It's All About Jesus
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series II, Cycle B
It's All About Jesus
As the young pastor got up to preach, he saw a note on the pulpit. The note said, "We would see Jesus." This church was his first call. He was filled with the ideas he had learned from books and lectures. He was also filled with himself.
He had been preaching using theological jargon, including what he had learned in college and seminary about eschatology, mythology, sociology, and psychology. The people of the church had made allowances for the fact that he was young, but they wanted more than they were receiving. "We would see Jesus," one of them wrote. The young pastor had missed the point of preaching.
The point of preaching is to focus on Jesus Christ. Preachers are pointers. Preaching the Word of God means pointing at the Savior. Preaching is all about Jesus, especially his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12, our Good Friday text, is all about the suffering of Christ. You can make a case for Israel being the suffering servant in this passage, but in the light of the dawning of the age of the Messiah, it is clear that this passage points to the cross.
The Exalted Suffering Servant
Isaiah 52:13 says, "See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high." It is true that we should not get so buried by the Good Friday suffering of Christ that we lose track of the fact that he is the ultimate Lord of all. It is true that this servant will astonish many (52:14), startle nations, and shut up the mouths of kings (52:15), but it is equally true that before he ascends to the heights of power, he descends to the depths of hell. Here we focus on that descent.
Saint Paul speaks of this exalted and lifted up Lord. He says, "Before him every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11). But before he takes us on to this vision of glory, Paul tells us "he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:7-9).
The Isaiah passage starts with the servant who is king of glory. Then it takes us to the depths of suffering and death.
Despised, Rejected, And Acquainted With Infirmity
The servant king grew up like a root out of dry ground with no form or majesty in his appearance (53:2). In other words, if you saw him as a child or young man, you would not see majesty in him. He was a common boy, working in Joseph's workshop in the early years. Those who knew him in Nazareth, did not see a Messiah. They thought he was common, just like them, a man of little importance.
If you saw him on the cross, you would see one who was despised by his enemies, rejected by his friends, and acquainted with infirmity, suffering, and grief. The bloodied back, the thorn-infested head, the nailed-pierced hands and feet were no pretty sight. The suffering servant was one on whom you would surely want to turn your back and run, as some of his followers did. He was "one from whom others hide their faces ... a man of no account" (53:3).
Look at him there. Behold the man, broken and dying. He hardly looks like the one who would astonish people with his majesty, the one who would startle nations with his authority, the one before whom kings and nobles would bow and tremble with fear.
Listen to the voices of derision aimed at him: "Come down from the cross if you can"; "He saved others, let him save himself now." If you listen hard enough, you might even hear the satanic voice of the great deceiver: "You thought you were so smart! Now I've gotcha!"
At first glance, as you watch and listen, you might have pity for such a person, but hardly reverence and awe. It is important that we get personally into the scene in order to pick up the full meaning of the prophetic words: "We held him of no account" (53:3b). Not only did Jesus go through all the physical suffering of crucifixion, but he endured the suffering of being considered a "no-account" by the Romans, the Jewish authorities, and by us. It's almost too horrible to contemplate.
Struck Down By God, Afflicted, And Wounded
"Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken ..." (53:4a).
In your imagination, as you see yourself standing at the foot of the cross, look up and behold the broken man. The horror of the sight is compounded as you think about the words of prophecy: "Struck down by God and afflicted." Now pile on the guilt of our personal involvement in this crucifixion. God struck down his Son because of us. It was our sins that caused Jesus to be forsaken by his Abba. It was our sins that caused Jesus to enter the heart of darkness and experience what has been called the Great Ordeal.
The sixth and seventh petitions of the Lord's Prayer are often translated, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." A more modern translation is, "Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil." An alternative translation is: "Save us from the Great Ordeal and deliver us from the evil one."1 In other words, Jesus taught his disciples to pray that they never have to go through the Great Ordeal.
