Good Friday 2018: Isaiah 53

So this is more of a contemplation than a sermon because this is more of a contemplative service than a regular service.

And so we're going to contemplate the cross, we're going to contemplate ourselves, and then hopefully, hopefully, along the way, that contemplation will move past our noisy minds down into our hearts.

Now, if you remember what yesterday was, yesterday was Monday Thursday, or perhaps uh Holy Thursday, you might hear it called.

It's the day where Jesus gathered with his disciples for the Last Supper.

So that would have been the Passover meal for them.

This would have been a tradition for them that they would have been practicing every year of their lives.

This had been going on the Jewish people every year from the time of Exodus out of Egypt.

So, kids, if you're in here, you know that story of Exodus coming out of Egypt.

And so out of that, a tradition started of having a meal every single year on the day to celebrate Passover.

And so they would have been having this meal in the celebration of Passover.

And at this meal, the most bizarre thing happens.

Jesus stands up, he gets up from the meal, and he goes and he gets a towel and he gets a bucket of water.

And everybody at the meal, all the disciples would have would have been frozen.

Like, what is going on?

What is he doing?

He's taking on the role of a servant.

I mean, what's going on here?

And then he kneels down at the first guy's feet, and these aren't like feet straight out of, you know, treat your feet, foot massage parlor.

I mean, these are these are like you've been wearing Chaco sandals all weekend, like on a trail, and then you get home and it smells horrible and they're dirty, it is bad down there.

And he bows down.

He bows down.

He kneels down with a bucket and a towel and he starts to wash their feet.

It was a crazy scene.

That's a crazy scene for God to serve his people versus his people serving him.

Right?

I mean, this is turning on the news at night.

This would be us turning on the news tonight.

We get home, we turn on the news, we turn on NBC News, we turn it on, and Lester Holt's there, and he says, he says, oh, breaking news.

Donald Trump decided to wash the feet of the people who mow the lawn at the White House.

Right?

Or any president, not just Trump, I mean, maybe more absurd with Trump, but any president, all right?

Like any president, it's absurd.

Anybody.

A position of power where you are the top guy, you're the man.

And here we have God incarnate looking like a slave.

And he's showing us something.

God always moves toward us in humility and love, even when we're not moving toward him.

And we need that.

Peter sees all this happen.

John 13, verse 8, Peter sees all this happening.

John 13:8

He's watching all of this.

He does not like it.

And he says, You will never wash my feet.

And Jesus says, Oh, if I don't wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.

Right?

I mean, this is Jesus saying, if you don't receive, then you have nothing.

Like the only way this relationship works is if you receive.

The only way.

It works in no other path.

It's only in receiving where relationship work with God.

We're always on the receiving end.

Okay, so now let's talk about the next day comes, right?

That's today.

That's Good Friday.

To do this, I always like to make our way through Isaiah 53, a prophecy written long before this day happened.

But a prophecy that is so wonderfully written, poetic, contemplative for us to process through and think about this day.

So it's in your bulletin, you can follow along with me.

Isaiah 53, verses 1 through 3.

Isaiah 53:1–3

Who has believed what he has heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

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.

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.

So maybe you're wondering, where is God in your grief?

Maybe your life has some grief in it, all of our lives have grief in it.

Maybe you're wondering, like, where is God in this?

Because you feel left out, or you feel like you got hurt, or something didn't work out, it's not working out.

And where is God?

And God's in the grief, that's where God is.

There's no promise of God relieving grief for all of us.

The promise is that God is in the grief.

That's what the promise is.

Verse 4 Surely He has borne our griefs, He knows them, He carries them and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

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.

So this is starting to get good, right?

It starts to turn, start to see the good news out of that which God took on for us.

And so I have two points in this.

And point number one is that healing and peace are by his wounds, not by our wounds.

Healing and peace are by his wounds, not our wounds.

So you're not healed by your wounds, you're not healed by your control or your production or your amount of sacrifice and how sacrificial you are.

You're not healed by that.

You're healed by him, right?

Remember him?

He's got his towel on, he's got the bucket of water, and what does he say to the one guy who says, No, no, you can't do that.

I don't want you to wash my feet.

As Peter's saying, I'll do it myself, right?

I can handle it.

I don't need you to do that for me.

And Jesus says, if you don't receive, you have nothing.

You'll have nothing.

It's the only way the relationship works.

Our guilt and shame is put on him and his righteousness is put on us.

That's how the healing happens.

And so in this, we sort of see the three ways, the three paths that are always there for us.

And the first two are our sin, it's self-justification.

The first one is escapism, like we're gonna be our own gods because we're just not gonna have that God.

We're just not gonna have, you know, that the Jesus story and that God or a God who's over me.

I'm not dealing with an authority over me.

I don't want anything to do that.

I'll be my own authority, I'll do my own thing, I'll have my own life and all of that.

You're your own God.

You're your own God.

And that's that's sinful because it's you self-saving by means of your own attempt to find your own joy, happiness, uh, righteousness, value.

You'll be exhausted.

The second path, quite common, like a religious moralism, right?

I mean, this is a path that says, you know what?

I understand Jesus, and I'll nod right along, and I'll actually raise my hands and worship, and I'm gonna show up at a Good Friday service, I'm gonna do all of it because I'm a good person, and I'll be good, and I'll form my own righteousness, and still you're your own God.

You're Peter, you're at the dinner, you're the older brother in the prodigal son's story.

But you're you're still your own God because you're relying on your own righteousness rather than the righteousness of Jesus.

And then the third way is the gospel.

And that's the good news that the cross really did mean something.

And that God incarnate shows up, and in death he gives us his love.

