Isaiah 53:4-5

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Yesterday we saw that the Servant was ‘a man of suffering and familiar with pain’. Today we discover that this wasn’t simply a description of what happened to occur in his life. He wasn’t just a bit unfortunate, someone who attracted more than his share of bad luck. He willingly chose this path. He took up the pain and bore the suffering. Much of the time we endure pain and suffering because we have no other choice. We didn’t ask for the chronic illness, or the depression, or the accident that leaves us in plaster for months. But sometimes our suffering is chosen willingly – the discomfort of recovering from an operation to donate a kidney to a loved one, choosing to marry someone who already lives with suffering, knowing that something of their pain will become ours, too, or giving up comfort and security to move to a deprived area on a low salary to care for the needy. In those cases, the sacrifice will – we hope – be worth it, because it eases someone else’s pain. We share their sufferings with them, lightening their load. But I can’t think of a single example of a way in which any of us could bear someone else’s pain and suffering so completely that it was totally taken away from the other person.

Only the Servant has ever done that. He has completely taken the pain and suffering that our transgressions deserved. Yes, we still experience the pain and suffering that come from living in a broken world (until he takes us to be with him in the place where there will be no more tears). But those of us who are united to Jesus by faith are completely spared all of the pain of the judgement of our sin. Jesus hasn’t just shared it with us. He has taken it from us. Fully and completely. In place of punishment we have peace with God.

And this was no mere transaction on a balance sheet. Not a nice, neat, clean solution to a theoretical problem. It was real, and physical and brutal. He was punished, stricken, pierced, crushed and wounded. And he did it willingly. For us.

Let’s thank him for that today.