Isaiah 53,1-12. Good Friday

✠ We preach Christ and Him crucified ✠

Iesus Nazarenus rex Iudaeorum

Isaiah 53,1-12 2413

Karfreitag  031 schwarz 

Wicterp, Bishop of Augsburg, 8. century 

18. April 2014

1. O Silent, blessed Good Friday! O Evening after a hard day’s work, O Lovely Evening Star after darkness filled the day! O Divine Rest for sinners! O Hope of eternal life, O Blessed End of suffering, passion and tears! O Lord, have mercy on us in Your reign and keep us in Your great peace from which all joy and hope grow. O Lord Jesus, have mercy on us and grant us Your peace (Löhe 157).  Amen. 

2. »Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh 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. Surely He has borne our griefs 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. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 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. 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? 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 Yahweh to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His life makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of Yahweh shall prosper in His hand. Out of the anguish of His life He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the Righteous One, My Slave, make all to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with everyone, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His life to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore the sin of everyone, and makes intercession for the transgressors.« 

3. The Prophet Isaiah, writing 800 years before Jesus was born, describes His crucifixion in great detail. Isaiah did this as a prophet of Yahweh by Divine inspiration. These 12 verses are rich in Christology, so let us unpack some of it for our Karfreitag meditation. 

4. Isaiah is often called the Fifth Evangelist because several of his later chapters speak in great detail about the Suffering Servant, who is Jesus Christ. He tells us that »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.« Here the Prophet proclaims that Jesus would suffer at the hands of His people. Judas betrayed Him. Peter denied knowing Him. All the apostles, save John, abandoned Him to be crucified in agony. The Pharisees incited the crowd to reject Him and demand for Barabbas’ release. The chief priests, the scribes and the elders mocked Him while He hung on the cross: He saved others, but now he cannot even save himself (Matthew 27,41-43). Even those crucified at His right and left reviled Him (Matthew 27,44). 

5. »Surely He has borne our griefs 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.« Here Isaiah tells us that the Christ bore our griefs, sorrows and sins when He was crucified. He was pierced and wounded for our transgressions. Whipped and beaten, given a crown of thorns, hands, feet and even ribcage all pierced with nail and spear – all this as the one who bore our chastisement. In all this, Jesus suffered vicariously, taking upon Himself the punishment we all rightly deserved from God the Father. Christ’s Passion is our peace, and His wounds are our well-being. 

6. Lets examine His suffering a bit more closely. The Roman legionnaires had beaten Jesus to a bloody pulp: twenty lashes from a whip formed deep cuts in an „x“ pattern across His back, and then nineteen more lashes across His chest. This Roman cat-of-nine tails was fashioned with broken pottery, bits of metal and even nails to tear into the condemned’s flesh. A crown with 6-inch long thorns cut deep lacerations into Jesus scalp. Then Jesus was forced to carry an 100 pound cross beam out to Calvary where He would be stripped naked and crucified. On the cross, Jesus reeked of sweat mingled with blood, urine and other bodily releases. His body was bloody and His joints probably dislocated. 

7. At Calvary the Romans stretched out Jesus arms and nailed each hand to the horizontal cross beam. Then His feet were nailed together on the vertical beam so that His body formed a T. „As the crucified slowly sagged down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shot along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain. As he pushed himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, he placed his full weight on the nail through his feet. Again, there was searing agony as the nail tore through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of his feet. Hanging by the arms, the pectoral muscles were paralyzed and the small muscles between the ribs were unable to act. Air could be drawn into the lungs, but could not be exhaled. The crucified fought to raise himself in order to get even one short breath. He suffered hours of limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, and searing pain as tissue was torn from his lacerated back from his movement up and down against the rough timbers of the cross. Another agony was a deep crushing pain in the chest as the sac surrounding the heart slowly filled with serum and began to compress the heart. The compressed heart struggled to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood to the tissues, and the tortured lungs were making a frantic effort to inhale small gulps of air“ (Dr. C. Truman Davis). Jesus suffered this way for six grueling hours. Truly Isaiah was right when he proclaimed: »He had no form or majesty so that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.«  

8. »All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.« Isaiah gives the verdict: we are the sinners who turned away from our Loving God. Adam and Eve were the first insurrectionists, and every generation and offspring of theirs follows their sinful, rebellious path. God judged us guilty and deserving of eternal separation from Him when we die. And yet, God does not punish us with this verdict, for Someone else stepped forward and received our condemnation in our place. God mercifully put all our sinfulness upon His Only Son so that when He died on the cross, He died as one bearing all the iniquity of the world. 

