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This poem was inspired by this piece of writing by Jeremy R. Treat which I am reading at the moment. Out of my depth but getting blessed.
“To be handed over to the Gentiles is to be handed over to the wrath of God (Lev 26 :32– 33, 38; Hos 8: 10 LXX; cf. Ps 106: 41; Ezra 9: 7). 57 Even more explicit is Jesus’ reference to his death as drinking “a cup,” a common Old Testament symbol of God’s wrath (Ps 11: 6; 75: 8; Hab 2: 16; Ezek 23: 31– 34), especially for the Isaianic new exodus (Isa 51: 17). Based on this context, Bolt is right to conclude that “the servant’s death . . . has exhausted the cup of God’s wrath on behalf of Israel. Jesus now predicts that, as the servant of the Lord, he will drink the cup of God’s wrath.”
The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology by Jeremy R. Treat Kindle page 101
Quite a few things in this post. Firstly, I want you to think about what you know or have heard about Jesus of Nazareth. Jewish Messiah. Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Laid low, so others can be lifted up. Empty, so others may be full. Left home so others could come home. Momentarily lost to the Father so others could be bound to the Father forever. Without, so others could be with. Lifeless, so others could have nothing less than life. Broken, so others could be restored. Poured out, so others could be gathered up.
Consider Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday as you read this prophecy of one called the Suffering Servant from the Hebrew prophet Isaiah – almost 700 years before the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
See, my servant will act wisely[b]; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him[c]— his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness— 15 so he will sprinkle many nations,[d] and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 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. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b] 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e]; by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g] and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h] because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Secondly for the enquirers amongst you here is an academic treatment by a Jewish believer in Christ, Dr. Michael Brown, on how this prophecy refers ultimately and fully to Jesus the Messiah.
Clicking on the pdf button below will download automatically a pdf document written by Dr. Brown. It’s a chapter called Jewish Interpretations of Isaiah 53 from the book The Gospel According to Isaiah 53 – Encountering the Suffering Servant in Jewish and Christian Theology. It’s written at an academic level but is an important piece of work.
Click this PDF button for Chapter download:
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I think it would be good for you to hear what D.A. Carson has to say to this important question. Most christians struggle with this issue theologically (what they believe to be true about God) and therefore pastorally (in terms of how they support fellow christians and respond to non christian inquiries and needs.)
For the longest time, after conversion to Christ, I thought that generally speaking, Jesus in his teaching was saying things that were making life more easy. He was moving us ( us being all people who come across his teaching) away from the entirety of the Jewish law – so filled with obligations. In a complicated sense, I thought he was telling us or more precisely asking us (he is so nice) to just love God with everything we have and to just love our neighbours as self. Just love. We gentiles and the entire West love ideas about Love. We think we are good at it. That’s how we evaluate everything. We are so often mistaken. But it is a reflex at work within so many of us.
In those former years, I naively thought: Old Covenant Law = hard times for Jews where as Jesus’ teaching = easier times for Jews and Gentiles. There is a very real sense in which this couldn’t be further from the truth. Jesus in his use of the ‘Love Law’ – Love God – Love People was not laying on us some kind of easy hippy vibe, like love was the easiest thing in the world. Jesus was driving us to a place of hopelessness not comfort. Actually he was, among many things, driving us to the knowledge of how hopeless our situation actually is. He was taking us to a desolate hopeless place where surpisingly hope would be waiting to ambush us. But you only get there by journeying on the road of the knowledge of hopelessness and despair.
Instead of making things easier he just kept increasing the demands. His ‘Love Law’ was the most beautiful of the beautiful and the highest of the high. All true. Our sense of (self) righteousness and our memory of life before the rupture in Edens grassy meadows attracts us to this Love Law – the rightness of it, the very warmth of it. This is partly because in the west we fail to see the devasting truth and impossibility of the Love law. We have been softened by the ‘Jesus demands very little’ mantra – ‘do him a favour – just follow him’ whispers. But Jesus in his extraordinary distillation of the entire law of God expands its claim on us and drives us forcefully off a high ledge we never could have stayed standing on. Never could but foolishly we thought we just might. So Jesus perhaps confusingly teaches a harder law with a grace never before encountered. There is something about the grace that conceals or blurs that line between hope and despair. You hang out with Jesus as he beigns to invade your life – he is a king, kings invade – you will feel despair and hope. If you are on a journey twoards Jesus and you feel both of these things – rejoice – the kingdom of God is not far from you.
The hope eminates from him to you because although he is never less than the Judge, he is so much more. The despair eminates from you toward him because the life of after the rupture in Eden courses relentlessly through your veins. Jesus is nearby, speaking an impossible law to sinners, a lost people, homeless and refugees; a long way from Eden. Although he says his burden is light his beautiful Love law lights up the sky while darkening the ground of men.
He touches our necrosing hearts, deceitful above all things, with demands that will illuminate our true situation – despair and hopelessness. He knows how to speak the language of the flesh. Adultery is a weapon of choice. Hard demands for frail humans about old fashioned adultery (the flesh and sweat kind) get transformed and appropriated for ‘mind adultery’ – where everyone keeps their clothes on but all are found guilty. He is ramping things up and we are all in trouble.
the only way is up – baby
Because of the glaze that infects the eyes you can miss Jesus bringing this heavier law – yes more ethically beautiful but so deadly on the back. Somehow I missed for years so much of this deadliness, this call to all hearers towards impossible holiness. Looking back I can now see that his sermon on the mount is equal parts beautiful and deadly. Saw some of this but certainly missed the whole. I thought his Law was the easy one not the impossible one. By easy I mean achievable. Just love the Lord your God completely and just love your neighbour as you already love yourself. Somehow that seemed refreshingly easy.Do-able.
