“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. 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.”- Isaiah 53:3-5 (ESV)
Brothers and sisters, I don’t believe that it would take a seminary degree nor decades of pastoral ministry to realize who the center of this text is. All we must do is simply read each word that God gave Isaiah (701 years before Christ was born) and we will see the centerpiece of this passage; the man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief, despised and rejected by men, and smitten by God was our Lord, Jesus Christ. Although it doesn’t take much background knowledge to know who this passage is foretelling, I do believe that it takes God’s gracious work to open our blind eyes, warm our cold hearts, and revive our dead souls to see as to why Christ went through such things. Of course we would like to think that it would come naturally to us that Jesus was “pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities”; However, if we truly assume that knowing this comes as simply as learning addition, we are naïeve to our depravity and unenlightened to Jesus’ transcendence.
At the fall of man in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned against the holy and almighty God. That one act of disobedience stained the rest of what would become mankind. The soul of man went from being free with God in His holiness and goodness to becoming captive to Satan in his sin and brokenness. The eyes of man went from being able to see God in His Glory to becoming blind to anything of Him. The feet of man went from walking right alongside God as a friend to running away from Him as an enemy.
To testify more to man’s fallenness and furthermore to God’s goodness, a sinful soul will look at this catastrophic shift in the relationship between God and Man –Creator and Creation–, and blame God. They will ask, “Why did he punish us so severely for a mere disobedience?” This question in and of itself shows the lack of knowledge and understanding that we have of God. We serve a God who is HOLY, HOLY, HOLY. Sin cannot and will not exist in His presence. Therefore, because WE actively sinned in full awareness of its consequence, we can not be in communion with God without a sacrifice. So, I say that to have said this, the fault of man’s sinful state is on man and man alone, not God.
That, my friends, is why we see words such as “crushed.” and “pierced” used in Isaiah 53 is because this sacrifice could not be one that only lasted a short while and its atonement even shorter. This sacrifice required utter perfection from the person who was sacrificed to the sacrifice itself. There could not be a drop of sin found on Jesus because He was the only that could ensure that there was not a drop of God’s wrath left to pour out. This sacrifice had to please the Lord and by His grace, that’s what it did.
Now, that leads us to answering the question that was asked previously, “why did Christ have to go through the things listed in Isaiah 53?” And more specifically, “why did He have to go through such things for MY pardon?” The answer is one word that the sin-stained mind and sin-wounded heart cannot comprehend on its own… LOVE. Christ went to the cross, not out of obligation, but out of love-driven willingness to set the captive free. With His extended arms branched outward on each side of the Tree, He extended a peace offering between the Father and His children. With His wounded hands nailed on each end of the crossbeam, He would heal the wounds on our hearts left by sin. Those are the same scarred hands that bring melting warmth into our cold hearts of stone, blazing sight to our blinded eyes, new life into our dead souls, and responsive love into our numbed minds!
I pray that this may be a reminder to us all, not of our merits or deeds– because we have none!– but solely of the goodness and worthiness of Christ Jesus. May that bring us peace that He who is good and Holy would make us a suitable dwelling place!