All Kinds of Amazing

THIS WEEK a miracle happened that you probably heard about on the news. In Chile a group of 33 miners were rescued from a mine after having been trapped for about 69 days. For over two months they were locked in a very hot, very dark place deep beneath the surface of the earth, with only a small opening to the outside world through which they received important supplies. One by one they were finally brought up in a "caspule" contraption, all alive. Praise God for that miracle.

There are a lot of things I could say about God. He's amazing in many ways. Like how He sees and knows everything at once, and how He loves us consistently and without fail, like nobody else can love us. How He refuses to share a place in our hearts with anything else, and demands that we worship Him sincerely and exclusively. How He is willing to bear our pain and sin on our behalf, at His ouwn expense. How He takes our burdens upon Himself and through His Holy Spirit allows us to exchange anger for healing, sorrow for joy, filth for redemption, weakness for strength. Somehow writing about it helps me learn more about what I'm writing about.

This week I read the last chapter of Luke (chapter 24) which gives the details of Christ's Resurrection. The same day I read Isaiah 53, which is an amazing prophecy about Christ's life, death, and victory. Looking at chapters 23 and 24 of Luke next to Isaiah 53, I am again reminded of God's greatness.

I love the Old Testament prophecies about Christ because they were written about Him hundreds of years before He was in the world, and they could not describe anyone else. I'm going to compare some details of Isaiah 53 with what the New Testament says about Jesus.

Isaiah 53:3 "He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him." There are a lot of examples of Jesus being rejected and afflicted. Think about when He was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke 22:44 "And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground." I've read that people's sweat starts to have blood in it when they are under extreme stress. That was what was happening to Jesus.
His pain was enormous, more than we can imagine. More than we will ever have to imagine, thanks to God.

Isaiah 53:7 "He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth." Now look at Luke 23:8-10 "[8] Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad; for he had desired for a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things about Him, and he hoped to see some miracle done by Him. [9] Then He questioned Him with many words, but He answered him nothing. [10] And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused Him." Jesus did not say a single word in His defense, because He knew that this was how it had to be for our good. It was why He had been born. He submitted to the will of God completely. He went through with the pain not because He couldn't escape from it but because He knew we needed Him to and because it was what would glorify God.

Isaiah 53:9 "And they made His grave with the wicked - but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth." I keep noticing great things about this chapter. I just recently noticed how this detail compares to Jesus' death and burial. Luke 23:33 "And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left." Now look at Luke 23:53 "Then he [Joseph] took it [Jesus' body] down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before." and v. 56 "Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment." He was crucified like a criminal, in the place of criminals. We are people covered in crimes, and He, being completely without sin, suffers in our place. That is a great God. He was killed like a sinner and buried like a king, just like Isaiah predicts.

Isaiah 53:12 "Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." This means that because He laid down His own life to save us sinners He shall be glorifed. Jesus spoke to His disciples about the gospel in Luke 24:46-47, "[46] Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, [47] and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Everything the prophets ever said about Him was true, and everything Jesus ever said is true. God wants us to live by faith, so He makes sure we have reasons to believe.

Think about His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and how Judas betrayed Him, and how His disciples fled during His arrest. Think about how the Pharisees hated Him, how they mocked Him on the cross, and even how people run from Him today. Jesus suffered in every way, to make a bridge between little us and a great God we can never deserve. And look at Him now: He is glorified for who He is, seated with the Father in heaven. I hope and pray that one day I can see Him smile and say I've served Him well. He is all kinds of amazing, all the time. I pray we can all live with the Lord's Table in our hearts, constantly remembering Him and glorifying Him in our lives as the Holy Spirit lives in us and through us.