The Sacrificed Lamb

INTRODUCTION:

As I said at the outset, I am been looking forward to this service for a long time, really for 11 weeks now as it was 11 weeks ago that we had our first live-stream only service. I am been anticipating since that strange day the day in which we would be able to gather together again. I am grateful that we are able to begin reassembling as a church today and look forward to the time when it will be safe for all of us to physically join together again.

It has been wonderful to be able to sing together this morning…what an encouragement. One of the elements of worship that is impossible to really simulate virtually is to encourage one another through “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” when we are not in the same room.

Likewise, it is impossible to partake of the elements of the Lord’s Supper together when we cannot assemble, as the pandemic has presented us from doing for the past 10 weeks. Normally we celebrate the Lord’s Table together on the first Sunday of the month, usually in an evening service. Since we have not been able to do so for the past couple of months, though, and since we will not be assembling for evening services for some time yet, I decided that we would celebrate our first service back together by including the Lord’s celebration meal.

In preparation for sharing the Lord’s Supper this morning, I decided that it would be beneficial for us to spend some time considering what it is that we are doing. The elements of the meal point us to the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, which is the center point of our worship. We know that, but do we really stop and think about what that means? I decided to break from our psalm series and spend a few minutes today helping us focus on the Person and work of Jesus that we are commemorating when we partake of the Lord’s Supper. I want each of us to ask ourselves this question, “What does the sacrifice of Jesus mean for me?”

While the events of Jesus’ death took place nearly 2000 years ago, to answer the question of what His sacrifice means for us, I want to go back at least another 600 years to the days of the prophet Isaiah. We are going to look at a passage that I frequently turn to and meditate on during our communion services.

We will be looking at Isaiah 52:13–53:12. In this passage the prophet records a poem that looks ahead to Jesus’ sacrifice. We will work our way through this poem this morning. As we do so, I encourage you to continually as yourself this question, “What does the sacrifice of Jesus mean to me?”

If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Isaiah 52. This is one of those cases where our Bibles fail to insert the chapter divisions in the best place. Isaiah, while looking forward to Jesus Christ—the coming Messiah for Israel, wrote a poem composed of five stanzas. We have these stanzas divided up into three verses each. However, the first stanza which begins the poem starts in our Bibles in 52:13.

Within the structure of the poem, each of the five stanzas emphasizes a particular aspect of Jesus. The poem is balanced in such a way to highlight the third stanza as the center of focus. At the same time, each stanza is longer than the prior one indicating that the message of the poem continues to progress, building a climax at the end. I mention this so you can watch for the center focus in the third stanza as well as watch the progression to the final climax.

Transition from introduction to body:

Let’s begin by taking a look at the first stanza.

I. Jesus will be Exalted – What does that mean to me?

<read 52:13–15>. The prophet starts out “Behold” for the purpose of calling our attention to the One—the Servant—he is about to describe. He wants us to fix every bit of our attention on Him. Servant is the name that Isaiah gave to Jesus 600 years before Jesus was born. Isaiah named Him Servant because that was the most appropriate description for Jesus’ purpose. This first stanza introduces two crucial puzzles that come with the prophet’s message: How can exaltation arise from the suffering that is foretold and how can such suffering lead to universal benefit?

We are told from the beginning that the Servant will be “high and lifted up.” Only God is be “high and lifted up,” not man. But of course, we know that John chapter 1, among other places, inform us that Jesus is God.

Still, when Jesus came, He did not come as people expected. They were looking for a king. Yet Isaiah had predicted that His appearance would be “marred more than any man.” We should remember how Jesus suffered at the hands of the Roman soldiers; how He was whipped and beaten prior to His crucifixion to the point where He was physically marred. The idea behind this term in Isaiah is that He could hardly be readily recognized as a man by the time the beatings had finished.

The language in verse 15 is that of an OT sacrifice. Remember that in order to atone or cover the guilt associated with their sins, the OT believer had to offer a blood sacrifice. An animal like a lamb had to be slain to cover the guilt of the believer’s sin and only the most perfect animal was acceptable as a sacrifice to God. The blood from the animal was “sprinkled” before God to cover the sins of the believer bringing the sacrifice. The Servant did not have the appearance of an acceptable sacrifice—He was marred—yet He alone was the perfect sacrifice. Jesus alone is the only one to ever walk this earth without sin so He alone is the only truly perfect sacrifice, despite appearances.

