Isaiah 53:10
What a wonderful evening we experienced last week in recounting the story of humanity’s fall, the prophecies of God’s plan and the coming of the promised Son through the Lessons & Carols. The promises of God spoken and sung in the beautiful music of Christmas was such a delight. A big thank you to Richy and Travis and all the musicians for their hard work and wonderful presentation. We made glad the building with our voices of praise.
With our hearts full of the sounds of Christmas, this week we come to hear God’s Word from the prophet Isaiah on the plan of God for the salvation of the world. And we find ourselves on holy ground.
Holy ground indeed! Our focal point this week is the opening of Isa. 53:10: “It was God’s pleasure to crush him.” ‘Consider the love that drew salvation’s plan,’ finding pleasure in sending the beloved Son; finding pleasure too when ‘by the carefully planned intention and foreknowledge of God’ (Acts 2:23) he was ‘delivered’ into lawless hands to crucify and put to death. No, we cannot. That is a love beyond our possibility of experience, yet, says John (1 John 4:9-10, 14), ‘this is what love is – he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’ Alec Motyer declares, ‘It is not only God’s peace that is ‘past understanding,’ beyond our powers of heart and mind; far more so his love.’ He concludes with the thought:
“The hymn writer asks, ‘Jesus, what didst thou find in me that thou has dealt so lovingly?’ Change the wording from ‘Jesus’ to ‘Father.’ The answer remains the same – he loved us because he loved us because he is love. The response is not to question, not to raise unintelligent questions prompted by our deficient, sin-impaired logic but, as Wesley should have written, that we should be ‘found in wonder, love and praise.’”
Salvation’s plan not only unveils for us the love of God, but it also secures us in the love of Christ. Again, Motyer helps us as he writes, “Through Christ as Mediator we come to the Father, and, knowing partially but terrifyingly, all that unfits us for his presence and fits us for his wrath, we find ourselves in the presence of love beyond anything known on earth, and the voice which says, ‘I was delighted when my Son died for you – and I am still delighted.’”
Join us this Christmas Eve morning as we are ‘found in wonder, love and praise’ for Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. And then come back on Christmas Eve at 5:00 pm to adore this One who willingly laid his life down for us and whom the Father delighted in offering for us. ‘O Come and adore him, Christ the Lord.’
In Christ,
Pastor Wayne