Verse for the week of October 18th:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
In this section of Isaiah, the prophet is talking about a suffering servant. There are a number of passages like this one that that lift up this concept of a savior who must suffer.
This is a new concept. Until the prophet Isaiah proclaimed ideas like ‘wounded for our transgressions,’ ‘crushed for our iniquities,’ ‘borne our infirmities,’ and ‘struck down by God and afflicted’ the nation of Israel would have thought that the promised savior would be a military leader or a person who comes with power.
With these new concepts of a suffering servant, the prophet begins announcing to the world that God is going to do something that nobody expects. The nation of Israel wanted a new King David—a powerful, military leader who stands up to everyone and gives the nation credibility to the other nations around them. But God, who knows best, is preparing for something completely different.
Instead of saving the nation by raising up a leader to recreate a new independent nation; God sends a suffering servant (who is His Son) to save not only the nation of Israel but the entire world. And this suffering servant saves the nation not by asserting power, but by sacrificing his life—humbling himself and being obedient in order that he would allow himself to be crucified to redeem all of humanity.
This is a radical idea. Think about it. Saving the world through self-sacrificing. Bringing healing and eternal life through death and pain. Defeating sin and death through weakness (or at least weakness by the world’s standards).
But this is just what Jesus did! Jesus is that suffering servant that Isaiah proclaimed was coming many, many years before Jesus was born in that little town of Bethlehem.
Jesus loves us so much that he was willing to go to the cross and die in order that the world might be saved through him and that he would be wounded for our transgressions (things we do wrong) and that he would be crushed for our iniquities (sins) and that by his bruises we are healed of the disease of sin and death.
A bruise is a sign of injury, but also a sign of healing. How true we must suffer with the signs of bruising but can be joyful the bruises are there as they lead to eternal healing