How's your word power? In the Reader's Digest, every month you will find a section called "Word Power." It is a page of words, and you are challenged to find their correct meaning from several choices. If you have ever tried it you will have discovered that many words have a meaning that you might not expect. You will also have discovered that it is impossible to reach a perfect score. Well, I'm speaking for myself now. Maybe you are much better at it than I am.

Today I am especially thinking of the word "suffer," as it is used in connection with the suffering our Lord. It comes from the Greek word pascho, which means "to experience a painful sensation, and to feel passion." Christ's suffering was not only an external kind of suffering, but it reached to his very soul.

The Apostles Creed speaks about Jesus Suffering under Pontius Pilate, and we can be sure that here the word suffer is used to it's fullest meaning. When we add the words, "and was crucified," we begin to put the word suffer into perspective, and to understand the enormity of the word in Christ’s context. We immediately associate crucifixion with suffering, so we know that Jesus really suffered. Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was crucified.

We are only three weeks away from the season of Lent, and because we will be away the first two Sundays of Lent, these remaining three Sundays before we go on holidays, I want to preface the Lenten Season with sermons on the suffering of Jesus, the resurrection, next week, and the following week we will try to discover what it all means for us as God's people. Then when we return, I will continue with emphasising the significance of Lent, and the meaning of the cross. This morning then, let us try to find out just what the suffering of Jesus is about.

The first question we might want to ask is, "Why did Jesus have to suffer and die?" Could God not have simply said, "I forgive you? Don't worry, I love you so much that you are forgiven. No questions asked." That would be an all loving God should act, would you not think? Well, God does always forgive sins, if he is asked, but not without a price. And though this might seem like the "Injustice of God", it really isn't. As I have often said before, we must always remember that God is sovereign, the creator, and ruler of all things. Putting it into words that all of us can understand, we could say that ultimately, God is only One with rights. It is he who must be pleased at all times. That is his right. And now using an old fashioned term, it only is he who may avenge, because it was he who was wronged when humanity fell into sin. That too is his right.

Someone had to pay the price, and that someone became Jesus. What an awesome thought. Think about it. And then think about the word "suffer". It now takes on a deep, almost mysterious meaning, doesn't it? The suffering of Jesus wasn't just circumstance. It was part of God's plan to bring humanity back to Himself.

Jesus' entire life on earth was one of suffering. He suffered by taking on human flesh. He suffered by allowing himself to become subject to human laws, human pain, human feelings, and problems, human temptations. Isaiah 53 is a perfect description of the suffering of Jesus. Listen to the first six verses as taken from the NIV.
1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

"Who would have believed what we now report?," the GNB has it? Indeed. For example, who would have believed that the Son of God would one day be judged by a human judge named Pontius Pilate. What could have been more humiliating. Rather than have the courage to let Jesus go, this judge, looking out for his own neck, washed his hands of the whole affair. Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent in all respects. Humanly speaking, he should never have been convicted of any crime.

Isaiah prophetically asked the question, "Who could have seen the Lord's hand in this?" (GNB) Well, truthfully, many people don't see the Lord's hand in this. They say that Jesus died for political reasons, a victim of circumstance. He was a rebel after all. Hundreds of people like him ended up on a cross. But isn't that beside the point? The point being, that Jesus endured the suffering that should not have been his. It should have ours, yours and mine. He was condemned by Pilate, a pagan judge, who had no idea who Jesus really was, or what he stood for. Pilate condemned him, even though he found him innocent. "I can find no fault in him".

Christ's cruel death was indeed the height of his suffering. Aside from the excruciating pain he must have endured, there is an added detail, an extremely important point. He was crucified, and for the Romans this meant no more than the cruelest form of punishment they could invent, but for the Jew the cross was a curse. As we heard from this morning's Scripture reading, hanging on a cross between heaven and earth was considered being cursed by God. Can you imagine? Where was the justice of God in all of this? What kind of God would curse his own Son on a cross.

