Devotion
Stricken,
smitten, and afflicted,
See Him dying on the tree!
It was a tree that got us into this mess, you know?
God told Adam, “on the day that you eat of that tree, you shall surely die.”
And Adam ate and death came and with it, all sort of evil of body and soul, virus and fear, financial instability and selfish desires.
It was the first man, Adam, and a tree that got us into this mess, and it will be by a tree that the Second Adam, Christ will begin to get us out of this mess.
And He will do so by dying on the tree. He’ll receive the stroke that justice gave, so we will receive His mercy.
So, look at Him again,
Stricken,
smitten, and afflicted,
See Him dying on the tree!
Despair is one of the temptations of the devil, the world and our sinful nature. And it’s really not that difficult to figure out why.
Give up hope. Be very weary and tired. Don’t believe it will ever get any better, no matter what.
There’s a lot of cause for grief in this world. A lot of death.
There’s a lot of cause of sorrow in this world. If we could gather all the suffering in this room, it would very easy to cry a river.
And our transgressions and iniquities are too numerous. I want to be better, sometimes. A desire to change sometimes show me how difficult it is change, how weak I really am. Lenten fasts show me that, every year. Because every year, I’m not nearly as successful as I hoped I would be.
And as I look to Jesus dying on the tree, there’s no doubting what I deserve.
3
Ye who think of sin but lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
As a Christian that knows Jesus died for you – you can’t think of your sin lightly nor the evil in this world, evil from the devil, and evil in your own soul isn’t deep and dark and great!
But you aren’t alone in the mess of this world and you aren’t the solution and so we can’t despair.
We look to the one who is
Stricken, smitten and afflicted, dying on the tree.
Because all that had a purpose.
All those griefs and sorrows and iniquities are not on me.
4Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that
brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
(Isaiah 53)
What snaps us out of despair and temptation and delivers us from evil and protects against temptation is hearing God’s promises.
So listen to stanza 4 again.
It’s full of promises.
When you are floundering, when you do not feel stable, when you are under deep attack,
When you are tempted toward pride in your name and reputation,
When you are despairing because of your guilt and death,
When you do not know where to go, Who will guide you, what God thinks of you, or are feeling angry and alone,
Here,
This stanza says. Believe this. Trust this. It’s from your Lord, who was stricken, smitten and afflicted, died on a tree for you.
4Here we have a firm foundation,
Here the refuge of
the lost:
Christ, the Rock of our salvation,
Is the name of
which we boast;
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,
Sacrifice to
cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on Him their hope have built.
Reading Isaiah 53
1Who has believed what they heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2For 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.
3He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him
not.
4Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
6All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own
way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its
shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who
considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my
people?
9And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring; he shall
prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see
and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12Therefore I will divide him a portion with the
many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the
transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the
transgressors.
Catechism
What is the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer?
And lead us not into temptation.
What
does this mean?
God tempts no one. We pray in this
petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our
sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and
other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray
that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.
What is the Seventh Petition?
But deliver us from evil.
What
does this mean?
We pray in this petition, in summary,
that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul,
possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a
blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in
heaven.
HYMN ~ “Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted” LW#116
1Stricken, smitten, and
afflicted,
See Him dying on the tree!
’Tis the Christ, by man rejected;
Yes, my soul, ’tis He, ’tis He!
’Tis the long-expected Prophet,
David’s Son, yet David’s Lord;
Proofs I see sufficient of it:
’Tis the true and faithful Word.
2Tell me, ye who hear Him
groaning,
Was there ever grief like His?
Friends through fear His cause disowning,
Foes insulting His distress;
Many hands were raised to wound Him,
None would intervene to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced Him
Was the stroke that justice gave.
3Ye who think of sin but
lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed,
See who bears the awful load;
’Tis the Word, the Lord’s anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.
4Here we have a firm
foundation,
Here the refuge of the lost:
Christ, the Rock of our salvation,
Is the name of which we boast;
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on Him their hope have built.