SermonStudio

Jenny had spent the past half hour working quietly all by herself at the art table in her Sunday school classroom. This was unusual behavior for any three-year-old child, but for this gregarious extrovert it was extraordinary. When class time was over, Jenny's parents came in to take her to the sanctuary for worship.

"Come on Jenny, it's time for church," said Mom. Jenny just shook her head and continued with her crayon drawing.

"Jenny, we have to get moving," added her father.

"Just a minute, I'm almost done," Jenny pleaded.

With a familiar sigh and a quick glance at her watch, Mom told Jenny, "Okay, just one minute. But hurry up. What are you drawing that's so important anyway?"

"I'm drawing a picture of Jesus," exclaimed Jenny proudly.

Shaking his head Jenny's dad said, "Jenny, nobody knows exactly what Jesus looks like."

"They will in a minute!" proclaimed Jenny, and got back to work.

Can you guess what this precocious young lady was drawing? You are absolutely correct... Jenny was not drawing a face. She was making a cross using every one of the 64 crayons in the art table box!

Indeed, especially on Good Friday, the cross gives us a most holy lens for observing what Jesus looks like and loves like. Our Old Testament lesson offers some focus.

Who is this servant Isaiah mentions anyway? Is he Isaiah or one of his disciples? Could it be Cyrus of Persia? How about the population of Hebrews living as exiles in Babylonia? Or the whole nation of Israel? Or even Jesus himself? So, what does Jesus look like? What does this servant look like?

Trying to figure this out is like trying to nail a drop of water to a window pane. It can't be done, and it doesn't really matter. Isaiah states that the appearance of God's servant would not stand out in a crowd. In fact, this servant is after one "from whom others would hide their faces" (Isaiah 53:3).

So, today, on this Good Friday, we might be able to get a glimpse of what Jesus looks like by looking at Isaiah's description of what the servant did and what were the results. As you hear Isaiah's words here, keep in your minds Jenny's cross of 64 colors. Keep in your hearts God's servant who was nailed there.

Here is Jesus. Here is how Isaiah describes him. He was despised and rejected (v. 3), oppressed and afflicted (v. 7), wounded (v. 5) and crushed (v. 10), cut off and stricken (v. 8) for us. Here is the one whom we name Jesus, the one whom Isaiah names God's servant, who has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases (Isaiah 53:4). Here is the one whose "punishment made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed" (Isaiah 53:4). Now can you see how Isaiah's description begins to help Jenny's picture come alive?

Why did all this happen? Why do we look at Jesus through this lens of suffering? Well, God's people couldn't seem to stop their endless cycle of sin and disobedience. No priestly sacrifice could break this pattern. Left on their own God's people were helpless and their efforts were hopeless.

So God took the initiative to break this pattern. God began to bring into focus an even sharper picture of the depth of God's own passion for the world. In Jesus Christ, God's love entered the world and lived in the midst of the people (John 1:14). In Jesus Christ, God's innocent, kind, and compassionate servant, God chose to defeat the control of sin and suffering.

Aha! Now even more detail can be added to Jenny's multi-colored drawing. In addition to a body tormented with suffering, we can also see a heart filled with love, eyes over flowing with compassion, and arms outstretched with an embrace for the whole world. Today, Good Friday, God shows us what love looked like on the cross. Today, Jenny's multicolored drawing invites us to see what God's love can look like from the cross into the midst of our daily lives.

As you know well, suffering is still very real. Each one of us has personal experience with affliction and rejection. Nevertheless, the Good Friday sin and suffering are no longer in control. They no longer have power over us. Christ has defeated them forever, turning an emblem of suffering into a brilliant cross of triumph. There are living witnesses among us whom God is using to show us what that victory looks like every day.

Mitzi was suffering from a severe and crippling arthritis in her spine. It had become so bad that she was in constant pain, able to get around only in a wheelchair. One day her pastor asked her how she could keep going and stay so courageous in the midst of constant pain.

"Well, Pastor," Mitzi began, "Every time I hurt I think of Jesus on the cross. You know, it seems like he and I are a lot closer since the pain started."

Right on, Mitzi!

Marilyn was a young Army officer on the fast track toward captain's bars when she was diagnosed with a painful, debilitating, and chronic disease that strikes connective tissue between joints. It would eventually impact her entire body including the brain. As her agony increased during the next few months, Marilyn grew increasingly depressed. One evening, all alone, she took a bottle full of sleeping pills and went to bed fully expecting to die. Shortly after midnight a neighbor backed her car into Marilyn's automobile in the parking lot, causing both vehicles to burst into flame. When Marilyn didn't respond to the apartment manager's phone call, he rushed to her unit and discovered Marilyn unconscious and near death.

The resulting hospitalization led Marilyn to begin a new vocation as a therapist working with persons unable to cope with traumatic and painful experiences. When folks ask Marilyn what changed for her, she stated, "I discovered that I can't change the fact that I have pain. I can't control the reality that I do suffer. However, what I can control is how I suffer" and pointing to the cross on her desk, Marilyn adds, "that cross shows me every day that God understands my pain because God's Son suffered too."

That cross shows how deeply and faithfully God loves Mitzi, Marilyn, and all God's children. On that cross, Jesus did what no human can do... stop the control that suffering and sin have on our lives. Of course sin and suffering still exist. Of course grief and pain are still part of life. Of course violence and injustice create new victims by the hour. However, thanks to Jesus, the crucified servant Son of God, their pattern of control in our lives has ended.

Thanks to Jenny's drawing we can see a beautiful, communal tapestry of all God's children united together through a 64 crayon cross. Thanks to this really Good Friday vision of Jesus we can see hope and possibility where others see only ugliness and worthlessness. On this Good Friday we begin to see the sacred and holy in the midst of the mundane and ordinary. On God's Good Friday, we begin to see God seeking after the lost when others see only the lost. Today, on God's Good and Awesome Friday, we see God's presence in the lonely and despised, the broken and forgotten, when others shut their eyes in hopeless despair.

Today we have a glimpse of what Jesus looks like. Although despised and wounded he was also exalted and lifted up. Although he was afflicted and oppressed, he was still kind and compassionate. Today we see what Jesus looks like, suffering the cost of our sin with a love so deep and so passionate that we are startled into silent, awesome wonder as we gaze at the cross. Today really is Good Friday.

Thanks Jenny.

Thanks Isaiah.

Thanks Jesus. Amen.