Easter reflections, part 3

When I was a boy I attended a small Methodist church a few minutes from our home in Pennsylvania. I can remember attending a Good Friday service one year. I was probably seven or eight years old. People looked somber. The atmosphere was sad and very quiet. The pastor talked about Jesus’ suffering and dying. Although I was just a little boy, I had a basic understanding of what was transpiring. However, what I remember thinking to myself over and over that day was, “Why do we call this Good Friday? What’s so good about it?”

Well, I suppose it doesn’t take too much thought to make sense of it. What’s good about it is not the excruciating suffering that Jesus endured, but rather that He did it for us, in our place, for the salvation of all who believe in Him. I think 2 Corinthians 5:21 sums it up really well: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” So as contradictory as it might seem, Good Friday is a somber day, yet a good day for those who believe in Christ Jesus.

When I reflect on Easter, I tend to go right to the end of each of the four gospels. After all, that is where the Passion story is recorded. But as the above-quoted verse reveals, the Passion story, and the interpretation thereof, appears all throughout Scripture. In fact, I’d like to sign off today by merely re-printing a passage that, when I think about it, ought to be required reading for all of us on Good Friday. It is Isaiah 53. To me, what is so absolutely stunning about this chapter of the Bible is that it was written about 700 years before Jesus lived, yet it depicts a man who:

(a) Was rejected and despised by men, and suffered and died;
(b) Had himself done nothing wrong;
(c) Died for our transgressions, because we are all sinners;
(d) Although dead, would somehow live again;
(e) Would be given some exalted position by God; and
(f) Will make intercession on our behalf so that we can be justified

Sounds a lot like the gospel, doesn’t it? Is it any wonder that Isaiah is sometimes referred to as “the fifth gospel?”

Here’s wishing you all a very Happy Easter.

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Isaiah 53

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 men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten 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 upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his 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 her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

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 a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

11 After the suffering of his soul, 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.