Numbered with the Transgressors

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook.

The Holy Gospel.

According to Saint John, the 19th chapter.

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him and the soldiers twisted together a crown of

thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.

They came to him saying, Hail, King of the Jews.

And they struck him with their hands.

Pilate went out again and said to them, See I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt

in him.

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Pilate said to them, Behold the man.

When the chief priests and the officers saw him they cried out, Crucify him.

Crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him for I find no guilt in him.

The Jews answered him, We have a law and according to that law he ought to die because he has made

himself the son of God.

When Pilate heard this statement he was even more afraid.

He entered the headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from?

But Jesus gave him no answer.

So Pilate said to him, You will not speak to me?

Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?

Jesus answered, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.

Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.

From then on Pilate sought to release him.

But the Jews cried out, If you release this man you are not Caesar's friend.

Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

So when Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the

Stone Pavement and an Aramaic Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover and it was about the sixth hour.

He said to the Jews, Behold your king.

They cried out, Away with him.

Away with him.

Crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?

The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar.

So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

So they took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the Place of a Skull,

which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

There they crucified him and with two others, one on either side and Jesus

between them.

Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross.

It reads, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.

Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city.

And it was written in Aramaic, in Latin and in Greek.

So the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the king of the Jews but rather that this man said I

am the king of the Jews.

Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and divided them into four parts.

One part for each soldier and also his tunic.

But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

And they said to one another, Let us not tear it but cast lots for it to see whose it

shall be.

This was to fulfill the scripture which says, They divided my garments among them and for my clothing they

cast lots.

So the soldiers did these things.

But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the

wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother,

Woman, behold your son.

And then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother.

And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture, I

thirst.

A jar full of sour wine stood there.

So they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.

When Jesus had received the sour wine he said, It is finished.

And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Since it was the day of preparation so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath was a high day,

the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead they did not break his legs.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and at once there came out blood and water.

He who saw it has borne witness.

His testimony is true and he knows that he is telling the truth so that you may also believe.

For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Not one of his bones will be broken and again another scripture says they will look on him whom they have pierced.

After these things Joseph of Arimathea who was a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews asked

Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus and Pilate gave him permission.

So he came and took away his body.

Nicodemus also who earlier had come to Jesus by night came bringing a mixture of myrrh

and aloes about 75 pounds in weight.

So they took the body of Jesus and bounded in linen cloths the spices as the burial custom of

the Jews.

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been

laid.

So because of the Jewish day of preparation since the tomb was close at hand they laid Jesus

there.

Oh Lord have mercy on us.

In the name of Jesus.

Here again the third verse of the hymn we just sang.

Ye who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great.

Here may view its nature rightly and here its guilt may estimate.

Mark the sacrifice appointed.

See the one who bears the awful load.

It is the word the Lord's anointed the son of man and the son of

God.

We human beings are foolish.

We think of sin as not all that important.

Truth be told we have little funny things we say about the sins that we commit.

Oh that was just a white lie.

How strange that you would take something as horrifying

as deceit and cover it in the color of righteousness.

See that's the thing.

Part of our problem is we do not even begin to recognize the magnitude of our sin.

And then comes Good Friday.

We cannot extricate ourselves from our bondage to sin, death, the devil.

We are utterly hopeless.

We have no power and here comes the son of God.

Born of the Virgin Mary and as the confession says he now suffers under Pontius

Pilate and he goes to the cross and

he dies.

Who can tell me the value of the blood of the son of God?

Who can estimate its worth?

Is it worth billions?

Trillions?

Maybe billions and trillions of galaxies.

Maybe all of the wealth of creation.

We couldn't even begin to estimate the cost that it took to free us.

But that was a cost that Christ was willing to pay.

If you were traveling on that Good Friday into Jerusalem, the place where he was crucified,

John tells us it wasn't too far out of the city.

Lots of people saw the spectacle.

There were three crosses erected, three poor miserable fellows being made an example of by

the Roman Empire.

But if you were walking by, you couldn't even begin to tell me or anyone else the significance of what

was happening there.

In order for that to happen, God has to reveal that to us.

Because to the naked eye, to the untrained observer, to those born dead in

trespasses and sins in the darkness of the devil, it just looked like three

criminals, three malcontents, three people who messed up

royally, upset the Roman Empire, and went and got themselves nailed to a tree.

And you can hear them calling out, crying out, yelling out in pain.

You can see the blood, the gore.

But what does it all mean?

Six hundred years before Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, the prophet

Isaiah, by a revelation from the Lord himself, saw the day

of Christ's crucifixion, saw Good Friday.

And he does something fascinating.