Crazy? I know. But, wonderfully, the arrival of Jesus also brings more light, more warmth and more hope than ever seen or felt before. Light, heat and hope are only useful and savored by those in the dark, in the cold and in despair. His arrival ultimately is not to condemn. He makes that plain. But the condemnation was already in place. That’s why he has come. You only hear about the cancer treatment after you hear about the cancer diagnosis. But in his coming and in his teaching he is escalating everything. Maybe the letter of the law gets flexed (we like that) but the spirit of the law goes stratosphheric in its expectations (we miss this).
Condemnation is the polluted water we swim in, the polluted air we breathe and the polluted life we live. Jesus enters into our polluted water, air and life to save us. When the lifeguard grabs you in the ocean, pulls you close to himself and secures you to his frame you can be sure you were drowning. Jesus is the greater life guard. Jesus is the padre who has come to visit a condemned man – rightly convicted, guilty, awaiting certain punishment and death. But the condemned man recognises the Padre – he looks a lot like the Judge. How can the Judge be the Padre? What is he doing now? – Crazy padre! He is swapping his robe for that of the condemned man and goes to the gallows in his stead.
Calvary
How shocking is that? Very. So Jesus and the agenda of God in the gospel is ramped. Brim-filled with impossible Law, condemnation, wrath, judgement, fierce holiness and love, grace, hope and rescue. In the gospel, through Jesus breathing his last on calvarys polluted hill, the holy love of the holy God is wonderfully holding back punishment from those who deserve punishment (that’s mercy) and providing love, forgiveness and adoption for those who don’t deserve it (that’s grace).
This song of worship from some years back captures that shocking meeting of wrath and mercy. Shocking but so wonderful in providing a way where there was no way. Come & see. Come and see that the LORD is good.
Palm trees, blue skies, brick chimneys – all things of beauty. Hang on a minute, is this a cute little house I see before mine eyes, the gable window towards me?
Simply beautiful! Beautiful & simple. Click each image on this post to find source
The thing is I love the idea of living in small places. In houses – the loft or the basement continually whisper to me “live here! live here!”. I like boats, trains, plains, campervans and yurts – for their potential to be a permanent home for me. Dr. Freud would have a field day analysing what that’s about. As a christian I may be able to help him – later. As a christian I should also be prepared to live anywhere and grow to love it for Jesus’ sake. A typical house presents that type of challenge for me. I don’t desire it but could do it – for Jesus’ sake. Sounds weird – I know. This little house in the pictures above looks a challenge in the opposite direction – a beautiful challenge. I am assuming, however, that there is some kind of toilet. I am also assuming it doesn’t look like the one you might have in your house. It doesn’t need to be. Toileting is a function of the body. A toilet only needs to be functional. But it needs to exist – indoors – preferably – please please. But its existence really is a deal-breaker for me.
I am not sure why I love the idea of living small. There is something about closeness and compactness. There is something about living in a space which is so small, relatively speaking, you end up doing a lot of your living outside of it. It forces you to look out while in and get out when in – weather permitting. But it’s the smallness which acts as the agitator in this process and therefore the small space heightens the sense of preciousness of the in and the out. For me the small expands life. I seem to have some inside (pun intended) information on this. I have dabbled in living small, so I know what I’m talking about.
Colourful & cozy – what more could you ask for? (Tell me more whispers Dr. Freud.)
For me the small inside space forces and energises a relationship with the big outside space. That’s pretty special. But there has got to be something else at play in this ‘loving the small living space’ thing. I think there is something about safety and warmth. Both are desirable for human living, indeed human flourishing. I certainly desire both safety and warmth. Both tangibly and spiritually. I also find both of them being maximised spiritually in my ongoing life with Jesus. And yet because I experience them in him, I must also not desire them in a physical sense so much that I wouldn’t be prepared to live without them for his sake. In fact, Jesus gives me good reasons to expect that both my safety and warmth will be challenged and even taken away from me for his sake. He even goes further to say that I should actively give them up, pursue a life without them for his sake. [Matthew 16:24-26 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?]
When someone wishes to take them from me I should give him more. Undermine him, subvert him by giving more than he demands. [Matthew 5:38 38 ‘You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.”[h]39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.] Let my surrendering, my cheek-turning be so resonant and expressive of my allegance, dependence and joy in Jesus that the demander or thief (sounds like commander-in-chief – let’s leave that for another post) is beautifully assaulted with a huge picture of Life & Love as it was meant to be. The huge picture I am boldly promoting would in fact be pretty small because it’s distilled through me (humble donkey remember!) But nevertheless, it would be an example of the ordinary living in and through and for the Extraordinary. Because the surrender is really for the One who is worthy – Jesus is the Wothy One – it might be tiny but it would be like pure gold – 24 Karat.
Chuchill made a famous “We will never surrender” speech – here he is on a gold coin – see the link of oppositeness to my point? You now know how my brain works.
Surrender for the sake of Jesus is a beautiful surrender. Sweet in the now, in the tomorrow and in the hereafter. In the now and the tomorrow it is sweet but not sweet only – it can often be bitter. Bitter & sweet. Surrender for the christian evokes the inner joy of obedience to Jesus but is often won in the crucible of external suffering. For the christian, surrender and suffering are seldom far apart. Like for Jesus in the garden of gethsemane. “Father if it be possible for this cup to pass my lips (suffering) yet not my will but yours be done (surrender)” Words of Jesus in Luke 22:41-42
And he (Jesus) withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
So while I love, prefer and feels safe and warm in the small living space I want to be willing to surrender to Jesus in all things for his sake. Anything done for his sake is like a man throwing away his seeds – into a soil so rich and fertile, so warm and safe.
John 14:2 – “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” (words of Jesus). You’ve guessed it – “can I have the small one please?”
Humble Donkey 