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| The Passion: The World
Needed It Feelings of worthlessness are common to the experience of man, and are crippling for some. As a child we think we are the center of the universe and, as in the Truman Show, everything is there for us. Slowly the light dawns and we discover that the world is much larger than we ever thought, and that there are far more people than we ever dreamed. We then sometimes do a U-turn. Instead of basking in the glow of supreme importance we begin to wonder if our lives count for anything at all. Esteem can sink as low as the floor of Death Valley. This feeling of low-esteem is compounded by the philosophy of the world which leads us to believe that we all evolved from the slime for no apparent reason, that each of us was born simply at random, that there is not and never was any God who could be there for us in any way. All this is a recipe for meaninglessness. Some people are so crippled by this feeling of worthlessness they can hardly function, and even for the rest of us it can be a serious struggle from time to time. I want to tell you today on this Easter Sunday that yes there is a God, and you mean a lot to him. The story of the passion of Christ and Easter is the story of a tremendous price paid for a very precious prize. And you and I are a part of that prize. Jesus suffered terribly on the cross, as we all know. A medical doctor described the ordeal of crucifixion this way, Adequate exhalation required lifting the body by pushing up on the feet
and by flexing the elbows... However, this maneuver would place the entire
weight of the body on the tarsals and would produce searing pain. Furthermore,
flexion of the elbows would cause To Jesus, however, this torture was worth it because he who received such painful blows also was able to deal out some blows. I certainly don’t mean that Jesus lashed back at Herod or Pilate or the soldiers who whipped him. Certainly not. But Jesus did lash out at some more dreaded enemies, and he could only have done this by the cruel death that he suffered. Today I want to show you how Jesus, by dying on the cross, dealt mortal blows to four of mankind’s most dreaded enemies – disease, damnation, disobedience, and death. Our text, Isaiah 53, a prophecy written eight centuries before the birth
of Christ, describes in detail the rigorous ordeal that the Messiah would
be put through. We have been looking at this chapter for the past month
as we have been reflecting on Mel A survey of Isaiah 53 shows that when Messiah would come, sin would be put on him – not his own, but the sins of others,
Sin is the root cause of all that ails us as a human race, so Jesus took it upon himself, signaling that one day it would be done in once and for all. In the meantime it has been dealt a mortal blow, along with all the consequences that flow from it, which brings me around again to those four enemies I spoke about. BY TAKING SIN UPON HIMSELF, JESUS DEALT A BLOW TO DISEASE.
This passage is quoted in the New Testament in order to explain why Jesus spent so much time and energy on healing the sick. Disease was not a part of the original design. It came into this world as a result of the Fall and is directly linked to the presence of sin. One day this link will be broken. Already, it is damaged. People often ask, Why doesn’t Jesus heal the sick today the way he did back then? I answer, he does! In fact, he heals in the very same way today as then. Jesus never put on healing demonstrations in order to impress the public or prove his messiahship. He refused to perform before skeptics like some kind of circus dog. Just the opposite. He healed people in small villages, off the beaten track. Many who were healed by him did not even know who it was that touched them, or why they were healed. When they did know, Jesus consistently instructed them not to tell anyone, though they did anyway. He heals the same way today. Divine healing is as much a part of wellness as X-rays and aspirin, yet baffling to explain, and unpredictable. Sometimes the most devout saints, who pray the most, who are the most deserving of health, fall victim to cancer, while the disease mysteriously slips into remission for others. This is the strange, yet wonderful, work of God. Bones have been mended, fevers broken, and tumors have disappeared without any logical, medical explanation. Sometimes those who have been healed sense the presence of God and sometimes they do not. These things happen as a way of God signaling that the end of pain and disease is on its way. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer. Today, God heals emotional wounds, broken marriages, addictions, bad tempers, and today God heals diseases. This is because of what Jesus did on the cross. BY TAKING SIN UPON HIMSELF, JESUS DEALT A BLOW TO DAMNATION.
Our first parents, in the Garden of Eden, were warned about eating the forbidden fruit: “On the day you eat of it, you will surely die.” They ate it, and must have thought that God had let them off the hook because they did not immediately die. But they failed to realize that, in a sense, they were already dead. Spiritual death, separation from God, is the ultimate consequence of sin. Jesus took this consequence upon himself in the form of the suffering and abuse and in the separation from God – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Without this act of mercy on the part of our Lord, the entire human race is hopelessly lost and destined for eternal damnation, but because of this act of mercy a way of escape has been made. BY TAKING SIN UPON HIMSELF, JESUS DEALT A BLOW TO DISOBEDIENCE.
Had Jesus only taken care of the eternal consequences of sin, that would have been more than enough, but sin would still have maintained unfettered control over everyone. Instead, because of what Jesus did, we no longer need to live as slaves to sin. The Bible calls this sanctification. It is a process which takes time, and which will never be fully complete in this life, but it starts in this life. Jesus told the story of a sheep that wondered off. The shepherd had one hundred, then turned around and had only ninety-nine. He left the other sheep in the fold and searched high and low for that lost sheep until he found it. If you have wandered off, Jesus is looking for you. BY TAKING SIN UPON HIMSELF, JESUS DEALT A BLOW TO DEATH. Being that this is Easter Sunday, it’s especially important to see how this theme is developed in Isaiah 53. As I have pointed out, the chapter says again and again how terribly the Messiah will suffer. In fact, the description of the suffering actually begins in the previous chapter, chapter 52, at verse 14,
For those of us who have seen the film, this brings back shocking images of a bloody, bruised, wounded Jesus, barely recognizable any longer as a human being, staggering along under the weight of a colossal cross on his back. This theme is continued throughout chapter 53, with increasing intensity, until finally verses 8 and 9 say,
What has happened? He has died. The beatings were too many, the crucifixion too painful, the loss of blood too much. Yet, in verse 11 Isaiah goes on to predict,
This is the reason I am saying today that to Jesus the price he paid was worth it. If we could have asked him about it after the ordeal was over he would have said, “I am satisfied, and if I had it to do over again I wouldn’t change a thing.” Jesus came back to life again and thus dealt the severest blow to the worst of enemies, death. He didn’t come back to life in the same mortal body, but in a glorious new body – now immortal, impervious to disease, supernatural, sound and perfect in every way. And resurrection for him means resurrection for us. In fact, all of these things have specific meaning for us. God did not deal a blow to disease because he was afraid of getting sick. Disease, damnation, disobedience, death – these are not in the experience of God, nor can they be. There is only one reason he did any of it, and that was so these things would not have to happen to us. When I say that, to Jesus, it was worth it, we might ask, What did he get out of it? The answer: he got us! Mel Gibson tells of a time in his life when “I found myself trapped with feelings of terrible, isolated emptiness. Because I was brought up to be a good Christian... the only effective resource for me was prayer. I asked God for help.
(Source, Foreword from The Passion: Photography from the movie The Passion of the Christ.) Many. Does that include you? Included on this list are not just the rich and famous like Mel Gibson. More importantly, on this list are those who have a simple faith in God through Christ. The Bible says,
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