The Cross

“The Cross” March 7, 2021 Isaiah 53

So,

Have you ever thought things were one way, only to discover later that in fact the truth was the opposite?

In the game, Reformed Monopoly, made by some of my crazy friends in seminary, we got turned inside out because the whole game turned out to be nothing we thought it was, shaking us up a good bit.

The point of the game it turned out was to challenge our thinking! And it did a good job of that.

The “new” game was intended to illustrate a bit about the theological idea of predestination. For of those of you familiar with the thinking of Presbyterian and Reformed theologians, you will probably know of John Calvin and his idea that each of us is predestined by God to be a God follower or not.

Predestination then is the concept that God has predetermined long before any of us actually live our lives, who will enter heaven and who will perish in hell, without anything to do with what we folks do here in this lifetime.

This particular game begins by laying pieces of paper under the board that declare who God has chosen long before the game is played, and even in spite of who wins!

Accumulating all the property and all the money doesn’t mean anything!

At the end of the game after, you played and someone has won, then up comes the board and everyone discovers whom God has chosen.

Imagine the shock when the one God has “chosen” is not “the winner”.

And while it was intended to simply spoof the Calvinistic idea of predestination, it also laid bare the reality that we often fail to see very well that God’s ways are not our ways.

Isaiah lays that out with additional clarity, as he shares the story of the Suffering Servant, revealing God’s intentions in stark detail, and helping to explain the purpose and meaning of the cross.

God is in control of the arc of human history, no matter how much we humans want to believe that we are.

God is in control in every generation, and in every story of scripture, an perplexing surprise to those who encounter the reality once again.

We humans, made in the image of God, all of us, no matter our race, ethnicity, gender, heritage, possessions, education and all the rest, believe, in our fallen condition, that we should be in charge, either individually or in some corporate fashion.

Even Israel thought that they should be in charge, and that if a savior came, it would certainly be one of them, or all of them together, to save the world.

That their nation would be a light to the world, the obvious servants of the Lord, because of what they had done and how well they had kept the law, only to discover that God’s ways were still so foreign to them.

And they were a light to the world, just never in the way they imagined.

When salvation came each and every time, it wasn’t because they were strong and powerful, capable, wise, faithful, and beloved by God, but instead came when they were weak and unable.

God stepped into history, bringing salvation by using the most unlikely of means.

From Egypt they escaped because of God’s doing, through the unlikely servant Moses, a murderer who had fled punishment and lived in the wilderness of Midian until God found him and called him.

And while it might be that Moses was very qualified for the job God gave him, be reminded that many contemporary Israelites were not impressed with God’s choice.

And from Babylon Israel escaped, not with the strong hand of their nation standing up and fighting and winning! But through God’s work in the life of a foreigner and infidel named Cyrus the Persian.

So, when Isaiah speaks the words of prophesy about a suffering servant, it comes as a huge surprise, even though it shouldn’t be. Because God once again is doing a new thing.

It is not the king or priest or general, nor the nation, nor church, nor army who we expect and assume would come to save Israel and us.

Rather, it is instead one who is counted out, not considered, incapable in the eyes of the world and even in the eyes of the people of faith, unless they understand that this is how God works.

Not with nobility, or power, or influence, but with weakness, humility, and even poverty of spirit.

The servant is one who listens to God, and then instead of going on to victory, goes on to defeat. But it is in that defeat that God wins!

So, we come to the story of Jesus. Born in Bethlehem the city of David, but who must flea for his life to Egypt.

Jesus, who is raised in Nazareth, where no good thing comes from.

Jesus, who is loved by many, but rejected by king and priest and general, by nation, by religion, and by the military.
But whom is chosen by God to suffer as an innocent for the many who are guilty, dying in abject misery, but rising to reveal once again how God works!

We struggle to understand, because it is not in our nature to choose suffering, to see it as redemptive, to imagine why a powerful God would choose defeat instead of sending legions of angels.

We struggle because we cannot see how our God’s greatest power, our God’s greatest gift, is not to wrestle us into a relationship, into understanding, into grace, but to love us completely.

The suffering servant who most thought was of no account, turns out to be the one God chooses, because in that choice, God reveals more about his character, his delight, and even his love for us. God chooses the least of us.

So, as begin the journey, slow and stead to Calvary and beyond, let us not forget that this is all God’s doing and none of our own.

Like reformed monopoly, God is in charge of this story. We are simply invited - in love - to come and meet the Savior, and the God who quite shocking chooses this suffering servant to save us.

Open your eyes and see Jesus!

Amen.