Our sin is put upon him, his righteousness is given to us.

Verse 6.

All we like sheep have gone astray, so we've all gone astray, whether it's path one or path two, we've all gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

So we've all gone astray, but the Lord's handled it for us.

Isaiah's pulling no punches.

We're not perfect, we love to go our own way.

And then he gets poetic, verses 7 through 11.

Isaiah kind of is like he hits a little writing mood and gets real poetic through the telling of all of this.

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 shears is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

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 this transgression of my people, 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.

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 his hand, 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.

So all of that, all of that gets us to verse 12.

Verse 12 is the climax of this entire writing.

Therefore, right, so there's the key, here's the climax, therefore, because of all of that, because of what he's done, and because of his love, and because of what he's done for us, 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 made intercession for the transgressors.

So all of verse 1 through 11 built up here to this verse 12.

So what does verse 12 mean?

Well, two things.

We can see it mentioned in two parts here.

The first is as God will divide him a portion with the many or the great.

So this is a way to say, Jesus is the Savior.

Jesus is the glorious Savior.

And then second, he shall divide the spoil, so that's the reward, the good stuff.

He shall divide the spoil with the strong.

And now maybe in your Bible it'll have a little asterisk, and down at the bottom, there's a little number, might be like a six or a little letter, like an F, and you go down to the bottom and then it'll say, or numerous, right?

That's better because we read strong and we think, oh, okay, so like, oh, to get the good stuff, I gotta be, I gotta be strong, okay.

I gotta be good enough, I gotta be strong enough.

No, no, no, no, no.

It means numerous.

So this is the second point.

The spoils are shared with you.

The reward is shared with you because God is victorious and God is gracious.

That's why, that's why the reward comes to you.

And none of this feels like a victory parade, but it is.

The cross doesn't feel like a victory parade, but it is.

It is God humbling himself before us to show us what love is, revelation of love, but then also imputation of love and righteousness to us.

This week I kept thinking back on Peter at that table refusing Jesus to wash his feet.

Like just how stubborn, right?

I mean, how prideful.

Just, yeah, wash them.

Just come on down the line, right?

But it's just it's him wanting to control everything, to hold on to a little bit of pride and a little bit of control, and you know what, I'll, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna do it myself.

Just a refusal to just surrender totally to who this person wants to be for you, who God wants to be for you.

See, we all want to earn love to be redeemed and worthy.

And the sooner we let go of that and we surrender the idea of merit for redemption and worthiness, the sooner we are moving in the path of Jesus.

And that's why Jesus stares Peter in the eyes and says, if you don't receive, you'll have nothing of me.

Right?

I mean it makes me think of the three words on the cross there at the end.

It is finished.

Right?

You don't have to have the work to absolve yourself.

The guilt that you've been carrying around from that thing.

You know that thing.

Like the thing from years ago.

Everybody else forgot about it, but you you haven't forgotten about it.

And it's finished.

It was it what it truly was finished at the cross.

Or maybe it's just a thing from yesterday.

And you keep carrying it around.

But you don't have to keep carrying it around.

Like forgiveness is full.

Absolution is absolution, and the cross gives it to you.

It is finished.

And maybe you're here and it's to receive that for the first time, to become awakened to that and to that salvation.

Or maybe it's just to be reminded once again.

The church has traditionally in Good Friday services had a period of silence to contemplate the cross and contemplate ourselves, and that probably scares some of you to death because you have little kids with you, and you know that ain't gonna happen.

And for others of us, it just scares us because we don't do that.

Like, that's why Netflix and podcasts exist.

Is so I don't have to get quiet, right?

We don't have to get quiet.

Like, and if you get quiet, you're like, oh, I immediately fall asleep.

Well, yeah, you fall asleep because you don't want to be quiet, right?

Like, oh no, no, no, if I get quiet, like my mind goes all over the place.

Yes, it does.

And the point of getting quiet is so that you actually face all of that.

The point of getting quiet is that you face yourself.

You have to actually deal with yourself and your sin and your imperfections and all the brokenness and the guilt from the thing that you thought was over and it's not over, and the suffering from the thing you thought wasn't affecting you and is affecting you, and all of that you have to deal with with God and the cross.

Right?

You you don't hear the faucet leaking until the house is quiet, right?

Right?

You don't during the day you don't hear the faucet leaking.

It's at night, you finally get in bed and you're all cozied up, and finally the house is quiet, the whole house is quiet, and then you hear like the creak.

So you didn't realize your house even creaked during the day, but all of a sudden at night the house creaks, or you get in bed, and all of a sudden you hear that faucet drip.

Drip.

And see, it's in the stillness that we start to hear stuff, and we'll hear amazing good stuff.

Like it is finished.

And we'll also see and face some stuff that we don't know what to do with.

Our sin, our brokenness, our suffering, but that's the point.

The point is that we do see it and that we take it to the cross to understand that our sin and our suffering and our griefs were put on him, that we don't have to carry them alone.

So we're gonna have a time of silence.

It's not gonna be, you know, the worry's not gonna be 15 minutes, and and you know, kids are gonna make some noises, that's fine.

Don't freak out.

Um somebody's gonna cough, and the car's gonna start outside, and life will continue to happen, and that's fine.

But we are gonna get quiet.

And when you get quiet, your mind's gonna race all over the place, and we're gonna actually be quiet long enough to move just past that and begin to get a taste of when you're just sitting with yourself and the Lord and what the Lord is beginning to say.

And it's in those moments that you start to see yourself and face yourself because we're not letting you um pull your phone out or turn on that place.

Um you're just gonna sit for a little bit, and then I'll close and we'll stand and we'll sing a few more songs.

So let's go before the Lord.