Isaiah 53:1-12 & Mark 15:21-39
“The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said. This is a line that runs through every emotion. So both love and hate, pleasure and displeasure, approval and anger, can go bad, and both can go good. Today we come to remember a day where both our displeasure, and our desire to run at life our own way. They are confronted head on. Our want and waste was stared down with the offer of forgiveness, grace and mercy has come to us. Jesus the sinless Son of God chose death on a cross
Jesus the perfect Holy one. He who healed the sick, and restored the broken, was despised and rejected, suffering death on the cross, so that we might taste and know the forgiveness and love of God. The question is this Easter Friday “What does the life and death of Jesus mean for you?”
As we look back to see what took place over 2, 000 years ago God’s truth always arrives in action. I want us today to go back in time some 2, 600 years to see what Isaiah predicted how God carried that out. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 3-4 (The message)
He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed.
Isaiah writes about a suffering servant, a man of sorrows. This is someone who achieves something great, something life affecting through their suffering. The question you might ask is what sort of suffering will this man of sorrows get afflicted with? Just like the how many of us are comfortable talking about our pain? It is the case that so often when someone starts talking to us about their sufferings, we either hide our faces and shuffle our feet, or find some way to change the topic of conversation. The fact of the matter is that someone else’s suffering reminds us we’re vulnerability , and so any word of sympathy feels trite or miniscule, so we often don’t know what to say so we often say nothing. We want the answer to how could a merciful & loving God allow suffering to continue in this world. Why doesn’t he stop it all once and for all? There is something even deeper God gets us to drill down on in Isaiah 53:6
6 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.
See the descriptions, we all like sheep, we go our own way – do our own thing – live as we like, without God at the centre of our lives. We are like sheep who refuse to be led by the shepherd. So, we each have that longing to be whole, a longing to be loved, a longing to love others without barrier; and yet how often do we find how much of a mess we make of things? We say what we shouldn’t, we do what we know is wrong. We so often seek our pleasures from what we know harms us. We know this has to change and yet the trouble is we struggle to change ourselves. We are just like an alcoholic who cannot stop having another drink; or like a compulsive gambler who can’t have but another bet, we all share the same sense that sin warps the shape of who we are. What we notice is our compulsion is to be our own saviours to save ourselves, and the trouble with that is we know deep down that doesn’t work. Jesus didn’t come to die for our mistakes, he came to die for our sins. He died for all that we have thought and done in rebellion against him. It is only through Jesus can God forgive us. That is what Isaiah was getting at. It is what Jesus was doing when he was dying on the cross
Hear how Isaiah predicted it, verse 10-11 (The Message)
Still, it’s what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him. Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many “righteous ones,” as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Sin has to be paid for. Jesus is the guilt offering for everyone who will put their trust in him to be their Lord & Saviour. He took our sin, that is the punishment we deserved on himself, and paid it in full. As Jesus hung on that cross he was accepting the unishment for our pain and sin. He cried out on our behalf he cried out “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34b. At the moment of his death, the ground shook. The temple curtain tore in two, and the Roman Centurion who looking at all that had happened says “surely this man is the son of God” (Mark 15:39). As we read in Isaiah 53:12
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors— Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
Jesus the only Son of God dies for us. He bears in himself the punishment due to us for our sin and rebellion against God. Jesus bears our guilt and shame to redeem us…“Redemption rewires both creation and fall, remaking us as agents of redemptive justice and mercy. Christ brings His good up against our evils. His atoning mercy embodies the reunion of love and just anger, bringing us forgiveness for real wrongs. He works to redeem fallen creatures, convicting of sin, bringing forgiveness, and working the willingness to forgive others, remaking us into peacemakers. He progressively teaches us to deal more constructively with what is wrong. God will finish that.”[1] Some people don’t see the need to respond to Jesus, and so maybe you’re someone here who wants more information, then talk with someone you know follows Jesus; or you can start by looking at what Jesus has to say himself, so please get yourself a Bible and start reading a gospel like Luke; maybe you’re like that centurion who understood the significance of Jesus death, and yet you know you’ve never asked Jesus to be your Lord and Saviour. If that is the case then you need come before God and confess that Jesus died for your sins on that cross, and that you want Jesus to come in your life and be your Lord and Saviour. For those of us here who’s hope is already in Jesus, today we remember what Jesus has done for us. It was because like sheep we had gone astray that God sent his son Jesus into our world that he should die for us so that we might know eternal life. In Jesus we have life evermore, of forgiveness , a fresh start on life today. Only King Jesus can deal with the sin we deserve to die for, only he can forgive our sins. In a few days time we celebrate that again because he rose again; forgiveness for us that starts with a relationship with Jesus first. This is just as Isaiah saw the day. The question for you to answer today is Jesus your Lord? He was despised and rejected and died upon the cross for you.
So lets pray…
David Hassan @ Tamworth Community Presbyterian Church 14/4/17