Scripture: Isaiah 52:13-53:12
I’m going to make three points in today’s sermon: Three F’s: Foretelling… Forgiveness… and Family…
But Point Number One… Foretelling.
As most of you know, our church is reading through the Bible in a year. Each week I choose my passage of scripture from one of the previous week’s readings. And last Monday’s readings featured one of the most important passages of scripture in all the Bible—not to mention the Old Testament—so I can’t ignore it. Even though I’m slightly apprehensive: Isn’t this more Good Friday than Easter Sunday? And we are, after all, in the season of Easter for the next several weeks.
But I didn’t need to worry… because today’s scripture is also about Easter. Let me show you why. First, today’s scripture relates to Luke’s account of the resurrection in Luke chapter 24—specifically, to the event that begins in Luke 24:13: “That same day two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem…” And thus begins the scripture from which the Methodists got the title of the famous retreat in which so many of you have participated over the years: “The Walk to Emmaus.”
But in this episode, two of Jesus’ now former disciples—one of whom is named Cleopas and the other is unnamed—are heartbroken. Because this man they believed to be the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, was crucified by the Romans a couple of days earlier—which was completely unexpected, as far as they were concerned. Yes, they’d heard some strange reports from some female disciples who went to the tomb that morning and found it empty—and something about how they saw angels, too? It all sounded pretty crazy.
So now they’re on their way home… like I said, heartbroken. They’d gotten their hopes up that Jesus was their Messiah and Savior. And as far as they’re concerned, the fact that he was crucified on Friday proves that they believed in vain.
And Jesus graciously meets them on that road. While they were walking these seven miles or so, Jesus prevented them from recognizing him. And in verse 17, he asks, “What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?”
And they pour out their hearts to him. Until, beginning in verse 25, he tells them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” Then verse 27: “Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Notice those words: “all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures.”
Luke doesn’t record what scriptures Jesus cited in his conversation with these two disciples, but surely, at or near the very center of Jesus’ exposition of scripture—which we now call the Old Testament—was today’s passage from Isaiah 52 and 53… which preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ like no other Old Testament passage—as far as I’m concerned: After all, in today’s scripture, Isaiah prophesies 700 years into the future and explains the meaning of Christ’s atoning death on the cross… and his resurrection.
Isaiah doesn’t use the name Jesus, of course. God hadn’t revealed that to him. He refers to him as the “Servant of the Lord.” But Jesus’ name literally means “savior,” and Isaiah certainly refers to Christ’s saving activity.
First, Isaiah describes this “servant’s” suffering and then, in verses 4 through 6, to his substitutionary death, saying that the Lord has “laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Verses 8 and 9 describe Christ’s death itself: he was “cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people… And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death”—and we recall from the gospels that the rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, donated his tomb for Jesus’ burial. There are several references to events that happened to Jesus on the day of his crucifixion.
But then, after he dies… that’s not the end! Verse 10: “when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” I’ll explain those words about “offspring” when we get to Point Number Three. For now I just want us to see that Isaiah is prophesying Christ’s resurrection. And verse 12 also refers to the resurrection—saying that Christ will “divide the spoil with the strong,” which is Isaiah’s way of saying that whatever benefits the resurrected Christ received as a result of his victory—whatever Christ accomplished through his atoning death on the cross and his resurrection—he will share those benefits with those who place their faith in him.
The apostles in the New Testament also understood that today’s scripture preached the gospel. For instance, remember the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8? The eunuch serves in the court of Candace, the queen of Ethiopia, and this eunuch becomes the very first Gentile convert to Christianity in the Book of Acts.
Beginning with verse 30, Luke says:
Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.
The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
And as a lamb is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
He was humiliated and received no justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus. 1
And the eunuch got converted and baptized. Because this Good News about Jesus—Good News is the word gospel—the Good News is all right here.
So that’s Point Number One… Today’s scripture, written 700 years before Christ, is all about the gospel of Jesus Christ. This scripture foretells the gospel—it foretells in a powerful way what Christ would accomplish through his death and resurrection.
