A Portion With the Great
Isaiah 53.1-10 November 22, 2000
Thanksgiving is this week. It is a time for expressing our thanks for God’s providence and blessing. It is also the first Sunday in Advent (the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.) It is a time when we look back to the first Advent of Christ, and ahead to the Second Coming. This 53rd chapter of Isaiah speaks of both.
I am thankful for many things this season¡K :
ƒæ I am thankful to have the opportunity to preach tonight¡K
ƒæ I hope I will be thankful afterwards that I have not embarrassed our congregation or myself too much¡K
ƒæ I am thankful we only elect presidents every four years¡K
ƒæ I am thankful that teenagers do grow up and eventually have teenagers of their own¡K
ľ I am thankful I am not a Butterball turkey this week.(1.)
There is one thing, above all, for which I give thanks -- the lift of Jesus!
The word "borne" appears (in one form or another) three times in this chapter (v.4, 11, 12). The root of the word is found in the verb lift. There are some things that Jesus lifts from our lives by virtue of His Lordship:
Blindness (53.1-4)
1Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
2For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him,
there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3He is despised and rejected of men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
The chapter begins with a question of veracity -- "Who has believed our report?" The world has a basic crisis of a shortage of spiritual faith in Jesus Christ.
More than 700 years before the birth of our Lord, Isaiah prophesied both the birth and the crisis. Why a crisis of faith? It’s because of spiritual blindness that misses the Lord.
Common sense and worldly wisdom dictate that since Jesus was born on the wrong side of the tracks, He wasn’t going very far. And in the eyes of the world, He didn’t!
It is said of blind songwriter Fanny Crosby, that she would’ve refused treatment to restore her sight if it had been available. The reason is that she wanted nothing to interfere with the clear vision she had of Jesus.
Drew Carey was asked by Ladies’ Home Journal if he considered himself ambitious, Carey answered: "Now, yes. But before, I always thought I was going to win the lottery or get lucky. I had no idea what I was going to do. Now I would never buy a lottery ticket¡Xthat would be like slapping God in the face."(2)
Jesus lifted (53.4) upon Himself our sorrows and grief, yet the world imagined He suffered because He was bad. It was MY sorrows ¡V MY blindness He lifted, not His own. I am thankful! He also lifted my
Bruises (Isa 53.5)
5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
If there is one spiritual principle that is unchanging, it is the exchange of Christ’s grace for our goof-ups. That may not be very "theological" grammar, but it states the case. Jesus’ stripes (lit: beaten black-and-blue)and His bruises" (beaten to pieces) became the acceptable punishment for our sins.
The worst thing I have in my life is my sin. Jesus took the punishment for my sin, and that which would have beaten me in little black and blue pieces is now laid on Christ.
Corrie Ten Boom told how she met one of the S.S. guards whom had abused her and her sister during the prison camps. It was after the war, and the man had become a Christian. He offered her his hand. With all her humanity screaming for revenge, she prayed, "Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness." She then took his outstretched hand, and immediately begun to sense a current flowing along her shoulder, down the arm, and through her hand into his. She began to feel an overwhelming love for her former enemy. She discovered -- "It is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His."
Jesus lifted my bruises from me!
Blunders (Isa 53.6)
6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
The words are most revealing in this sentence.
Sheep comes not from a noun, but verb meaning to migrate.
"Astray" carries with it the idea of being deceived.
"Turned" is an action a person does deliberately, and
"iniquity" is a form of the word "crooked".
My blunders include both those things that I ignorantly do to myself, and against other people...as well as those things I stubbornly commit with my first-degree selfishness.
The couple was nearing their 75th wedding anniversary. She was no spring chick, and he had almost completely lost his hearing. The bride reflected, with affection in her heart, how faithful her man had been over the years. Rocking on the front porch one evening, she remarked, "Lester, I’m real proud of you." The husband blushed slightly, turned to her and replied, "Well, Charlotte, I’m real tired of you too!"
With the coming and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, all my sins, and self-will have been laid on Him. Jesus has straightened my crookedness. It was lifted from me! I am thankful!
Brokenness (Isa 53.7-9)
7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth:he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 9And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Have you ever been broken? Has it ever been your lot to sit, totally at a loss -- depressed and defeated, not knowing IF there is a way to turn, much less which way to turn? Has the world ever oppressed you so?
"Oppressed" (v.7) carries the sense of being driven like an animal.
What was happening? Why was Jesus being oppressed? Verse 8 unravels that mystery; it is "transgression". The word means "revolt". Again, in verse 9 Jesus is buried with the "wicked" or morally impure.
Even the casual reader of the Bible knows that Jesus was morally pure. Whose moral wickedness and revolt caused the world’s leaders to turn on Him and oppress the Lord? It was ours -- yours and mine! But, He accepted it all, and lifted it from us!
Jesus wants to take your brokenness.
The famous English expositor, Matthew Henry was once attacked by thieves and robbed of his purse. He wrote these words in his diary: "Let me be thankful.
ľ First, I was never robbed before.
ƒæ Second, although they took my purse, they didn’t take my life.
ľ Third, although they took my all, it was not much.
ľ Fourth, let me be thankful because it was I who was robbed and not I who did the robbing."(3)
Circumstances can move to break us, but thankfulness is the lift from the Lord.
Banishment (Isa 53.10)
10Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
In the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus lie the hope and only true lifting of man. The prophet looked down the time warp of eternity, and with the breath of God announced that we are standing on resurrection ground.
I don’t have to spend eternity separated from God. I shall see Him one day because Jesus said I could!
We look back to Christmas and a manger -- how very banal and benign are our pictures of the nativity. However, we have the bloody cross, and a grave. And His resurrection! That’s all in the past.
Do you worry about the future? We sense, and the entire world around us confirms that we are banished ¡V held at arm¡¦s length from God, and meaning and purpose. This week my oldest daughter, Jennifer, sent me an email about a member of the church they attend.
"A woman who is married with 2 boys gave a testimony. Her first child was born with brain damage, he’s 15, in a wheelchair, and is like a 2 month old. Her husband was in a car accident and broke his back, not supposed to walk again, and he walks with permanent crutches. She had another little boy, who is fine, but then she discovered a lump, and is going her 4th round of chemotherapy this week. She sang after giving her testimony, with a hat and scarf on her head because she has no hair, and the name of the song was ’Sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes He calms His child’. I just cried.:
That¡¦s lift! That¡¦s what Jesus came to do ¡V lift us into the thanksgiving that passes all understanding!
Charles Swindol told of a kindergarten teacher in a Christian school trying to determine how much religious training her students had. One little boy obviously hadn’t heard about Jesus. She told him of Jesus’ death on the cross. She had to explain what a cross was. She explained how Jesus died, and they buried Him.
The little boy, with downcast eyes quietly acknowledged, "Oh, that’s too bad." The teacher quickly related that He arose again and is living today. The little fellow lit-up exclaiming, "Totally awesome!"
That’s it! That’s what the lifting of Jesus is -- Totally awesome.
Tomorrow, don¡¦t settle for stuffing the turkey,
and then being stuffed like a turkey¡K
make it a totally awesome day of LIFT¡Klet the Lord take your blindness, bruises, blunders and brokenness ¡V let Him banish your banishment. And, Be thankful!
FOOTNOTES
1. Adapted from Pastor R. Duane Gryder, www.SermonCentral.com
2. Dave Goetz, Wheaton, Illinois; source: Rebecca Ascher-Walch, "Carey On," Ladies’ Home Journal (July 2000), p.100
3. John Yates, An Attitude of Gratitude, Preaching Today, Tape No. 110.
