Isaiah 53:1-12
Our Suffering Servant
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Matthew 26:27-29
Jesus Blood on the Cross Saves Us
27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
As I am reading through the gospels, and reading about Jesus teachings, and how He was arrested and dies on the cross, I sometimes can forget that He died for my sins...As the events unfold quickly in the readings...Jesus quickly gets arrested and goes on a quick mockery of a trial...Then He is hung on the cross...We are not explicitly told that my sins are what put Him on the cross, in the first place...The Great Prophet Isaiah wrote years before Jesus came about this...He wrote about the One who would suffer for our sins and our inequities...The Messiah would be a Savior for us...He saves us from our sins and the inequities that we do...
Isaiah wrote that Jesus suffered for us...He suffered because of our sins...In summarizing Isaiah, "Who has believed what we've been saying, about this New Prophet?...Who has really seen the LORD's saving power?...His Servant grew up like a tender young shoot...He grew like a root coming up out of dry ground...He didn't have any beauty, any wealth, or majesty that made us notice Him...God gave Him no reputation...There wasn't anything special about the way He looked that drew us to Him...Men actually looked down on Him...They didn't accept Him...He was both different and wise...He knew all about sorrow and His suffering that was to come...He was like someone that people turn their faces away from...We looked down on Him...We didn't have any respect for Him, and He was sent by God...He suffered for things that we should have suffered...They were our sins...He took it on Himself, the pain that should have been ours...But we thought God was punishing Him...We thought God was wounding Him and making Him suffer, for something He had done...But the Servant was pierced, because we had sinned...He was crushed because we had done, what was evil...He was punished to make us whole again...His wounds have healed us...All of us are like lost sheep...We have wandered away from God...All of us have turned to our own way...And the LORD has placed on His Servant the sins of all of us...He was beaten down and flogged, and made to suffer for our sins...But He didn't open His mouth...He was led away like a sheep to be killed...Lambs are silent while their wool is being cut off...In the same way, He didn't open His mouth...He was arrested and sentenced to death for us...Then He was taken away and flogged...He was cut off from this life...He was punished for the sins of mankind...Who among those who were living at that time could have understood those things?...Who living today can believe this?...He was given a grave with those who were evil...But His body was buried in the tomb of the rich man, Joseph of Arimathea...He was crucified and killed even though He hadn't harmed anyone...And He had never lied to anyone...He never sinned...The LORD says, "It was my plan to crush Him and cause Him to suffer...God's Plan was to crush Him for us...I made His life a guilt offering to pay for sin...But He will see all of His children after Him...In fact, He will continue to live...He rose from His death and still lives...My plan will be brought about through Him...After He suffers, He will see the Light that leads to life...And He will be satisfied...My Godly Servant will make many people godly because of what He will and has accomplished...He was punished for their sins...People's sin put Him on the cross...So, I will give Him a place of honor among those who are great...He will be rewarded just like others who win the battle...That is because He was willing to give His life as a sacrifice for all men and women...He was counted among those who had committed crimes...But He had committed no crime...He took the sins of many people on Himself...And He gave His life for those who had done what is wrong...Because we sin, He suffered and died on the cross."...
When Jesus took the cup, and gave thanks and gave the cup to His Disciples, He was telling us that we would be saved...Saying, “Drink from it, all of you...This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins...I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”...Jesus' blood and death on the cross saves us...He is our Savior...
When Jesus went around in His ministry forgiving people of their sins, we can believe that He is the Messiah...He was and is the One that we have sinned against...We are made in the Image of God, who is absolutely moral...When we sin, we sin against our being made in His image, and against Him and the things that He created that are Absolutely Moral...Jesus has the authority to forgive us from our sins, and died on the cross in saving us from our sins...It is strange that His flogging, His pain, and His suffering on the cross are what can bring us peace...His wounds on the cross are ironically healing to us...