Bethany Bullet- March 31, 2009

SIX JUST WORDS—JUST SIX WORDS

Begin by reading Isaiah 53:1-9

Here is a pair of six word stories told over and over again among a variety of people in various situations: “Revenge: a dish best served cold” and “Do not get mad, get even.” We’re familiar with these memoirs and probably must admit that we have had these feelings from which they flow. These are stories spoken by those who are broken, injured, hurt, or wounded in mind or body, in their relationships or economics, emotionally or spiritually.

Can you recall a time when temptation urged you to write such a memoir?

We do not need to review the laws of the state, the opinions of the mental health community nor what mom always said to know that healing for self does not come through the harming of another. Enter Isaiah. His six word story affirms that we are in need of healing, but that such healing comes through the harm that befalls another.

“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:4-6)

How is that for a Six Word Scripture story? “By his wounds we are healed.” This is not the six word memoir the world tells about revenge and getting even however.

• What kind of healing does Isaiah indicate that we need?

• We have sorrows. How has sorrow left you wounded?

We have infirmities.

• What infirmities are currently inflicting you?

We have iniquities. Trespasses, guilt, sin it abounds in our lives and ruins any chance of a relationship with a Holy God apart from the cure of Christ.

• What iniquities are stinging your conscience currently?

He, Isaiah, doesn’t identify who “he” is in the verses printed above. You’d have to go back to the 13th verse of the 52nd chapter to learn who “he” is, “See, my servant will act wisely.” The “he” who comes to heal is none other than he who is both the servant and Son of the Most High God, Jesus Christ himself.

• How is this servant wounded?

• What does the text say he takes on himself?

• Why is he wounded?

• How is he wounded?
  
  

As we begin this 40-day journey called Lent, our pilgrimage to the cross is a march of the walking wounded. There are plenty of areas in which we are in need of healing. Yet, we are at the same time whole, restored and healed, for HE has taken on the guilt of our sin and the sorrows of our life; HE has been injured by our transgression which HE made HIS own and HIS Father’s condemnation which HE suffered in our place.

The six word memoirs of the world in regards to revenge and getting even are not the cry of the Christian heart. And they need not be! For while we are in life the ‘walking wounded’ at one and the same time through Christ it is well with us for: “by His wounds we are healed.”