Ten Minas Ministries

Old Testament reading:
Isaiah 53:4-6 (NIV)
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.
yet we considered him stricken by God.
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

New Testament reading:
Mark 15:33-39 (NIV)
At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" - which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
When some of those standing near heard this, they said, "Listen, he's calling Elijah."
One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said.
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!"

I was a "band geek" in high school. Now maybe in your high school they didn't use that exact term, but if you were a child of the 80s like me, I'd bet that some significant portion of the student body had an equivalent term. To make matters worse, I was also an actor, which means I was blacklisted along with the rest of the drama crowd. And just when you thought I couldn't sink any lower, I actually lettered in Band and Drama (I missed lettering in cross country running by 8 seconds on a 3.1 mile course, but let's not dig up those old wounds).

One of my closest friends throughout high school played trombone right next to me in the band. He was one year ahead of me, so we went to school together for three years. All three years he had this huge crush on a very tall and attractive girl who was in the color guard. She and I were pretty good friends, but I never foresaw anything romantic between us.

Well, during my junior year, our little triangle took a dramatic turn. It was prom time, and this tall and attractive young lady decided to ask me to be her date. You see, unbeknownst to me, all the time that my friend had been pining for her, she actually had a crush on me. What would a good friend say in these circumstances? A truly good friend would probably say, "Sorry, I do like you, but I know that if we went out it would tear my buddy apart, so I just can't do it." You see, even at this time, I really didn't have any particularly romantic feelings toward this girl.

But this story wouldn't be very interesting if I did the honorable thing (when it came to girls, I wasn't nearly as honorable as I should have been in my youth). Instead, I decided to ask my friend for his permission to go out with his dream girl. I knew deep down that my friend would never deny me anything. After all, in three years he had never stood up to me. I justified it to myself by claiming that since he gave his blessing, he really was OK with it. But if I was to be honest, I knew before I ever asked him that he would say it was OK, even if it was really breaking his heart.

I promised him that I'd just be going out with this girl as "friends". I assured him that I had no romantic intentions. And when the big night came, I was doing a pretty good job keeping that promise. We went out to dinner and had some fun dancing at the prom. And throughout the whole evening there was not so much as a peck on the cheek.

After the dance, though, we went back to her friend's house with a group of other couples. This was where my promise broke down. There is no need for me to go into detail, but suffice it to say I betrayed my friend's trust that night. Nowadays you see far worse things on Desperate Housewives than what actually occurred in that basement that evening (or early morning, as the case may be), but we definitely did not behave as "just friends."

The next time I saw my friend, I felt horrible. I took him aside into the locker room and confessed to him what had happened. I told him to hit me. I deserved it. I told him I was scum. He couldn't trust me. He had every right to be furious with me and to give me a good slug across the jaw.

Throughout the entire time I was trying to provoke my friend to violence, he just stood there silently. When I was done he told me he was not going to hit me. In fact, he forgave me. Forgave me? How could I possibly be forgiven? I didn't deserve forgiveness! I deserved a broken jaw! But no matter how much I tried to urge him on, he insisted upon forgiving me. I went into that locker room knowing that I deserved punishment, but I found forgiveness instead.

Looking back on that experience later in life, it helped me to understand exactly what God did for me through Jesus. What I did to my friend was a personal betrayal. We had a close trusting relationship and I betrayed that trust. When we sin, we commit a personal betrayal against God. What more intimate relationship do we have in our lives than our relationship with our Father-Creator? Just as I deserved punishment from my friend, we all deserve punishment from God. And the Bible tells us what punishment we deserve. Romans 6:23 says that "the wages of sin is death." That's what we've earned.

Now what exactly does that mean? This takes us back to the Garden of Eden. God gave Adam and Eve one very simple instruction. In Genesis 2:16, God said to Adam, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." The serpent, in his ever-deceitful manner, told Eve "You will not surely die...For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:4). This incident was the birth of humanism. Notice that the sin Adam and Eve gave into was the temptation to be "like God". They wanted to control their own destiny, and not have to be subject to God. That's a sin that our society continues to struggle with today.

After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they did die. Not right away, mind you, but mortality entered the human existence. Adam lived for 930 years, but he eventually died (Genesis 5:5). From this point forward, the average lifespan of the people mentioned in the Bible gradually decreases until they reach the typical lifespan of modern man.