Yet God was the stage director in this entire episode. Hard to believe? Yes, but it's true. God had planned this from the very beginning. The Bible tells us that Jesus was made sin for us...no not to sin...but the curse of sin itself, for sin is a curse unto almighty God. "It was my will that he should suffer..his death was a sacrifice to bring forgiveness." Forgiveness from what? From the curse of sin! Without Christ's sacrifice, we would still all be under that horrible curse of sin. "Whoever does not always obey everything that is written in the book of God's law is under God's curse" (Gal 3:10). This means that who ever has disobeyed God's holy law is under the curse of sin, and that means all of us. Suddenly it becomes so clear to us. Suddenly we see that there is nothing complicated about this. "By becoming the curse for us (sin), Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the law brings" (Vs 13). Its as simple as that. Christ made that sacrifice Isaiah foretold so many years ago.

But it still leaves the question of why, doesn't it? Why? Why would God go to all that trouble? Is it because he is a cruel God who want vengeance? No...not at all. But he does demand his justice. The justice of God had to be carried out. He promised that it would be, after all. Sin is a curse to God that needed to be dealt with. It simply could not be ignored.

But if I were to leave it at that, I might still leave a wrong impression of God. God’s justice is not at all like human justice, which often is carried out in vengeance and anger. How many times haven't people expressed disappointment, and anger after a judge has passed too short, or too lenient a sentence. The justice of our sovereign God, however, is carried out in complete love...absolute complete love. William Barclay writes, "There is nothing that moves the heart like a picture of a man ready to lay down his life for a friend, the picture of a man with such love, that he willingly bears what someone else should have borne. And that is the picture of Jesus as our substitute." It was a result of love that forgiveness and redemption came about. Nothing else..only love. The great paradox in God's justice is that he cannot allow sin to unpunished, yet in His love, he can do nothing but forgive if asked. Strange as it may sound if Jesus had not gone to the cross, God's love would have been incomplete, for it would have meant that there was somewhere his love could not go. It would have meant that there was a limit to God's love. But O, in Jesus God says, "you may disobey me, you may grieve me, you may be disloyal to me, you may misunderstand me, you may even batter and bruise me and kill me on a cross, but I will never...never ...never stop loving you...never!"

I want to close with this illustration. Millions of people were scattered on a great plain before God's heavenly throne. Some near the front talked heatedly, almost with belligerence. "How can God judge us? What does he know about suffering? After all, God leads a pretty sheltered life. It is we who have suffered," they said.

So they decided to chose a number of leaders who had suffered the most to speak to God. After consulting with each other, these leaders were soon ready to present their case. It was rather simple: before God would be qualified to be their judge, he must endure what they had endured, and so he should be sentenced to live on earth as a man!" But because He was God, they would set certain safeguards to be sure He could not use His divine powers to help Himself.

They decided that the legitimacy of His birth must be doubted, so that none would know who is really His father.

He must champion a cause so just, but so radical, that it brings down upon Him the hate, condemnation, and efforts of every major traditional and established religious authority to eliminate Him.

Yet He must try to communicate God to men.

He must be betrayed by His dearest friends.

He must be indicted on false charges, tried before a prejudiced jury, and convicted by a cowardly judge.

He must experience what it is to be terribly alone and completely abandoned by every living thing.

He must be tortured and die most humiliating death -- with common thieves. Only after he suffered all this could he be qualified to be their judge.

As each leader announced his portion of the sentence to the great throngs of people, loud murmurs of approval could be heard. But then there was a long silence. No one uttered another word. No one moved. For suddenly all knew: God had already served His sentence.

That's a staggering thought which gives the word "suffer" a deep, deep meaning, doesn't it? It opens up a whole new relationship with God. The injustice of God, turns out to be loving justice after all. Jesus suffered for you and for me. Won't you accept him in your heart today, and give him thanks? AMEN