I would ask you to turn with me this morning in the Old Testament to Isaiah chapter 53, a familiar chapter foretelling of the suffering, crucifixion of Jesus. Isaiah 53, and in the New Testament to Mark chapter 9, As we read together verses 2-13, Mark's account of the transfiguration of Jesus. It's not my purpose this morning to consider that transfiguration account in detail, but to point specifically to the question that Jesus asks His disciples in verse 12, Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? Isaiah chapter 53, hear now God's holy, inspired, infallible Word. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 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. 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. Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. 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. 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. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. and though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. By His knowledge, My righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Mark 9, beginning in verse 2. Just previous to this, Jesus had predicted His death. Verse 2, After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with Him and led them up a high mountain where they were all alone. There He was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He did not know what to say. They were so frightened. Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud, This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him. Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, and Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what rising from the dead meant. And they asked Him, Why did the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first? Jesus replied, To be sure, Elijah does come first and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come and they have done to him everything they wished just as it is written about him. There ends the reading of God's holy Word. May He bless it to us this morning. Well, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, as we make our way through the calendar year 2011, it seems like, even though it seems like Christmas and our celebration of the Savior's birth was just yesterday, Already we find ourselves, as the TV commercials and as the department store advertisements remind us, we find ourselves in the Easter season. And even though the world has its own concept of Easter complete with bunnies and eggs and candy, we live in and we live with the joy of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ each and every day. And we do so knowing that His resurrection was and had to be preceded by His passion. Jesus' last week on earth is often called Passion Week. Now, when we think of passion, when we think of being passionate, really we think of some sort of a strong feeling about something or someone. But the word for passion in Scripture means to suffer. It has to do with the experience of suffering. And Christ's passion and death point to His suffering. Indeed, we know that He suffered all the days of His life on earth as the Catechism says. As the One who left His throne in glory and took on human flesh and came to live in a world in the midst of sin. But as we think of His passion, we think specifically of His suffering on that last week, His betrayal, His arrest and trial, the beating and the whipping that he endured, his journey to Golgotha, as well as his crucifixion all the way to death. And it is good for us as we prepare to observe Good Friday and as we prepare to celebrate Easter Sunday once again, it is good for us to reflect on the passion and the suffering of Jesus and consider that question that he asked the disciples in verse 12, why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? Now in Matthew's Gospel account, it is placed as a statement that he would suffer and be rejected. But here in Mark's Gospel account, Jesus presents the question of his suffering, asking why. And this question, of course, as we know, is found in the amazing context of Christ's transfiguration, as well in the context of His prediction of His death and in the context of the confusion and misunderstanding on the part of His disciples, including these three who were with Him on this occasion. These three disciples were given an amazing blessing of seeing the glory of Christ's divinity, of seeing His godly glory and purity through a change in His outward appearance, His clothes and all, unlike anything on earth. They witnessed Moses, who represents the law, and Elijah, who represents the prophets, talking with Jesus about, as Luke says, His departure which He was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Jesus came, we know, to fulfill obedience to the law. He came to fulfill the message of the prophets. And these two saints of old knew what He came to do. They knew that He came to give His life as a ransom for many. To rise again. To ascend to the glory of heaven. And Peter, in consistent Peter fashion, says something ridiculous. The Bible says they were frightened. It was out of fear. In a sense, he didn't know what to say. So in Peter fashion, he says something he shouldn't have said. Of course, we cannot fault the zeal of Peter. but we ought to understand that what Peter was suggesting in essence was to keep this reunion going here on this earth and in that way it would only serve to keep Jesus from fulfilling His mission to which God the Father Himself responds revealing the identity of Jesus this is my beloved Son listen to Him listen to Him pointing back to Deuteronomy 18 where Moses talks about the one to come And He says, listen to Him. In verses 9 and 10 again we read, As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what rising from the dead meant. They understood the general resurrection, but not an individual as this was to be. The disciples we know believed that Jesus was the Messiah. They believed that Jesus, as Peter had already given testimony to. They believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, yet they did not yet understand His purpose to save by means of death. Even His transfiguration would not make sense to them until after He had risen from the dead. And He had just spoken about His resurrection from the dead which implied that His death was near, but not only did it seem strange to them, that the Messiah would have to die at all. But what bothers them is that a scene as such a death would leave Messianic prophecy unfulfilled. The scribes, as they remind Jesus, had taught that the Messiah's coming must be preceded by Elijah's coming. That's in the very last verses of the Old Testament. Malachi 4, verses 5 and 6. