Daily Thought for Holy Week – Tuesday

The Divine Exchange

Stop to think about this:

9/11

What comes to mind?

Tragedy? Sorrow? Grief? Loss?

Anger towards those who perpetrated it?

I think it’s safe to say ‘Love your enemy’ doesn’t come quickly to our minds. At least it doesn’t to mine. And because those responsible have not been brought to account, there’s still a part of me that longs for justice. Not forgiveness.

Let’s bring it closer to home. We are offended by someone or a situation and what do we do? We write them off. We cut off communication. We harbor bitterness, resentment or anger. We long for justice.

Let me step into the spotlight here and just say – this is me all too often.

I’ll be branded first on this, lest you think I am standing in judgment or striking an altruistic pose.

Not so with Christ.

Back to Isaiah 53. This is verse 3:
“He was despised and rejected —
 a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
 We turned our backs on Him and looked the other way.
 He was despised, and we did not care..” (NLT)

What a sad and powerful end to that statement. He was treated cruelly and we could care less.

It’s as if in this prophecy we’re reminded that God’s servant – the Christ – went through all this and we held him in contempt.

Big deal. Who cares.

Sobering.

But it gets more heart rending…

Verse 4:
“Yet it was our weaknesses(the sickness of sin) he carried;
 and He carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him punished by God. We naively thought that God was punishing Him, striking Him down because of His sins.” (my expanded translation)

(It was our punishment he bore but we stupidly thought, “He’s getting what He deserves.”)

And then comes the lynch pin…

“But”

verse 5
“But He was pierced for our rebellion,
 crushed for our sins.

the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, 

and by His wounds(with his stripes) we are healed (made whole).

700 years before Christ’s birth Isaiah predicts a flogging and piercing through.

And did you catch what Isaiah says?

He’s getting what we deserve.

He goes on…

6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.

We have left God’s paths to follow our own.

Yet the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all.

We screwed up. We failed. We didn’t just stumble. We ran headlong into sin, laughing skipping and thumbing our nose at God. Even the ‘best’ of us like senseless sheep wander away.

BUT

Here is the divine exchange: God’s suffering servant takes upon Himself our sin and the just punishment for those sins.

Why? We’ve done nothing to earn it. Isaiah even clarifies this for us later in 64:6 -

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”

We’re told that when we recognize and receive this substitutionary sacrifice, turning from our own way to His we receive forgiveness. Complete and total forgiveness. And it is a gift. This is what is meant by “repent and believe”.

At the cross, God chose to forgive those who would shred His laws and flaunt their sin.

Romans 5:8 – “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

This breaks me afresh again – because I know the mud holes I wallowed in (and am still drawn back to).

Forgive me if this next word picture makes you cringe, but I have found it very helpful:

At the cross, God chose to embrace those who were giving Him the finger.

And more than embrace – go to jail doesn’t cover it. Pay the penalty, pay the debt doesn’t cover it.

Romans 5:8 – “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

He died … for reckless, wayward, rogues who couldn’t care less. For little hellions throwing bricks through the stained glass windows, laughing maniacally.

For. Us. Sinners.

wow. This is grace – unmerited favor.

So how does this relate to 9/11? How does this relate to other awful, senseless tragedies and injustices, crimes and atrocities?

I am not naively saying that extending forgiveness in the light of bare-faced evil is easy. Not by any means. It’s tough when it is required for the ‘little’ things.

What I am saying is this – what an amazing God, Who demonstrates forgiveness on a level that boggles our minds. It proves again that He is God because He demonstrates that which we are sometimes unwilling and sometimes unable to do ourselves:

He forgives the unworthy - the desperately and completely unworthy.

He takes on flesh, He endures humiliating abuse heaped upon Him, He suffers excruciating torture and death – all borne out of His heart of love & justice; “for the joy set before Him” (Heb 12:2); out of a passionate, all consuming desire to see the glory of Yahweh preeminent.

What mercy at the cross! What grace! What compassion!

So be overflowing with thanks and humbly glory in the Divine Exchange.