The prophet tells us that one day “kings” will fully understand the mission that Jesus undertook. They will submit silently before Him when they see Him exalted as God. Paul echoes this idea in Philippians when he says in 2:9-11 “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Transition: Jesus will be exalted—let’s ask ourselves, “What does that mean to me?’

As we move to the second stanza, we see….

II. Jesus was Rejected – What does that mean to me?

<read 53:1–3>. This entire stanza emphasizes the lowliness and rejection of the Servant. The Servant would have a rough time from His youth onward. Remember, even as a young child King Herod tried to kill Jesus. During His ministry, Jesus did not even have a place to lay his head. In other words, he did not have a home. Jesus lived a very lowly life.

But that is not the primary focus of his stanza. The primary point is the complete and absolute rejection that Jesus would experience. Verse 1 mentions the “arm of the Lord.” This is a symbol of the power of God. Jesus was the very power of God in human form, but because He did not appear as men expected Him to, He was completely rejected. He was “like one from whom men hide their face.” How can we not think of Peter’s denial on Jesus’ final night when Peter would not admit to even knowing Jesus? In the end people attempted to avoid contact with Jesus.

Isaiah begins this stanza with a crucial question: “Who has believed our message?” During Jesus’ life men could not believe that God’s power could be contained in the lowly Servant they saw before them. They considered Him “despised” which literally means worthless or unworthy of attention. The masses of that day considered the living Son of God as irrelevant. Even though Jesus offered salvation to all because He is the very power of God, He was rejected then and, even now, HE continues to be rejected by many.

Transition: Jesus was rejected; He was rejected by the masses. Again, ask yourself, “What does that mean to me?”

As we move into this next stanza, we are coming to the center stanza, the center of the prophet’s focus.

III. Jesus Died in our Place – What does that mean to me?

<read 53:4–6>. Ten times as I read these verses you heard a first person pronoun—we, our, or us. The central fact that Isaiah conveys is that the Servant—Jesus Christ—suffered for us—for you and me. The Servant was stricken because we are sinners. In verse 4 we see that He carried our “griefs” and “sorrows.” This is a reference to our sins and the consequences of our sins. Every grief and sorrows that we have comes from the curse of sin.

As we heard in the first stanza, God demands a payment for sin. The payment of the blood of lambs was not sufficient as a permanent payment for sin; a lamb’s life did not carry sufficient value to offset the magnitude of our offence against a holy God. Only two things could pay for this offence—eternal punishment directed at each individual sinner or a payment of eternal value. God chose to lay the punishment upon the Servant rather than on the sinners—you and I—who really deserved it. So, Jesus was “pieced for our transgressions.” This literally took place when the spikes were driven through His hands and feet and the spear was shoved into His side; when His body was broken and His blood was shed. He was “crushed for our iniquities,” referring to the emotional and spiritual suffering that Jesus underwent when He took the sin debt of you and I upon Himself. Remember the moment when the eternal relationship between Jesus and God the Father was severed because God could not look upon sin? Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”

Those observing Jesus’ death believed that His suffering and death was the expression of God’s wrath against Jesus. But the reality is that it was the expression of God’s wrath against us—against our sin. The answer to the question that Jesus cried out, “Why have You forsaken me?” is right here in verse 6: Why did God forsake Jesus? For “all of us.” We were all lost “like sheep” that had “gone astray” when Jesus took our sin upon Himself. That is why God forsook Him upon the cross. It was for us. Isaiah is displaying astonishment at this point—it is amazing that God would do this for us!

God had determined a means by which He could both demonstrate His love for us while at the same time maintain His holiness and satisfy His justice against our sin. God graciously placed the penalty for our sin on Jesus and He died in our place as the perfect substitute. Being sinless Himself, His death carried eternal value.

Transition: Jesus died in our place. Let’s ask, “What does that mean to me?”

As move on to look at the fourth stanza, remember that Isaiah constructed this poem so that each stanza is longer than the preceding one, showing a movement of thought in such a way that builds to a final climax of the thoughts. Look with me at the fourth stanza

IV. Jesus Died Willingly – What does that mean for us?

<read 53:7–9>. In this stanza Isaiah continues the imagery of sheep, but now the comparison to Jesus is regarding their submissive nature. The Servant did not fight against His fate but gave Himself willingly to it. Isaiah intends for us to consider the difference between the ignorant silence of sheep and the silence of the knowing submission of Jesus.

