The Hand of the Lord Who Was Pierced For Us based on Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

During the Wednesdays of Lent we have been looking at different passages of the Bible that teach us about the hand of the Lord. We have been reminded of the powerful hand of the Lord who freely gives us all that we need for our physical and spiritual needs. The hand of the Lord who heals the sick. The hand of the Lord who makes skin diseases like leprosy disappear. The hand of the Lord who raised Lazarus from the dead. The hand of the Lord who casts out demons. The hand of the Lord who saved Peter from sinking into the Sea of Galilee. The hand of the Lord who holds all things in His compassion and love. Last night we were reminded of the hand of the Lord who served His disciples by washing their feet and of the hand of the Lord who serves and feeds us in His Holy Supper still today to forgive our sins and wrongs.

Today we remember the day Jesus was delivered into the hands of sinful men on Good Friday. What did the hands of the sinful men of this world do to Jesus? He was betrayed by one of His closest twelve student disciples, Judas Iscariot, who delivered Him into the hands of those who wanted to kill Him. He was taken to the Jewish High Priest who was jealous of Him and wanted to end His life. While Peter was warming his hands that night, Peter denied three times that he even knew who Jesus was. Jesus was taken to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who wanted to have nothing to do with Him. Pilate tried to wash his hands of the problem. But washing his hands did not remove his responsibility; Pilate still handed Jesus over to be crucified, showing how even reluctant hearts can still join in the rejection of God's Son. To avoid a riot, Pilate gave in to those who wanted to crucify Jesus.

On Good Friday Jesus was crucified. That is what the hands of the sinful people of this world had to offer. The hands of the sinful people of this world rejected Him. Nails were driven into His hands that were stretched out on a cross. Those compassionate and loving hands of Jesus were pierced with nails for us.

We like to think our hands can do a lot for us. We like to brag about the work of our hands. We think we deserve far more credit than we receive. We think we could do a better job of running things than those in charge now. We want to be first and not last. We want the power and the glory. There is only One who deserves to be in charge. There is only One who deserves all the power and glory. That One is God and not us.

What could Jesus Christ do with hands nailed to the cross? On the first Good Friday Jesus Christ did not seem to be able to do much at all. His hands seemed to be pinned to the cross. The hands of sinful men seemed to be in total control. But even in that moment, when all seemed lost, the hand of God was guiding the path of salvation — the path hidden beneath suffering and weakness.

The prophet Isaiah predicted all of this would take place centuries before. Isaiah 52:13 recorded about the Suffering Servant, “Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.” But Isaiah 52:14 pointed to the Suffering Servant’s appearance as “marred, beyond human semblance.” The Suffering Servant’s time of being lifted up and exalted was not what most people thought. Isaiah 53:1 asked a good question, “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Throughout the Book of Isaiah the “arm of the Lord” has the same meaning as “the hand of the Lord” in the rest of the Old Testament. The arm of the Lord is about might, glory, judgment, and salvation. How can this Suffering Servant have anything to do with the arm of the Lord? The answer is that God's strength is often hidden under what looks like human weakness; the Suffering Servant's completed mission was the greatest display of the Lord's saving arm.

Isaiah 53:2 further described this Suffering Servant as One who “had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” Isaiah 53:3 continued, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Isaiah was not referring to himself or some other prophet of Old Testament times. Instead, Isaiah was pointing ahead to Jesus Christ who would perfectly fulfill this prophecy in His suffering and death.

Isaiah helps us to understand that this was more than the work of the hands of sinful men. This was the arm of the Lord in action. Isaiah 53:4–8 pointed to that first Good Friday and wrote about the Suffering Servant, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?”

The hands of Jesus on the cross are powerful hands. Even though Jesus looked very weak on the cross, He was doing some powerful things. In that apparent weakness, He was accomplishing the strongest act of all: defeating sin, death, and the devil for all who believe. Those hands of Jesus on the cross are life giving hands, forgiving hands, and merciful hands. Those hands of Jesus on the cross show us the will of our loving Lord. Those hands of Jesus on the cross have atoned for the sins of all the sinners of the world. Your sins and wrongs are fully forgiven just as my sins and wrongs are fully forgiven. The great news of this Friday and the reason we call this day Good Friday is that the hand of the Lord Jesus was pierced for us and for our eternal salvation. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.