He takes two seemingly contradictory themes and he weaves them together in a beautiful

prophecy.

I think back when I was in grade school, I always marveled at the girls who would braid their hair.

I always marvel at watching a girl do that.

You know, here you've got this one strand and then another strand, there's a third strand.

I couldn't figure out how they managed it with two hands.

And they wove them together into one unit.

That's what we see in this prophecy from Isaiah 52 and 53.

One strand is a strand of victory.

The other strand is a strand of suffering and languishing.

But taken together as a whole, they help us understand what it is that was accomplished for us

on that Good Friday, outside the city gates of Jerusalem so long ago.

Isaiah writes, Behold, my servant shall act wisely,

talking about Christ, and he shall be high and lifted up and he shall

be exalted.

Opening verse for this prophecy.

What a great theme.

What a great start.

High and lifted up and exalted.

This sounds like victory talk to me.

And here comes the other strand now, braided together with it.

And as many as were astonished at his appearance was so marred beyond

human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

And now we see something horrifying.

None of the other gospel writers record it, but the beating that Christ took,

the fists on his face, the lashes, have so

marred him that if you knew him and you were standing right in front of him and looking at him, you

wouldn't be sure if it was Jesus or not.

That's how brutal the beating was that he took.

And now the other strand.

And so shall he sprinkle many nations.

Kings shall shut their mouths because of him.

You see, because he was marred, now he's victorious and so kings are going to be accountable to him for that which

has not been told them they see and that which they have not heard they understand.

So who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire

him.

If you remember, it wasn't all that long ago.

Beginning of the year, we celebrated the epiphany.

The visit of the magi.

But keep this in mind.

It took a special star to lead them to where Christ was.

At that time, he was still a toddler hiding behind the skirts of Mary.

And he looked just like any other kid.

There was nothing about that kid that set him apart from any other kid.

Although the Renaissance artists always like to depict the young baby Jesus with a halo.

That would have been a dead giveaway.

But he had no halo.

He had to take baths and do his chores and learn to talk

and do all the things that young toddlers do.

So he had no form or majesty that we should look on him.

Now it turns very dark.

One that doesn't make any sense when you think about it on the surface.

He was despised.

It's not that he was tolerated.

He wasn't.

He was despised.

He was rejected by men.

Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised

and we esteemed him not.

It wasn't all that long into Jesus' ministry.

He was already healing the sick.

Giving sight to the blind.

The ability to walk to the paralytics.

Raising the dead.

You would have thought that a man who can do such miraculous acts of mercy and

kindness in our languishing and desperate condition that he would have been the

talk of the entire globe.

And that people would have come all the way from China to see and to

hear this carpenter's son from Nazareth.

But see, Jesus' message was not one that we sinners want to hear.

He, like John the Baptist, called us to repent.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Repent.

Leave your sins.

Repent.

And so it wasn't too long into his ministry that the Pharisees came up with the ultimate slander

campaign.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We know that Jesus performs miracles.

But did you know that he performs them by the power of the devil himself?

By the prince of the demons, Beelzebul.

Jesus worships the devil.

He drinks blood and indulges in child sacrifice.

That's where he's got all this power from.

And yet you think of tin penny religious quacks who have global

audiences today.

Raking tens, hundreds of millions of dollars.

And they're lauded and applauded and they're completely fake and phony.

They're charlatans, experts at telling us what we want to hear.

Coddling us in our sin.

They think of sin quite lightly because they engage in it and indulge in it

quite freely.

But Jesus was despised.

And surely he has borne our griefs and he's carried our sorrows.

And yet we esteemed him stricken and smitten by God and afflicted.

And when that verse is talking about what it's really referring to is that we literally looked at Jesus and thought

he was the one who was cursed.

While us were blessed.

But Isaiah reveals here

something amazing and quite tragic at the same time.

Jesus was wounded for our transgressions.

He was crushed, and that's the word crushed, for our

iniquities.

And upon him was the chastisement, the punishment that brought us

shalom, peace.

Even the word soothing and calming.

An end to hostilities.

Peace with God.

Reconciliation.

And by his stripes we are healed.

Healed from sin, sickness.

You see, all of us, like sheep, me included, you included, we've all gone astray.

Each and every one of us, we've turned to our own ways.

And that is where we are most like the devil.

When a creature behaves like a deity.

Calling the shots.

Choosing his own fate.

Choosing his own purpose.

Thumbing his nose at his creator.

Going our own way.

But Yahweh, the Lord, has laid on Jesus

the iniquity of us all.

The Lord took all of our sin.

All of our rebellion, its consequences.

