BY HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS CHRIST

John 1
²⁹The very next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and yelled out, ³⁰"Here he is, God's Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I've been talking about, "the One who comes after me but is really ahead of me.' ³¹I knew nothing about who he was--only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God."
³²John clinched his witness with this: "I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him. ³³I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, "The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' ³⁴That's exactly what I saw happen, and I'm telling you, there's no question about it: This is the Son of God."

From "The Message" Bible by Dr. Peterson

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SAVED FROM SOMETHING?

It's a funny thing when it comes to the spiritual. In many other religions, you join out of joy. It's a matter of enjoying the people, enjoying the music, enjoying the sermons, enjoying the sense of family. That joy is what brings you to join a church. Sometimes you join a church because your parents went there or because you're looking for a sense of belonging.

None of those reasons are bad reasons; don't get me wrong here.

But Christianity is more than joining a church. It's not even a matter of finding God, or a sense of purpose and meaning. Christianity is God's purpose finding you.

It is the stark realization that you are lost in a place you decided to wander into of your own free will. It is realizing that you have fallen into a deep, dark place where there is nothing but death, pain and madness, and the only people or things down in that darkness are creatures who want to swallow you whole and keep you with them.

Those of you who have battled depression know what I'm talking about.

Those of you who have been addicted to drugs, alcohol or even another person understand where I'm coming from. It's like being in a bottomless pit with nothing or no one to stop you from falling forever.

That's what it means to feel lost.

Have you ever been so lonely that you wanted to die? Have you ever watched someone you love waste away and go into death before your eyes?

Have you ever seen your dreams get stomped on and wither into nothingness? Have you ever lain in bed, crying next to somebody sleeping next to you, wondering how in the world you got there? Have you ever loved someone who spit on your love and threw it all away, no matter how hard you tried to love them back?

Thats what it means to have lost.

Have you ever thought or done something that you would never want to admit in the light of day? Have you done things that would make your best friend or even the mother who bore you wanted to throw you away? Have you ever lusted or stolen or hurt or shamed other people? Would you want your thought life and feelings out in the open for everyone to see as naked and raw as they can be?

That's what it means to BE lost.

The reason why people can find a new life is that Person hanging on the Cross. Jesus took on every piece of loneliness and pain and depression and hatred and fear and madness and addiction and rejection and more, so that we could let it go.

Jesus has done all the work. All we have to do is to own what He already did. That's how you get saved FROM something to being saved FOR Someone.

OWNING YOUR SIN

I had a dream of Jesus on the Cross, that taught me the power of owning sin.

In that dream I saw Him hanging there on that Cross. The sun was dying in the middle of the day as darkness rolled in behind His head. He was high up on a hill, far away and I felt so awful seeing Him there that I wanted to run and hide from all of that pain.

You see, I understand why Hollywood has never done a real Passion of Christ before. It is too ugly and horrible to watch from a distance. And that's the way we want to see ugliness-from far away so that it doesn't make us hurt too.

But the only way to deal with ugliness is to get up close and personal to it. That's when you see the humanity in the person who is dying from cancer, or the beauty inside of the accident victim, or the inner sweetness of someone caught in some horror of the mind.

You have to get close enough to care.

So, when I tried to run away from the Cross in my vision, I heard Jesus whisper, "Come here."

Half of me wanted to keep running. The other half wanted to obey. Have you ever been torn that way? I was. But, I decided to ignore what was scared and horrified inside of me and to come to Him, as He was.

I walked up to the Cross and suddenly the Cross started to shrink, until it was short enough for the Lord and I to see each other on the same eye level.

He looked terrible, just like the picture from Gibson's movie only worse.

I saw all the tears in His body, down to the bone, the bruises, the smashings, the rips that covered every part of Him from head to toe. I started shaking all over in a mixture of sympathy, anger and fear. I was confused by the rawness of it all and for that moment I wanted to be there and not be there at the same time.

He looked at me in the way that only Jesus can. Its like an x-ray machine that sees everything but without judgment or disgust. I couldn't look away from those eyes. I could just stand there and see Him.

Then suddenly I heard Jesus say, "Own Me."

I frowned. "What, Lord?"

He stared at me and actually smiled, in the middle of that kind of pain!

"Own Me," He said again.

I don't understand, Lord, I said.

Jesus took a breath, pushed Himself up on the Cross and asked, "Which one of these did you do to Me?"

I shuddered. I didn't want to admit that I had done anything to Jesus. I know that sounds lame, but it's the truth.

I remembered what the Bible said, "They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced."

I took a deep breath and really looked at the Lord's wounds.

As I did, I started having memories flash through my brain. I saw the time I stole a dollar from my mother's purse and how my big brother got blamed for it. Did I say anything? No. So, he got in trouble in my place. The candy I bought wasn't worth the realization that I let someone innocent suffer in my place. I had forgotten that one over time. But, I wonder how my brother felt.

My eyes went to the cut on Christ's knee. "I own that one," I said and bent over to kiss it.

I thought about other sins, some seemed small, until I saw how they looked on His body. The small lies, the nasty remarks, the cruel comments, the cold looks, the temper tantrums, the dirty and evil thoughts and fantasies didn't seem so secret or small when you see them in 3-D, stamped and beaten into Someone's flesh.

Tears filled my eyes. I knelt down and kissed the wounds that went with the sins. "I own that one and that one too," I said. "I did that. I did that too."

Then there were the bigger rips along His sides. Those were the times I slept around. Oh, I didn't care back then. It was all fun to me. But, as I watched I saw the look on the guys' faces when I walked out on them. It all came back to me. That left a bruise on them and pulped ribs on the Lord. How that must have hurt them and Him!

I took off my blouse and wiped the blood away. "I'm sorry, Lord. I did that to You and to them."

