Holy Week (4)

The Christ of the Cross

Behold, My servant will prosper,
He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.
Just as many were astonished at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred more than any man
And His form more than the sons of men.
Thus He will sprinkle many nations,
Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him;
For what had not been told them they will see,
And what they had not heard they will understand.

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. (Isaiah 52:13 - 53:3)

“Marred more than any man...He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.”

Good Friday, or I think perhaps “Holy Friday”, is not about advertising or marketing, it is not about making Christianity attractive or appealing, it is not about us becoming happy, or wealthy, or smart, or attractive through Christianity - it is about a Person who has no attraction, no makeup on before He goes on stage, no entourage dedicated to making His life stress free and catering to His every whim. Jesus’ hair isn’t even carefully coiffured nor are His nails manicured.

Jesus has become “like one from whom men hide their face.” Crucifixion is an execution designed not only to be tortuous, but also to be publically shameful. To embrace Jesus Christ is to embrace His reproach, His shame. And so the author of Hebrews writes, “So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” The Cross was a reproach in the first century, and it is a reproach today, a stumbling block, it gets in the way of people and true Christianity - or at least it should. It should get in the way in the sense that we cannot come to Christ without going to and through the Cross. We cannot know the Christ of Easter without knowing the Christ of Holy Friday.

And so Paul writes (1 Cor. 2:1-5), And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

How do we know if a message or teaching is true? We ask, “Where is the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ in this teaching, in this message, in this song?” A Christianity without the Cross is a Christianity without Christ. A church without the Cross at its center is a church without Christ at its center. A person without the Cross is a person without Christ.

On the Cross Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, becomes sin for us, as Paul writes (2 Cor. 5:20 - 21); Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Jesus Christ bears our sins, He takes our rebellion and transgressions upon Himself, He take us upon Himself, our very persons - and He becomes sin on our behalf - and in so doing He cries, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Jesus becomes the object of God’s righteous anger and wrath, He becomes a perfect offering, a holocaust - and as His offering is perfected, and as it is completed, He cries, “It is finished.”

Where is the Cross in our lives? Where is the suffering Messiah? Will we follow Him? Will we be identified with Him? Will we cry with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”?

Do we hide our faces from Him during the week and only look at Him on Sundays and Good Fridays?

Or can we say with Paul (Galatians 6:14); “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”?