His hurt, our healing

But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. | Isaiah 53:5 (NLT)

This verse breathes so much hope into my heart. The worst part of suffering is the loneliness – the pain that cannot be put into words, the depths no-one else can enter into or share. Yet these words describe a God that is present in our pain. He has experienced depths we will never know, pain beyond what we can imagine, and the loneliness of complete abandonment that we will never experience. Because of this, he is not a God who is distant, but one who meets us and reveals himself to us in the depths of suffering.

Here is the God of infinite glory in touchable skin… torn skin. The great, uncontainable, mighty, glorious, and untouchably holy God become flesh… crushed flesh. Here is a God of such compassion that he gave up his glory to be part of our mess. But he not only became a part of it, he not only meets us in it, but he rescues us from it. His death covers all our sin. His resurrection has defeated death, sickness, pain, sin, and every evil. The wounds of his beaten and whipped body are all the healing and wholeness our sin-scarred souls need.

Jesus not only entered into and shared in our pain, but he became the answer to it. This hope isn’t for those who are good enough, or work hard enough, or are religious enough. This is for ALL people that proclaim him as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead. It is because of Jesus that we have this promise:

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

As I reach out and touch the bleeding, broken wounds of our world, I encounter the wounds of Christ. I see brokenness covered by his blood, I see the woundedness healed by his wounds, I see new hope breathed into desperate hearts. The pain is there, yes, but it does not have the final word. It will come to an end, and we will know a world with no sin and sadness and suffering. God is greater!