2nd Sunday in Lent: Date: March 8, 2020
– THE SERMON: Isaiah 53:4-6
Theme: Our Sacrifice
I. He Bore OUR Griefs
II. He Was Wounded for OUR Transgressions
III. The LORD Laid on Him OUR Crookedness
( Pastor Theodore Barthels )
Bulletin: Read Bulletin
Sermon: Read Sermon
THE ORDER OF SERVICE: p. 5 (242:1-3)
HYMNS: 390; 652; 151:1-5; 151:6,7
THE EPISTLE LESSON: Romans 4:1-5
Abraham was obedient the Lord and yet he was not justified by his works, but by faith which the Spirit had worked in his heart. He believed when God made incredible promises, first that he would have a son in his old age, and then that in his Seed (which is Christ) all nations of the earth would be blessed. Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness. So also for us today, those who believe in Him who justifies the ungodly, it is counted as righteousness.
THE GOSPEL LESSON: John 4:5-26
Faith in what, or in whom? Does it matter? Most certainly! Jesus is the source of that living water which springs up in our hearts unto everlasting life. We are saved through faith in Christ alone! He who knows us, including our every sin, loves us and seeks our salvation whether we be Jew, or Gentile, or Samaritan. Let us worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Sermon
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
2100 16th Street SW
Austin, MN 55912-1749
Pastor Ted Barthels
Sermon preached on
March 8, 2020
2nd Sunday in Lent
Scripture Lessons: Romans 4:1-5, John 4:5-26
Hymns: 390; 652; 151:1-5 151:6-7
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sermon Text: Isaiah 53:4-6
4. Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 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.” (NKJV)
This is the Word of God.
Sanctify us, oh Lord, through Your truth. Your Word is truth. Amen.
In Christ Jesus, our crucified Savior, dear fellow Redeemed:
INTRO: A gross miscarriage of justice?
That is how some characterize the truth that is before us in our text. How could it be anything else? After all, our text is very clear that the Individual who was punished was innocent. More than that: He was punished for crimes that others had done! Even more than that: it was known by the Dispenser of the judgment that this One was innocent as well as known that others were guilty, not only that others were guilty but exactly who they,(that is WE) are and what they (that is WE) did!
So, on its face doesn’t this appear to be a gross miscarriage of divine justice? Those who are guilty are the ones who ought to be condemned, but instead that One who was innocent, not only innocent but perfectly holy and righteous was condemned.
Does it matter that the One who was condemned was not only complicit in this miscarriage of justice, but was the author of this scheme to get the guilty off while the innocent was sentenced to death? Yes, it does matter! It matters a great deal, for this wasn’t a matter of a miscarriage of Divine Justice, but a matter of satisfying Divine Judgment, a matter of the gracious fulfillment of Divine Justice for the salvation of a lost and sinful mankind.
For this plan to work, for this gospel to be realized it was necessary that a sacrifice be made. It required a great and precious sacrifice to be sufficient to the cause. This is what God supplied. In our text we learn about —
THEME: OUR Sacrifice.
I. He Bore OUR Griefs.
These verses of Isaiah are perhaps the most gracious words in all of Scripture depicting so wondrously where we were, and where the Lord has brought us in His grace in Christ. The opening verse of our text declares:
Isaiah 53:4 “Surely, He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.” (v.4)
Let’s be careful not to slide right over that word “Surely.” It adds emphasis to this truth that it is not to be taken lightly or for granted, or ever, ever doubted!
Jesus, coming into this world as the Servant of the Lord, bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. The first lesson here is immense in and of itself. Sin is what brought pain and sorrow and grief and worry, and tears, and aggression, and hurt feelings, and blisters and sweat and aching backs and sore feet into our lives. Well, you get the picture; everything that we encounter in this life that makes this life not only challenging but often times painful, ending ultimately in death, sin brought. Jesus knew it all, all this grief.
Jesus knew it all and carried it all in His own life experience. He personally knew sorrow, and shared in the sorrow of others. When Lazarus died, and Jesus was with Mary and Martha, Jesus wept. Others observed and commented on how much Jesus also must have loved Lazarus. But Jesus knew what He was about to do in raising Lazarus from the dead. He shared the sorrow that filled Mary and Martha’s hearts.
He shares our sorrows too. Don’t ever be tempted to think that Jesus doesn’t know what you are feeling, or comprehend even first hand as our brother the tribulation we know because of our sin. He carried that sorrow not because of anything He had done, but FOR US, because of OUR sin.
