It seems remarkably calm this morning. Yesterday afternoon the sanctuary was jammed full…past full…for the wedding of Steve Lympus, our Associate Pastor and Laura Partridge. It was just this great day, a wonderful worship time. Laura, standing there in her radiant white dress…and Steve in his plaid skirt…err, kilt. Kilt. Great time.

Four weeks now we’ve been reading about The Servant of God, the figure which emerges from the later chapters of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. We have seen this servant described as One who will bring justice to the world (set things right), as One who will draw people back to God. Last week, we saw that this servant would take a surprising form, of great humility. The identity of The Servant has come into sharper and sharper focus. This morning, we read from Isaiah 53:4-12.

Who is the Servant?
Once upon a time, in the first century A.D., there was a man journeying from Jerusalem back to his home in Ethiopia, riding in a chariot. He was an important official to the Queen of that country. He was interested in spiritual things (a seeker), and in fact, was reading a scroll that contained the writings of the prophet Isaiah, the very prophet we have been reading these last several months. As he was reading, another man, Philip, came alongside his chariot and said,

“Do you understand what you are reading?”

The Ethiopian man invited Philip to join him to discuss the passage he had his finger on:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before his shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him…his life is taken away from the earth.”

The very passage we read a minute ago. The Ethiopian man asked Philip,

“Is the prophet writing about himself, or someone else?”

The very question we have asked in these last weeks. In answer, in this story from the book of Acts, it says that Philip took this scripture and explained the good news about Jesus. It’s rather interesting that Philip could take this passage of Isaiah and call it “Good News.” The Servant:

• stricken,
• struck down,
• afflicted,
• wounded,
• crushed,
• punished,
• bruised,
• oppressed,
• afflicted,
• led to the slaughter,
• cut off from the land of the living,
• anguished,
• dead.

Who is this servant? Philip says it is Jesus. The Apostle Peter in the 1 Peter passage Dave read earlier says it is Jesus. But we have to go a ways before this can sound like “Good News.”

In fact, we need to acknowledge some bad news first. This passage in Isaiah does not actually just say that Jesus got a raw deal. And the one in 1 Peter does not just say that we should feel sorry for Jesus, that we somehow grow close to God by the level of compassion stirred up in us over Jesus’ death. If that was the case, then Jesus was simply a martyr. There have been lots of martyrs in history, for all sorts of causes. Sometimes they are important to the turning pages of history, sometimes they are quickly forgotten.

The bad news, and what we have to think so hard about, is how personal this passage is. He bore our infirmities, carried our diseases, wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. We have turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. The bad news is that we are the ones who sent the Christ of God to the cross.

Regardless of what you think of Mel Gibson’s "The Passion" movie, I was very intrigued by one thing. In the scene where Jesus is actually nailed to the cross, the news has come out that the hand that is shown wielding the hammer…actually belongs to Mel Gibson, the director. It was his way of expressing what I just said, that he himself bears responsibility. Rarely can we be that honest.

Much of our society is about avoiding responsibility: You spill hot coffee on lap, you blame (or sue) McDonalds. And win. You get a DUI, you sue the bar or the beer manufacturer. And, boy, it has changed the ads on TV, hasn’t it? The advertising companies are so eager to avoid responsibility, they have to list every conceivable possible problem so that they can’t be held responsible. I saw an ad the other night for a medication…and the disclaimers for possible side effects went on to the point where you said, “You’d have to be crazy to put that in your body!”

Or…notice how diligent both the Democrats and Republicans are right now to both point fingers and avoid being pointed at.

Much of our theology is also about avoiding responsibility. Our sin is caused by our parents, another person, the environment we are in. Sin has become such an unpopular word. (I guess it never was real popular!). A God who both judges and loves is deemed contradictory, so we throw out the judging part.

In 1959 the theologian H.R. Niebuhr critiqued the state of Christianity in America, and I think it has only become more extreme since then. Niebuhr said that American Christianity had been watered down to this:

“A god without wrath brought people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

It doesn’t fit very well with Isaiah. Or First Peter. Or any of the rest of the Bible, for that matter. The sin part is ours. We’re the ones. In some way, we’ve turned our back on God, we’ve seized control of our own lives. Hidden secrets, anger, greed, egos. It’s all about us. We have become our own authorities on relationships, on sexuality, on economics. We’re stuck. And when you multiply these things by how many of us there are, the things we do to one another…the result is staggering. Not just my own sin, but the hurt and pain we inflict on one another. In friendships and families. In cities and nations, across the globe. Warfare and economic injustice and racism and poverty and a polluted earth. We all bear responsibility.

And so we carry around this load of stuff on our back. It’s like God stands on one side of a steep valley, beckoning to us…and there’s a rickety old rope and wood bridge that would take us to him. But it’s clear that the bridge won’t hold us as long as we’ve got all that extra weight. So we won’t go. In fact, we can’t go. The news is bad before it’s good.

While we sit and weep, a figure comes across the bridge. It’s Jesus, of course. He has been sent by God. He has chosen to come. And despite our protests, he takes each of those painful, sinful things off of us and loads them on his shoulders like some heavy wooden cross.

