Luke’s Notebook

Reading Isaiah 53 tonight:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

I don’t know what to add to that.  What more could you say?

This is Jesus, the only son of God.  He was humiliated, rejected, crushed.  And yet He didn’t open His mouth?  He just… took it?  And He did this for me?  Because of MY sin?

I know we all have heard this before, but this just needs to sink in so deeply.  We need to be constantly in awe of what He did.  I know we can so easily just breeze on by Easter, but we have GOT to remember what took place here.  This was the only way by which we could be saved.  The only way! There simply is no other path to salvation.  Jesus, BECAUSE He took those nails, gave us hope.

How can we miss this?  I mean, Easter bunnies and egg hunts are fun and all, but this is JESUS!  Jesus didn’t just die for some sinners out there somewhere.  He died for you, and He died for me.  It’s the only way we can be rescued from our sins.

We have just got to take this personally…