With today’s stanza we come to the heart of this Servant Song. These verses are among the first that I underlined in my bible I had as a child. I can vividly remembering the impact that the idea that Jesus died for me, in my place, had on me – and indeed still has. Here are the verses:
Surely he took up our pain
Isaiah 53:4-6
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.
These verses give a vivid picture of the Servant’s accomplishment, and are taken up in the New Testament and used of Jesus. They convey the idea that somehow Jesus took up our punishment, that he suffered in our place, and that his suffering brings us peace. As we look at these verses we need to read them carefully, because reading carefully will guard us against ways this idea has been misused and distorted over the years.
First and, most fundamentally notice v4. See where the initiative lies. It is the Servant who takes up our pain and carries our suffering. He chooses to enter into this world with its pain and suffering. Jesus chose to enter our world. He chose to carry our burdens. When the Bible talks about the cross it is very clear that the cross is something that Jesus chose, just as it was part of the Father’s plan.
Then v4 switches to what the people watching the Servant think. They think the Servant is being punished and afflicted by God for his own sin. That is exactly what the leaders of the people in Jesus’ day thought at the cross. They mocked and taunted Jesus. They believed his death indicated that he was under divine disapproval for his own sin.
They were wrong – Jesus lived a perfect life. He chose the cross. And yet, v5 shows us here, Jesus was in some sense being punished. His wounds bring us life. He takes our place. While we, like sheep go astray, each one going to our own way, the LORD has laid on Jesus the sin of us all.
How can this be? How can the death of Jesus, an innocent victim, bring about our healing and our peace. It can happen because Jesus is not only only the Servant who suffers, he is also God himself come among us as a human being. The cross is not about God punishing an isolated individual in my place. The cross is about God himself stepping into human history and in his own person taking all the weight of my sin on himself. John Stott in his superb book The Cross of Christ calls this the self substitution of God.
If the Servant was merely another human he could not pay the price of sin. He had to be divine. He had to be God himself. And so Jesus enters human history, born of a woman, laid in a manger. He grows up and lives as one of us, and yet also as the God of history. He lays down his life, and bears our sins. He is God – and yet somehow as God feels what it is to be abandoned, forsaken and punished by God.
Jesus does that out of love. He dies for us because he loves us. God gave Jesus out of love for us, and Jesus willingly took that burden out of love for us. Somehow by entering into the mess of our broken world, and bearing the weight of the punishment and God forsakenness that our own choices to reject God’s way bring on us, Jesus brings about our healing, our wholeness.
And because he does that there is no need for us to do that. Yes, to follow Jesus is in one sense to pick up our crosses, to die to ourselves and to say yes to God’s way. But, equally we are not called to redeem anyone else by our suffering. We cannot change anyone’s heart by suffering for them. We cannot bear the sin of another. Jesus suffering as a victim is not a license to turn anyone else into a victim. We are not to twist the cross by making others into victims. It is Jesus and Jesus alone who can save and change others.
And so we come back to the cross this Good Friday and when we look at the man on the cross, whipped to within an inch of his life, crowned with thorns and gasping for breath, we look, not only on an innocent man suffering, but on God incarnate bearing the weight of a world in rebellion. God’s act of self sacrifice opens the way for us to come back to God. When we look at the cross we see the love of a God whose arms are stretched wide for the whole human race.
That last line is taken from a song I used to listen to each Good Friday of my teenage years, and for many years since – Wooden Cross Rider by Garth Hewitt. For me Good Friday has always been special. It is always a day to remember, and this song sums up so well what this day means for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPW0ry4Jx9o – excuse the random 1970s album cover – I notice that it dates from the year of my birth – the song itself expresses so well what Good Friday is all about.
And fundamentally the most important thing this Good Friday, and indeed any day at all, is that we pause and remember that Jesus death has brought us peace with God – and that peace is a gift. I do nothing to earn it or make it happen. The most fundamental reality about the Christian life is that it is about gift – and Good Friday is the day that makes that gift possible. Easter is a good time to stop and remember that it is all about God’s gift.
Postscript
I know that for many this idea of substitution, and especially the idea that Jesus took our punishment is one that is hard, or even offensive. I know too, that for me it lies right at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. If you are someone who struggles with this at an intellectual level my first place to go would be, as I’ve already alluded to in the blog above, The Cross of Christ by John Stott – I think Stott does an amazing job of explaining the key concepts in the cross, as well as giving a wonderful overview of the implications of the cross for the Christian today – it isn’t an ‘easy reading’ book though, and does require a degree of effort (which is well worth it) – at a more popular level Mark Meynell’s Cross Examined is worth looking at. Also worth mentioning if you are into reading more academic theology is Violence, Hospitality and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition by Hans Boersma – this is a really good look at the cross and understanding in the light of criticisms about divine violence.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 