Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted

Isaiah 53:2a-6 When I was serving as a pastor in south Texas, one of the area congregations de-commissioned and after they closed they offered us their altar crucifix—a really beautiful piece of church art.  I was thrilled to have it but several people in my congregation were not.

            They told me it was too catholic.  And I said, “Well, we have stained glass windows like the catholics and an altar and baptismal font like the catholics and paraments like the catholics, should we get rid of all of those to?”  They didn’t want to do that.

“Okay then”, I said, “let’s accept this gift”.  Then they took another tack.  “But Jesus is no longer on the cross.”  “Yes, you’re right”, I said, “but Jesus isn’t in the manger either.  Do you want to leave baby Jesus out of our nativity scene?”  No, they didn’t want to do that.

“But the empty cross is the sign of the resurrection”, they said.  I said, “No, the crosses of the thieves were empty too on Good Friday.  It’s the empty tomb on Easter morning that is the sign of the resurrection”.

I finally asked, “folks what’s really going on here—why are you so opposed to having this beautiful crucifix?  And one brave soul finally said, “Pastor, I just can’t stand to see Jesus on the cross.”  Now, that I understand.  And so we opened up our bibles and talked about it. 

We talked about how, when Paul came to Corinth, he came to them knowing nothing but Christ-- and him crucified.  We talked about Paul’s work in Galatia and how he publicly portrayed Christ as crucified before their very eyes. 

And we especially talked about these verses from Isaiah, how Jesus had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.  There is no place where these words are truer than on a hill called Golgotha. 

What happened there was brutal and horrific.  It was a public execution in the most shameful way in the ancient world.  We heard the astonishment in Paul’s voice last Sunday when he said that Christ had humbled himself into death, even –death- on- a -cross. 

It is unimaginable that the very Son of God should die in this way, with nails in his hands and feet and a crown of thorns upon his head, to the taunts and jeers of his enemies, but he did.  And that scene of our Lord’s death, God intends for us to look at for the rest of our lives. 

God says that the appearance of his Servant Son was marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—and yet, he shall be high and lifted up and exalted.

High and lifted up for all to see-- because it is only there in that horrible, brutal ugly scene—only in the crucifixion-- that we can even begin to understand the incredible beauty of God’s deep and abiding love for we poor sinners.  It is only there at the cross that we can learn something of the height and depth and breadth of God’s love for people who, much too often, would just as soon not look upon their Savior and his salvation.  The Bible says that:

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. 

In the beginning of John’s Gospel, he says that Jesus came to his own but his own did not receive him. 

Over these forty days of Lent we have seen how true that is!  His friends denied him in his hour of need and one betrayed him to his enemies for money.  The religious leaders wanted him dead.  And the common folk received him as their king one day and a few days later called for his crucifixion. 

Throughout his life he sorrowed over the spiritual blindness of people who could not see beyond their next meal and he grieved over what sin and death has done to the world. 

As he hung on the cross, the hatred of the world for him even in his torment, unsated, he was mocked and ridiculed and taunted.

And if we are tempted to let time and distance keep ourselves at a distance from all of this, if we are tempted to point the accusing finger at others, Isaiah reminds us that we esteemed him not.  Surely that cannot be true, can it—that we esteem him not?! 

And yet, how often have we regarded the person and work of Christ as merely the starting point to our life with God?  How often have we desired to hear more “practical” sermons and have more “lifestyle” Bible studies than deepen our knowledge of Jesus? How often have we turned aside from his example and turned a deaf ear to his words because we regard them as impractical or too difficult? 

The judgment of God is true:  that we have not esteemed the Lord Jesus Christ as we should despite the fact that it is FOR US that he suffered and died.  The Bible says that:

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. 

Bible scholars call this “the great exchange”.  On one side of God’s ledger is our griefs and sorrows and transgressions and iniquities.  One the other side of the ledger is Christ being pierced, crushed, chastised and wounded on the cross. 

I really do think that the opposition of Christians to a crucifix (can you imagine such a thing!) has nothing to do with artistic sensibilities and it has nothing to do with theological niceties. 

It has everything to do with the fact that the nails and thorns and agonized face and bloody sweat all belong to us. 

In Christ crucified we see as nowhere else God’s judgment and verdict on our transgressions and iniquities.  Yes, it is God who punishes his own Son on the cross, it is God who abandons his own Son to death and the torments of hell, but dear friends in Christ, we are the ones who caused it. 

When we come face to face with the scenes of our Lord’s death in a painting or in a crucifix or a movie or on the pages of the Bible, our sins and their consequences are inescapable and inexcusable and that is painful for us to have to face. 

But what God wants us to see even more clearly in the bloody death of Jesus than our sins-- is the peace and healing and forgiveness that is found in the death of the Lord.

Just as there is nowhere else on earth that we see our sins so clearly as the crucifixion--so there is nowhere on earth that we will see our forgiveness and peace and healing more clearly than in our Lord’s death on the cross-- as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  The Bible says that:

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.

            We believe in the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture, that every single word is inspired and given by God.  And so when the Bible says that “all” have gone astray, that is exactly what God means.

 There is not one of us here tonight --and there is not one throughout the world-- who has not gone astray from God’s ways to follow his own way.  We are all, by nature, lost sheep but God has sent Jesus to be the Lamb who takes those sins way.

And so it is also true that the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  Every sin for every sinner laid upon the one who bears them away to the cross.

Believe the promises of God!  There is not one sinner who is not loved by God, not one sinner who is excluded from the saving work of the cross.  There is not one sin that has not been laid on Jesus, not one sin that has not been paid for by his shed blood on this Good Friday. 

The Bible says that in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them.  The Bible says that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and for the sins of the world.

Every sin of every sinner was paid for at the cross and here’s what that means for you assembled here tonight.  Your sins are forgiven—every sin. 

The sins you are ashamed of—the sins that make you shudder—the sins that have enduring consequences in your life to this day—the sins you are unaware of—the sins of the past and the sins of the future--washed away forever by the blood of our Jesus Christ.

Every sin of every sinner paid for at the cross and here’s what that also means for you.  The Lord desires that the Suffering Servant would be “high and lifted and exalted” so that every person would see in him their own salvation. 

That means that there is a mission that is given to every one of us to glorify Jesus and magnify his saving works and lift him up before those around us for the sake of their salvation.

Certainly that happens in Church in sermons and bible study and sacred art.  But God also intends that it would be so in our lives:  that as people forgiven by the man of the cross-- we would bear faithful witness to him to others and live with others as people of forgiveness.

That life of forgiveness and peace and healing is only possible because there was a man there on that cross named Jesus—a man who was stricken, smitten, and afflicted.  Amen.