The Wounds That Heal
Isaiah 53:1-6

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 53:1-6  Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Behold the life-giving cross on which was hung the salvation of the world.
Crosses, especially crucifixes, make us uncomfortable, and well they should. A crucifix is a cross with a corpus or body on it, and it is probably one of the very best liturgical furnishings any congregation can have. And I am very glad that we have this beautiful crucifix right here, big as life, for all to see.

But a lot of people squirm when they see these crosses, and largely it has nothing to do with any anti-Roman Catholic bias. It is, after all, simply painful to look upon our Lord’s suffering so much, and it is painful to know and understand the reason for His suffering. And rightly we shudder before it.

In the darkness of that Good Friday, the totality of human sin – from the first sin of our first parents to the last sin of the last human being alive until our Lord returns on the Last Day – all of the totality of all sin was gathered up, it was pressed together, and then it was off-loaded onto this God/Man. He bore the whole weight of all of it, and He deliberately and perfectly and completely made it His own. And in bearing that whole burden of all sin, He also bore its penalty, both temporal and eternal death.

Look upon Christ’s cross. See His wounds; see the nails securing His hands and feet to the wooden beams. See the blood running down His face from the wicked crown of thorns. Behold the quivering mass of mutilated flesh on His back as He is forced to rub it against the wood of the cross, pushing up against the nails just to take in a breath of air. Look, see, realize this: this wounded Man, dying in most horrid agony, is not suffering for a single wrong that He has done.

As we have seen throughout this Lenten season, and indeed, through the entire Church Year, Christ’s whole life was only love. He was the only human being who completely loved the Father with all His heart, soul and mind, and His neighbor as Himself. And yet it is precisely because Jesus is love that He is now upon the tree. You see, THIS kind of love will not leave the sinner in his sin. This kind of love takes that sinner’s sin upon Himself. This kind of love is wounded in order to grant us healing. Love Incarnate is making full, once-for-all-time payment for every last one of our sins and every last one of the sins of all mankind.

Yes, it is hard to look a crucifix. It is hard to accept the truth we will sing a bit later:
“My burden in Thy passion, Lord, Thou hast borne for me.
For it was my transgression which brought this woe on Thee.
I cast me down before Thee, wrath were my rightful lot.
Have mercy, I implore Thee! Redeemer, spurn me not!” (TLH 172:4)

Yet however difficult it is to look, it is meet, right and salutary, it is good to look. It is good for us to fall on our knees before our Lord’s bleeding image and to ponder it. It is good even to beg Him to imprint this image on our hearts, so that we might carry it with us wherever we go, so that it can be before our eyes also in the moment of our death – the very picture of how it is that our sins are forgiven and paid for. For what better thing to have on our hearts and in our eyes than this?

You see, dear friends, when the moment of your death comes to you, you can be certain that Satan will press you hard. For it is there, more than any other moment in your entire life, that the devil will pull out all the stops and use his last chance to snatch you away from God forever. And he has a powerful weapon to use. You see, throughout your life that cunning serpent minimizes sin while trying to lure you into it with temptations. But in your hour of despair he then maximizes your sins in your memory.
These courses are available in all the medicines that are using in curing the erectile dysfunction and other male discount viagra levitra sexual problems are also the results of abnormal body weight. You can successfully combat the problem of Erectile dysfunction (condition with persistent difficulty viagra 100mg pfizer in maintaining & attaining an erection). The medical help of Kamagra drugs to improve generic tadalafil tablets sales here liver function. Kamagra assistance Kamagra 100mg medicine is to be consumed cute-n-tiny.com cheap viagra from usa at least 1 hour before getting involved in intercourse.
When death is coming for you, he will happily set up the DVD player in your mind and he will replay for you the many sins you have forgotten all about. He will taunt you and he will say that you are no Christian. Playing God, he will declare you unfit for the kingdom of God. He will tell you that you are his, and he will tell you that you willed to be his with every sin you committed all along the way. And all those sins will be playing on that video loop in High Definition and perfect color before your eyes as you are struggling in death.

And that, dear friends, is why it is vital to train yourself in life to look upon the crucifix, to behold the life-giving cross on which was hung the salvation of the world, to behold your Savior’s wounds, and to hold them close to your heart, counting them as your most precious treasure. For in the hour of your death, they will be your only weapon against the despair of the enemy.

And you will be able to look at all of your sins as the accuser brings them before your eyes, and you will be able to acknowledge their hideous nature as an irrefutable testimony to your countless failures.

But, more importantly, against them all you will set another image: the image Isaiah holds forth for us today – the image of the Crucified One. “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.”

And it is this image that will shatter the devil’s attempts to draw you into despair before your death. That is why we will sing:
Be Thou my consolation, my Shield when I must die.
Remind me of Thy passion When my last hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold Thee, Upon Thy cross shall dwell,
My heart by faith enfold Thee. Who dieth thus dies well. (TLH 172:10)

Dear friends, the image you want before your eyes as they are closing in death is the image of the Son of God in His last agonies, fully owning and answering for your every sin, pouring out His blood to cancel out all the accusations of the Law that Satan would use against you. For as awful as your sins are, each and every one of them has been accounted for; each and every one of them is covered over and blotted out in His innocent blood, the blood of your Lamb, your Jesus.

And in that hour, you can say with boldness, as Blessed Dr. Martin Luther did: “Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, just as I am Your sin. You have taken upon Yourself what is mine and have given to me what is Yours. You have taken upon Yourself what You were not and have given to me what I was not” (Luther’s Works, American Edition 48:12).

Thus you will indeed be prepared for death when the image of the Crucified One hangs before your eyes. You will know that His life is now your righteousness; His death is your forgiveness; His wounds are your healing; His sufferings are your crown and glory.

Dear fellow redeemed, you have been loved by God in this specific and complete way. God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, has indeed proved to be your dearest Friend, and He would make you His forever. Look upon His cross boldly, confidently, continually, and you will see the wounds that heal you, the wounds that rescue you, the wounds that bought and paid for you.

Behold the life-giving cross on which was hung the salvation of the world.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.