Devotion Booklets for Seasons of the Church Year Lent 2019 | Seite 6

Friday, March 8, 2019
Pity and Relief
Isaiah 53:4-5
First pity, then relief. They seem to be natural reactions to the sight of suffering. We hear of the family who lost
their home in a fire, see the bald head of a child fighting cancer, or the disabled vet forced to navigate a world
built for those with all their limbs and we hurt for them. This is right.
It is a healthy thing to feel this sympathy for those in pain. But many times what follows is an unhealthy feeling
of relief. We see the suffering of another and are glad that the bad luck thunderbolt has missed us, or even worse,
that we have wisely managed to avoid whatever it was that brought this on another. You see the latter in the way
we shake our head at the homeless man or the addict thinking we would never find ourselves in that position.
Pity, then relief. Do you hear that in the way that Isaiah speaks about the Lord’s suffering servant? He says-We
considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. What awful thing must that poor man have done
to bring this on himself? His guilt must be deep and powerful. God has struck him with such anger and afflicted
him with such punishment because his sin was so great. God did this to him and I am relieved that I have
managed to avoid doing whatever it was of which he is guilty.
But wait, he doesn’t need your pity, and you shouldn’t be feeling the relief of the righteous. He is the one
stepping into your place. I am the one who deserves to be struck and cut down and destroyed and yet he is
pierced, crushed, punished, and wounded for all my actions and words, for my wicked heart. This great truth
gives us true and lasting relief -- when Christ goes to Calvary, he goes in my place.
You and I haven’t avoided suffering and punishment for sin, we have caused it. The Son of God became the Son
of Man so that he could go into suffering and die instead of me, instead of you. With his death, we were
forgiven, healed, and made heirs of eternal life.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You became what you were not, and made me
to be what I was not. Let me never tire of remembering and rejoicing in this gracious truth. Amen.
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