He bore the sin of many Isaiah 53:10-12 Big Idea: Purpose: to feel the relief of sin forgiven Jesus carried humanity s sin Prayer: Father What a blessed relief to not have to carry that which is my due; To be given freedom in place of punishment; To be granted amnesty in the place of justice; To be granted sonship in the place of alienation. And to have these for all eternity is sweet bliss Thank you for the suffering servant, raised from the dead today. Amen 1
It was one of the worst days of my life. It was meant to be a long weekend of fun and togetherness but then things changed so quickly and so dramatically. There was great camaraderie, lots of back slapping and manly pranks as we journeyed, there was even an air of expectation and a little bit of hope perhaps things would soon be different in the mess of our political landscape. Well different they certainly turned out to be; just not the kind of different that I had expected. He was our friend and what a friend he was but in our friendship we always knew that there was something fundamentally different about him. He behaved as no man ever behaved. He spoke as no man ever spoke and so when they grabbed him in the dead of night it came as such a shock to us all. It was dark and we were tired and our tummies were full and then we saw 2
Judas but it was weird, we didn t know why he had a group of soldiers with him and we couldn t fathom what was going on. And then they grabbed Jesus and they were gone. We tagged along behind and watched a funny quasi court unfold and then another and then another. We managed to get in quite close to one of them and stand around the fire it was quite cold that night. No one seemed to really know what was happening it just got uglier and uglier. First, they struck him in the face and then later Pilate said there is nothing wrong with Jesus...but by then a crowd had gathered and they shouted, Crucify, crucify! What were they thinking? And then Pilate had him flogged. It was dreadful, it was merciless, they whipped him with a cato-nine tails and then in a mock pantomime they put thorns on his head so that the blood ran down his face; mixed with sweat it ran red. They mocked him; they spat on him 3
who does that? And then Pilate issued the death sentence. In an act of complete cowardice, he just gave them Jesus to be killed. They prodded him like a dog and lashed the cross beam across his shoulders and they made him walk dead man walking to the city rubbish dump and then they crucified him. They stripped him naked, there is no dignity in death, then they lashed him to the cross and they drove great big nails through his arms and his feet; and with a mocking sign saying Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews they lifted him skywards and left him in the sun to die. I watched that day what else could I do. I felt so powerless but also so angry. I stayed with Mary and the other Marys. There was this awful yet poignant moment when Jesus saw me and asked me to take care of his mom...of course I said, Yes. That was just so like him always thinking of others rather than himself. 4
And then it was all over. He was dead strangely it went dark as he died. The soldiers came and checked that he was really dead. They slapped him around some more and then stabbed him with a spear just to make doubly sure. He was certainly dead A couple of hours later a kind man helped us bury him. It was a pretty rushed job it had to be, we hadn t come to Jerusalem expecting to organise a funeral we did our best. What we could under the circumstances? We wrapped his body up in some material we had rustled up and then we laid him in a cave-tomb and then we went home and we cried, we sobbed and we sobbed until eventually we were numb and there were no more tears left. And the next day I woke hoping that it was a dream but it wasn t. That dull ache of grief gripped my heart and my soul as I remembered that Friday 5
But now it is Sunday morning Peter and I were just up having coffee and rusks; trying not to talk about things when Mary burst in she was chattering about the body being gone and about angels and about not knowing where they had taken him we couldn t work out what she was saying, so Peter and I ran off to the tomb to see for ourselves. Peter is more of a prop forward than a speedster and so I easily outran him. When I got there I looked inside that cave and it was weird the strips of cloth that we had buried him in were there but the body wasn t. I can t fathom why a grave robber would steal a naked body why not just take it as it was, that would be much easier. Suddenly Peter was there and he just went straight in and so I followed It was empty! There was nothing to see and so we went home and it wasn t minutes until Mary was there again and she said she had seen him and he was alive 6
And then we saw him ourselves. We didn t know what to do that day so we locked ourselves in. We didn t want the Romans accusing us of stealing the body. We were scared that the Jews would come and do the same thing to us as they had done to Jesus and as we sat behind that locked door there he was. At first we thought it must be a ghost but then he said, Peace. Peace be with you. And then he showed us his hands and his feet. We saw him that day, we hugged him, and we cried tears of joy we saw him dead and then we saw him alive. It was him. It was really him And now, only now, are we starting to understand what this was all about. It really shouldn t have taken us by surprise after all Isaiah wrote about it 700 years ago. Dang we really should have known our Bible s 7
better. We should have realised that he is the suffering servant and the suffering servant has got to suffer. In fact, it was God s will to crush him. It was God s will to cause him to suffer before he was raised we should have known that Jesus was always going to be the one to carry our guilt and our sin That is what the prophet Isaiah promises. 700 years before Jesus lived. Isaiah chapter 53 prophesies that there will be a suffering servant who will come. In v10 it says that God will crush him. He will suffer and he will die and v10 his death will be a guilt offering; his death will be v11 the way in which many will be justified - declared righteous. In his death he will carry our iniquities. As he hangs on that cross he will v12 bare the sin of many. He will make an offering that will turn aside the wrath of God. He will make intercession for the transgressors. 8
