Hideous
I was praying and asking the LORD the other day about what to read and very clearly the scripture Isaiah 63 popped into my mind. So, I was very anxious to see what the LORD wanted me to see.
Reading this passage of scripture, I was appalled, shocked and horrified at the thought of such brutality as it related to God. What a vivid picture! What a violent portrait of God in His anger. It made me shiver to think that God could be that violent towards people.
But then my heart was filled with images of Jesus the night leading up to his crucifixion. I thought of his bloody body being scourged with the…. “Cat of nine tails,” the instrument the Roman’s used to inflict the most damaged to the flesh of a human being as they were whipped within an inch of their life. I thought of the crown of thorns that pierced His skull as they pressed it deep into his brow and the crown of His head. It is hard to imagine the blood loss that occurred through this brutal and barbaric act. After this event they put Jesus clothes back on Him and made carry His cross up the hill to Golgotha, where He was to be crucified. After carrying the cross up the hill there is another scene, the removal of His garments before they nailed Him to that cross. The idea of them removing His clothes from His body was a heinous act that caused his coagulated blood to flow yet once more, not to mention the blood from the nails that were hammered through his hands and feet.
One final picture that came to mind as I followed this train of thought “…. they placed a spear in his side and immediately blood and water flowed.” Why such violence? Is God a god who promotes that kind of violence and killing or any kind for that matter?
These are real questions to ask and wrestle with God over. In my wrestling this is what I saw. First, I would encourage you to read Isaiah 63 and ponder it’s meaning for yourself. But this is what I came away with during this encounter.
The writer, Isaiah used a real-life event, the destruction of the city of Edom, (read the 1-chapter book of Obidiah in the Old Testament) to describe a future promise of what our Father God would do to deliver His people from themselves, sin and the power of the enemy to enslave not just the Israelis, and the Edomites but every person to ever live.
The real picture here is the journey of Jesus, (please stop and go read Isaiah 63 to get a picture for yourself) the one and only uniquely begotten Son of God, on His way to and from the cross, there to be crucified as a ransom for us. This picture best illustrates the battle Jesus had with our sin, our carnality and the godfather of It, the Devil. It also illustrates the victory that Jesus won, not only over the death in which He died but also the power by which He overcame death itself!
A few observations I would like to point to: one is the fact that He humanly endured such atrocities and willingly laid His body and life down on that cross. Who has such strength! The other visual is the apparent defeat by the Devil to remove Jesus from the face of the earth (can you say “backfired”), only to have Jesus’ rise from the grips of the grave and the power of it as the victorious CONQUREOR!
Hopefully you can now imagine this bloody picture in a new light. Isaiah was using a real-life depiction of an army that destroyed Edom to illustrate what Jesus, single handedly did for us, over the power of our enemies, through the cross and HIs resurrection. Jesus went by Himself to engage your enemy; He went to your bondage and to your oppressor and stripped him of his power over your life.
Jesus gave up His life for you and me, defeated our enemies, took away the enemy’s power to control and hold us captive. Jesus now holds the keys to death and grave. He is the CONQUEROR and because of this one gracious and hideous act we are now more than conquerors. He did this because He loves us and wants us to enjoy the freedom of life that He has designed for us.
If you feel like you are stuck on the losing side of this bloody battle with sin, bondage and death go over to our prayer page https://www.vineyardmb.org/prayer, I would love to pray for you and see Jesus give you what He died for you to have. Jesus once said in John 10:10 NLT - “The thief's (Devil’s) purpose is to steal and kill and destroy you. My purpose is to give you a rich and satisfying life.”
Can I pray for You?
~Pastor Tim