Wounded for Us

Wounded for Us

In 1741, Georg Frideric Handel composed the Messiah in 24 days of nearly nonstop work. He reportedly said, when he reached the Hallelujah chorus: 'I did see all of heaven before me and the great God Himself.' But the theological heart of the oratorio is not the Hallelujah — it is the solemn aria 'He was despised and rejected.' The text is from Isaiah 53. Handel reportedly wept as he set those words. Hundreds of years before Jesus, Isaiah described a servant who would bear what we deserved — pierced, crushed, punished, wounded — not for His own sins but for the healing of those who had sinned. The substitution that Handel wept over was the center of everything.

Isaiah 53 is the most explicitly Messianic chapter in the Hebrew scriptures, quoted more times in the New Testament than almost any other passage. Its language is staggering in its precision: pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. The preposition 'for' (min) in Hebrew means on account of, because of — a substitutionary bearing of consequences. The punishment that should have fallen on us fell on Him. And the result: peace with God, and healing. This is Good Friday's meaning. The cross is not primarily a moral example (though it is that). It is not primarily an act of divine solidarity (though it is that too). It is fundamentally a substitution — the sinless One bearing the sin of those who would believe, so that they could receive His peace and healing.