Have you ever thought of Christ's death? You know, the way he died, the cruelty that was inflicted upon his body. After all, the prophets had been prophesying over the centuries about the coming of the Messiah and his sacrificial death. Prophet Isaiah prophesied of what was to happen to the Messiah, the Savior. We read in Isaiah 52:14, "Many were amazed when they saw him - beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person." Isaiah continued in chapter 53, "3. He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care." "5. But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed." "7. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8. From prison and trial they led him away to this death. 9. He had done no wrong, and he never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal…"
In Psalm 22, David prophesied of Christ's anguish when he wrote, vs.11- 19, "Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help me. My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls; fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in! Like roaring lions attacking their prey, they come at me with open mouths. My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me. My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead. My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count every bone in my body. My enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my clothes among themselves and cast lots for my garments. O LORD, do not stay away! You are my strength; come quickly to my aid!"
In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, we read that God's requirement for a sin offering or a burnt offering was for the sacrificial animal to have no defects or blemishes. But by the time Christ had given up his life, he had been slapped around, spat upon, whipped raw, humiliated with a crown of thorns tearing into his skull, his clothes had been ripped off his body. Naked and bruised he was nailed, hands and feet, to a cross. Gasping for air, he hung on that cross on a hill called Golgotha. Crucified between two thieves, he was speared on his side by a roman soldier wanting to make sure if he indeed was dead. Why did he have to be battered so brutally and bruised to the point that he was physically unrecognizable to be the sacrifice he was meant to be? Was God unloading his anger towards man's betrayal and sin? Could a father be so cruel to his son? Or was it man being himself?
All through history we see man's atrocities towards his own kind. History is replete with wickedly cruel events such as during the fascist Nazi Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, Communism under Stalin and Lenin, Romania under Ceausescu, the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, that have claimed millions upon millions of fellow humans’ lives. And it still continues in the violence of ethnic cleansing that are seen in Africa, India and other parts of the world.
Isaiah says in vs. 10 of chapter 53, "But it was the LORD's good plan to crush him and fill him with grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have multitude of children, many heirs." God's plan was for the sacrifice to be borne by his son, Jesus Christ, so that we can be counted as his children, his heirs. So, was it the Father’s cruelty or his unfailing love towards mankind that caused him to look away as his son was brutalized? I couldn't have agreed more with a preacher whom I heard say, " In the unguarded moments I know my heart is wicked." God help us!
The Anthem by Planetshakers
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