their wicked ways. He wrote during the reigns of four kings and was martyred for his words during the reign of a fifth king. Chapter 53 is a controversial place to rest for the next few weeks. Jewish scholars themselves are divided about whom the prophet is writing, but the best interpretation comes from the New Testament.
First, John the Baptist quotes from this chapter referring to Jesus as the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Then, Jesus himself at Caesaria Philippi combined the sayings from IS 53, saying "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." He declared emphatically that He must "suffer (Mk 8:31) be delivered into the hands of men and the chief priests (Mk 9:31) and be condemned to death (Mt 20:18); remain three days in the earth (Mt 12:40) and rise again (Mk 10:33) (The Word of Life, by Thomas Oden, Peabody, MA: Prince Press, c'01, p. 263-264, ubp).
In addition the apostles connected their experience with Jesus to this passage penned by Isaiah 700 years before Jesus was born.
As Philip the evangelist ran alongside the chariot of the Ethiopian Eunuch, he heard him reading out of this very passage of Scripture. And the Eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else" (Acts 8:34)? And we read in the next verse "Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus" (Acts 8:35).
In Peter's first letter he quotes from this chapter saying, "for by His wounds you are healed" (1 Peter 2:24), clearly applying this to Jesus, and points to this and other similar passages in his second letter saying, because of his experience with Jesus in life and by faith, "we have the word of the prophets made more certain and you would do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (2 Peter 1: 19).
So, let us pay careful attention to this light shining through Isaiah's words.
- As we do so, we notice that this passage begins with a question - much as we have begun with the question: "about whom has Isaiah written?" so, this passage begins with the question of belief.
The problem for some with accepting the truth that Isaiah wrote here about Jesus Christ is that if about Jesus, then this passage demands a response. The Jew must not stumble any longer, but either accept or reject their Messiah. And the Christian too must either accept or reject the Messiah, for the prophets words were penned as he "carried along led by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20).
The triune God asks: "Who has believed our message?"
And then asks in parallel form again: "To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"
The arm of the Lord is God's power at work to save his people. God delivered Israel from Egypt by his mighty arm (Exodus 6:6). The word for arm is the same word used for the shank bone of the lamb found on the Passover Seder plate today to remind us of the Passover Lamb. Thus the subject is introduced of this servant of God, the sacrificial lamb who would come for us.
- Isaiah was shown "how" this servant would come, not as a king, not as a mighty, handsome warrior, but as a "tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground." The tender shoot points back to chapter 11 where another messianic passage gives the family line of the Messiah.
By the phrase "out of dry ground" the prophet speaks of unspectacular beginnings. Jesus did not grow up in wealth, but came from a humble, lower middle class family, a family who could not afford a lamb for the sacrifice required after the birth of their son, but instead brought the option for the poor, two turtle doves.
Jesus did not come with a beauty or majesty to attract us to him, in other words, he was an ordinary looking guy, not a sports star nor would he be voted sexiest man of the year for People Magazine. There was "nothing" in his appearance that we should desire him.
That is how he will come.
But how will the people respond to his coming? Isaiah writes in v. 3 that this servant of God's will be rejected and despised. He will be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, or familiar with suffering.
This is not saying this servant of God's would not have joy, as we spent a year looking at in 2003, Jesus was the man of Joy, anointed with the oil of joy above his companions. But Jesus knew suffering unlike what anyone else will ever know.
We learn here that the wounds he endured began in his heart. Jesus was familiar with the suffering of rejection, the suffering of abandonment, the suffering of being applauded one day and hated the next. He was one, Isaiah wrote, from whom people hide their faces, as people dare not look at those whose poverty makes them ashamed of their wealth, whose disfigurement causes them to feel discomfort within.
"He was despised and we esteemed him not" Isaiah writes.
- Has anyone here ever suffered emotionally? The message of that line is: God Almighty understands because of the experiences of the Son.
The message is never that God understands your sufferings in an abstract way, but that in a real, "been there" way, God comprehends.
Surely, Isaiah writes, He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. This does not "imply that Jesus had every single particular disease or felt every single type of pain there is to feel. It is more rather like than less like our humanity that he had specific periods of grief or pain or a parching thirst at a particular time, not some abstract, general, nonhistorical pain or thirst." If he had, he would cease to be truly human (Oden, ibid., p. 249-250).
For one very basic fact about being human is that we do not live in every age, do not speak every language, do not do every deed or experience every experience. "Jesus was not both male and female, but male, not married and unmarried, but unmarried. It does not count against Jesus' humanity that he did not become married or sexually active or that he did not have children, unless one wishes to argue the absurd premise that all singles are less than human or that celibates are second-class humans-an objectionable premise that Christianity rejects." And because of this Jesus is more LIKE us than UNLIKE us (Oden, ibid., p. 249-250).
Now, verse 5 brings the point, that he not only carried our sorrows-the experiences of life, but was "pierced for our transgressions" and was "crushed for our iniquities". There are two images these words bring with them: first the idea of his hands and feet being "pierced" on the cross, this word can also be translated wounded. Jesus took the punishment we deserve for our sin. Like the thieves crucified alongside of Jesus, their transgressions, their actions, crucified them. For Jesus, our transgressions, our trespassing of His commands, pierced him there.
And, second, crushed, or bruised means to beat to pieces and reflects the beatings Jesus took for us. But also I think of olives crushed in the olive press and grapes in the trough, the Savior was bruised for the cleansing not only of my willful sins but for the very evil of my heart, my iniquity.
