Man of Sorrows

Hey Church, Matt here. Hope your week has been great. 

I’m so excited and I can’t believe it’s already Easter. Here’s what I don’t want to do – I don’t want to treat Easter as if it’s just another holiday. The crucifixion and resurrection changed history forever. Even more than history, it repaired my fractured perception of reality. Think about this: Jesus came to earth, lived, died and now lives again so that we can really live, too. It’s easy for this to get lost in the dinners, bunnies, eggs, and blowing up marshmallow peeps in the microwave (which is pretty fun). But here’s what we are celebrating this week.

If you aren’t planning on it, I really encourage you to come to First Wednesday tonight. We will pray, confess, worship, and take communion together. We’ll play one of my favorite hymns tonight – Hallelujah, What A Savior – and it’s the beautiful story of the cross and the empty tomb.

It starts out saying:

Man of Sorrows! what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
Full atonement! can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!”

And here’s the Easter story:

Isaiah 53:3 says…

He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.

Who was this Man of Sorrows? It’s Christ. Who is Christ?

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
for through him God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
He existed before anything else,
and he holds all creation together.
Christ is also the head of the church,
which is his body.
He is the beginning,
supreme over all who rise from the dead.
So he is first in everything.
For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

Colossians 1:15-20

Isn’t that crazy? Look at verse 19 & 20 again.

For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

Colossians 1:19-20

How amazing is that? That God himself would be pierced and crushed for our sins. Beaten and whipped for our sins.

Isaiah 53:6 says…

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.

People hated him, disagreed with him, and treated him the worst way. But that didn’t stop him from giving himself for them, for me, and for you. (Talk about injustice.)

As we remember this, I pray it will fill you with confident hope to live lives that honor and please the Lord and help you know God better and better.