And so on that cross Jesus carried the genocides that have plagued our planet. He carried the moments of selfishness that define us. He carried the infidelity and the corruption and the betrayal. He carried the lies. He carried the racism and the injustice committed by the rich on the poor. He carried the sins that are respectable and civilised as well as the sins that are crude and horrible. He carried the secrets committed under the cover of darkness and the overt, wilful and public acts of rebellion committed in the light. As he hung on that cross he carried the human race s rejection of God and its consequences That is the problem with sin it has got consequences. And either you carry those consequences or someone else does. if I steal from you and get away with it then you carry the consequences; if I get caught then I carry them - either way there are 9
consequences. If I am selfish and you have to live with me then you carry the consequences; if you are selfish and I have to live with you then I carry them either way there are consequences And at the heart of sin is our terrible rejection of God same deal either I carry the consequences of that or God carries them. That is the beauty of the cross God says that he will carry the consequences of my sin for me. Jesus willingly taking the consequences that should have been mine and takes them on himself I remember the day pretty clearly. I have told you about it before. I was in grade 3 which made me somewhere around 9 years old. My friend Dean invited me one afternoon to come down the road to play at his house. We were very inventive, creative and busy as 9 year old boys can be. We set up a golf course around their 10
back garden but our design skills were not well developed and it never occurred to us that to set up the first tee right under the lounge window was not a great idea. And so there I was teeing up visualising the drive of the century straight and true down the middle of the fairway and as I followed through the head of the club came around beautifully and went through the lounge window. There was glass everywhere it was the only shot I ever played on that golf course. Our game came to an abrupt fault. Dean said it was okay and that I should go home I never paid for that shot. I never carried the consequences. That day I went home and I suspect Dean got thrashed and his parents paid for the consequences of my sin But how do we know that Jesus paid for us? How can we be sure? 11
Well we know because on that first Jerusalem Easter morning they went to the tomb and the found it empty. They stared into the opening and they saw the grave clothes but they didn t find a body. And then they saw him. They actually saw him. They ate with him and they talked with him and they held him and it is true he rose from the dead. And 700 years before it happened Isaiah knew that it would happen V10-11a It is two little hints. They are only hints but they are there that is the way the Old Testament often works its full of hints and glimpses and shadows and they all come together in the one man Jesus and so when he rose from the dead that day we know that it was so 12
that our sins can be forgiven. We know that it is true and what amazing news it is for us So don t carry your sin yourself that would be a stupid thing to do. Imagine going to a fancy restaurant and having the 6 courses laid out before you. Amongst them is an amuse bouche and a sorbet and a jus and when you are finished and you come to pay the bill you find that it has been paid already. It would be stupid to insist on paying it yourself again. Jesus has paid for your sin we don t need to so why do we try? Remember that you can t pay for your sin with a few good deeds. If you don t believe me try that on the traffic cop next time you get pulled over. He flags you down for speeding and you say, Well actually officer this morning I helped an old lady across the road; and yesterday I was in church and put 13
R100 in the collection bag; and I made my wife coffee in bed this morning so those three good deeds must surely outweigh the 10 kilometres over the speed limit that I was going. Do you think he will be impressed? If it doesn t with a traffic cop why do we think it might work with God? Our sin has been paid for - Jesus died and then he rose. And his resurrection means that death no longer holds us or frightens us because our sin is paid for. We know death is certain up ahead is a day when we will meet God, face to face we will be exposed and we will be in his presence; we will see him but because he has paid for our sin that day is a day of anticipation rather than a day of terror We can live with anticipation. We can live freely. We can live radically. We can live with the sure realisation that there is much 14
more to life than simply the accumulation of wealth and experiences. We can live knowing that our lives matter. We can live knowing that life is meaningful. We can live as if our sins are forgiven. We can live knowing we have an inheritance in heaven. We can live with hope and so now we can start to love. We can be a people that are selfless rather than selfish. We can be a people that leave behind the things that have plagued us for all of our lives. We can be different. We can be a people of joy a people that love God and seek to share him. We can be a people that care for the world for the poor and the marginalised. We can be a people that are different It is just the most fantastic news he was crushed, he was pierced, he was broken so that we might be healed and forgiven and restored. He rose that we might know it is true and he rose that we might 15
live and soon, it is not long now we will see him too. Just like John saw him and Peter saw him, and Mary saw him, and Thomas saw him we will see him too - the Son of God who died for us, the one who rose that first Easter Sunday. 16