Tag: isaiah 53

The Reason for Every Regular Day Jesus Lived

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– The God who designed a woman’s womb was birthed from one with much travail.

– The One whose joy is everlasting had to burst into tears as He took His first breath.

– Jesus who spins the planets around the sun now stands beneath the moon and stars.

– Christ who powers that bright orb now grows weary under its heat at the peak of day.

– The God of perfect, triune love feels the sting of hatred and desertion.

– The One who supplies all creatures with daily food experiences hunger pangs.

– Jesus who created the universe in six days without exertion now grows tired at each day’s end.

– Christ who is eternal now knows the gloom of impending death all His earthly days.

– The God who formed each person’s body with intricacy and wonder now walks about in flesh that feels pain.

– The One who is Lord of the universe becomes just one Person among many, unknown and unpopular.

– Jesus who owns the whole world now faces the sting of poverty.

– Christ who never sinned becomes the sacrifice for all sin.

– God who sustains the life of all creation must raise Himself from the reality of death.

– The Christ of Heaven must ascend back to Heaven.

– The God of all glory who willingly chose to do all this will come again to restore us to the glory He originally intended.

We celebrate at Christmastime the day of the birth of Jesus Christ. While this is important, we cannot forget the days after His birth and the totality of the life He lived preceding His death and resurrection. For these days, we are most thankful. These days enabled Him to be made “perfect through suffering” on our behalf. (Hebrews 2:10, ESV).

Jesus suffered long before His crucifixion. The highest of all beings descended to the lowest of human experiences. Isaiah 53:2-3 (ESV) assures us that Jesus was not a glamorous or popular person and that, in fact, He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

When we hear in Hebrews 2:10 that Jesus was made “perfect through suffering,” God does not mean to say that Jesus had ever been imperfect or sinful. The word rendered “perfect” here means “to be brought to completion” or “to have the end goal accomplished.” How amazing that God chose to complete the job of participating in our suffering by enduring the regular, human struggle – including Monday mornings! – from the day of His birth to the day of His death.

Hebrews 2:10 heartens us, because we realize that the founder of our salvation knows exactly how we feel in the human experience. Jesus began the journey of identifying with us from the moment He descended to the womb of Mary. And every minute after that added to the process of Christ fully identifying with our frustration, pain, loneliness, and heartache.

The culmination of all His days was the moment He cried out on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30, ESV). The work was then complete. All our sin had been paid for, as Jesus had walked all His days as we walk in order to be the perfect substitute for us.

Thank you, Jesus, for your humble birth in to the world – and for EVERY DAY thereafter.

“Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:17, NLT)

Swordtails and God’s Sleeve

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When I was in middle school, I had an aquarium full of tropical fish. One of my favorite types of fish was the orange swordtail. The difficult part of adoring these particular creatures is that their young are born live, and the adult fish eat them. In order to protect the precious little baby fish, I would have to separate the fry in a rectangular net on one corner of the tank. Catching the tiny, agile babies is not easy.

The fact is that I had to get personally involved in the protection of the new swordtails. When one of the females was pregnant, I knew I had to get off the school bus quickly and run into the house to check on the situation each afternoon. I certainly could not design an eye-catching poster to hold up in front of the aquarium that warned, “Swim behind the castle little fish . . . swim!” Fish cannot read. It was pointless to kneel down in front of the tank and yell loudly, “Hide behind the plant . . . hurry!” Fish cannot hear us. The only way to help the swordtail babies was for me to roll up my sleeve and dip my arm into the sometimes algae-ridden water full of slimy fish and all their waste. Yes, if I was to save the fry, I had to invade their world.

Similarly, God crashed into our world to save us. When we were overcome by our sin and had no way to escape the curse, our God entered this space/time continuum. We are helpless without His personal intervention. He rolled up His sleeves, and entered a world of pain, sorrow, and mess to rescue us by His own hand. He put on human flesh and endured all the discomfort and longing earthly life brings. Then – in one particular season of time – He suffered more spiritual, emotional, and physical pain than we could ever imagine, as He willingly took on the sin of the world at the Cross. With His own body – with His own being – He saved us.

The great prophet Isaiah asked, “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1, NASB) What poignant words! What critical consideration! All of life boils down to this . . . do we believe the message of the God who revealed His own arm in the mission of saving us? This question is paramount, for its answer differentiates biblical Christianity from all other religions and worldviews. Whereas the various religions of the world involve the work of humans to one degree or another in their salvation, true Christianity says that God saves – and the rolling up of our own sleeves is useless. His holy, strong arm is the one that redeems us from the pit of sin and hopelessness.

I can see the devil and the powers of Hell shaking in their boots as God Almighty begins to roll up His sleeve! Jesus, the God-Man, comes to redeem His people! As the tiny swordtails were placed safely in the net by my own hand, so we are drawn out of the kingdom of darkness and placed safely in the kingdom of God by God’s own hand.

The question is, “Do you believe this message?” The Hebrew word for believe in Isaiah 53:1 is the root from which we get the widely used term, “Amen.” Belief means that we truly agree. We stake our very life on it. We hear the message and we say, “So be it!” It is right! The arm of our strong and gracious Jesus has been revealed! When He rolls up His sleeve, I am safe!