Good
Friday of Holy Week, April 2, 2021
Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. Isaiah 53:1-6
The mixture of ambivalent feelings is not an easy pill to
swallow. But, with age, it can be the
key to understanding, even though it can never be an acquired taste. I have lived through enough seasons of Lent
and Passion Week to make sense of the way Christ’s sorrow, and the pain of
being rejected, becomes his joy in securing our forgiveness.
With every shed tear in the garden, slap on the face by his
accusors, lash laid on his back, and nail piercing holy hands, the Man of
Sorrows receives the weight of my sin, and every sense of my sorrow and
rejection. And to be forgiven of all
that, released from the guilt of more than poor choices
and victimhood as an excuse for my behavior, is the
transforming power to make my life’s experiences, (both lofty and lowy)
meaningful, not just endurable. I, who
am Barabbas, am freed, as the Prince of Peace suffers my violence on Golgotha’s
hill. He is despised and rejected by all
humankind; I am absolved of even the guilt of knowing that he took my place.
One who is condemned receiving full
pardon is a familiar theme. Ever since
the discovery of DNA, evidence has been used to sort out who did a crime…and
who didn’t. Everything about Isaiah’s 53rd
chapter cries out that Jesus was innocent, yet he received the judgment on
behalf of the guilty.
Isaiah compares all humanity, every one of us, to sheep,
wandering, straying away from the purpose and goodness we were created-in, and,
created-for, which is fellowship with God.
God, the faithful and righteous judge of our character and behavior
knows we are not victims; we chose to ignore Him and follow our own
desires. And, in the next heartbeat, we
find God taking on human skin and taking our beating. With every swing of the crucifier’s hammer
landing on three nails, the Lord of Heaven becomes the Passover Lamb. Mankind, once again in bondage, is having
innocent blood cover the household door of his life.
There are many responses to this unasked-for gift from our
Creator. Two of those responses are
common, and way, way off-the-mark:
· Some people take the I didn’t ask for anybody to be
crucified for me attitude. That’s
just what Isaiah said, we turned our backs on him and looked the other
way. That’s just staying on the “I’ll
be the one in charge of my life – just get out of my way” stance…defiance,
self-reliant…still lost, still separated from God!
· Others, understanding how unjust it is for the innocent to suffer
for the guilty, fall into a deep sense of guilt, living the lie of trying to
repay the gift. But that just denies the
purpose of the gift, which is to make us whole again, not
cripple us with a different weight of unworthiness.
This gift of forgiveness is dragging us up out of the pit of
mirey-clay so we can walk, unencumbered by our sins, into the daylight,
validating that God does not die on a cross for the worthless worm, but rescues
the apple of his eye, women, men, and children who were created in his image,
people who are now sanctified to walk right into the presence of the King of
Glory, look him in the eye and smile as we’re hugged like the long lost loved
ones we are!
For You Today
This Good Friday,
remember most that this is a Glory
Story!
You chew on that as you hit the
Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
[1] Title Image: Gustave Dore’ (public domain) via Wikimedia Commons Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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