Jesus' death on the cross, his wounds took the punishment for our sinful action and for the sin latent within us. He took the punishment I deserved and took the beatings I was guilty for, in order for peace and healing to be possible for me.
- That is where Isaiah ends this portion, with our peace and our healing, that these were made possible by this servant's suffering. We could not have peace with God if He were not pierced. We could not have healing, salvation's fullness, without him being crushed.
So, Isaiah's question is relevant to us. Have we truly believed what God has offered. Many of you have, I know. But the true revelation of the salvation being offered to us is found in our response. The source of peace and healing is the cross of Jesus. Have we received HIM?
When I led the team to Peru we had a little song we sang with the children which detailed the gospel. It was called YO PEQUE, which means, I am a sinner.
I would like to teach it to you now and ask, have you said yes to Jesus?
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Yo Peque | I am a sinner | Thumb | |
Pero Dios me ama | But God loves me | Index Finger | |
Y Cristo murio por mi | And Christ died for me | Middle Finger | |
Yo le recibo | I receive Him | Ring Finger | |
Y ya soy su hijo | And I am his (child) | Little Finger | |
Y es su plan para mi. | And that's his plan for me. | Clap Hands |
Es su plan para mi… es us plan para mi! Yo le recibo y ya soy su hijo y es su plan para mi.
I remember in Peru after one of our services at a public school where we had ministered to about 200 children, one little girl came running up to us as we were about to leave holding her fourth finger saying, "I can't remember…" "What hun?" we asked. "I can't remember what this finger means and my teacher wants me to teach my class the song." We told her it means "I receive Him," and off she ran. But that is the problem. We forget. The truth of Jesus is only available to us as we receive him, as we "believe the message" otherwise all our efforts are only religion. Make certain friends that you receive Him.
When I read that sentence, I think of the story called "The Ragman" written by Walter Wangerin.
It was before dawn early one Friday morning. I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of the city. He was carrying a bag filled with clothes, both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear and tenor voice,
"Rags! Rags! Rags!"
Ah, the air was foul and the first light of dawn filthy to be crossed by such a sweet music.
"Now this is a wonder." I breathed to myself, for the man stood tall, and his arms were like tree limbs, both hard and muscular. And his eyes, ah, his eyes, they flashed bright with intelligence, and understanding. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?
I followed him, my curiosity drove me, and I wasn't disappointed.
Soon, the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into her handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her shoulders shook, her heart was breaking.
The Ragman stopped. Quietly he walked to the woman, stepping around tin cans, broken toys and garbage. I listened to hear what he had to say;
" Let me have your rag," he said so gently, "and I will give you another."
He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he lay across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked, from the gift, to the giver. Then, as he began to walk away, the Ragman did a strange thing. He put her stained handkerchief to his own face, and then he began to sob, as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking, yet the woman was left behind without one tear!
"This is a wonder!" I thought to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child that cannot turn away from a mystery.
"Rags! Rags! New rags for old!"
In a little while, when the sky began to show gray behind the rooftops, the Ragman came upon a little boy whose head was wrapped in a bandage. A single line of blood ran down his cheek.
Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and drew a baseball cap from his bag. I heard him as he said,
"Give me your rag, child, and I will give you mine."
The child could only gaze at him as the Ragman loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. He set the cap on the boy's head. And I gasped at what I saw, for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow ran a darker, more substantial blood-- his own!
"Rags! Rags! I take old rags!",
cried the sobbing, bleeding, yet still strong and intelligent Ragman.
The sun hurt the sky now, and my eyes were burning from it's light. The Ragman seemed to be more and more in a hurry.
"Are you going to work?" he asked a man leaning against a telephone pole. The man shook his head. The Ragman inquired,
"Do you have a job?"
"Are you crazy!" sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket. It was flat, with the cuff stuffed into the pocket. The man had only one arm.
"So," said the Ragman, "give me your jacket, and I will give you mine."
Such quiet authority in his voice; the one-armed man took off his jacket, and so did the Ragman. And I trembled at what I saw; the Ragman's arm stayed in his jacket, and when the other put the jacket on, he had two good arms, but the Ragman now only had one!
"Go to work." he told the man.
After that, he saw a drunk lying unconscious beneath an old army blanket; an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took the old man's blanket and wrapped it around himself, but for the drunk he left a new suit of clothes.
And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman, though he was weeping uncontrollably, bleeding from his forehead, carrying his bag, stumbling from drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old and sick. Yet he went very fast! He skittered through the alleys of the city until he had come to it's limits, and then he rushed beyond.
I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow, and yet I needed to see where he was going in such a haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.
The little old Ragman, he came to a landfill. He came to a garbage dump. And then I wanted to help him in what he did, but I hung back, hiding. With tormented labor, he cleared a little space. Then he sighed, he lay down, he pillowed his head on a handkerchief, he covered his old bones with an old army jacket, and........he died!
Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a heap and wailed and mourned, as one who has no hope, because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this, and I had cherished him, but he died. I cried myself to sleep.
I did not know, how could I know? That I had slept through Friday night, and into Saturday night. But then on Sunday, I was awakened by a violent light, pure hard demanding light, shining against my face!
And I blinked, and I looked and I saw the first and last wonder of all! There was the Ragman! Folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive and healthy! There was no sign of age, and all the rags that he gathered shined with cleanliness!
Well, then I lowered my head, and, trembling for all that I had seen, I walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name, with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then, I looked into his eyes, and said with dear yearning in my voice,
"Change me!"
And He changed me, my Lord! He put new rags on me, and I became a wonder beside him...The Ragman! The Ragman!... THE CHRIST!
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