And then there was the money I took for helping kids cheat on tests and papers. I helped people pass who should have flunked. Some of them were going into med school. I wonder how his or her lack of knowledge might have hurt someone else? I didn't care. I wanted the money. What was the difference between Judas and me? He wanted his silver too, if I remember correctly. I bet he had his reasons too.

The sins rushed past my mind. There were so many! But surely there was one missing! I hadn't murdered anyone, right?

Then I remembered...

She was 18 years old and pregnant. She didn,t want to be either one. "I think I'll have an abortion," she said.

"I don't think you should do that," I said. "That's not right."

"Well, I think that's the right thing for me to do."

She turned away and I heard a small voice say in my mind, "Help me."

I started to say something but I thought, "Oh, she'll just brush me off and after all it is her life."

I let her go and a few weeks later, I heard that she had the abortion.

Not long after that I heard she tried to kill herself.

I looked up and saw that Jesus had quietly died while I was standing there.

"Oh no!" I sobbed. "I let You die again. I let You die and I didn't do anything to stop it."

WHAT IS THE TRUTH?

We are Pilate, who washed his hands of the responsibility of saving an innocent man.

We do this every time we say, I'm too busy to help so and so. I have problems of my own. Besides, it's not my job!

We are Peter, who said he loved Jesus, but when it came time to stand up for his best friend, where was he? Denying that he ever knew the man!

We do this when we refuse to tell other people about God, because we don't want to be TOO RELIGIOUS, or we run with people who don't give a damn about the Lord because we want to be cool and accepted.

We are the Pharisees who said they loved God and then crucified Him when He came to earth. Why? Because He didn't look like the Messiah they were waiting for. Jesus was too poor, too down to earth, too scruffy, and too real for them. They wanted a faith based on rules and regulations, not honesty and love.

We do this when we feel superior to others and hide our ugliness away behind our politeness and pretensions. We act as if WE would never lust or steal or lie. We act all shocked when someone else falls into evil, as if we would never be such slime.

BUT THE TRUTH IS THAT WE DID IT.

WE BEAT HIM UP

WE SPAT ON HIM

WE NAILED HIM DOWN ON A CROSS

WE KILLED HIM DEAD

It wasn't the Romans.

It wasn't the Jews.

All that hate and fuss was us.

I woke up from that dream a nervous wreck.

I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat.

I went to my classes in a fog and nothing I could do or say seemed to make my pain inside go away.

Is this what it's like to be in Hell? I wondered. But for the life of me I couldn't say I didn't deserve it.

A few days later I was in church, just sitting there. I wasn't praying. I couldn't even think straight. Everything hurt too much.

I looked up and saw Jesus standing there. It was the first time in my life I had ever seen a vision of the Lord without being asleep. He was just like He had been on the Cross, only He was off the Cross and standing there in His loincloth, bleeding and dying.

"Own Me," He said.

It was a good thing the chapel was deserted because I yelled out, "I can't own You! I can't! I killed You, isn't that enough?"

He didn't move.

"I'm sorry, but that's all I can do. All I can do is to say that I'm sorry.

And what does that change?"

He simply stood there, silent.

We stared at each other for a minute and suddenly I knew: I could walk away from Him and pretend that I hadn't killed Christ. I could shut that pain out of my heart. But, if I did that then I would be shutting Him out too.

Jesus comes with my Cross that He bore, assault and battery by me included.

The only way Jesus could live in me was to admit that He was My Savior that I had hurt and murdered. As long as I couldn't admit to my sin, He couldn't really save me from anything.

I could pretend I was fine and that bloody, dying Jesus happened to someone else, long ago. Or I could own Him.

I got up in my vision and went over to Him. I threw my arms around Him and hugged Him tight.

"I own You, I said. I own up to every wound on Your body. I admit to what I did because of what I am, no damn good, just like the Bible says.

If I were the only person in the world, I would have done this to You because I am selfish and cruel. I didn't care about You. I didn't save You. You saved me and I am sorry You had to do that at all. If it was up to me I say, Save Yourself and let me go to the Hell I'm in now, because that's what I deserve.

And if You leave me here for all Eternity, well then that's what I get and it's only fair."

I paused. "But, I want to love You. I want to be right. I don't want to be this monster anymore, all pretty on the outside and ugly inside. I want to love You, but I don't know how."

I heard the Lord say something. I looked Him in His smashed face.

He smiled. "Own Me,' He said.

I was confused, but only for a moment. I felt something stir inside of me and I knew that at that moment, something had come to life in my heart.

I saw that I was Simon of Cyrene, forced to help Jesus carry His Cross but who learned to do it with Grace and honor.

I saw that saw that I was Veronica wiping His Face, despite what everyone else said to her.

I saw that I was Mary the Magdalene, who had been such a sinner and stuck with Him to the Cross and beyond.

I saw that I was Mary, holding my Baby dead in my arms and feeling pain that tore my heart in two.

That's what I could be for the rest of my life, if I owned Him by letting Him own me.

I saw that as clear as day and I knew that I would never be the same whether I said yes or no.

So, I said, "I own You, Jesus. I own Your suffering and death. Now, don't just save me."

I dropped to my knees. "Please, own me."

He held out His poor hands, all torn and bloody. I kissed them. And suddenly there was a light that surrounded both of us.

I closed my eyes for a moment because it was so bright and when I opened them, Jesus was standing there healed and happy; the way He must have been when He rose from the dead.

Christ was perfect and beautiful, even with the scars on His hands, feet and side. And when He looked at me there was such joy in His eyes that I cried again from happiness.

Jesus said, "It is finished."

Then we both started laughing so hard that I choked. Why? I don't know.

But I will never forget that Good Friday late afternoon in 1976 down in Gesu Chapel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was then that I knew I had been saved and born again.