…by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5, NIV)
Maybe 65 of the players teeing it up at the Olympic Club today will move on to the weekend. The rest will feel deeply the pain of being cut.
It’s an odd phenomenon, the cut. Its very name connotes at least a small bit of misery. For some, the pain will be almost unrecognizable, like a paper cut. Those who suffer only this little pain are those who are “just happy to be here,” long-shot qualifiers who have savored every bit of the experience. Others won’t enjoy it at all, missing narrowly with a makeable putt on the final hole, or botching yet another major despite being one of the best in the world. Their pain will linger—though we fans will have long forgotten them by Sunday afternoon, when we are celebrating the victory of a major champion (unless, of course, a Monday playoff is needed to decide the champion).
Life is similar. Some days we meet up with lesser pains, some days greater. But as those who know and believe in Jesus, we recognize that not one of our pains goes unnoticed by the one who suffered most.
The writer of Hebrews wrote that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15). The anguish of temptation is not something we experience without the understanding of Jesus.
Isaiah 53 paints a woeful picture of our Savior on the cross. But even leading up to that hour, he was “a man of sorrows.” He knew the little cuts before the great wounds were laid upon him.
But in the end, what matters is that Jesus did go to the cross. He knew that what beleaguers us the most are not the troubles of our day, but the troubles of our way. All of us choose a path apart from Christ before we are awakened by the Holy Spirit and moved to belief. To wrench us from this path a grand tussle was required, a battle to the death. Jesus, against all human wisdom, stuck to God’s script. He was the Messiah, the Anointed One, laying down his life, despite the pain it caused him, both in his flesh and in his spirit. He bore what we could not, shedding his blood, and gave us the only life that lasts.
—
Jeff Hopper
June 15, 2012
Copyright © 2012 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday through Friday at www.linksplayers.com.