Word of Salvation – Vol. 34 No. 27 – July 1989

Man Of Sorrows

Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf on Isaiah 53:4,5

Reading: Isaiah 53

It happened in Western Europe in Nazi-occupied Western Europe.  The underground guerrillas had shot one of Hitler's henchmen near a town.  Unable to find who had done this, the cruel tyrants picked up ten men from the street and led them to the market square.  They put them in a row and said: The odd numbers, 1,3,5,7 and 9 will be shot dead.  The other five will be held in prison for a while to make sure there is no more rebellion here.  Then they counted them off: 1,2,3...!  Number eight, an old man!  Quickly and quietly he whispered to number seven, a young fellow: "Hurry, swap places with me.  I am an old man, you have all of life ahead of you yet...!”  They swapped.  With numbers 1,3,5 and 9 the old man was shot.  But the young man who should have died stayed alive and was later set free and lived to a ripe old age himself.  But all his life he remembered the sound of the shot that killed the man who died in his place.

Whenever things got tough as they do at times, when the work was hard and the sickness hurt, he remembered the sound of the shot and said: "I am alive... thank you!"  And in the joy of his wedding day he remembered the sound of the shot... and with tears in his eyes looked at his bride: "I am alive... thank you".  And is not that the way you and I may look at Jesus?  The suffering of Jesus was ours by rights, and his death is the death we should have died if God's justice would have had its course without a miracle.  That I am not in constant terror of hell to come is because one holier than I swapped places with me.

Isaiah says that pointedly in our text: He called the Saviour the MAN OF SORROWS who KNEW ALL ABOUT SICKNESS.  Now here in our text the exact Hebrew words come back: Man of sorrows?  Acquainted with sickness?  But the sorrows He bore were ours!  The sickness that ate Him up... was ours!  These sorrows, these sicknesses... were rightfully ours, we deserved them.  In the second half of verse 4 we see how the world looked at this Man of sorrows as He went His way of suffering:
            "Yet we considered Him stricken by GOD,
            smitten and afflicted by Him...!”
Look at Him!  God must have something against him!
A bit the way Job's friends looked at their stricken mate sitting on his heap of ash.  Looking at him, from a bit of a distance, and with some kind of disgust.  Friends?  Well, they don't know.  Somewhere, something has snapped off.  You cannot get as close any more as you were before: not with a man marked like that.  A bad luck duck with the stench of poverty on him.  We are inclined to keep such a one at arm's length, to keep him isolated.  Imagine his bad luck would jump over on ME!  I think of the three rebels Korah, Dathan and Abiram in the desert.  They had tried to start a revolution against Moses and Aaron.  God was very angry at these men and Moses saw what was coming and warned the people.  "Get away from these men and their families!"  He warned – and the people shrank back from their tents.  Just as well because the earth opened up under them and they were swallowed up alive with all they had.

Stricken by God and afflicted.  That is dangerous business.  When God starts hitting someone, you'd better keep your distance, we reckon.  So we look at Jesus on his lonely Road of Sorrow.  There He goes: stricken by God!  Afflicted!  “No!”, says Isaiah!  There – but for the incredible GRACE of God and of that suffering Christ who swapped places with you and me... THERE GO I...!  There go you!  If you want to know how God thinks about the kind of life you live and the kind of thoughts you think and the kind of words you speak, then look at Jesus with that cross on His neck.  By the greatest miracle of all time, He walks there while it should have been me who went there.  By the greatest love imaginable in all eternity, He dies there, while I should have died with everlasting hell to follow that death of torture.  On Him was the punishment.  Yes, but it was the punishment for your and my shortcoming, your and my sin, your and my rebellion.  He bore it... and bore it all.  Therefore for you and for me there now is peace.  Never more any punishment!  Never, you hear!

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned for you and me, perhaps a very painful lesson, like a rap on the knuckles we keenly feel a long time... but punishment?  Never!  No, He bore that punishment, and therefore that is - as the text says literally: the Punishment Of Our Peace.

Oh you are right when you see in Jesus “one stricken by God and afflicted".  No one but God did that to Him.  But they are the stripes and the strokes, the illnesses and sorrows that should have come upon you and me.  And therefore those wounds bring you and me healing.  Healing of the pain of everlasting death, and therefore also healing from the pain of loneliness.  God Himself is your Father and Friend: you are better.  You will not die but live.

Healed... also from the sickness of puffed-up self-boasting pride.  You may live by grace from now on: never more need you fight for your ego, never more need you go out and prove yourself.  HEALED... also of anger and resentment and bitterness towards others.  How can you look at anyone with anger now God gave you His Son, so you may be a child in His home forever?  We always underestimate that peace.  It is much bigger than we ever can imagine.  And therefore coming to the Lord's Table is to proclaim this death of this Christ: it is to remember the sound of that shot and say, Incredible: He died AND I AM ALIVE FOR EVER!  How is it possible!
            He for me, the punishment!
                        And so I have the peace forever.
            He the sorrows, and now I may have the joy.
            He the sickness, and now the health is for me.
            He took the death, so I might have the life and be sure of it.
            He the stripes and the flogging, and I the healing.

How is it possible?  Yes, well may you say that.  This was the pleasure of God!  That's how God loved the world.  And loved people like you and me.  That is the song of praise of the church of all ages, and that is the song of praise of every believer, with his lips and with his deeds.  For thousands of years this is the thing that has had Christians singing: they cannot get the sound of that shot out of their system... and should they?

The most tragic thing ever would be to be born a child of this church and to have heard that message, AND TO MISS OUT ON THAT SONG.  To be one who refuses the offer of that Son of God, and would prefer to be shot himself in silly pride.  To bear the burden of sorrow yourself.  That is then a burden for all eternity, make no mistake about it.  The only alternative to the song of faith is hell.  Those who reject the love of God will one Day have to cop the full weight of His anger.  And then you will go there for ever.  One from whom men and angels hide their faces, one stricken of God and afflicted.  Are you going to be so silly as to say to the Christ: Don't change places with me, I want to be the odd one myself?  If you have not already done so, I call you now in the Name of God to let Jesus take your place, and to remember forever the sound of that shot.  To be among the people whose deepest and fondest joy to say:
            "Alleluia, what a Saviour!!”

AMEN