Point Number Two: Let’s look more closely at this passage’s most important theme: which is, the forgiveness of sins… how exactly does Christ—and what he accomplished on the cross—make forgiveness possible?
To be sure, many people—including far too many Christians in our contemporary world—are refusing to believe that Jesus’ death accomplished anything related to forgiveness!
People, including many Christians, resist the idea that God himself, in the person of his Son Jesus, needed to die on the cross in order to forgive our sins. One prominent pastor in Missouri, Brian Zahnd, said in a debate years ago that “God forgives because God forgives.” He doesn’t require the cross to do so. Another prominent pastor, Steve Chalke, in Britain, argues that if God required his Son to die on the cross, then it amounts to what he calls “cosmic child abuse.”
Yes, Jesus’ death was tragically inescapable—no one could teach what Jesus taught, and do what Jesus did, and not fall victim to evil powers in our fallen world. And there’s a grain of truth in this. In John 11, the high priest Caiaphas says that for politically expedient reasons they need to send Jesus to the cross: “Better that one man should die,” he says, than that the Romans, fearing that Jesus is leading an insurrection against Rome, would come in and destroy their nation.
So there were pragmatic political reasons that people wanted Jesus to be killed…
But that doesn’t change the fact that the cross was a necessary part of God’s plan to make forgiveness of sins possible.
And you may say, “Yes, but in the Bible people’s sins were forgiven before Jesus’ died on the cross. Jesus forgave sins before the cross.” Yes, but the Bible teaches tat he did so in anticipation of the cross. The sacrificial system of the Old Testament looked ahead to what Christ accomplished on the cross.
To believe otherwise is to ignore today’s scripture. It’s the worst case of “picking and choosing” which parts of the Bible to believe! We can’t do that! “All scripture is breathed out by God…”
Several years ago, there was a TV show called Saving Grace, starring Holly Hunter. It was like a raunchier version of Touched by an Angel. If you ever find it on TV or on streaming, I don’t recommend watching. But in the show, a redneck angel named Earl is sent from heaven to save the lives of people who are otherwise hell-bent on destroying themselves. One of these people is a prisoner on death row named Leon. Earl the angel meets with Leon in his prison cell regularly—and Earl gives Leon encouragement and hope. In one episode, however, we learn that Leon has been cheating on his angel. Leon’s been meeting with a Muslim imam and reading the Quran—behind Earl’s back. Leon has decided to convert to Islam. Earl finds out about it and seems angry and hurt. He challenges Leon to go ahead and convert to Islam if that’s what he wants to do. In order to convert to Islam, you have to recite words of a Muslim creed.
Before saying these words, Leon says, “Well, I guess this is it. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me.” And then Leon makes his Muslim profession of faith. He’s now a Muslim.
And guess what? Earl is still sitting there. He greets Leon with an Arabic greeting. Leon looks confused. “Why are you still here? Aren’t you a Christian angel?” Earl laughs: “Humans! You get so hung up on all these religious differences. They all lead to the same place, you know?”
They all lead to the same place, you know?
Ay-ay-ay…Of course, that scene perfectly represents what most people in our culture believe anyway: that all religions are basically the same. Provided you’re sincerely religious, your religion will lead you to God. Sure, they have different names, different doctrines, but they boil down to the same reality. They’re different paths to the one and the same God. Doesn’t matter how you get there!
But it’s especially insightful for today’s scripture that this TV show used Christianity and Islam to make that point… Because it just so happens that Muslims reject the idea that a great and righteous “prophet” like Jesus—and Muslims believe that Jesus was among the greatest human prophets, not the Son of God—but they refuse to believe that a righteous prophet, much less God in the flesh, would subject himself to dying such a horrific death on the cross—that a great prophet would have to die on the cross. It’s offensive to them! That a righteous person like Jesus, not to mention God the Second Person of the Trinity—“God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,” as we say in the creed—would have to be so badly humiliated like this!
Muslims believe, by the way, that God took Jesus up to heaven before he was crucified… that someone who merely appeared to be Jesus died in his place. 2
Let’s sympathize with Muslims and their revulsion that Christ should die on the cross: Jesus’ death was horrifying. That’s what Isaiah himself refers to in chapter 52, verse 14: “his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.”
