I think I have just found one of the most Beautiful Pictures of God’s Healing Love that I have ever heard of. Imagine having a tear in your favorite coat. You love this coat. It’s leather, you spent a lot of money on it. It’s the perfect garment holding just enough body warmth in, while keeping the cold out. You are leaving your house and the storm door snags your pocket, ripping a large hole in it. It’s a jagged rip almost up to the armpit. This actually happened to my son, a couple of years ago. He mournfully handed the coat to me. I stitched it carefully, trying to hide the appearance of the stitches. It worked, and he wears the favored coat to this day. I tell you this story in order to point out, in our Isaiah 53 study, that God does this very thing with us through Christ.
But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him
And By His Scourging we are healed. (Isaiah 53)
The word “healed” in this context literally means, “To mend by stitching, to make whole, to cure, to make healthful.” I picture God looking down at each one of us, with rips and tears through our hearts and lives. Life has a way of wounding us. Life happens, or more accurately, people happen. I would say that most of my wounds have been inflicted by another human being. But when I picture God gently picking up the garment of our lives, carefully stitching the rips and tears; applying the Oil of His love to soften the hardened, jagged edges of those rips and tears, my eyes well up with emotion.
Our Precious Jesus, received the scourging, the bruising, the blows of these injuries upon Himself. His back was literally ripped open, the way our lives are ripped open by all the rejections, misunderstandings, broken relationships, life mishaps, etc. that we suffer. Christ Himself allowed Himself to become all that brokenness, with each painful crash of that whip upon his back, He carried our wounds. Jesus did all this willingly, of His own free will. He accepted the path that was determined before the foundation of the world. He knew what His love for mankind would cost Him, but He chose to love us anyway, create us anyway, redeem us anyway. All because of love.
Let us seek the healing, the wholeness, the restoration that Christ already accomplished for us through His suffering. May we each let Jesus mend us by stitching, and make us who He created us to be. Let us yield to the hard work that He is doing in our lives. He works it all together for our good and for the Glory of God. Amen and Amen!
hisshadowings.com 