By his wounds we are healed
Good Friday
The reading today of the account of the passion and death of the Lord recounted by St John is preceded by a reading from the Prophet Isaiah. The prophecies concerning a suffering servant are remarkably descriptive of the passion of Christ. They not only describe the sufferings of Christ but they provide a profound insight into their meaning.
The Prophet Isaiah describes a man who is God’s servant. Jesus, the Son of God, was the obedient son of the Father. Isaiah says that this man, while growing up “like a sapling” among his people, becomes a person who is despised and rejected. We can hear the crowds shouting out, “Crucify him, crucify him.”
We are told that he had become so disfigured by the suffering that he seemed, in the prophet’s words, “no longer human”, so much so that the people screen their faces. We think of Jesus carrying his cross after having been scourged and beaten.
The prophet says that he was like a lamb being led to the slaughter-house. John the Baptist years earlier pointed out Jesus with the words, “There is the Lamb of God.” We are told that he endured all his suffering with humility; he bore his fate in silence, never opening his mouth. Jesus did not seek to defend himself when he was unjustly condemned. He was silent in the face of his accusers.
We are told that it was by “force and law” that he was taken, an innocent victim of a gross injustice perpetrated by the authorities. He had done no wrong and there was no perjury in his mouth, the prophet says. We know that Jesus was wrongly accused by the chief priests, and condemned by the Roman governor anxious to give the baying crowds what they wanted.
Written some seven centuries before the coming of Christ, the words are like a meditation on the passion of Christ. The prophecies are more poignant in that they express the meaning of the sufferings endured by this faithful servant of God.
The prophet makes this extraordinary claim: “Yet ours were the sufferings he bore.” This man was doing this for others, taking their sufferings on himself.
In another striking claim the prophet says that “he was pierced through for our faults.” We immediately think of the soldier piercing the heart of Jesus, and the blood and water flowing out. His heart was pierced because of our faults. Then the prophet adds that he was crushed for our sins. Jesus endured all this suffering because of our sins.
Then the prophet declares: “On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed.” In the next verse it says, “And the Lord burdened him with the sins of all of us.” This is an extraordinary declaration: Jesus endured the passion so that we might be healed. He is carrying our sins and offering himself for our redemption. Jesus surrendered himself to death for us, because of our sins.
Today we stand in silent awe before the cross. We are speechless before the meaning of what has taken place. In the passion and death of Jesus a sacrifice is being offered that all the vast sin of humanity might be forgiven. The death of Jesus opens the floodgates of mercy flowing forth upon the human race.
We are reduced to silence before a mystery which is beyond our comprehension. Today let us quietly ponder this profound truth: “By his wounds we are healed.”
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Friday, April 10, 2020