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, or else I will come and strike the land with a curse. And they believed that it would be literal Elijah, the one that we've been studying about in 1 Kings, who would be the one to come. It didn't make sense to the disciples. His death was coming. They believed he was the Messiah, but prophecy was then to be unfulfilled. but jesus corrects their wrong thinking that it would literally be elijah the tishbite and matthew tells us that when jesus explained that elijah had come and what the scribes did to him that the disciples then understood that he was talking about john the baptist who came calling men to repent who came bringing restoration calling men to repent and be reconciled to god who came to prepare the way for the Lord, yet who was rejected because they failed to recognize Him. And in a sense, Jesus' message was this, that if so the forerunner, then so also the one whose way was to be prepared. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? They pointed to the Scriptures for Elijah coming. But Jesus reminds them of another important message of Scripture that they had overlooked. Scripture says that the Messiah would suffer. It says that he would be rejected. Psalm 22. Psalm 69. Psalm 118, to mention a few of the Psalms. Not to forget Isaiah chapter 53. Now, beloved, we know how He suffered. We can point to the very same passages, the very same Psalms. Again, not the least of which is Isaiah 53. 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. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. And the records of the Gospel writers help us to understand even more clearly what Isaiah was saying. We know how He suffered. In a broad, in a general way, we also know why He suffered and was rejected. because of sin. Yet really, beloved, that begs a further, deeper question. Why? Couldn't God have done anything? Yes and no. Yes, He could have left all to perish. No, in the sense that there is no other way to save His people. And therefore, why did Jesus have to suffer much and be rejected? First of all, because of God. First of all, because of God. Not in the sense of blame. Not in the sense that it was His fault. But because of His being. We know that our God is majestic and sovereign and powerful and loving and merciful. But especially because of His holiness. he is perfect and pure he is absolutely free from sin and all stain of sin he will have absolutely nothing to do with sin he dwells in unapproachable light he is completely other in his holiness from all that he has made that's why as Elaine was playing beneath the cross of Jesus I was following the words to wonders I confess the wonders of His glorious love and my unworthiness. Those are the wonders when we think about the holiness of God. The cross where Jesus Christ was rejected and forsaken by His Father is not to cause us to think of God as cruel. It is not to cause us to think of God as some terrible despot or tyrant or abuser. The cross of Jesus, it causes us to think of God as holy and just. In Psalm 5, verse 4, the psalmist says, You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil. With you, the wicked cannot dwell. Take those words to heart. With you, the wicked cannot dwell. Not even one sin can be in His presence. There is only one response of the sinful man in God's presence, And that is to tremble, as Isaiah makes clear in Isaiah chapter 6, when he was brought face to face with the holiness of God. He said, woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. Not one of us, in and of ourselves, can dwell in God's presence. But on the cross, Jesus was made to be sin for us. He took our sin upon Himself, thus removing our sin from us as far as the east is from the west, removing our sin from the presence of God so that we might be able to dwell in His presence with comfort and joy without being consumed by His wrath against sin, but instead being enveloped in His love. The New Testament cross, as well as the Old Testament sacrifices that pointed to the cross, That New Testament cross shows the holiness of God in pouring out His wrath against sin upon the sacrifice for man's salvation. And that holiness of God was revealed in Christ's transfiguration. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. A heavenly white. The disciples were allowed to lay their eyes upon the holy purity of God. Some say, as Jesus will be when He comes again on the clouds of glory. They were allowed to lay their eyes upon this holy purity of God as the radiance of the Lord of glory shone before them. Beloved, why did Jesus have to suffer? Because God is holy. And therefore, sin had to be punished and God satisfied and only God Himself could do it. But also, he had to suffer because of God's will. God's being, His holiness demanded it, but God's will determined it. Again, those wonders. Because when God could have turned His back on all men, when He could have turned His back on all that He has made, His creation, He determined to save a people for Himself. as Paul says in Ephesians 1, before the creation of the world. In that chapter, Paul speaks of God's plan, His purpose, the counsel of God's will to save some. And then in Galatians 4, Paul speaks of that plan implemented when he says, but when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law. Isaiah prophesied that this was God's will, yet it was the Lord's will to crush him, to cause him to suffer. Why did he have to suffer much? Because it was God's will. You see, beloved, with purposeful determination, Jesus Christ was stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. with purposeful determination, the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. None of this was by chance. None of this was a second thought. None of this was by accident. But God, it was determined by God for us. God chose to do this for you and for me. He chose to do this for us. And beloved, He chose to do this with confidence in His Son. This is my Son, whom I love. And Matthew adds, with whom I am well pleased. Confident that