But is this all that is meant by "the wages of sin is death"? What else happened to Adam and Eve when they rebelled against God? While in the Garden of Eden, they lived in perfect fellowship with their Father. But as a result of their sin, they were no longer permitted to enjoy that fellowship. They were cast out of the Garden. By being separated from the Garden, they were separated from that fellowship with God. So our sins don't just earn us physical death (as opposed to eternal life), but they also deprive us of fellowship with God.

You cannot truly understand the sacrifice Christ made for you unless you first understand the severity of the punishment you have earned. Sometimes it seems like we all say, "Jesus died for our sins" as easily as we say "hello". We speak the words. We may even understand it on an intellectual level. But do we really grasp it emotionally?

Our passage from Isaiah is a fun one to read to people who aren't quite as familiar with the Bible as they should be. If you read chapter 53 to many Christians without telling them where it comes from, then ask them who it is talking about, most people will probably tell you "Jesus". The fun part is that this passage is from an Old Testament book, written hundreds of years before Jesus was born! Yet it explains beautifully what Jesus did for us. It was a miraculous prophecy of Christ! We deserve punishment. But in lieu of us getting punished, "he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."

Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, on their show The Way of the Master, give a pretty good example to help you understand what this means. Imagine that you are convicted of a crime in a court of law. Now the judge tells you that you need to pay an exorbitant fine. There is no way you will ever be able to pay it. But at the last minute someone comes in and pays your fine for you and you get to walk out scot-free. Imagine the gratitude you would feel to that unexpected benefactor.

I love this illustration from an intellectual perspective because it really helps people understand the nature of Christ's sacrifice. But understanding the sacrifice and truly feeling it are two different things. Never lose perspective on the value of what Christ did for you. You deserved death. Instead, Christ died so that you could live eternally. You deserved separation from God. Christ made it possible to restore your communion with Him. I once saw a replay of Billy Graham speaking in New York City in 1957 during which he made a powerful comment that I apply to my own life and that I encourage you to apply to yours. Like Billy Graham, when I look up at Jesus hanging on that cross, I see the sins of Ken Coughlan nailing Him there. You see, we often hear about the Roman soldiers who nailed Jesus to that cross, but we lose perspective on our own personal roles. It was our sins that put Him there. We can't possibly condemn those Roman soldiers without seeing the hammer in our own hand too.

Think about it for a moment. What did Jesus say while He felt the weight of our sin on that cross? "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Can you even begin to imagine what it feels like to have God turn His back on you, for Him to totally forsake you? Jesus had experienced an almost unimaginable degree of physical punishment both before the cross and while he was suspended. But in this one instant His heart cried out for that lost communion with God. This separation caused Him unbelievable torment. That is what we've been saved from. Don't ever forget it.

The sacrifice made by that unexpected benefactor in our fictional courtroom pales in comparison to the sacrifice Jesus made for us, so the gratitude we would feel for that benefactor also should pale in comparison to the gratitude we feel for Christ. Because of Jesus, we get a new life, a new chance to be with God. I can't help but look up at that cross and feel tears coming to my eyes. Those are tears of sorrow when I realize not only what Jesus went through, but also when I acknowledge my personal role in putting Him there. But those tears turn into tears of joy and gratitude when I think about the benefit I get to reap from His sacrifice.

Get emotionally involved in your faith. Never lose perspective on what Jesus went through and your personal role in putting Him through it. Never forget the punishment you have earned as a result of your sin. But most of all, always remember the enormous benefit you will enjoy as a result of what Jesus did for you. And show Christ how thankful you are by living your life as He wants you to live it. Give your life, including your heart, to Christ.

I'll close with a poem written by an unknown elementary school teacher called "A New Leaf". After all, good poetry has a way of evoking the type of emotional response I'm trying to describe far better than I could. I hope it speaks to you as much as it spoke to me.

He came to my desk with a quivering lip,
the lesson was done.
"Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher?
I've spoiled this one."
I took his sheet, all soiled and blotted
and gave him a new one all unspotted.
And into his tired heart I cried,
"Do better now, my child."

I went to the throne with a trembling heart;
the day was done.
"Have you a new day for me, dear Master?
I've spoiled this one."
He took my day, all soiled and blotted
and gave me a new one all unspotted.
And into my tired heart he cried,
"Do better now, my child."

Anonymous, “A New Leaf,” James G. Lawson, compiler, The Best Loved Religious Poems. Used by permission of Fleming H. Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, copyright © 1961. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without written permission from Baker Publishing Group. http://www.BakerPublishingGroup.com