But all I want to say about these objections to the cross is, if Isaiah 53 by itself is true—and I’m not even quoting other scripture—but if Isaiah 53 is true, then of course that scene in that TV show must be false: Because in today’s scripture, Jesus’ death on the cross was God’s will, and only through this death do we have forgiveness of sins and salvation!Verse 10: “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief.” Or as the NLT puts it: “But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief.” And indeed, Peter himself makes this exact same point when he’s preaching in the Book of Acts, when he’s speaking to religious leaders: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” 3
And remember: Jesus Christ is God… the Second Person of the Trinity. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he prays to his Father and says, from Matthew 26:39: “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” 4
Jesus, in his human nature, is asking his Father, in so many words, if there’s some other way to save humanity from their sins—other than by suffering, dying, and experiencing hell on the cross—then please let that happen. But if this is the only way, then of course he will gladly do it. Make no mistake: God the Son, Jesus Christ, wants the exact same thing that God the Father wants: the forgiveness of sins for anyone who repents and believes in Christ. When Isaiah says, in other words, “[I]t was the will of the Lord to crush him,” remember that Christ is the Lord; he is God. It’s not only the Father’s will and good plan to crush his Son, it is the Son’s will and good plan to be crushed!
God loves us and wants to save us, and if the cross is what it takes, then God will do it!
Which is precisely what Jesus means when he says, in John 12:27: “Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But this is the very reason I came!”
And why was the cross necessary for the forgiveness of sins?
Isaiah tells us that very clearly in verse 5: “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.” And then verse 6: “and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
I often say this, but it’s true: “Christ lived the life of perfect obedience to the Father that we were unable to live, and he died the God-forsaken death that we deserved to die.” What Christ experienced on the cross is what we otherwise would have to experience in hell.
But good news: On the cross, God laid on him—on Jesus—“the iniquity of us all.”
All of our sins, all our iniquity, all of our guilt… Christ took it upon himself and paid the penalty for all of it.
If we repent of our sins and believe in Christ, that means—more good news—we live our lives now as if we had never sinned. As Paul famously says in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
And that’s Point Number Two… Forgiveness
Point Number Three… Family.
I said earlier that Jesus himself wanted to purchase our forgiveness on the cross. Isaiah 53:11 points to this: “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see”—see what? “See that he has accomplished the purpose for which he went to the cross. “He shall see and be satisfied.”
I love that word “satisfied.” It reminds me of Hebrews 12:2. The author says, “Because of the joy awaiting [Christ], he endured the cross, disregarding its shame.”
Because of the joy awaiting him? Yes, joy. What joy was awaiting him? The joy of saving us… the joy of giving us eternal life… the joy of—get this—making us part of God’s family forever…
This is precisely what Isaiah means in verse 10: “he shall see his offspring.”
Who are these offspring! We are… if we have faith in Christ!
God has adopted us into the family!
Speaking of which, many of you know that I was adopted. But I only learned—not too long before Mom died twelve years ago—that she experienced the following… She told me that for about two years after she and Dad took me home, she lived in fear. She was afraid that someone from the adoption agency was going to show up at the door and say, “I’m sorry, Mrs. White, there’s been a mistake. We’re going to have to take Brent back and give him to someone else.”
Can you imagine? Maybe so! Maybe some of you adoptive parents have experienced similar feelings…?
But Mom went on to tell me: “I don’t know why I was afraid that someone was going to take you away… because I would never let that happen! No one was going to take you away from me! They would have had to fight me if they tried. They would have had to kill me if they wanted to take you away from me! Because that’s how much I loved you.”
That’s one of the sweetest, most loving things that Mom ever said to me!
But her point was clear: She would fight to the death for me… because I was her son.
Now consider this: God our heavenly Father doesn’t love us any less than even the best human parent. In fact, he only loves us infinitely more. But like any good human parent, he would fight and die in order to make us his sons and daughters.
In fact, that’s what he did for us on the cross. And Isaiah tells us it satisfied his soul to do so.
What else can I say? He must really love you… and me.
Hear these words from Romans 8:38 and 39: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”