Silence of the Lamb
ISAIAH 53
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMB
I've got to confess that there's something in me that likes revenge movies. I like to see baddies get beaten up or preferably shot by the goodies. One of my favourites in recent times is the film Open Range starring Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall and Anette Bening. One of their cowboy colleagues is murdered by the dastardly rancher, Michael Gambon, and a young friend is seriously wounded in the same encounter. Of course, the local sherriff is in the pay of the powerful rancher. So, Duvall and Costner ride into town to pay back the terrible injustice of it all. A man has a right to defend his property and his life. The 20 minute shoot out is one of the great fight scenes in movie history and ends with dead bodies all over the place.
There's something in me that loves all that. They got what was coming to them. The goodies didn't meekly take it on the chin and slip away in the dark leaving the field to the evil rancher. A man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do. And they did it. At one point Costner approaches one particularly evil individual and asks, "You the one that killed my friend". The man smirks in a wicked, triumphalist grin. And Costner draws his pistol on the run and squeezes off one shot that gets him right in the forehead. It may be rough, but it's a kind of justice.
It's something of a shock to the system to expose your mind to the story of the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The recent film by Mel Gibson portrays the brutality and injustice in the most graphic way. The Romans used a scourge with bits of bone or metal tied into the thongs that would tear away strips of flesh and leave the back of the victim bare to the bone in places. That process is painfully and shockingly put on display in the film. The thrusting of the crown of thorns onto his scalp is there for all to see. The saliva being spat into his face. The punches driven into his cheeks. The humiliating laughter of the soldiers as they went about their work. The nails being driven through his palms as his arms are almost wrenched from their sockets as he's stretched out on the Cross. It's all there and more.
And step by step, incident by incident the Old Testament Scriptures were being fulfilled. I want to especially draw your attention to the words of Isaiah 53 which were read to us earlier. He was despised and rejected by men. He was pierced. He was crushed. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. Words written hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ, but acknowledged by the writers of the New Testament to being fulfilled in him. Isaiah, writing under the influence of God's Spirit, was actually predicting the sufferings of Jesus Christ.
Now, here's the thing. He could have uttered a word of command and called forth regiments of angels to come and wreak vengeance upon the people who were treating him in this way. He could have used the same power with which he raised the dead and healed the sick and lame and blind, to cause his tormentors to fall back either disabled or dead. But there was no vengeance. No plugging the evil ones between the eyes. He even reached out his hand and miraculously healed a man who'd had an ear sliced off by one of Jesus' disciples.
One of the most stunning aspects of the predictions of Isaiah 53 was this one, 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. (Isaiah 53:7). Jesus didn't open his mouth. He was a like a sheep in the moments leading up to the cutting of its throat in the temple courts. The lamb that had been picked out as suitable for sacrifice. A male lamb, unblemished, without fault, and about a year old. A faultless, male lamb in the prime of life, going under the knife without bleating. Isaiah says that this is how the Lord's Messiah would go about the business of becoming the world's Saviour.
It's the silence of the Lamb. When all other men would have been crying foul, deminding vengeance, spitting back, uttering curses, he opened not his mouth.
A man describing the first time he saw a sheep shearing said the barn was small but the noise was big. You could hardly hear yourself think with all the people shouting and shears running. One man would grab a sheep from the pen and drag it to the shearer. The shearer jerked the sheep up on its haunches and went to work. As thick swatches of wool peeled off to the floor, in the midst of all that clamor and activity, the sheep made no struggle, no sound.
Of course, we know from the New Testament that Jesus wasn't completely without words on the Cross. He said a number of famous things. I thirst. Woman behold your son. Father forgive them. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me; and so on. But he was silent in terms of protest. He didn't curse those who cursed him. He didn't spit back. He didn't revile those who were reviling him. It was in that sense that he was silent. Even in the heat of the moment, even under the most extreme provocation he said nothing. Look at any professional or amateur soccer game on the TV and you'll wish you couldn't lip read. The referee makes a decision and out comes the foul-mouthed protest. An opponent clatters into your legs and out comes the cursing swear word. This is how men are. Some American workers were killed on the streets of Fallujah on April 1st, their bodies were dismembered with a shovel and hundreds of men gathered in the streets shouting praise to Allah and chanting Death, death to the Americans. That's what men are like. To most men, that's victory, that's payback. Your enemies hanging like slaughtered sheep from the girders of a public bridge.