Matthew 27:14 records how Jesus “did not answer him with regard to even a single charge” when He was accused before Pontius Pilot. The Roman governor was amazed that He remained silent, but we should not be. Jesus was not a victim before His accusers, He was acting in silent submission to His Father’s will. Jesus willingly allowed all these accusations and the trial to transpire so that He might be “taken away” to His death.

If you remember the Gospel account, Pilot admitted during Jesus’ trial that he could not find any crime against Jesus deserving of death. It is as we see here in verse 9, this was “because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.” It was not because of what Jesus deserved, but rather under pressure from the sinful religious leaders that Pilot sentenced Jesus to die and to be buried with two common robbers. After His death, though, the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea intervened and took Jesus’ body and placed it into his own tomb. Thus ‘His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death.”

Why did an innocent Man who did not deserve to die willingly accept this fate? It was for the reason given in verse 8—so those for “whom the stroke was due” would not have to experience it themselves. By His death, Jesus took our “transgressions”—those things that we have done in violation of the holy law of God—and paid their penalty.

Transition: Jesus not only died in our place, Jesus died willingly. “What does that mean to me?”

In the in final stanza we learn that…

V. Jesus is Victorious – What does that mean for us?

<read 53:10–12>. This final stanza returns to the theme of exaltation we started with in 52:13. The unjust treatment of the Servant by men resulting in His death is balanced, as well as interpreted, by God’s saving purpose in it all. It was ultimately God’s will and His pleasure that the Servant should die as a guilt offering for sin. Acts 2:23 records that though it was “by the hands of godless men” that Jesus was put to death on the cross; it was ultimately the “predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God” that drove the events. Jesus’ death brought God’s entire saving plan to fruition. The sinlessness of the Servant allowed His death to provide justification for others because it fully satisfied God’s righteous standard of justice—His own infinite holiness. It is through this act that Jesus will “justify the many.” Sinful human beings may be declared righteous before a holy God because the penalty owed for our sins has been completely paid by Jesus’ death.

What is the end result of all of this? Suddenly in this final stanza we see the Servant as One favored by God! He is displayed in the final verse as a Victor, not a victim. He is presented as a returning Victor that is honored for His faithful and successful mission. He in turn then distributes the spoils of His victory to others. He shares His reward with His offspring—those of us who accept His payment on their behalf. As one commentator has put it, “the Servant will be exalted to the highest heaven not because He was humiliated (although He was), not because He suffered unjustly (although He did), not because He did it voluntarily (although He did), but because it was all in order to carry the sin of the world away to permit God’s children to come home to Him.”

Jesus carried the sin of the world away through His mission of intercession on man’s behalf as seen in the final phrase of this poem: (He) “interceded for the transgressors.” The manner of His intercession, though, was described back in verse 6 where the exact same Hebrew verb as we have translated “interceded” here in verse 12 is used to describe what happened to our iniquity—He caused it “to fall on” or to be “laid on” Him. The most effective intercession possible was for Jesus to be our sin substitute.

Jesus is victorious in the end because He fulfilled His mission to earth—He died, the Suffering Servant, the spotless Lamb—so that God’s loving plan to save us from our sins was accomplished. Jesus sinlessly and completely fulfilled His mission when He allowed Himself to die on the cross nearly 2000 years ago.

Transition from body to conclusion: Jesus is Victorious. “What does that mean to me?

CONCLUSION:

What does the sacrifice of Jesus mean to me? That is the question that each one of us should be asking ourselves as we turn to the Lord’s Table this morning. These elements—the bread and the juice—represent the sacrificial death of Jesus. What does the sacrifice of Jesus mean to me?

Remember the five ideas found in the five stanzas of this poem: Jesus Will be Exalted; Jesus Was Rejected; Jesus Died in Our Place; Jesus Died Willingly; Jesus Is Victorious. As we think these ideas, we need to ask ourselves, “What does the sacrifice of Jesus mean to me?”

There really is only one answer that shows that we really understand these points; the answer that “The sacrifice of Jesus saves me from my sin!” We must accept that Jesus died for us—you and me! The sacrifice of Jesus saves me from my sin! That is what the prophet Isaiah was foretelling in this passage. That is what the Gospel writers reveal. That is what the NT epistles explain. That is what the elements on this table represent. The sacrifice of Jesus saves me from my sin!

I trust that as we partake of the elements of the Lord’s Table in a few minutes, you will be celebrating this truth in your life. If you do not know Jesus as Savior, I encourage you to contact me through email. I would love to explain more fully how the sacrifice of Jesus can save you from your sin.