ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF

Transcript

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Hello everyone, this is Pastor Dean Thompson with a word of hope acquainted with grief. Isaiah fifty three verses three to five. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. 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. Some sorrows are too private to share. We package them, smile at the right moments, and carry them home. We fear that if we set the burden down, no one would know how to pick it up, or worse, no one would want to. Isaiah hands us a portrait that breaks far, that breaks that fear, that fear in pieces. The servant is Ishmachovot, a man of sorrows. The Hebrew Mahovot covers the whole geography of human suffering physical, mental, relational, spiritual. He is Euda's Yuduah collie, known by sickness. Literally, intimately acquainted with affliction. John Golding notes that the verb acquainted, Yada, is the Hebrew word for the deepest knowing, used for in used of intimacy itself. The servant did not pass grief at a distance. He sat down with it, ate with it, slept beside it. He knows it from the inside. And then come the four staggering verbs of verses four and five. He bore, he carried, he was wounded, he was bruised. The first two, Nasa and Sabal, were the words used of Pak animals shouldering loads too great for any man to carry. The latter two, Mekolal, pierced through, and Meduka crushed. Speak of the deepest violence done to a body, a body. Whatever weight is on you, he has stopped beneath one heavier still. Bernard of Clearwalk meditated for hours on these verses, finding in them what he called the wounded Christ who heals our wounds. Martin Luther said that this passage alone was reason enough to believe the gospel. A God who would not stand aloof from our pain, but enter it, share it, swallow it. The astonishing claim of the prophet is not only that the servant suffered, but that he suffered for. He was wounded for our transgressions. What I deserved fell on him. The peace I could not earn was purchased by his chastisement. The healing I could not produce flows from his stripes. When grief makes you feel alone, remember the risen Christ still bears the mark of his suffering. John 20, verse 27. His cars are forever, so his sympathy, so is his sympathy, so is his love. Lord Jesus, you know our grief from the inside. Thank you for not standing far off. Thank you for healing us by your wounds. Thank you for being our present help in our times of trouble. Amen. God bless you, brothers and sisters.