Text: Isaiah 53:5
This is a very special time of year…For a pastor, it is also humbling time of year. I feel like the cook working in the kitchen with the finest ingredients who just can’t seem to make it all come together. I feel like the carpenter with the best wood who finishes the project but it didn’t quite come out the way he wanted it to. I feel like a batter swinging for the seats with the pitch he’s been waiting for, but who only manages to get a single.
This verse of God’s Word is a good example. In my heart, I know, this Word of prophecy says so much to us who live in it’s fulfillment. But I never quite seem able to get my arms around it all. I never quite seem able to get my heart around it all. But how can we? It’s like trying to scoop out the ocean. Except the ocean is God’s grace for us in Jesus Christ.
So once again tonight we’re here to face the cross and see something so profound and wonderful.
Facing the Cross, I see:
I. My punishment
II. My peace
When you care about someone, it’s hard to see them suffer. If you’ve been at the bedside of someone you love and seen them struggle, you know how hard it is. If you’ve been with someone who has suffered a terrible loss, you know how hard it is. You wish you could do something to take the pain away, but often we can’t. It’s hard to see someone suffer.
This verse has us remembering that tonight. It pointed far ahead to one who would be despised and rejected, led like a lamb to the slaughter, pierced and crushed, cut off from the land of the living. It pointed to the cross of our dear Savior.
We start tonight by taking that hard look at Jesus’ cross. He was pierced…, Isaiah writes. Right away a picture comes to mind. We think of the point of the nails pressed against his hands and feet We think of the hammer coming down again and again to drive those nails into the wood.
But Jesus suffering did not begin or end there. The night before, they beat him and spit on him. That morning the soldiers ripped into his back again and again with a scourge of jagged pieces of bone. And they pressed that crown of thorns onto his head. He was pierced. Think about that. Facing the cross, that would be so hard to see.
Yet his physical suffering was nothing compared to the torment of Jesus’ soul. For Isaiah says, he was crushed… He wasn’t crushed by men. He was crushed by his Father. The full weight of God’s righteous anger came crashing down on Jesus’ soul. And during that time, Jesus suffered the worst aspect of hell. He was abandoned and rejected by God the Father. How hard it must have been to hear his anguished words of hopelessness. My God, my God why have you forsaken. It’s hard to even think of that today.
But what makes facing the cross really hard is this. When we take to heart the reason for Jesus’ suffering. He was pierced for OUR transgressions. He was crushed for OUR iniquities. So facing the cross I see MY punishment. I see what God thinks of MY sin. For how easy it for us or the people around us to make light of our sins. Comedians invite us to laugh at those things. But look at Jesus languishing on that cross and you know different.
You know, sometimes I’ve heard Billy Graham say. If you were the only one to ever live, Jesus would have died for you. Well there’s another way to look at that. If I was the only one, Jesus still would have had to suffer and die for me. The cross shows me how terribly my sin offends my God. For there at the cross, I see my punishment.
And that’s hard to face, hard to consider. Maybe that’s why attendance on Good Friday is not near as good as Easter. There’s that painful reminder. That’s what I deserve. What Christ suffered in my place.
But this Word of God is not meant to send you home tonight weighed down with guilt. It’s not meant to shake a finger in your face and say, look what you did to Jesus. No, no. This is where the Spirit leads us in this Word. Look what God did for you. Look how much he loves you and me. See that in Jesus. For facing the cross this Word helps me to see my peace.
People yearn for peace. In a war torn land like the Mideast or Mexico with its drug lords most people want peace. They want to live in a place where they can live and thrive, not fear for their families. We yearn for peace too from the things that trouble our hearts and our lives. We try to carve out a little peace for ourselves from time to time. Maybe a day out on the river fishing. Maybe some time sailing or just reading your favorite book. We try to carve out a little peace for ourselves.
But even if we don’t bring the cell phone, something always seems to intrude. Something gone wrong, something to worry about. Some kind of reminder that this world is a fallen place and I am a fallen human being surrounded by people like me who one day will die. We yearn for peace and yet it eludes us.
But now go back to the night before Jesus died He said this to his disciples. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. Peace? Jesus is about to die? What kind of peace is that?
Jesus brings a different kind of peace. In fact, that peace is ours because he died. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him. So there at the cross I see my punishment. But here’s the good stuff. That punishment brought me peace. It brought me healing from something that threatened my eternity. And it starts with this. You know that guilt that stood between God and me. It’s forgiven. I’m forgiven. And now through faith in Jesus we have peace with the most important person in the universe. The one who made us. The One we will stand before on Judgment Day. We have the peace of knowing that He is our Father and we are his dear children.
Well what does that peace look like in our lives? It doesn’t mean that you won’t have any troubles. Jesus said you will, some even because you follow him. So what does it mean? It means that nothing can separate you from God’s love, not even death. It means that he will make all things work for our good. It means that excluding the things we need to repent of and change, we can look this life in the eye and say what a woman said long ago. Her son had died. Her heart was breaking and yet in the Lord she could say. Everything is all right.
You don’t need a lot of money to be able to say that. In fact, many people who have lots of money can’t. You don’t need to be young and healthy and beautiful to say that. Many who are, can’t. But facing the cross you and I can. We have peace with God through Christ Jesus our Lord. It doesn’t get any better than that. Amen.