S32P5 – A future look at Jesus: crushed
Isa. 53:10-11
Yet the Lord was willing to crush Him, causing Him to suffer; if He would give Himself as a guilt offering, He shall see His offspring, He shall prolong His days, and the will of the Lord shall succeed and prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He shall see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, my Servant, shall justify the many, for He shall bear their sins.
In this world, death is all too common. Sometimes we can reconcile the end of a life when that life has been long and full. It is not so easy for us to accept loss when it is the loss of someone young and in their prime. We may use a phrase like “snuffed out” to describe a life that has ended before it even began. The life of Jesus may seem like this. He was only 33 years old when He died. The last three years of his life were spent leading an incredible ministry that transformed the world. In fact, those three years are still talked about today. Scripture speaks of Jesus being crushed, which is more a reference to his physical body, but we can see how that word could be applied to how his life ended. If we are to be wise, we cannot forget a critical lesson from the end of that very short life. His life did not actually end when He was crushed but indeed was multiplied.
We should rejoice at the fruit that was born of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Scripture tells us that a grain of wheat can be one of two things. It can remain a single grain of wheat, or it can be placed in the ground where it will be broken but then grow into multiple grains. Jesus was the latter grain of wheat. At the end of his life, He was crushed and broken. He was buried in a tomb, where it was expected that He would remain. Instead, He rose again like a stalk of wheat, and on that stalk has grown many more grains. Each of us who calls on Jesus as our Savior is one of those very grains. The end of his life brought forth the beginning of our lives and made the current spiritual state of our existence possible. Yes, the life of Jesus was very short, but it was only to give us an everlasting existence. He was broken once that we might be restored forever.
Scripture tells us that the second coming of Christ will be a great and terrible time. I think we could say that the crucifixion of Christ was also great and terrible. As his disciples lamented, they did not want him to go away. They wanted him to stay and continue the great work He was doing. But Jesus knew that it would take a great and terrible brokenness for a better thing to come. He had to leave so that the presence of God through the Holy Spirit could exist not in one man in one place but in all people who are reconciled to God. The grain that was crushed has sprung forth life in each of us. Father, thank You for the process by which You have made your Holy Spirit available to all who come to You, and help us to also multiply the life that You have placed in us now.