9. »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.« Before Pilate, Jesus did not plea His innocence. Rather, He willingly received from Pilate the judgment of the Roman State: crucifixion as an enemy of the State and a blasphemer in Israel. On the cross, He did not revile those who mocked Him. Instead, He spoke words of mercy, love and forgiveness. He told the insurrectionist crucified next to Him that he would enjoy Paradise that day with Him (Luke 23,43). Although Jesus was calm and silent, nature was not. Nature convulsed in agony over the suffering and death of its Dear Creator. Darkness shrouded the midday for three hours (Matthew 27,45). An earthquake punctuated His death (Matthew 27,51). People were in awe and fear at the cries of anguish nature shed for Jesus’ suffering and death (Luke 23,48). 

10. »They made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man in His death.« Jesus was buried in haste so as not to defile the Sabbath. He had no grave, so the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea buried his rabbi and friend in his own tomb (Matthew 27,60). When the stone closed shut grave’s door, Jesus’ life was truly ended. 

11. Too often, Christians and churches ignore the reality of death. And when they do speak of Christ’s death it is sanitized. Christ was crucified for sinners, and Karfreitag does not let us shy away from the horrors of death, the grave and the end of life. Karfreitag forces all Christians and churches to look upon death, yes, the death of Jesus, and ponder it.

12. The Gospels tell us how Jesus suffered, and how He died when He yielded up His life by His own accord (John 19,30). Let us not avoid this death, but let us look it straight in the eyes, for the death of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary is the stake in the heart of sin, death and the grave. Let us confess the whole truth here too. On Karfreitag, God died. We don’t think of God being capable of dying because He is immortal and omnipotent. Thus Jesus took upon Himself mortal human flesh and blood so He could suffer and die as the sacrificial lamb for the salvation of the world. Behold, the Son of God crucified, and the Lamb of God sacrificed for the sin of the world, yes, for all your sins! Christ crucified is the costly ransom that paid in full all our sinfulness. Behold, there is Jesus, the King of the Jews, and He suffered, died and was buried in a tomb! 

13. But Isaiah will not let us cry in anguish at Jesus’ tomb. »It was the will of Yahweh to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His life makes an offering for guilt, then  He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of Yahweh shall prosper in His hand.« Friday drew to a close with Jesus dead and buried. Our sins had been, and even now are, atoned for, but as Friday night approached, the Lamb of God is still dead. The dark night of Friday covers the land and our hearts, for our Redeemer has died in our place, but the dawn of Sunday is about to arise in full Easter glory. »The Righteous One makes all to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities.« 

14. Jesus’ crucifixion, death and burial means that there can be no doubt that God loves each and every fallen, sinful man and woman. Three years before He was crucified, Jesus told Nicodemus: »For God loved the world so much that He gave His Only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life« (John 3,16). God desired to save the world from sin, death and hell, so He sent His one and only Son as the vicarious sacrifice to redeem the world. God did not spare Himself, but rather He sent His very best for you and your salvation. Thus Jesus preached: »And taking the Twelve, Jesus said to them: „Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the Prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill him, and on the third day He will rise“« (Luke 18,31-33). This (Christ crucified) is what a life with purpose looks like. This is what a victorious life looks like. This is what obedience looks like. This is what God being lifted up looks like. This is what the Glory of God looks like. This is what God’s blessings to you look like.  This is what a love looks like. This is what your salvation looks like. Go in peace on this night of salvation, for your sins have been paid off in full and you have that forgiveness in your Holy Baptism. Yes, you died and were buried with Christ in your Baptism (Romans 6,3-4). Jesus has been buried, but there is one more phrase in His sermon and we now await that glorious gospel of Easter Sunday to be proclaimed, for that is what victory looks like.  Amen. 

15. Let us pray. We beseech You graciously to behold this Your family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was content to be betrayed, given up into the hands of sinners and to suffer death upon the cross (The Book of Common Prayer 121) so that by His holy and righteous merit we, by virtue of His penal substitution, His vicarious atonement and the blessed exchange, receive, by faith in the gospel, the promise of everlasting salvation.  Amen.  

To God alone be the Glory 

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. 

Book of Common Prayer, The. Copyright © 2011 Cambridge University Press. 

 Davis, Dr. C. Truman. The Crucifixion of Jesus. http://www.ourcatholicfaith.org/crucifixion.html. Copyright © 1982 New Wine Magazine.

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. 

Löhe, Wilhelm. Lob sei Dir ewig, o Jesu! (Eternal Praise to You, O Jesus). A. Schuster, Ed. Copyright © 1949 Freimund Verlag.