114. Friday after Sexagesima Sunday.
Lord Holy Ghost, enlighten us with thy gifts. Amen.
Isaiah 53, 1-5. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
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That which God has done for us is so wonderful that none can believe it by his own reason or strength; faith itself, wherever it is kindled in the heart, is a divine miracle wrought by the word. For Christ’s outward appearance and his church with its means of grace attract little attention, and do not please the eye. In his birth Jesus is poor and lowly, and has in nothing the appearance of a king who is to rule over all the earth; and it does not seem possible that he can be the only begotten Son of God. During life he was despised and reviled, smitten and afflicted; nay, covered with ignominy and stricken with grief to such a degree that the haughty loathe him, and those of sympathetic nature can not bear to see him. Thus God deals with his own Son for our sake. We have deserved it, but he suffers it. Our idea always had been that only he who deserves punishment is smitten of God; but the Son is innocent, and yet is stricken. What a miracle of divine mercy! And of divine justice! He, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the griefs which he has borne, and the sorrows which he has carried, were ours to bear and carry; the chastisement was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. Thus speaks the gospel. You and I, who have deserved everlasting shame and suffering, shall for his sake receive everlasting honor and bliss; for the shame and suffering have already been undergone; God has done it, and it is not in the power of the devil to do away with this fact. God has decreed that my disgrace is to be the disgrace of the Son, and his honor mine; my sins and their punishment his, and his righteousness mine. This is God’s righteous decree. But who could believe it? Our reason can not grasp it. Since God has done this thing, it must of necessity be right and proper; but to our darkened understanding it is nevertheless an impossibility. Faith alone is able to grasp it. But to our faith it approves itself as the highest love and eternal justice; as the brightest, greatest, most beautiful, most glorious truth that has been, or can be, revealed to us. The angels also are of this mind, and their desire is to look into this mystery.
We thank thee for the eternal, incontrovertible decree of mercy; we thank thee for the word in which thou dost make thy purpose known to us; and we thank thee for the faith which thou hast kindled in our soul. Preserve and increase it, and give us grace to penetrate ever more deeply into the truth, and to stand immovable on the rock of thy righteousness, that our cure may be perfect, and that we may stand before thee at last without spot or blemish. Amen.
He who bore all pain and loss
Comfortless upon the cross,
Lives in glory now on high,
Pleads for us and hears our cry.
Hallelujah!
He who slumbered in the grave,
Is exalted now to save;
Now through Christendom it rings
That the Lamb is King of kings.
Hallelujah!