The Great Ordeal is the experience of the absence of God. From the cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" As we hear the words, we weep, "Surely God would not forsake him," and yet that's exactly what happened. And it happened because of our sins. Our sins should cause us to be forsaken. Instead, Jesus is forsaken for us. That's the powerful, personal point of Jesus being wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (53:5).
The Great Ordeal is the playground of the evil one. This state is to be avoided at all costs. That's why we pray, "Save us from the Great Ordeal and deliver us from the evil one." Jesus did not avoid the heart of darkness. He stepped right into the middle of it.
Jesus stepped into the abyss of despair so that we never have to go there. If we ever approach that state, Jesus provided the way out by dying on the cross for us. "Upon him was the punishment that made us whole and by his bruises we are healed" (53:5b). We can only be made whole by the punishment we deserve being placed on Jesus' back. As Isaiah 53 puts it, "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" (53:6).
Oppressed, Silent, And Cut Off
"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth" (53:7).
To be oppressed means to be burdened by the abuse of someone else's power and authority. It means being weighed down in body, mind, and spirit. It means being overwhelmed. When Jesus went there to this place of horror called the cross, he was oppressed by evil powers of darkness. He took this punishment with no resistance. For the most part, he was silent, like a lamb about to die.
John the Baptist called Jesus, "The lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Isaiah 53:8 says, "By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future?" At that point in time as we watch him die, who could possibly believe that he would return in glory with power and authority over all the earthly powers? It certainly didn't look that way.
Jesus was "cut off from the land of the living" (53:8b). He really died. His accusers appeared to win the battle. Jesus was done and gone forever, or so it seemed. "They made his grave with the wicked ... his tomb with the rich" (53:9a). He was buried in the borrowed grave of Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus and a rich member of the Sanhedrin.
All of this disgrace and humiliation happened, in spite of the fact that "he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth" (53:9b). This innocent Lamb of God was cut off from everyone and everything valuable and good so that we might be reconciled with God.
Crushed By God, A Bearer Of Iniquities, And An Intercessor
Jesus was crushed by God that we might be raised from our sins. He went to hell and experienced all that is hellish that we might go to heaven. He bore our iniquities that we might be forgiven. He interceded and it cost him his life but that's why it's possible for us to have eternal life.
"... It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain" (53:10). Albert Schweitzer observed: "Jesus still hangs on Golgotha, a mangled corpse caught in the spokes of the world's wheel, which he has brought to a stop." When you look at the crucified Savior with faith, you grow silent with wonder. All of this was necessary that your sins and mine might be forgiven.
Helmut Thielicke put it this way: "Jesus does not teach the possible forgiveness of sins, he accomplishes it, he enacts it. Jesus does not talk about the chains of guilt and deliver an ethical lecture on what is good and what is evil; he bursts the chains so that they fall clattering to the ground."
Jesus was and is the intercessor, the one through whom we receive eternal life in the here and now and in the hereafter.
No wonder the note on the pulpit said, "We would see Jesus." Seeing Jesus means more than remembering his teachings or recalling his tenderness with the children and the sick. Seeing him means more than seeing his compassion for the needy and broken, and hearing the tender voice of mercy and grace. That vision is true enough, but not big enough.
Until we've seen Jesus on the cross, we haven't really seen him at all. As someone has said, "Good Friday comes before Easter. No cross, no crown." The story of salvation is all about Jesus. The story of Jesus includes Good Friday.
Good Friday includes watching Jesus plow through the agony on his way to ecstasy. Hebrews speaks of Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the one who goes before us in suffering to blaze a trail to victory. Jesus is "the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart" (Hebrews 12:1-3).
Jesus, the suffering servant, knows what it is like for us to suffer. "Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:14-15).
That's the Jesus we would see. The story of the suffering servant in Isaiah 52:13--53:12 is all about Jesus. So is preaching.
____________
1.ÊRon Lavin, Abba (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Co., 2002), pp. 69-78.
