Word of Salvation – Vol. 45 No.11 – March 2000
The Humiliation of God (2)
A LENTEN Sermon by Rev P Kossen
on Isaiah 53:4-6
Scripture Readings: John 13:1-17; Isaiah 53:1-6
Suggested Hymns: BoW 104a:1,4,5,6; 301; 117; Rej 295; 281; 441
Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Boys and girls, do you all have friends? Who is your best friend? What is a friend? Is it someone you know, someone you like, someone you play with? Someone you get on with really well? Having a friend is important to us, isn’t it? You want someone to talk with, to share with, to spend time with, someone who likes you as well. We all know, too, that if you don’t have friends, you can get very lonely and sad. So, today, I want to ask you, if you know anyone around you who doesn’t have friends, will you be their friend?
Friends are important all through our lives. We need at least someone whom we know and knows us, whom we understand and who understands us, whom we love and who loves us.
Coming to know another person very closely doesn’t happen overnight. It is a life-long journey. And sometimes it happens that someone we thought we knew very well, we didn’t really know at all. There are so many masks which we can wear, and who really knows the real us.
You know who your real friends are when the chips are really down. Jesus said, “no greater love does a man have than that he lay down his life for his brother.” There is the definition of love – it is being willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for another person.
Today, looking at Isaiah 53, I want to talk about “knowing God.” When Jesus said, “no greater love…”, it was on the night before He went to the cross for us. Often we know a lot about God – but we have trouble with our knowing God Himself. And that is why we should look very carefully at the ultimate sacrifice which He made for us. Isaiah 53:4-6 talks very clearly about this ultimate sacrifice.
1. And the first question I want to ask is, “why did He do this?
And I only need to read the passage. “Surely, He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. We considered Him struck down by God, smitten by Him and afflicted. But the reason He was pierced through was for our transgression. The reason He was crushed, was for our iniquities. Yes, we have received peace – but at the price of His punishment. Yes, we are healed – but it is by His wounds. For we all, like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
I remember one time when I did something wrong, someone else got punished for it. He was a dear friend of mine. He said, “keep your mouth shut or we will both be in trouble.” I did. And he got into trouble. He didn’t mind at all. But I couldn’t sleep. And I have never forgotten what he did. But I am too embarrassed to say anything. You never forget a gift of love like that. And you know always that here you have a true friend. And so, also when we stand at the foot of the cross, looking at the suffering Saviour, if we understand what He is doing here, it is something we can never forget. We are the criminals. And the Lamb of God is in the process of dying.
2. But for a second time I need to ask again, “why?” Why did Jesus do this?
And we should be very careful in the way we answer that. With all our knowledge of doctrine, we can have it all neatly tied up. In theological terms we think of why Jesus had to die. The Catechism tell us, the Mediator had to be both God and man, because only God can carry His own judgment. But why did He have to go all the way to death? Because God’s justice and truth demanded it. Only the death of God’s Son could pay for our sin. And He had to be buried to show that He really died. Do you see what I mean. Theologically, this is what had to happen. If we are not careful, with all of our theology, we may miss the point.
The point is that Christ did not have to. God did not have to do anything. Anything which God does is not done out of necessity. But the driving motive of the cross is love. God does not have to. But God wants to. God wants to show the human race how much He loves them. God wants to draw them back to Himself. And applying this to ourselves, we see it is not just that Jesus Christ died on that cross for us, for me. It runs much, much deeper. He wanted to die there for me. He loved me enough to die for me. It is true, that His death is the payment for my sin. But the blood and the death is, if you like, only the legal technicality. They may be necessary. But much, much deeper than these, is the motive that brought them about. It is His eternal love, which is the reason for our salvation.
I read earlier in the service from John 13. We can read this passage and think, how beautiful. But when we realise Who this is, Who is washing feet, it is far more than beautiful, it is utterly unbelievable, and utterly staggering. Earlier in the Gospel, we read that He is the Word, who is God, God who became flesh. Through Him all things were made. He continually says, “I AM.” The Great Name of Yahweh. I am that I am. Then when Philip says, “Lord show us the Father,” Jesus says, “Philip, don’t you know me?”
And now in John 13, we find this Lord showing the full extent of His love. And He takes off His robes before them. And He ties the towel around His waist. And He proceeds to wash their feet. This is not romantically beautiful. This is utterly awesome. This is the Lord God. This is our God, the Servant King. He is right now, tomorrow, on His way back to His Glory, and He knows it. And yet, before He goes, one more lesson. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love. And God bends down to wash the feet of His followers. On the night before He went to die in their place.
And so, we have answered our question twice.
Why did Jesus die?
For our sins.
But why?
He did so to show us the full extent of His love.
But now I need to ask the question again:
3. Why did Jesus do this?
And here I feel as Moses did, before the burning bush, when he was told to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. Often when we think of the Bible story, we think of God who made a perfect world, man who destroyed it, and God then coming to put it back together again. And when Jesus returns, this little hiccup in God’s plans can be got rid of, everything will be on track again. It is almost as though, for a moment, God lost control and quickly sent His Son to fix it up. I ask, why? Why this world and its darkness and misery? Couldn’t God have stopped it? Couldn’t He see what would happen? Wasn’t there another way?