But not this special, unique man. The man who was described as The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He died in this extraordinary manner for a special reason. And it would have to be a special reason wouldn't it? For no other religious leader has gained victory and established a kingdom by dying like a dumb sheep. What was the special reason? Was it to show us how brave men die? Was it to show us how tough he was? Was it a sign of his weakness and helplessness, had he just given up and so had nothing left to say?
None of those things are right. He died in the way he did because of the purpose and meaning of his death. Isaiah 53 says that he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. It says that God blessed Him and gave him a kingdom because he bore the sin of many.
There were no cries of protest, no curses of retribution, no moans about the injustice of it all, because this is why he came into the world and took on human nature, for this very moment of crucifixion. Isaiah predicted it, Jesus expected it, accepted it, and the apostles preached it, Christ died for our sins according to the Old Testament Scriptures was at the heart of their message. The Lord Jesus didn't call down legions of angels to help him out of the crisis because he'd come to earth for this hour and for no other reason. And remarkably, the Apostle John calls it the hour of his glory. It was the hour that brought Jesus the greatest honour, because in this hour he accomplished salvation for countless millions.
On the Cross, the most important thing that was happening wasn't the nails, the wounds, the spit, the crown of thorns, the lacerated back, the flesh hanging from bone. That's why the NT hardly describes these terrible things. In that respect Gibson's film wasn't Biblically accurate. The NT focusses on the real suffering. The real suffering was caused by the sin-bearing. What you deserve because of your pride and selfishness and your neglect of God and all the thousand and one other things that we do that are offensive to a holy God, what you deserve, the punishment of a hell of separation from God, the hell of being placed under the anger of God's judgement, all that Jesus took into his own soul on Good Friday. He became on the Cross the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sin of the world. The Lord has laid on him, the iniquity of us all. That's why the lamb was silent, because he was undergoing all that internal suffering to make it possible for people like you to come back to God.
Isaiah says something that's almost offensive. It says, It pleased the Lord to crush him. God the Father was pleased to crush his darling, one and only Son. People have criticised Gibson's film for implying that the Jews killed Jesus. Well, here's something else, it pleased the Lord to crush him. Men like you and I were simply the executioners, the deepest suffering was inflicted by Jesus' heavenly Father. And that crushing consisted of the weight of God's anger against sin, God's heavy justice was rolled onto the soul of the Son of God, so that you might be set free from it. God the Father spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all. Delivered him up to the Cross. To the penalty of sin. In the Gibson film there's a staggering moment achievable only by the power of modern special effects. The camera pulls back, up and up and up, until is appears to be looking down on the Cross from hundreds of feet in the air. And it appears that you're looking at the scene through eyes with tears in them. Then a huge tear falls from this cosmic eye and falls down on Calvary. It's the tear of God the Father who has just crushed his son with the heaviest weight in the Universe. And his Son uttered not a word of self-defense, not a word of protest or complaint, not a word of self-pity. He suffered out of deep and great love for all who would surrender to his rule and trust his finished work of dying for sinners.
So, don't feel sorry for Jesus. He's accomplished exactly what he came to do. He won a mighty victory at the Cross and was raised to immortal life on the third day. He's reigning now as King in the glory of heaven and his resurrection guarantees that one day he will rule over a recreated universe. So, don't feel sorry for Jesus. Feel sorry for those who have rejected his saving work. For those who have said "no" to the Cross and therefore must face the judgement of God without hope. Feel sorry for those who have turned their backs on the greatest offer of love that's ever been made. For God LOVED the world so much that He gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life. If you spurn that offer of love, you spit in the face of God and there's nothing left for you but to receive the judgement your sins deserve. If you won't trust Jesus to carry away the penalty of your wrong-doing, you'll have to do it yourself. And that's what hell is in Scripture, it's a place where people pay for their sins, for ever, without hope.