Sermon 08 03 21 Good Friday
Today I’d like the address to lead us into the reading of the passion account, to prepare us, to create a sense of expectation of what is to come. Our reading from Isaiah foretells the events that were to take place; it was a message of hope for the people who first heard it, just as it is for us today. Hear the words as if they were spoken directly to you, allow yourself to become a part of the readings, not just a passive observer, but a participant, put yourself into the scene, imagine yourself seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling everything that was taking place. As you listen feel the cross in your hands, smell the steel of the nails, meditate on the words:
Isaiah 53:4-12
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
11 Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
How can we hear those words and not place ourselves into the text? How can we hear them and not see them describing what would happen to the Son of God, to Jesus as his journey to the cross took place?
These are such descriptive words, it’s hard to narrow down the message that they give so that we can grasp the enormity of what is being said and how important it all is to our lives and the lives of everyone in the world, but I’m going to try it anyway.
Firstly though, are we agreed that the suffering servant referred to in this text is in fact Jesus? That’s my interpretation anyway. So we can then replace all of the references to his, him and he with Jesus.
“Upon [Jesus] was the punishment that made us whole, and by [Jesus’] bruises we are healed”. Perhaps we can also go a step further and change the reference to the first person, therefore, “Upon [Jesus] was the punishment that made [me] whole, and by [Jesus’] bruises [I] am healed”. I’m just going to pause for a moment, feel free to shut your eyes and say those words to yourself, either aloud or in your head; “Upon [Jesus] was the punishment that made [me] whole, and by [Jesus’] bruises [I] am healed”.
There are two ways we are affected by that sentence; firstly we can feel convicted of our sins. It was us who caused this to take place, he was to bear the punishment that is rightfully mine, Jesus is my scapegoat, he’s been framed and accused of my crime, convicted, sentenced and punished. It’s a terrible thing to think that someone else has to suffer for your crimes, your sins isn’t it. The natural response is to feel guilt, for some people that feeling can be quite intense, even to the point of feeling physically weighed down.
But then we hear the second part of each clause, you are made whole, and you are healed. Yes Jesus suffered because of your sins, but he did it for your benefit, not so that you would feel guilty, but so that you could be healed and made whole. He did it willingly, he wasn’t dragged kicking and screaming as I’m sure most of us would be, knowing what was about to take place. He didn’t open his mouth, as we will hear again in a moment, when he was before the priests and Pilate, he merely answered their questions in a simple and matter-of-fact way. He accepted what was going to happen to him because he knew what the end result would be. He knew that this was why he came, and now it was time to fulfil his Father’s will.
As we listen to Matthew’s passion account in the coming minutes, reflect on just how important everything that took place was in fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah and also in completing what God’s will is for all of us. That even though we are sinners, Christ died for us, to heal us, to make us whole and to restore a broken relationship with his Father on our behalf.
Squeeze tightly on the cross in your hand, feel the nails as they jab into your hands, and rejoice, that Jesus suffered for you, so that you didn’t have to, and in doing so, he restored you to your rightful place, your place as a child of God, through his loving and caring Son.