Some people, at a meeting I was attending, learned that I was a pastor and asked me: why did you Christians kill your god and then create an idol reflecting your unholy act of murder and place them in your places of worship?” I was dumbfounded. Mostly because these people in the room with me at the time worship idols– and I mean quite literally, their gods are statues reflecting their imagination of the Hindu pantheon. The most amazing part was when they said, “we too, worship Jesus, just not his murder.” Then they pulled out a picture of Jesus tending to sheep on a meadow with little children, and told me that this is the Jesus they worship. What followed was an instructional session about why had to Jesus died and how it was all part of God’s plan. But I want to make sure that all of us are aware of why and how the mechanics of all this worked. The Prophet Isaiah explains who it is we remember this weekend and every other weekend we come to church. Look at what he writes about Jesus:
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. 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. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 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. Isaiah 53:2-5
Jesus became nothing and was hated and punished for us. There was a penalty that we were slated to pay, and a lot of people thought Jesus was paying for his own crimes, but really he was paying for ours. The sins that we committed, the sins that we are committing and the sins that we will commit. Every single drop of blood, every single scar, every single bruise was so that we would be spared the pain and suffering that we really deserved. Jesus was the sin offering that made everything right between us and God. He had to do it because of us. He allowed us to murder him on the cross, nail by nail. He allowed us to spit on his face, and scoff. He gave up his life for ours. God justifies us through Jesus, as an intercession for our transgression. The debt was paid once and for all, and we celebrate that. We are grateful for it. We are thankful for him. It is our healing and salvation. Let’s remember it.
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