Dear Friend,
When you were a kid, did you ever trade something unwanted from your lunch for something fantastic another kid had? I can't even remember the things I traded away, but I do remember what I traded for: the divine hostess cupcake. Mmm. I can smell it now.
These days of the pandemic and a thousand life stressors have left me wanting to make a trade again. Isaiah 53 is a prophesy that describes an extraordinary trade that we can still make today.
First, some context: Isaiah is pointing to the coming messiah, a suffering servant who would come about 700 years later in the form of Jesus. Though the nation of Israel had long awaited a warrior king to redeem them, here Isaiah describes the coming Jesus as "a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering" (v. 3).
"Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows." - Isaiah 53:4a
"The punishment that brought us peace was laid upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed." - Isaiah 53:5b
What we see here is an exchange:
WE give our pain, sorrows, grief, sickness, transgressions.
JESUS takes them, carries them, is himself wounded.
This is more than Jesus just identifying with us or imagining what it's like to be human. HE puts himself literally in our shoes. He took our place physically, viscerally. Experientially his whole life culminated in his horrific death on a cross. He lived the experiences of grief, torment, exhaustion, oppression, temptation, affliction, rejection, suffering, and shame.
So Jesus takes our suffering and sorrows and shame upon himself and gives us in exchange:
- peace (Isaiah 53:5)
- healing (Isaiah 53:5)
- forgiveness (Isaiah 53:5, 8)
- redemption (Isaiah 54:8)
- justification (Isaiah 53:11)
- intercession--and thus reconciliation with the Father! (Isaiah 53:12)
So, today, whose sorrows are you carrying? Your own? The sorrows of your loved ones? The sorrows of this hurting world?
Are you allowing Jesus to carry your sorrows?
Make the HOLY TRADE. Give him your sorrows and He will give you his peace.
Love,
Your Friend Melana
Ponder. Pray. Practice.
A simple way to do this trade is to say a little prayer like: "Right now, Lord, I give you [whatever situation I'm facing]. Right now, I receive your peace [or healing or forgiveness, or whatever word resonates with you from the above scriptures]." Blessings, my friend!