As the young pastor got up to preach, he saw a note on the pulpit. The note said, "We would see Jesus." This church was his first call. He was filled with the ideas he had learned from books and lectures. He was also filled with himself.
He had been preaching using theological jargon, including what he had learned in college and seminary about eschatology, mythology, sociology, and psychology. The people of the church had made allowances for the fact that he was young, but they wanted more than they were receiving. "We would see Jesus," one of them wrote. The young pastor had missed the point of preaching.
The point of preaching is to focus on Jesus Christ. Preachers are pointers. Preaching the Word of God means pointing at the Savior. Preaching is all about Jesus, especially his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12, our Good Friday text, is all about the suffering of Christ. You can make a case for Israel being the suffering servant in this passage, but in the light of the dawning of the age of the Messiah, it is clear that this passage points to the cross.
The Exalted Suffering Servant
Isaiah 52:13 says, "See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high." It is true that we should not get so buried by the Good Friday suffering of Christ that we lose track of the fact that he is the ultimate Lord of all. It is true that this servant will astonish many (52:14), startle nations, and shut up the mouths of kings (52:15), but it is equally true that before he ascends to the heights of power, he descends to the depths of hell. Here we focus on that descent.
Saint Paul speaks of this exalted and lifted up Lord. He says, "Before him every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11). But before he takes us on to this vision of glory, Paul tells us "he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:7-9).
The Isaiah passage starts with the servant who is king of glory. Then it takes us to the depths of suffering and death.
Despised, Rejected, And Acquainted With Infirmity
The servant king grew up like a root out of dry ground with no form or majesty in his appearance (53:2). In other words, if you saw him as a child or young man, you would not see majesty in him. He was a common boy, working in Joseph's workshop in the early years. Those who knew him in Nazareth, did not see a Messiah. They thought he was common, just like them, a man of little importance.
If you saw him on the cross, you would see one who was despised by his enemies, rejected by his friends, and acquainted with infirmity, suffering, and grief. The bloodied back, the thorn-infested head, the nailed-pierced hands and feet were no pretty sight. The suffering servant was one on whom you would surely want to turn your back and run, as some of his followers did. He was "one from whom others hide their faces ... a man of no account" (53:3).
Look at him there. Behold the man, broken and dying. He hardly looks like the one who would astonish people with his majesty, the one who would startle nations with his authority, the one before whom kings and nobles would bow and tremble with fear.
Listen to the voices of derision aimed at him: "Come down from the cross if you can"; "He saved others, let him save himself now." If you listen hard enough, you might even hear the satanic voice of the great deceiver: "You thought you were so smart! Now I've gotcha!"
At first glance, as you watch and listen, you might have pity for such a person, but hardly reverence and awe. It is important that we get personally into the scene in order to pick up the full meaning of the prophetic words: "We held him of no account" (53:3b). Not only did Jesus go through all the physical suffering of crucifixion, but he endured the suffering of being considered a "no-account" by the Romans, the Jewish authorities, and by us. It's almost too horrible to contemplate.
Struck Down By God, Afflicted, And Wounded
"Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken ..." (53:4a).
In your imagination, as you see yourself standing at the foot of the cross, look up and behold the broken man. The horror of the sight is compounded as you think about the words of prophecy: "Struck down by God and afflicted." Now pile on the guilt of our personal involvement in this crucifixion. God struck down his Son because of us. It was our sins that caused Jesus to be forsaken by his Abba. It was our sins that caused Jesus to enter the heart of darkness and experience what has been called the Great Ordeal.
The sixth and seventh petitions of the Lord's Prayer are often translated, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." A more modern translation is, "Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil." An alternative translation is: "Save us from the Great Ordeal and deliver us from the evil one."1 In other words, Jesus taught his disciples to pray that they never have to go through the Great Ordeal.
