church

INI
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
February 5, 2012
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

THE WOUNDS THAT HEAL
Isaiah 53:5

Grace and peace be multiplied unto you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus
our Lord, Amen. This morning God directs our attention to the book of the
Prophet Isaiah, chapter 53, verse five, as follows:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
So far the holy Word.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, who came to be our Great Physician, Dear Fellow
Redeemed,

Most of us are aware that doctors used to bleed patients on purpose. Up to
about 150 years ago, medical opinion said that you could improve a patient’s
condition by intentionally drawing blood. It seems absurd to us now to think
that you could cure somebody by wounding him. Even more absurd, however,
is the idea that you can cure one person by wounding someone else! Among
certain tribes of North American Indians, the mother of the family would
intentionally wound herself in the belief that she could thereby save a family
member who was sick or in danger. She'd cut herself on the chest or arms,
sometimes even removing part of a finger. Early European explorers would
often find old Indian women whose arms were laced with scar tissue, and who
had only a few fingers left with which to carry out their work.

It seems so tragic! The whole concept - that you can heal one person by
wounding someone else - seems ignorant and superstitious to us present-day
Americans, familiar as we are with the principles of modern medicine. Yet for
Christians this concept, incredible as it may seem, holds absolutely true. In fact,
our text for this morning makes clear that the healing you and I need the
most...can only come from the wounds of Someone else. And that Someone is
Jesus Christ! That’s why our theme this morning is:

THE WOUNDS THAT HEAL
I. They heal only the sick.
II. They heal by substitution.
III. They heal completely!

Hundreds of years before Christ came to earth, Isaiah predicted the advent of
the Savior. God sent this prophet to the rebellious nation of Judah with a
specific message: "Repent of your sin, and turn back to the Lord. See, He is
sending to you His Servant, the Messiah - His wounds will heal you of all your
iniquity!"

It was a noble message, and a beautiful promise. There was only one problem:
the people of Judah refused to repent. They didn't acknowledge their sin.
Consequently, they didn't see any need for a Savior, and their sin only
multiplied all the more. The Lord wanted to heal them, but they simply weren't
interested: "When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was
uncovered, and the wickedness of Samaria. For they have committed fraud; the
thief comes in; A band of robbers takes spoil outside. They do not consider in
their hearts that I remember all their wickedness; now their own deeds have
surrounded them; they are before My face." -- Hosea 7:1-2.

Can I ask you a question? When are you most likely to consult a doctor? It's
when you know you need medical attention, isn't it? Otherwise, most of us
avoid doctors, if we can. Today's text is a beautiful invitation – an invitation to
find healing in the wounds of Jesus. But there's one thing we need to
understand first: the wounds of Christ heal only those who know they are sick!

Jesus once said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those
who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." --
Mark 2:17. The truth is that there’s no one in that first category. No one is
righteous on his own. We are all of us sick with the disease of sin - a disease
which, if left untreated, inevitably leads to eternal death. Now, if you want to,
you can stand like the proud Pharisee in God’s house and say, "Lord I thank
you that I am not as other men are!" but you'll only be fooling yourself.
Pretending you haven't got the disease doesn't get you any closer to the cure!

What we need is a visit to the doctor! We need to freely acknowledge all our
sins, and come to the one Great Physician who can effect a cure. That's Jesus
Christ. His wounds grant us real healing...and they do it by substitution.

If you remember your schoolwork on ancient Egypt, you may recall that the
members of Pharaoh’s family never did any manual labor. They had servants to
do their laundry, servants to open doors for them...they even had servants to be
punished for them. It's true - the son of the great Pharaoh had a servant who
followed him around; whenever the young prince did something wrong, his
servant was substituted to received the beating for it! As a kid I remember
thinking what a great idea that was! I'm sure those of us who had a rather
mischievous childhood would have loved to have had a handy servant standing
by to take our spankings for us!

...In a far more serious way, though, that's exactly the situation Isaiah describes
in our text for today. He tells us that the wounds of Christ heal, and they do it
by substitution. We were the ones deserving punishment for our sins, but
instead God punished Jesus in our place. He was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace
was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. For every lustful thought that
lingered on our minds, a welt was raised on the back of our Savior. For every
hurting word we've ever spoken to husband, wife, child or neighbor, a thorn
pierced our Savior's brow. It was for every sinful deed we've committed that the
nails clanged home in His hands and feet, and the spear sliced into His innocent
body.

17 days from now we’ll enter the season of Lent, and we’ll take up the subject
of our Savior’s Passion, and the wounds He incurred on our behalf. The thought
of those wounds is sobering. That's because we know it's our sins that caused
them. But it's also tremendously comforting. It's comforting when we realize
that, by acting as our substitute, Christ gave to us the healing we so desperately
need: healing of the soul. If you're like me, then there have been many times
when you've felt like crying out with the Psalmist, "LORD, be merciful to me;
Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You." -- Psa 41:4. And we do not cry
out in vain, for God has heard our cry. He gave us His answer when He sent
His only-begotten Son into the world to be our substitute. The Bible tells us
that this was His plan of grace from the very beginning, as we read in Galatians,
"When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we
might receive the adoption as sons." -- Gal 4:4-5.

Finally, we need to understand that Jesus did not come to earth to bring us
partial healing. Nowhere in Scripture does our Lord say, "I have done my part
to heal you; now you must do your part to effect a complete recovery." Indeed,
we would be doomed to certain failure if any part of our salvation had been left
up to us! But it wasn't. Today our Lord invites to be healed from all our
iniquities, and he offers us a comforting reminder: the wounds of Christ heal
completely.

The very word “healing” is comforting! You know what it's like to recover
from a painful injury or illness in your body; to feel the sickness and the pain
gradually ebb away day by day, and be replaced with strength and health and
healing. Then comes that wonderful morning when you wake up and feel, for
the first time, refreshed and healthy again and back on your feet. There's
nothing like it! -Or, I should say, there's almost nothing like it...because that's
precisely what Jesus does for our souls.

With His substitutionary sacrifice, He wipes your soul completely clean of sin.
Every sin has now been atoned for! Every transgression, every broken
commandment, every offense you've committed against God has been paid for
in full. Each time you come to Him, humbly repenting of your sins and asking
forgiveness, He heals you. Each day, whenever you ask Him, He "creates in
you a clean heart," and "renews a right spirit within you." Each day is a new
day, with new horizons and fresh opportunities for serving the One who has
healed you. You need never look back on the sins of your past, because your
God, for Jesus sake, has "removed them as far from you as the east is from the
west." Because of Christ's healing wounds, you can now stand before God
completely clean and in perfect spiritual heath. Thank God for those healing
wounds! Thank God for sending your substitute, "...Who Himself bore our sins
in His own body on the tree," says Peter, "that we, having died to sins, might
live for righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed." -- 1 Pet 2:24.

Over the years, many our CLC churches have had the privilege of hosting the
Immanuel College Tour Choir on their annual circuit of the country. We were
privileged to host a concert last year. It was so beautiful – it would be hard for
me to choose which song was most lovely. But there’s one song that the Tour
Choir sang years ago that sticks in my mind. It's called, "Jesu, Grant Me This I
Pray," and it reminds us that the wounds of Christ are like a shelter, a safe
haven in which the weary sinner can rest himself securely. This morning’s
service will conclude with it. The final stanza rings out with words of comfort
that I hope each of us Christians can join in praying:

Death will come one day to me,
Jesu, cast me not from Thee.
Dying, let me still abide
IN THY HEART AND WOUNDED SIDE. AMEN.