He was pierced for our transgressions

In my quiet time today, I took some time to reflect on Christ's death on the Cross and his resurrection. Easter is only three days away, and I enjoy taking time to revisit the events of the most pivotal moment in history in the days leading up to Resurrection Sunday. The Cross is something we should be mindful of all the time, but there is something special about reflecting on Christ's incredible sacrifice in the week leading up to Easter.

Part of my meditation on Christ's death always includes the eyewitness accounts of the event written in the Gospels, but I also enjoy reading Isaiah's completely accurate prophetic account of Christ's life, death and resurrection as noted in Isaiah 53--hundreds of years before any of it came to pass.

As I re-read the familiar passages and pondered Christ's incredible sacrifice once again, tears of gratitude welled up in my eyes. Jesus, the only truly innocent person to ever walk the earth, took on the sins of every person who has ever lived or ever will--and didn't even so much as utter one word in his own defense. He died a cruel, excruciatingly painful death on the Cross for me. And for you. He took on the punishment we deserved--death--so that we wouldn't have to endure it.

And the best part--the Cross wasn't the end of the story! Christ rose again on the third day and descended into heaven 40 days later to prepare for his still-to-come triumphant return to earth. And through his sacrifice, we are completely redeemed and justified through God's grace. Praise the Lord!

Isaiah 53

¹Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
²He 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.
³He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
⁴Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitted by him and afflicted.
⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶We 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.
⁷He 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 her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
⁹He 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.
¹⁰Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
¹¹After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
¹²Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, 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."