Good Friday: Not Around, but Through

I have felt shame, and unworthy at times in my life.  Sometimes it has been for personal things: being so short (such a late bloomer) when I was a young teenager, being a child of divorce, for misdeeds in my past.  There has been a time or two in my life when I felt particularly flawed.   

Read John 19:17-30  

If you have ever felt ashamed, unworthy, or had a secret fear you are not good enough, know that Jesus Christ felt has similar rejection. 

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him. 

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah 53

Isaiah depicts Israel as a suffering servant in the Old Testament.  He points ahead to Christ, the suffering servant who was to come. 

For anyone who has ever felt ugly, Christ knows what it is like to feel ugly.  If you have ever felt despised, hated, or rejected, Jesus knows how that feels.  If you have felt tempted to the breaking point, Christ has been there.  He knows what it is to feel sorrow, suffering, and mistreatment, and be unable to respond. 

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; by oppression and judgment he was taken away, stricken for the transgression of my people.  Although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Isaiah 53

Christ’s identification with human suffering is not sentimental sympathy.  It is an empathy that also heals:   

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53

His wounds bring our healing. 

His suffering works our forgiveness. 

His obedience is the antidote for our wanderings. 

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53

Christ’s identification with your suffering is not mere sympathy.  It is an empathy that can forgive your sins and heal your wounds.