Healed By His Wounds Series

Several have commented to me how it has been interesting to look through baby pictures of Jesus. I’ve enjoyed it and I hope you’ve taken away some good, practical things to do about it.

Baby pictures are a look back. They’re kind of fun, looking back at how things were and remembering what used to be. It’s a record of your past self.

But can you imagine, for a moment, if you had a photo album of your future self, what that would be like? Here’s the house you’ll be living in. Here’s what you’re going to look like after middle age. Here’s what your kids will look like. Here’s the car accident where you’ll die, or here’s you in the hospital the day before you die. I’m not sure we’d want to look through those pictures. Would you be able to handle that kind of information? I think most of us would have a hard time facing each day if we knew that much about it.

When Jesus read the OT, it’s like He was looking through a photo album of His future self. When Jesus looked at all those baby pictures of the Messiah, He was looking at His future. That means that Jesus went through His years here fully aware that He would be the Snake handler, the Rock, the Lion and the Lamb, and the Mediator. And learning all that as He grew up from infancy, He went ahead with all of it.

I wonder what it was like for Him to read the part of Isaiah that we’re looking at today – a chapter that’s usually titled “The Suffering Servant.” Ch 53. It’s so significant that it is quoted 7 times in the NT. I know for me, taking such an incredible chapter of the Bible and trying to help us apply it to our lives is intimidating. So, please, bear with me, and don’t let me get in the way of this wonderful chapter from God’s word today.

Around 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Isaiah wrote:

(Starts out simple and plain)

Vv1-2

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 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.

There has been much speculation about what Jesus looked like. No one can tell you for sure, because the Bible doesn’t give us anything specific about His appearance - except right here. I can tell you that there was nothing about His physical appearance that made Him stand out. There was nothing special about the way He looked. Jesus started out very vulnerable, simple and plain, the ordinary-looking firstborn child in a 1st-century human Hebrew family that lived in poverty.

(Grows up to know sorrow)

Vv3-4

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. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

Despised, stricken, smitten, and afflicted. That’s what has happened to you when someone despises you, strikes you, smites you, and afflicts you.

Imagine reading a description of your future life and reading this! I’m not sure at what age exactly Jesus came to understand that He was the Messiah and what that would be like, but I’m guessing it wasn’t easy to think about. It doesn’t say that Jesus never laughed. But He would be a person who understood how it feels to be totally rejected by people, and He’d be very well-acquainted with suffering.

(Suffers everyone else’s wrongs)

Vv5-9

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.