It Was God’s Will to Crush Him
There once was a man who had a young son he loved very much. The father worked as the bridge keeper for a railroad bridge that needed to be raised and lowered to allow ships to pass. The son loved to go with his father, watch the trains, and see the important work that his father did.
One day, a ship approached the bridge and was allowed to be let through. The bridge keeper did what he was supposed to. He changed the warning lights to let approaching trains know that the bridge was being raised to let a boat through. But there was a problem. The train conductor was distracted and didn’t see the warning light, and failed to slow the train. The bridge keeper didn’t know anything was wrong and went about his normal work. However, his son saw the train approaching and realized there was a problem. He called for his father, but his father didn’t hear him.
The son knew he needed to do something and remembered that his father had once shown him a special way to lower the bridge in an emergency. But the son didn’t know what he was doing, he slipped and fell among the mechanisms of the bridge. His father suddenly heard the train whistle and realized what was happening. He knew he had to act quickly, but suddenly realized his son was missing. Faintly, he hears his son’s cries for help and realizes what has happened. The father is horrified as he realizes he needs to make a terrible choice: does he save his beloved son and allow all the people on the train to die, or does he sacrifice his beloved son to save a train full of strangers who will never know the cost of their salvation?
The father makes his choice: he sacrifices his son for the good of the many. This is a difficult story to hear. We don’t want to imagine being in such a horrible situation. Our hearts go out to the father who sacrificed his son that day. But imagine if we later found out that the father had planned the whole thing. How would we feel then? We would likely think the father is a monster for doing such a terrible thing. But isn’t this exactly what Good Friday is all about?
Isaiah tells us that, “it was the LORD’s will to crush him and to allow him to suffer.” God created this world to be a paradise free from pain, suffering, disease, and death. But when Adam and Eve sinned, God knew there was no way they could save themselves. God did not want to leave humanity lost in the darkness of sin and death forever. But our God is holy and just. He must punish sin and cannot leave the guilty unpunished. There was a debt that needed to be paid, and it was a debt that fallen humanity could never pay. As Adam and Eve realized the depth and consequences of their actions, God provided a solution. God himself would pay the debt our sins deserve. God promised Adam and Eve that he would send a Savior to rescue them and their descendants from the sting of death and sin. God promised, “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.”
God fulfilled this promise by sending his one and only Son to suffer in our place. For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. This is the story of Good Friday. This is what the two pictures at the front of our church show. The sin of rebellion that put all humanity under the curse of sin and the terrible price that was paid to free us from the sin. Hundreds of years before the events of Good Friday, the Prophet Isaiah, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, foretold the pain and suffering that our Savior would endure. This was God’s holy and righteous plan. A plan that makes no sense to our sinful, human way of thinking. God should have crushed us and allowed us to perish because of our rebellion. But our God is merciful and loving. He did not want any of his beloved children to perish, so he did the unthinkable. He saved his fallen children by crushing his perfect only-begotten Son.
Good Friday reminds us of the depths our Savior went to save us. The picture that Isaiah paints is not pretty or glorious. It is a picture of pain, suffering, and humiliation. Isaiah tells us, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root from dry ground. He had no attractiveness and no majesty. When we saw him, nothing about his appearance made us desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man who knew grief, who was well acquainted with suffering. Like someone whom people cannot bear to look at, he was despised, and we thought nothing of him.” Jesus gave up the joy and splendor of heaven to be born as a helpless child. While he lived in this world, he lived a life of poverty. He knew what it was like to feel pain and loss. Jesus did not look like a King or a Savior. He was not what the people of his days expected; he is not what people today expect, and so he was despised and rejected.
Isaiah foretold the hatred the people would have toward Jesus. He gives us vivid details of the suffering our Savior endured for our sins. How he was flogged and beaten, so that just as many were appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man, and his form was disfigured more than any other person. Isaiah reminds us of the injustice that our Savior endured—He was taken away without a fair trial and without justice. Even Pilate himself decreed that he had found Jesus guilty of no crime, and our Savior was still sentenced to death. The death our Savior endured was humility and horrible. Crucifixion was a punishment that was reserved for the most despised of crimes. Even God himself had declared that everyone who hangs on a tree is a curse. But this was the plan that God had ordained from eternity. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. As it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the message of Good Friday. Good Friday is a day of injustice because God crushed Christ instead of us. We sin every day of our lives, and we break God’s commands in countless ways. As Isaiah says, “We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way.” God could rightly crush us for the guilt of our sins, instead, he crushed Christ. The message of Good Friday, the message of the Gospel, is that Jesus Christ willingly offered his perfect life as payment for our sins. We could never pay the debt of our sins, but Jesus, because he was both God and man, could. He could offer his perfect life as payment for the sins of the whole world. As true man, he could die, and as a true God, his death paid for all of our sins. This is the beating heart of the message that Isaiah wants to reveal to us. Surely he was taking up our weaknesses, and he was carrying our sufferings. We thought it was because of God that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the LORD has charged all our guilt to him.
Good Friday is a day of sorrow and sadness because we know that it was because of our sins that God crushed his only Son. But we also know the story doesn’t end on Calvary or even in his tomb among the rich. No, we know that God’s righteous plan included our Savior rising victorious from the grave and conquering death and hell once and for all. This is the hope that Isaiah began with as he described the suffering of God’s Servant, and it is the hope we leave with as we look forward to the joy of Easter. Look, my servant will succeed. He will rise. He will be lifted up. He will be highly exalted. Amen
He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.