Jesus is a guilt offering

 ApriL  11

Read Isaiah 53:4-11and reflect on the passage.

Isaiah 53 gives a rundown of hardship, blame, wounds, oppression, sorrow, sin, suffering, and death. As I read it, I want to yell, “YOU’VE GOT THE WRONG GUY, GOD! I’m the guilty one.”

In the Old Testament, when a neighbor sinned he made restitution to the victim, and gave a guilt offering to the Lord because sin against neighbor = disobedience to God and indebtedness to Him, too. This offering was a precursor to Jesus giving His own innocent body as a guilt offering to restore the broken relationship we have with God.

We owe the Lord a debt far greater than we could repay. But we do not need to pay. The Son of Man gave His life as a “ransom for many” paying our debt for us. Jesus says we must simply write off the debts that others owe us. This demand is modeled on and empowered by God’s love toward us: we must forgive and restore as He does.

God had the right guy in Isaiah 53—the only guy willing and able to do the job of carrying the crushing weight of our sin. Because of the joy set before Him, Jesus “endured the cross, scorning its shame.”

To learn more about the biblical concepts of Sacrifice and Atonement, I encourage you to watch this excellent video from the Bible Project: http://bit.ly/SacrificeAtonement

Questions

1. What “debt” does someone owe you? Who has hurt or offended you?

2. What steps can you take today to simply write off that debt, empowered by the love of Jesus?

Prayer

Jesus, You covered my debt saving me from the penalty and power of sin. Make me ready to forgive; gracious and merciful like You.

—Jane Bruns

And we blame Him?

Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun.  And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them!  On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.  Ecclesiastes 4:1

The world is full of pain, injustice and heartache.  “Bad things happen to good people.”  And we point our fingers at God and ask, “Why?”

But there are far more appropriate questions that need to be answered  And we are the ones who need to answer them, not God.

Why do I keep or spend everything I have, and then blame God for the poor?

Why do I blame God for the conduct of people who rebel against him and his will?
Why doesn’t God force me to set aside my will and obey his will, which is to love him and to love my neighbor by my actions?
If I don't like the thought of God forcing me to love and obey him, why do I blame him for not forcing others to do the same?
Why do I blame God for wrongs, even as others heed his call to address them with justice?
If God created people to know only good and told us to refrain from knowing evil, why do we blame him for man’s disobedience that ushered evil into a good creation in the first place?
Why does God allow a sinful me to shake my fist at a holy him?
And why am I so angry at a God who cannot possibly exist because of the evil in the world?

But I digress.  It seems we were concerned about the oppressed.  What about them? 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”  2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Which leads us to one more question.  What should I do today –  go comfort the hurting, or keep asking God, “Why?”

Hmm.  Now that’s a tough one!

[Click here to see today’s reading in Ecclesiastes 4:1-16.]