"Indeed, who would ever believe it? Who would possibly accept what we’ve been told? Who has witnessed the awesome power and plan of the Eternal in action? Out of emptiness he came, like a tender shoot from rock-hard ground. He didn’t look like anything or anyone of consequence—he had no physical beauty to attract our attention. So he was despised and forsaken by men, this man of suffering, grief’s patient friend. As if he was a person to avoid, we looked the other way; he was despised, forsaken, and we took no notice of him. Yet it was our suffering he carried, our pain and distress, our sick-to-the-soul-ness. We just figured that God had rejected him, that God was the reason he hurt so badly. But he was hurt because of us; he suffered so. Our wrongdoing wounded and crushed him. He endured the breaking that made us whole. The injuries he suffered became our healing. We all have wandered off, like shepherdless sheep, scattered by our aimless striving and endless pursuits; The Eternal One laid on him, this silent sufferer, the sins of us all." (Isaiah 53:1-6)
Silent sufferer…
But His blood was not silent.
It was louder than war.Louder than a battle-cry or the wails of anguish.
It was louder than that other blood – the first of oceans
and generations of spilled blood – Abel’s blood that cried to God from the
ground. Yes, this blood that found its voice on Good Friday was louder than all
of that. So loud that it found it’s way to the very throne of God, and declared
us to be FORGIVEN.
You are forgiven.
That is the good news of the Gospel.