But then I turn to Ephesians chapter 1, and I find that God chose us in Christ already before the creation of the world. I don’t understand all this. But already before creation, before sin, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were planning in their eternal council to send Jesus into the world. And this tells me, that the fall into sin, however evil and miserable it is, is not a hiccup in God’s system. It was not an unplanned accident. What’s going on?
I just want to focus now on the creation of human beings, because human beings alone are made in God’s image. God made us, and He made us to be His friends. He made us so that we might see Him, see His Glory, know Him, and as those who know Him, love Him, serve Him, worship Him, enjoy Him, be with Him. He made us to see Him in all His beauty and splendour, and bow down in worship and adoration and joy. It would have been easy for God to pre-programme us like robots or like tape recorders. Press our button and praise would come out. But that’s not what God wanted. He wanted friends who would see Him in all His beauty, and willingly, spontaneously, bow down in worship and adoration and love.
But when God first created the world, Adam and Eve could not see Him in all His Glory. Yes, they knew a lot about God; they could see His greatness and power and wisdom reflected all around them in the world of creation. But they could not see God’s heart yet; they could not see the very depths of the heart of the Sovereign Eternal Creator Ruler of the universe. They could not see it for God could not yet show it. For no greater love does a man have than that he lay down his life for His friends.
Adam and Eve in their God given independence chose to go their own way. And there we find the root of all the sin and misery and evil and sadness and pain in the world. But God made us to be His friends. He does not enjoy the misery into which we have plunged ourselves. But now, with our human sinful stupidity and evil, now, He can fully reveal Himself. Now we may know not only what He is, in His power and wisdom, but now we can come to know Who He is, because now He can reveal to us that which we did not know, the full extent of His love. Now He can reveal to all creation, the hidden depths of the heart of the Invisible God, the internal fountain within Him, of goodness, of love, of mercy, of grace.
The fall into sin is terribly sad. Our sin is terribly sad, because it is a direct attack on the very God who made us to be His friends and to live with Him in righteousness. But even so, the fall, and even our sin and our sinfulness, is not a hiccup in God’s plan. It is only in the horror of our darkness that we come to see the Glory of the Lord, who prays for those who crucify Him, and goes on to lay down His life for His friends.
And so we return to our text and stand there gazing upon that cross – where we see the King of the universe suffering in our place to take away our sin. How can that be? But it is. This is God. This is God doing what He planned to do from before the creation of the world. This is God showing us in the only possible way the full extent of Who He is. Here on the cross you see God showing you His inner loveliness, His utter graciousness, His deep, deep mercy, His compassion, His tears, yes, the fullest depths of His heart. You think that it is hard to come to know God? He has shown Himself to you in the cross, and you may know Him much closer than any brother or sister, husband or wife, or other earthly friend. We all still have our masks on. But God alone is completely unveiled before us.
This suffering of Jesus on the cross is our Eternal God being revealed in all His Glory before your eyes. And as you listen, the cry, “It is finished” is the end of it. It is done. The God who began revealing Himself all those years ago in creation, has now in the cross of Christ, unveiled Himself completely. And God has done what He set out to do. It is finished. And we weep over the Christ on the cross and His terrible agonies. But God Himself is laughing, laughing at the finished work, laughing at His accomplishment, laughing that He is now fully made known for all the earth to see.
I look at that cross, brothers and sisters, and I am amazed at Who God is when He lays down His life for His friends. What sort of God is this? Certainly very unlike many of the pictures we have of Him. The cold remote uncaring God out there – who doesn’t care. If we don’t understand God in the cross, we will not understand Him at all. No greater love can a man have than that he lay down his life for his friends. But this is not a man. This is your Creator, taking off His robes, wrapping a towel around Him, and washing your feet. Can you look into His eyes and say you don’t know what He is like?
And I want you to know that Adam could not yet see what you see. The prophets, too, in the Old Testament, they had the promises from His mouth, but had not yet seen how far He would go. They, too, did not yet see what you may see today. The angels in heaven even, who have never sinned, they long to look into these things, and they shall never see what you see, in all its fullness.
No, God’s eternal purposes are being fulfilled in us, upon whom have come the fulfilment of the ages. In the coming of Jesus Christ alone have we come to see the hidden depths of the eternal God. And now with this full revelation of God, we may reach into the very purposes of our creation. We may know God. We may see Him. And seeing Him in all His glorious fullness, we may freely choose to be amazed, to bow down, to worship, to love and to serve Him for eternity. And what begins for us today, shall be for eternity. In that world which is coming, when we see Him in all His glory, we shall never ever want to sin again, and we shall sing the song which Adam before the fall did not yet know, the song which only the redeemed of the Lord can ever sing, “Glory to God in the Highest, Glory to the Lamb on the Throne.”
Let us then look at the Lamb of God on the cross. Let us hear in Him God laughing with pleasure at this awesome display of His heart. Let us know beyond a doubt that God wants us to see Him. Let us then see, and come running, joyfully, to meet Him, who has Himself come running the other way to meet us. And let us throw ourselves joyfully and tearfully into the arms of this Father in heaven, whom we now know.
Amen.