The Great Ordeal is the experience of the absence of God. From the cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" As we hear the words, we weep, "Surely God would not forsake him," and yet that's exactly what happened. And it happened because of our sins. Our sins should cause us to be forsaken. Instead, Jesus is forsaken for us. That's the powerful, personal point of Jesus being wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (53:5).
The Great Ordeal is the playground of the evil one. This state is to be avoided at all costs. That's why we pray, "Save us from the Great Ordeal and deliver us from the evil one." Jesus did not avoid the heart of darkness. He stepped right into the middle of it.
Jesus stepped into the abyss of despair so that we never have to go there. If we ever approach that state, Jesus provided the way out by dying on the cross for us. "Upon him was the punishment that made us whole and by his bruises we are healed" (53:5b). We can only be made whole by the punishment we deserve being placed on Jesus' back. As Isaiah 53 puts it, "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" (53:6).
Oppressed, Silent, And Cut Off
"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth" (53:7).
To be oppressed means to be burdened by the abuse of someone else's power and authority. It means being weighed down in body, mind, and spirit. It means being overwhelmed. When Jesus went there to this place of horror called the cross, he was oppressed by evil powers of darkness. He took this punishment with no resistance. For the most part, he was silent, like a lamb about to die.
John the Baptist called Jesus, "The lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Isaiah 53:8 says, "By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future?" At that point in time as we watch him die, who could possibly believe that he would return in glory with power and authority over all the earthly powers? It certainly didn't look that way.
Jesus was "cut off from the land of the living" (53:8b). He really died. His accusers appeared to win the battle. Jesus was done and gone forever, or so it seemed. "They made his grave with the wicked ... his tomb with the rich" (53:9a). He was buried in the borrowed grave of Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus and a rich member of the Sanhedrin.
All of this disgrace and humiliation happened, in spite of the fact that "he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth" (53:9b). This innocent Lamb of God was cut off from everyone and everything valuable and good so that we might be reconciled with God.
Crushed By God, A Bearer Of Iniquities, And An Intercessor
Jesus was crushed by God that we might be raised from our sins. He went to hell and experienced all that is hellish that we might go to heaven. He bore our iniquities that we might be forgiven. He interceded and it cost him his life but that's why it's possible for us to have eternal life.
"... It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain" (53:10). Albert Schweitzer observed: "Jesus still hangs on Golgotha, a mangled corpse caught in the spokes of the world's wheel, which he has brought to a stop." When you look at the crucified Savior with faith, you grow silent with wonder. All of this was necessary that your sins and mine might be forgiven.
Helmut Thielicke put it this way: "Jesus does not teach the possible forgiveness of sins, he accomplishes it, he enacts it. Jesus does not talk about the chains of guilt and deliver an ethical lecture on what is good and what is evil; he bursts the chains so that they fall clattering to the ground."
Jesus was and is the intercessor, the one through whom we receive eternal life in the here and now and in the hereafter.
No wonder the note on the pulpit said, "We would see Jesus." Seeing Jesus means more than remembering his teachings or recalling his tenderness with the children and the sick. Seeing him means more than seeing his compassion for the needy and broken, and hearing the tender voice of mercy and grace. That vision is true enough, but not big enough.
Until we've seen Jesus on the cross, we haven't really seen him at all. As someone has said, "Good Friday comes before Easter. No cross, no crown." The story of salvation is all about Jesus. The story of Jesus includes Good Friday.
Good Friday includes watching Jesus plow through the agony on his way to ecstasy. Hebrews speaks of Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the one who goes before us in suffering to blaze a trail to victory. Jesus is "the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart" (Hebrews 12:1-3).
Jesus, the suffering servant, knows what it is like for us to suffer. "Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:14-15).
That's the Jesus we would see. The story of the suffering servant in Isaiah 52:13--53:12 is all about Jesus. So is preaching.
____________
1.ÊRon Lavin, Abba (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Co., 2002), pp. 69-78.
