Anna Ruth and I wish you a blessed Christmas, a day to reflect, ponder and praise – to focus on Jesus.

We have been reading passages from Isaiah, written 700 years or so before Christ came among us, all pointing to God’s costly but marvelous offer of peace with God.  For myself, my mind and heart pause again and again as I read Isaiah 53, especially today, December 25.

I read these amazing words.

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” 53:4, 5

When people are executed we wonder what terrible thing did they do to deserve to be killed by fellow human beings?  As we gaze on Jesus, not only as a new-born (this is Christmas Day) but as a convicted criminal hanging on a Roman cross we try to figure things out. What is going on?

What has this Galilean Jew done to deserve this most ignominious death? What crime was hideous enough to deserve this?  That is a legitimate question.

Are we really ready for the answer? He is suffering, not for his sin, but for ours!  In a profound sense our sins killed him!  “He was pierced for our transgressions.”  The only reason he is hanging there between heaven and earth is because he took into himself my sin and the sin of all the world. “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities.”   No mind can truly take in this fact. We accept it by faith and believe, only to know in our heart of hearts that it is eternal, blessed truth.  Jesus was born and died to take away our sin.

That is the Christmas story.  It is not fiction, it is true. I have lived for these many years in the freedom of the salvation he earned.  That is why I join the heavenly choir, “Blessed is the Lamb who was slain.”