Matthew Chapter 27
For many, today is much like any other day. Work still takes place, children still have to be taken to school, groceries still have to be bought, and life still has to go on, but for those of us who consider ourselves Christians, today marks the day when death allowed us to live. You see, this is the day when Christ paid the ransom that we were never able to pay. Today is the day when Isaiah's prophetic word became manifest, "...but he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." You see, for Christians- we have no hope of eternal life without his death. We have no hope of healing without the shedding of his blood!
What love did Christ bestow upon us that he would willingly leave the confines of heaven- the constant adoration of the angels- to remove his robe of majesty and clothe himself in a garment of flesh to be mocked and ridiculed by HIS very own creation? How much did he love us to willingly allow his flesh to be torn, to be ripped, to be pierced, to become the perfect sacrifice- to take away the sins of the world. Nails did not hold him to the cross- no- it was love in it's purest state that held him there. The word says he could have called on angels yet he did not- and how eager I'm sure they were to be at his beck and call. How quickly I assume they would have moved to minister to their Master had he but uttered the word, yet he did not. He looked through the eons of time and knew that millions upon millions were going to depend on him and so- he died, willingly, without reserve nor complaint, he was the lamb led away to the slaughter.
And now today- over 2,000 years since his death birthed life, his blood is still as effective as it ever was. Not only was it shed for the remission of sins but for healing as well. The Message Bible translates Isaiah 53:5 as, "But the fact is, it was our pains he carried- our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him- our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed."
The word that sticks out to me in this translation is disfigurements... the action of spoiling the appearance of something or someone; defacement. It's anything that alters the way that God created you. In Genesis, every time that God created something the word says, "He saw that it was good." So when God formed you in the belly of your mother's womb, he looked at you and saw that it was good. Unfortunately, life can mar us. Decisions can cause mutilation. Choices can deform our life until we look in the mirror one day and don't even recognize who we see.
There are times when we are scarred though the actions of another...wasn't even our doing but we carry the injury with us...and if unattended to- that injury becomes infected and it will begin to affect other areas outside of us... and we begin to see our "disfigurements" mutilating those around us.
But here's the saving grace...
"He took the punishment and that made us whole!"
You don't have to hide your deformity. You don't have to cover your scars, you don't have to lie about your mutilations, because we serve a God that through his bruises we get healed. The word says that Christ was not even recognizable and that men turned their faces because the sight of him was too much to bear. He became disfigured that we could be whole. He took our anxiety, our depression, he took our addiction, our sexual perversion, the emotional remnants of sexual abuse, our rejection and our neglect and he clothed himself in agony to assure us one day- we wouldn't have to.
The word says he was a man who suffered and knew pain first hand,
and His blood is as effective today as it was all those years ago when it ran the length of a wooden cross and puddled at the feet of a Roman guard. His blood is effective. It is the covering of sin, it is the ointment that binds all wounds, his blood never fails. It is the "fount that won't run dry."
And so this day...THIS DAY...we celebrate the blood! The blood that was shed for the sins of the world, and in three days time- we will celebrate his RESURRECTION! For then we will say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
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