#DailyDevotion What Our Sin Looks Like
Introit Isaiah 53:5, Psalm 38:1-4, 18, 22 And certainly He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our sins; By His punishment, we were saved and by His wounds we were healed. 1Lord, don’t correct me in Your anger and punish me in Your fury. 2Your arrows have gone deep into me, and Your hand presses down on me. 3because You’re angry, there’s not a healthy spot in my body; because I’ve sinned, there’s nothing sound in my limbs. 4 My sins overwhelm me, like a heavy load they burden me down. 18I’m going to tell about my wrong – I’m worried about my sin. 19The enemies of my life are strong, and there are many who hate me deceitfully. 22Come quickly to help me; O Lord, hasten to save me.
And certainly He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our sins; By His punishment, we were saved and by His wounds we were healed.
The passage from Isaiah sets the scene for Jesus to pray Psalm 38 from which the majority of the Introit is taken from. Jesus is innocent of all sin. He was tempted in every way just as we are without falling into temptation and sinning. Paul writes, 21“God made Him Who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we would have the righteousness of God.” Paul may have been thinking of the passage from Isaiah when he wrote this. The Father made Jesus the sinner. He made Jesus the sin offering. He is the sacrificial goat the scapegoat upon whom the sins of the world is laid. So through the hands of the high priest, Pilate and the Roman soldiers Jesus is pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our sins. “By his punishment we were saved and by His wounds we are healed.”
Having become sin for us Jesus faces the anger and fury of the LORD. Jesus pleads that he is not corrected in this manner in the Garden where he does submit to God’s will where the first Adam rebelled against God’s in the first Garden. As the punishment and the wounds inflicted upon Jesus he feels the anguish of our sin and wounds our sins cause us, though we may not feel them because we have become dull to their effects on our mortal bodies.
Because of our sins there is not a healthy spot in Jesus’ body and there is nothing sound in his limbs. Our sins overwhelm Jesus like a heavy load burdening him there on the cross. We would only feel the full weight of this in our deaths if Christ did not bear our sins and the punishment for them for us. Elsewhere in the Psalm it is written, 10My heart is throbbing — I’ve lost my strength; even the light of my eyes is gone. 11“Those who love me, my friends, stand back at the sight of my disease, and my relatives stand at a distance. 12Those who try to kill me lay snares for me; out to harm me, they talk of my ruin; all day long they think of ways to deceive. 13I am like a deaf man, who cannot hear, and like a mute, who cannot speak. 14I have become like a man who doesn’t hear anything and has no arguments to offer.” We see this play out in the last days of our Savior’ life; the Sanhedrin, Pilate’s and Herod’s court, there upon the cross.
Yet our Lord’s cry to the Father to come quickly to help and save him is not answered there on the cross. It would not be answered till the third day. We follow in our LORD’s steps and life as his disciples.
Merciful God and Father, you pierced through and wounded your only begotten son Jesus Christ to save and heal us. Grant us faith in this mighty work of his so we may receive the benefits of his salvation. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.