All of our idolatry.

All of our despising of God's word and using God's name in vain.

Of all of our breakings.

Of all of the commandments regarding the honoring of our parents.

Not murdering.

Not committing adultery.

Not stealing.

Not lying.

Not coveting.

He took all of that and he made Jesus to be the sinner.

So he was oppressed.

He was afflicted.

I would even argue nobody has suffered as greatly as he has.

And yet, in the midst of all of that, he did not open up his mouth.

He did not even utter a peep.

Like the lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, he didn't even open his

mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And as for his generation who consider that he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgressions of

my people.

And here is a startling prophecy.

One that Jesus could not have fulfilled.

They made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.

And you think of Joseph of Arimathea and this ultimate act of kindness and mercy

to this poor carpenter from Nazareth who had done nothing wrong.

And so in an act of just pure humanity and

worship of who Jesus really is, he offers up his own tomb

and Isaiah called it 600 years beforehand.

Although he had done no violence, there was no deceit in Jesus' mouth.

None.

And here is the hardest part.

It was the will of the Lord to crush him.

The text says.

There's Jesus late Monday, Thursday

on into Friday morning.

In the wee hours of the night praying the Mount of Olives.

And his prayer is fervent.

Oh Father, Father if it be if there's any way, let this cup

pass from me.

Yet not my will.

Your will be done.

And so the Father's will was to crush the son.

Like a cluster of grapes in the wine press.

The fury of the wrath of God.

This is what we deserve.

To be crushed by God for our iniquities.

And God put Jesus to grief.

And when his soul makes an offering for sin.

Listen to this.

He shall see his offspring.

And he shall prolong his days.

And now comes that other strand that seems so odd here.

And the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

You see out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and he shall be satisfied.

I always like making this point.

In the Gospel of John the last words of Christ that John heard that he recorded were that Jesus said

to Telestai, it is finished.

It is finished.

These are the words of a man who's been laboring at something, building something, doing something and

finally accomplished it.

Think of those do -it -yourself projects that we like to do.

Maybe you had your house in shambles while you refurbished a bathroom or a bedroom.

Or you repainted part of your hallway or something like that.

Remember coming out and stripping everything down and then putting all the tape up

and the plastic and all the nails and the patchwork.

And finally at the end of it when you were done, the last daub of paint goes on there and you've got paint on your

hands and on your face and on your clothes.

And then you step back and take it in.

Yeah, it's finished.

You see that's what Jesus said.

It is finished.

And Isaiah tells us that he was satisfied.

You see Jesus couldn't have his life taken from him.

Nobody could have taken it from him had they tried.

And many did.

Instead Jesus willingly laid it down.

He willingly laid it down at the time appointed under the will of his father.

And when he laid it down he did something amazing.

He won.

One text talks about the fact that if the principalities and powers of the demonic realm

had understood what Jesus was doing and accomplishing on the cross they

would have never allowed him to be crucified.

They would have stopped the whole thing.

Because in the way of sin, the way you win is by killing.

We all know this.

It's the survival of the fittest.

Dead men tell no tales.

And better yet, dead men are no longer rivals.

You see Jesus did the unthinkable.

He overthrew the dominion of darkness and defeated it by dying.

He played by the devil's rules.

Allowed the devil to win.

And by allowing the devil to win, the devil lost.

He lost control of us.

He lost the ability to accuse us.

And Christ has now won for us the ability for us to be numbered with the righteous.

Which is unbelievable if you think about it.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall the righteous one my servant, listen to the words, make many

to be accounted righteous.

We who are numbered as transgressors and rightly so because of what Christ

has done in his victory on the cross.

When he cries out in satisfaction it is finished.

It makes it now possible for each and every one of us to be accounted and

numbered with the righteous because he bore our

iniquities.

So God will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the

strong.

That's right.

Always the victor gets the spoils and now Christ is the one who is victorious by dying.

So he shall divide the spoil with the strong and here's the reason why because he poured out his soul to death

and he was numbered with the transgressors so that we can

be numbered with the righteous.

So that we can be forgiven, reconciled to the Father and once

again as the text says, have shalom.

So as we leave here tonight and you ponder anew and again the sufferings of Jesus,

hear again those words if you think of sin but lightly nor suppose the

evil great.

Here you may view on the cross its nature rightly and here

your guilt you can begin to estimate.

Mark the sacrifice appointed.

See the one who bears the awful load the awful load of your sin and mine.

It is the word of the Lord's anointed the Son of Man and the Son of God.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

950 470th Avenue NW Oslo, MN 56744.

We thank you for your support.

All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.

And again thank you for listening.