He kept walking

I have been thinking a lot about Isaiah 52:13 through 53:12 the past week. It is a graphic prophecy about what the Messiah would go through at his death. It says he would be beaten and abused to the point of not appearing to be human anymore. It talks about how abandoned he would be as he died. It is an appalling story, but a story with a purpose because in the same chapters we read why the Messiah would die. We are the beneficiaries of his punishment.

The punishment that brought us peace was upon him." Isaiah 53:4

Now think about this: Isaiah is part of the Bible Jesus read and memorized and meditated upon as a boy and young man growing up in Galilee. He didn't have all of the books of the New Testament that we have. He had the Old Testament. He read the prophecies and, as his life continued, he knew that they applied to him.

As he walked toward Jerusalem that last few days of his life, do you think the prophecies of this passsage in Isaiah were filling his mind? He kept on walking, telling his friends what to expect when they arrived in the city. Some of them stopped walking with him because of the dire predictions about what was going to happen there, but Jesus kept walking.

If you could know exactly how you were going to die on a given day, would you change course to avoid it? Even if I knew it would be a quick, painless death, everything in me would try to avoid it. But Jesus walked straight into the place and time in which he was quite certain he would die an agonizing death---knowing what it would be like.

It amazes me to know this.

He must have been incredibly motivated by the thought of his own death. He believed it had a purpose or he could not have gone through with it. For what purpose would any of us willingly walk to the place where we would die? Jesus did it for love --because he was certain that we could never have eternal life without his death.

I offer you Isaiah 52:13-53:12 to read for yourself. Remember that Isaiah was one of Jesus' favorite books. I suggest that you talk with him about it as you read, since he is never too busy to spend that kind of time with you.