the Son of God would successfully do for us that which we could not even begin to do for ourselves, yet that which we needed more than anything else in the world. He had to suffer because of God's being, His holiness. He had to suffer because it was God's will. But secondly, he also had to suffer because of God's people. It seems simple. But we needed Him. Well, how this flies in the face of humanism that says man is the measure of all things, that man is the captain of his own ship, the master of his own fate. Man can even save himself. It's up to you and me. He had to do it because of God's people. Because of the guilty. We sing, Ah, dearest Jesus, who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee? And then we sing a confession, Alas, my treason. I am the treasonous one. And as we sang a moment ago, Mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain. Our guilt before God because of sin made us objects of His wrath. It made us His enemies. It made us utterly hopeless. Our guilt had to be removed and it could only be removed by punishment for that guilt being endured and He did it. He suffered every bit of the wrath of God. He suffered every bit of the torment of hell. Beloved, I am so afraid that many in the world today really wrongly and dangerously think that hell will not really be that bad. That in some way it will be bearable. That it will be doable. At least that's the way so many seem to think and act. But all we need to do is hear again the words of Jesus, the Son of God on the cross, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken Me? He gave His life as a sacrifice and it was perfect. It was complete. And it was accepted by God. As Isaiah says, the Lord made His life a guilt offering. An offering. An offering given. An offering accepted. Jesus did what we could never do. No matter how much blood, no matter how much sweat, no matter how many tears we might shed, all of it would not even be one drop in the ocean of the payment that needed to be made. But Jesus Christ has removed our guilt before God so that we are justified in His sight. So that by the grace of the Holy Spirit we are being sanctified. And that those who were guilty one day would be the glorified with Him. Glorified because He suffered in order to heal us. As Isaiah says beautifully again, 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. And as David again says in Psalm 103, forget not all of His benefits, not the least of which is that He heals all of our diseases. And we know that that's not talking about our physical infirmities, though God is the healer thereto if He so chooses. But even better, our spiritual diseases, our iniquities, our transgressions, the most deadly, the eternally deadly diseases that are ours. A healing that is second to none, incomprehensible from death to life, a complete transformation. As one commentator says, The best healing crusade in the world is where the faithfully preached Word of God changes even one heart. That is the blessing of the Holy Spirit, the greatest healing crusade. Because it is not the healing of the body that demonstrates God's love in Jesus Christ first and foremost, but it is the eternal healing of one's soul through Jesus Christ our Lord that demonstrates the greatness of God's love. Beloved, our eternal future includes, as Paul says in Philippians 3, that the Lord Jesus Christ by His power will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body. Why did Jesus Christ have to suffer much and be rejected? Where do we begin? Where do we end? To perfectly accomplish the salvation of His people planned by God. So that those who by faith hear and heed the call to repent would be completely restored. He did so in order to bring that complete restoration. Even as Jesus makes clear in John chapter 10, My sheep listen to My voice. I know them and they follow Me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand. He did so so that as Paul says in Colossians 3, when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. He had to suffer so, so that God would be satisfied with you and me and take us to be His very own children. He did so so that we might have the blessed assurance even now at this very moment that we belong to Him forever. And He did so so that we might never be rejected by God and that no matter what we may be called upon to suffer in this life, we will never suffer His wrath. And most of all, He did so that God would be glorified because of the wondrous things that He has done. Therefore, beloved, what an encouragement for us. What an encouragement in the strength of the Holy Spirit to fight against and strive to keep from sin, knowing that He suffered to pay it, showing gratitude to Him who suffered and was rejected in our place. He is worthy of our praise. He is worthy of our honor. He is worthy of our life. He is worthy of our everything. When washing the disciples' feet, you recall that Jesus said to Peter, unless I wash you, you have no part in Me. For us this morning, unless He has suffered for us, we have no part in Him. But to all who trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of all your sins and for your righteousness before God, you may be assured that by His wounds you are healed forever. because He suffered for and He was rejected by God for you, so that you will live with Him in glory forever and ever. Amen. Let's bow together in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, it's so easy for us at times to read about and sing of the suffering that Jesus Christ endured. But at the same time, to not really give it much thought of what it means. To comprehend, O Lord, that He suffered in our place. To understand that the suffering that was ours has been removed from us forever and ever. To know that instead we are the recipients of your love and your care forever and ever. Father, again we praise your name for our Lord Jesus Christ, the sacrifice offered so long ago for us, that we might have life in You and have it abundantly. And therefore, knowing, Lord, that we need fear nothing in this life, no matter what pain and agony or strife or hardship may come upon us, that we may have the confidence that we belong to You. We are safe in the palm of Your hand, that You use it all to prepare us to see You face to face. And that, O Lord, will be our glory forever and ever. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.