Isaiah 53:3-6 - The Parking Lot

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.  – Isaiah 53:3-6

Imagine this: you offer to carry a woman’s grocery bags. Instead, she asks if you could take the guilt she’s carried for decades about an affair. She hands you a jagged, black stone which cuts into your palm.

Suddenly a young man asks if you can carry his addiction, then wraps a heavy chain bolted to a concrete block around your neck. You sag to your knees in the middle of the parking lot as the man walks away, freed. A teenage girl lays an unused bassinette on your back, its surprising weight pressing you to the pavement. A middle aged man puts a laptop on your shoulder flashing one shocking image after another. You close your eyes but now hear the angry, hurtful words that dozens more have given you from their lives. You stumble backwards as more weight falls onto your chest.

You dare not let go of anything – you cannot. An angry man pours sharp stones of anger and frustration with his kids and wife over you. People crowd and crush you under thousands of bags of foul-smelling deeds and choices and vanity and self-reproach, even murder and slander and violence. You hold everything against yourself but it never stops.

You cry out to God, He turns away from you with the words: You are carrying these sins for a billion million people, and now they are with me, and I them, but because of what you are doing I am cutting you off from my face. I am too Holy to look at all of this sin crushing you beyond recognition.

You are alone in darkness, separated from the Light because everyone else in the world needed to lay their sins on you so they could be free. You die and sink into the ground, covered in filth. It feels like you will never be clean again.

This is what Jesus did, willingly, for us, to the point of being separated from His Father.

God, being made man, carried away our transgressions, and kept them for Himself on that dark afternoon as he was beaten and hung on a cross. Every sin I ever committed, as well as every person’s who ever said yes to His invitation was laid on him. Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for sins He himself could never commit.

This barbaric but necessary moment in God’s plan for humanity happened on a day we now call “Good Friday,” when we somberly reflect upon the price Jesus paid on our behalf because of His eternal love for every one of us who have gone astray. Soon it will be Easter, when we celebrate with praise and joy Jesus’ resurrection and ultimate victory over death, and takes his rightful place with His Father as our perfect, and spotless, advocate in heaven.

Pray

Lord, we look to Easter when we can celebrate Jesus’ perfect defeat of death for all of us. Today, though, let us remember the heavy, painful path You walked in order to do so. Thank you.