“The Lord lays on him… It was the will of the Lord. His life given as an offering for sin. He pours out himself…to death. He bore the sin of many.”

Not an accident, but something voluntary. Not just the evil of human beings, but a willingness to step in. Intentional. By the time Jesus picks it all up, he can hardly stand. There is no way that rope bridge can hold him. Which is perhaps why he chose to shoosh us across first. So we walk across the bridge, and receive the joyous, reconciling welcome of God, back in his presence with the excitement of a family reunited after years apart.

Back on the bridge, though, the creaky ropes sway. The Son of God has started back across. And just as we thought, the bridge begins to buckle under the weight of what Jesus carries, and with a last sickening “snap” the bridge collapses and Jesus disappears into the chasm, along with his, no our…burden.

Immediately we feel the questions arise: Why?

And we feel the pang: I should have been on that bridge. The weight that crushed him was my weight. He took my place.

This idea of substitution is a hard one for us, even on just a human level, the idea of one person willingly stepping in, of sacrificing, for another. Often times, we’re just not willing to do it.

Some of you have read Jon Krackauer’s book Into Thin Air. It’s the story of a disastrous day on Mt. Everest back in 1996. Late in the book is the story of a party of three climbers who tried to reach the summit, and never returned to their camp that night. The next morning, a separate climbing group on their way to the top found one of the three. He was horribly frostbitten, but amazingly still alive after a night without shelter or oxygen.

“Not wanting to jeopardize their ascent by stopping to assist him, the team continued climbing toward the summit.”

A while later, they stumbled upon the remaining two climbers, one nearly dead, the other crouching in the snow. No words were passed. No water, food or oxygen was given.

“We didn’t know them,” one said later. “We didn’t talk to them. They were sick. We were too tired to help. Above 26,000 feet is not a place where people can afford morality.”

All three ended up dying.

It would have taken a great deal of sacrifice to have tried to help them. The end of a dream of getting to the top of the tallest mountain in the world, in exchange for the possible life of a person. Sometimes we’re just not willing to embrace someone else’s suffering.

Other times, we might even be willing…but there’s just nothing we can do. In my latest “Read Good Books” invitation, I suggested that you read a book called Peace Like a River.

The narrator of the story is a boy who is eleven named Reuben. Reuben and his dad are two of the main characters of the book, and they have a very sweet relationship. Reuben has had asthma for his entire life. Bad asthma. Asthma so bad that he remains somewhat weak, and prone to coughing fits where he has to be physically slapped on the back to loosen up the congestion inside of him.

Late in the book, the asthma gets so bad he has to go into the doctor and get an adrenaline shot. And wouldn’t you know it, the doctor can’t find the vein in his arm for the shot. Then when he finally does find it, the needle breaks off. So he has to start over again with another needle. Finally he gets it done, and then the doctor leaves the room.

“I’m sorry, Reuben,” Dad says.

Reuben says, “That’s okay, it’s just a little bruise.”

Reuben thought his dad was talking about the botched needle. His dad was talking about a lifetime of suffering.

Dad says, “I would take your place, son.”

And Reuben writes, “I knew he would.”

If he could. Sometimes we would do anything to trade places with someone, to alleviate their suffering, to love them by substituting for them. I really believe we would. And we’re powerless to do so.

The Servant of Isaiah, the Jesus of the New Testament is different on both counts. He is willing to step in on behalf of people, to embody the heart of God that would stop at nothing to love his people back to Himself. And he is not only willing, but he is able.

Jesus’ death is not merely a martyrdom, not symbolic, not the tragic death of a good man…those things we understand pretty well. No, Jesus death is a willing, voluntary, God-participating stepping-in that really and truly does something.

“He himself bore our sins on the cross,” Peter says, “so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”

Through Isaiah, God says:

“My servant shall make many righteous.”

Your healing, my freedom, our right-standing before God, our opportunity to return to a relationship that God wanted from the beginning…this atonement, At-One-Ment with God…comes from Jesus Christ, crucified.

“Starting with this scripture, Philip proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.”

You see, it’s only by being willing to face the bad news…that we can understand how good the good news really is.

The passage from 1 Peter ended like this:

“For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

Is that true for you this morning? The Lord Jesus Christ spread his hands on the cross…for your sake. Have you returned to him? Have you accepted this love that can’t be repaid, that can’t be earned? Wherever you have strayed to, have you returned? Maybe you’ve been a Christian for years and years, and this morning God has spoken to you about returning in some area of your life. Maybe you’ve never accepted the good news at all…maybe today is your day.

This morning, we share in the Lord’s Supper together. It’s a chance for us to touch, smell and taste the forgiveness given to us in Christ. As you come to take communion, you’ll be greeted here by people speaking the words of Good News:

The body of Christ was broken for you.
The blood of Christ was shed for your sake.

It’s like God stands across valley, arms spread wide, and he has spread a table in welcome. He has planned on you being there, prepared a place for you. It’s a big, big table. And you can sit down, unencumbered by what you have done, or who you have been. He’s taken care of all that.