And this wasn’t a matter of empty sympathy. When Jesus takes up the sorrows and grief of others He does something about it. We read in Matthew’s gospel: “They brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.’ ” (Matthew 8:16-17)
Jesus responds to our plight. He carried our sorrows. He experienced all the struggles of life in a sin corrupted world, and in grace and love relieved those who were stricken, relieves us from our sufferings. And that cost Him. It cost Him more than we shall ever know. When we look to the passion of our Lord we are not only evaluating that narrative as the horrible things Jesus endured at the hands of sinful men. We also see in His passion the toll of our sin that God placed on Him for OUR SIN. Jesus is OUR sacrifice!
II. He Was Wounded for OUR Transgressions.
In the next verse the Holy Spirit gets down to the heart of the matter.
Isaiah 53:5 “But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.”
He was wounded. The physical sufferings of our Savior cannot be ignored. He was wounded again and again. It began right away in the High Priest’s palace. The abuse that was inflicted upon Jesus was real and it was damaging. He was bound, tied up, and then blindfolded and they punched Jesus repeatedly while they blasphemously ridiculed Jesus. He took a beating while He was being mocked, and taunted by evil men that He tell them all who had hit Him.
Of course that was only the beginning. The beatings went on for hours. He was wounded time and again, physically injured, painful wounds. Later the Roman guard had their turn, Herod’s soldiers as well as Pilate’s. They mocked but it wasn’t kept to just words. A rod was placed in Jesus’ hand to symbolize a King’s scepter, but then that was taken back and used to hit Jesus time and again.
Again, Jesus was not wounded for any crime that He had done but for our transgressions. Transgression is crossing the line. The line is drawn in the sand, and it is simply stated, one must not cross the line. Transgression is the willful, purposeful crossing of the line, the line that God drew for us with His holy law. Time and again we rebelled against the law of God, and by our actions (if not our words) declared “You, God, cant’ tell me what to do! It’s MY life and I will live as I please!” We willfully forget that God gets to make the rules, not us. Yes, that is what it means to be God, He makes the rules. To think otherwise is crooked thinking. That, my friends, is iniquity. Then we violated the law of God.
We transgressed and Jesus was wounded. Jesus was bruised for our iniquity. The word for “bruised” could be and perhaps should be translated “crushed.” We go to the cross of Christ, and we see the burden of God’s wrath put on Jesus. In those hours of darkness it was far more than physical anguish that Jesus endured. Far more than the searing pain of the nails tearing at His flesh. It was the crushing wrath of God that weighed upon Jesus’ soul that He endured. He endured that also, that especially because of our iniquity.
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. Yes there is a price tag that goes along with peace with God. It is a price that we could not have completely paid in an eternity of hell. Jesus paid that price with His innocent sufferings and death. And so He secured OUR peace with God.
With His stripes we are healed. 600 hundred years before Jesus walked the road of sorrows that led to the cross, Isaiah wrote of Jesus’ stripes. Yes, the stripes, the cruel scourging, as awful as it was, was necessary for OUR salvation. We were broken by sin, and by His stripes we are made whole, we are healed. The sufferings of Jesus have not only brought us peace, but have restored us to harmony with God.
III. The LORD Laid on Him OUR Crookedness
Isaiah takes us back, reminding us of our fallen state.
Isaiah 53:6 “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.”
We are often pictured as sheep within the flock of God. What is also often brought out is sheep’s affinity for wandering. We were like sheep having gone astray. That’s the crookedness of iniquity; we don’t think straight when we think about right and wrong and sin and its consequences. We don’t think straight because our minds and hearts by nature have been corrupted by sin. We each go off on our own way, like we know better than God what is good, what is best for us in life. We still do it. We neglect His Word. We defy His will. We take all this lightly, as if it were of little importance when we plan out how we want to live our lives, doing that which we feel like doing. We “wander on pathways unholy.” (The Lutheran Hymnal 366:7)
Not so with Jesus. There wasn’t a crooked bone in His body. There wasn’t a wayward thought in His mind, not a single evil affection. There was no affinity to sin, not even when He was under attack, under extreme physical and spiritual duress. Peter reminds us of the truth of Isaiah’s words in his first epistle:
1 Peter 2:23-25 “When He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Even when taunted and mocked and reviled, Jesus walked the straight and narrow, always and only fulfilling the perfect will of God. In the midst of all that suffering, God was laying our iniquity, all our crookedness of heart and mind and life, on Jesus.
What is the end result? By the grace and power of God, by the love of Christ who as our Shepherd always looks out for us to keep us safe, to keep us on the road that leads to heaven, by this wonder of grace we have returned to the Shepherd. He has drawn us back with His love, love that drove Him to the cross. That love was the moving factor that led Jesus, the Servant of the Lord to be OUR sacrifice!
“Ye who think of sin but lightly Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly, Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the Sacrifice appointed, See who bears the awful load
‘Tis the Word, the LORD’s Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God.”
(The Lutheran Hymnal 153:3)
AMEN.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.