Good Friday: the healing gift of his sacrifice

The description of Christ in the prophecy of Isaiah is a strikingly powerful one:

See, my servant will prosper,
he shall be lifted up, exalted, rise to great heights.
As the crowds were appalled on seeing him
– so disfigured did he look
that he seemed no longer human –
so will the crowds be astonished at him,
and kings stand speechless before him.

Our Saviour – condemned, broken down, and then lifted up on a cross – is indeed astonishing to look upon. Disfigured, yet transfigured. Killed violently, yet dying peacefully. An act of denunciation, that opened the floodgates of mercy. This is Jesus Christ, God’s servant who prospered.

His loss is our gain. His death is our life. To us has been given the healing gift of his sacrifice.

To listen again, as we have just done, to the story of the death of Our Saviour, is to learn once again of the price he paid that we might live. We ought to be astonished, even shaken, that He would do this for me, for us.

He is a king – in fact, the king of kings; He is the ruler of all creation. Yet he is a servant – God’s most humbled servant – to us all. He poured out everything he had, his life-blood, as a fountain of grace, so that we could share fully in his priestly and kingly inheritance.

He has bound up our wounds through his wounds. He accomplished for us, what we are incapable of achieving ourselves. He rescued us from condemnation; in his death, we have been forgiven.

Thank you, Jesus, our Saviour, and our Hope. Thank you, for your life.