Good Friday | 29 March 2024 | A Sermon on Isaiah 52:13-53:12 | Samuel Zumwalt |
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers]
13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
he shall be high and lifted up,
and shall be exalted.
14 As many were astonished at you—
his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
15 so shall he sprinkle many nations;
kings shall shut their mouths because of him;
for that which has not been told them they see,
and that which they have not heard they understand.
53 Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
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 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.
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.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
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.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
[I found Professor Paul Rabbe’s presentation very helpful at http://concordiatheology.org/lalp/]
WHAT CHRIST HAS DONE!
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
On Monday, it was exactly nine months until Christmas. Have you started shopping? (I couldn’t resist.) Were it not Holy Week, we might have celebrated the Annunciation of our Lord. On that day, nine months before Christmas, we might have remembered the angel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary. Greeting her with, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” He announced God had chosen her to be the mother of His Son. First, she asked how that could be since she was a virgin (probably 12 or 13 years old, certainly no more than 14). When the angel told her that the Holy Spirit would create new life by the power of God’s Word, she responded: “Let it be to me according to your Word.” Martin Luther called her the model disciple, the bearer of God’s Word.
The joy of Christmas is inextricably bound to the quiet joy of Good Friday. The birth of our Savior, God in human flesh, is inextricably bound to the death of our Savior. We confess this in the Nicene Creed: “For us and our salvation, He came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.” These familiar words roll glibly off the tongue for most of us with the exception of those old enough to have learned the creed at a time when we confessed: “Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man….” Some of us, including this pastor, stumble from time to time because we learned the old words first.
People the world over, including many non-Christians, know today is the day Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers. Jesus has many admirers among the non-Christian ranks. His death strikes a chord with many: they call him a good man, a gentle man, a godly man killed by the powerful. For many, his innocent suffering and death represent a kind of solidarity with all those who have been victimized by the high and mighty. For others, his willingness to forgive his executioners and those who demanded his death offers a powerful example to people in similar straits. Jewish poet Leonard Cohen wrote: “And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water. And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower. And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him, he said, ‘all men shall be sailors then until the sea shall free them.’ But he himself was broken long before the sky would open, forsaken almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone. And you want to travel with him. And you want to travel blind. You think maybe you’ll trust him, for he touched your perfect body with his mind” (“Suzanne”). Many non-Christians love Jesus, but which Jesus do they love? A Jesus of their own making? A Jesus who is smaller, more manageable, less threatening, far from divine?
What we call the Old Testament was the only Bible the first Christians knew. When the Risen Jesus opened the Scriptures to Cleopas and friend on the road to Emmaus that first Easter night (Luke 24), there was no New Testament. When the first Christians preached the Scriptures empowered by the Holy Spirit, they preached what we call the Old Testament. Unlike how Isaiah is taught in most seminaries today, the first Christian preachers witnessed to the Holy Trinity’s presence in the first testament. When they read the suffering servant psalms in the midsection of Isaiah, they knew exactly Who was being described. They read Isaiah and remembered what Christ had done. And they dared to proclaim that Jesus is the Suffering Servant whose death is a substitutionary atonement for sinners like you, me, and the whole world!
What Christ has done! As the Suffering Servant was lifted high, so Christ was lifted high, grotesquely nailed to a cross to draw all people to Himself (John 12:32). As a high priest on the day of atonement sprinkled blood on the mercy seat for his own sins and those of the nation, so Christ, the Mercy Seat, sprinkled His precious blood over the sins of the whole world. Looking on Isaiah’s suffering servant, kings are astonished, and so it is that the crucified King of kings and Lord of lords continues to stop the mouths of the mighty who contemplate His holy cross.
As the suffering servant seemed so insignificant and was despised and acquainted with pain, so Christ was mocked as a pretender to David’s throne. Christ Jesus did carry the sins of the world on the cross. He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God for our sins. He was pierced for our rebellion. He was crushed for our iniquities. His wounds meant death for Him but they meant healing and eternal life for us, His wandering sheep. Why did He do this? Because God’s justice demanded blood be shed as an offering for the world’s sins. Christ became the Passover Lamb without blemish for us wandering sheep who deserve nothing but death.
When Christ Jesus opened His mouth on the cross, it was to offer prayers for those who were killing Him and to offer praises to His Father whose love for sinners was greater than His love for His own life. He took our place and the punishment we rightly deserved. He was buried in our graves. He was cut off from the land of the living, killed as the worst sort of criminal and with other notorious criminals. He was buried in a rich man’s new tomb. All of this He did that He could take our sin and death to His cross and give us His eternal life and righteousness as a free gift through our Baptism into His death and resurrection. Luther called this the happy exchange (“froehliche Wechsel”). This is what Christ has done, and this is what Christ wants to do for all who are unbaptized, all who are still lost and condemned in their sins, and all who are without hope because they are still in need of a Savior.
Dear listeners and readers, do not think you are all alone. Do not think you are beyond help or redemption. Do not think you are just fine the way you are. God had to send His Son Jesus to be born of the Virgin Mary, to live the perfectly obedient life you and I cannot live, and to die the perfectly innocent death you and I cannot die, because every human being is born in bondage to sin, death, and evil and cannot free her- or himself. If anyone dies without Christ as her or his Savior, that person dies a lost and condemned sinner. It doesn’t have to be so. God doesn’t want it to be so. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved (Jn 3:17). Indeed, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19), and He wants you to be reconciled to Him by being baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection. Whoever believes and is baptized, (and you can reverse that in Greek) whoever is baptized and believes, will be saved (Mark 16:16). Salvation is God’s gift. Faith is God’s gift. Baptism is God’s gift. Don’t miss out on God’s grace and mercy because of your stubbornness having been raised almost to the deadliest of art forms.
Today is not the saddest day for Christians (that would be Ash Wednesday). It is a day of quiet joy, for Christ hasconquered sin, death, and the old evil one on the cross. The Crucified One is alive forever, and He continues to intercede for transgressors. If you are not baptized, or, if your child is not baptized, then it’s time to ask for the gift God dearly wants to give you. Christ Jesus is praying for you and me today. So… confess that you are a great sinner, yes. But confess with joy that you have a Greater Savior, God’s Son Jesus, who has suffered and died, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, so that you and I may be His own forever! Come to the water, dear ones. Be born again by water and the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:5).
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
—
©Samuel D. Zumwalt, STS
St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
Wilmington, North Carolina
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