Dear Christian friends:

Isaiah writes here 750 years before it happened. Yet, he writes exactly as if he had been one of Jesus' twelve disciples walking with Him during His life and especially during the troubled last week. Isaiah could not prophecy so accurately by His own imagination, but the Holy Spirit of God let him look ahead and see the suffering, dying Savior.

The Holy Spirit also showed Isaiah the real reason why Jesus must suffer and die. Here we have God Himself giving us the story of Jesus' death and what it means to us. Let us on this Good Friday attend to:


We shall see the terrible suffering and that this suffering was for us. "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." (Isaiah 53:3)

Those who followed Jesus were few. True, big crowds when He gave them bread. But when he wanted to give them bread for their soul they walked no more with Him, John 6. Nicodemus visiting Jesus at night. Peter's denial for fear. Judas, betrayal for money. Gethsemane all forsook Him and fled. Note that Isaiah says, "we" that means us too we are no better.

"Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3) When Jesus saw how selfish and heartless and two faced people were it grieved him. And when He saw sickness, blindness, deafness and all the results of sin and how it hurt people he groaned in the spirit and wept.

People forsook Him. Church leaders condemned Him. Disciples ran away for fear and even God and the sun forsook Him. He was alone at last on the cross. Yet, all this suffering is not for His own sins, but for our sins. Isaiah makes this clear that He suffers for us. (verses 4-6)

Dave Beck said he kept silent before the Senate committee to save others. He would take the rap for them. Maybe Dave Beck is silent to save others. But it appears the He is a crook himself.

Here we read that Jesus was silent too as a lamb to slaughter. (verse 7) Before Caiaphas and Pilate he answered nothing while He Himself was innocent. Yet, He did not defend Himself or seek escape. He was silent and took the rap for us.

"Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the LORD brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?" (Lamentations 1:12)

God laid on Jesus the iniquity of all of us. And Jesus accepted our sins fully. He calls the sins of mine iniquities. So Jesus died for me. Oh, wonderful love. What a wonderful God and Father He sacrifices His dearest for me. Jesus, our beautiful Savior goes to his death for me.

Oh I hate my proud old self. "Jesus I am crucified with you."

Amen.