Amazing

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday night, January 30, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Isaiah 53:1-12.

            You and I can have salvation and eternal life in heaven through our faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.

            That’s not exactly a new thought, of course.  You’ve heard me say it any number of times.  And of course, it’s not original with me–I would assume that every Christian pastor has said those words many times.  In fact, I hope every Christian, pastor or not, has said those words many times.  We certainly should, anyway.  It’s one of the most basic statements of our Christian faith.

            But because this is such a basic statement of our Christian faith, we sometimes forget to realize what an amazing thing it is.  That God, the almighty, the all-powerful, the perfect, the all-everything God, should offer salvation and eternal life in heaven to someone like me.  And someone like you.  People who are flawed, people who are weak, people who constantly fail to do what we should do and who deliberately and purposely do what we should not do.  

            It’s incredible that God would do that.  After all, we disobey God, we ignore God, we try to order God around.  We act like we know better than God what God should do and when and how God should do it.  It would be more understandable if God decided He wanted nothing whatsoever to do with us.  But instead, God gives us the chance to go and be with Him in heaven.  And God does not even ask us to do anything hard to get there.  God does not make us be perfect.  God does not make us battle demons or defeat the non-believers or anything like that.  Again, all God asks us to do is have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  It’s almost unbelievable.  But it’s true.

            But what’s even more amazing, more incredible, more unbelievable, is what God did in order to make that offer of salvation and eternal life possible.  God sent His divine Son, Jesus Christ, to earth.  And a major part of the reason He came to earth was to die.  And not just to die–to be killed.  To be killed in a very painful way.  Jesus came to earth to take the punishment that you and I deserve for our sins.

            And again, we say that, and we don’t think about what an amazing thing it is.  Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God.  The one who never sinned.  He took the punishment for our sins.  He took the punishment we deserve for all the times we’ve disobeyed God.  For all the times we’ve ignored God.  For all the times we’ve worshiped other gods.  For all the times we’ve gone our own way, rather than going God’s way.  Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, the one who never sinned, took the punishment that I deserve for my sins.  And He took the punishment that you deserve for your sins.  That’s an amazing thing.

            And the thing is, this was not just something that happened.  This was the plan.  Our reading for tonight from Isaiah tells all about it.

            Isaiah was written long before Jesus Christ came to earth.  Our best guess is that it was written somewhere around 550 B. C. So five hundred fifty years before Jesus ever came to earth, God told the prophet Isaiah what he was going to do.

            As we go through what God told Isaiah, I want us all to really think about it.  To think about the terrible things that would be done to Jesus.  To think about how sad it is, that humans would do that to him.  And to think about how incredible it is that Jesus would go through all that for you and me, so we could have salvation.

            Jesus was “despised and rejected by mankind”.  Think about that:  the divine Son of God being despised and rejected by mankind.  He was “a man of suffering, familiar with pain.”  “Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”

“We held him in low esteem.”  Again, Jesus is the divine Son of God.  And we held Him in low esteem.  We hid our faces from Him.  We thought so little of Him that we hid our faces from Him.  We did not even want to look at Him.  What a statement.

And yet, despite that, listen to what Jesus did for us.  “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering.”  “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.”  “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.”

That’s–I mean, I know I keep using words like amazing and incredible, but short of using a thesaurus I don’t know how else to describe this.  We were embarrassed by Jesus.  We shunned Him.  We tried to pretend He was not even there.  And yet, Jesus took up our pain and bor our suffering.  He was killed for our transgressions, for our iniquities.  We have all gone our own way, wandering off like sheep, not even really knowing where we were going or why.  And yet, the punishment for that, which should have gone to us, was given to Jesus.  And He willingly accepted it.  Jesus willingly and voluntarily took the punishment that should have gone to those who treated Him like dirt.  

And then, listen to the next part:  “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.”

That’s what I mean when I say Jesus willingly and voluntarily took our punishment.  When he was arrested, when he was beaten, when he was nailed to the cross and killed, he said nothing.  He did nothing to try to stop it.  And he could have.  I mean, again, this is the divine Son of God.  This is the one who walked on water.  This is the one who fed thousands of people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  This is the one who healed the lame, who made the blind see.  This is the one who raised the dead!  You think Jesus could not have avoided death, if he had chosen to?  It would’ve been easy.

But he did not do it.  He did not even think about doing it.  Jesus silently accepted the beatings, the mockery, the pain.  He accepted even His death.  As Isaiah says, “He was assigned a grave with the wicked…though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”  “He poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.”

And then, here’s what Jesus did.  “He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Jesus interceded before God the Father on our behalf.  Because he took the punishment that should have gone to us, we do not need to take that punishment.  Jesus, who was without sin, took the punishment that we, as sinners should have received.  Because of that, if we believe in Jesus as the Savior, God, who knows better than we do what sinners we really are, treats us as if we were without sin and gives us eternal life in heaven.  

Think of the love it took for Jesus to do that.  Think about how much He must love us, to do what he did and continues to do for us.  

And it was all decided all those hundreds of years earlier.  God had it all planned out, and God told Isaiah all about it.  And Isaiah told the people about it, so they’d be able to recognize Jesus when he came.

Many did not, of course.  And God knew that, too.  After all, if everyone had recognized Jesus as the Savior, they would not have killed Him.  God knew that, no matter what Isaiah said, there were a lot of people who would not recognize Jesus.  But God wanted to give everyone the chance.  

Which is another amazing thing about this.  Everyone is given the chance to accept Jesus as the Savior.  No matter what we’ve done.  No matter how many sins we’ve committed or how long we’ve committed them.  You and I and every sinner in the world–which means every person in the world–is given the chance to accept Jesus as the Savior.  Everyone is given the chance for salvation and eternal life.

You and I and everyone else everywhere in the world can have salvation and eternal life through our belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  It’s an incredible thing.  The divine Son, Jesus Christ, allowed himself to be killed so you and I can have salvation and eternal life.  We should never take that for granted.  We should always be amazed at what Jesus did for us.  We should always be incredibly grateful for it.