Show Notes
In this episode, Derek Vreeland delves into the powerful significance of the cross during Lent. He unpacks the crucifixion’s deep connection to Old Testament prophecy, shining a light on Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. This episode challenges listeners to reflect on Jesus’ suffering and the fulfillment of scripture, urging them to prepare their hearts for Easter by embracing the profound weight of the cross.
Key Takeaways
Lent is a time for reflection and preparation for Easter.
The cross is central to the Christian faith and understanding of salvation.
Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 provide prophetic insights into Jesus’ crucifixion.
Jesus’ cry from the cross echoes the anguish of Psalm 22.
The suffering servant in Isaiah 53 represents Jesus’ role in bearing humanity’s sins.
Jesus’ crucifixion was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.
The abandonment felt by Jesus on the cross is a profound moment in the narrative.
God’s plan involved both the suffering and the resurrection of Jesus.
Understanding the context of Jesus’ life enhances our comprehension of his death.
The season of Lent invites us to draw closer to Jesus in his suffering.
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Psalm 22:1-21
Matthew 27:43
Matthew 27:35
Psalm 22:31
Isaiah 53:1-10
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. My name’s Derek Vreeland and I am your host And we are in the season of Lent, and I am excited for this podcast series. We have been producing episodes for quite a while now, but we are going to start a series here during the season of Lent focused on the cross. But before we jump into today’s episode, let me encourage you to leave a rating or a review. And if you are not a subscriber, What are you waiting for? Now is your opportunity. Go ahead and get subscribed wherever you are listening to this podcast. And I’ll keep producing Christian content for you. I just received a text this morning from someone who listened to an episode recently. And it really spoke to him and he reached out to let me know. And if you have been positively impacted By any of the episodes that we have produced here, you can reach out and let me know. Reach out to me on social media I am at Derek Vreeland on Facebook, on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Instagram, and that’s where usually you’ll find me. I get a lot of DMs on Instagram. I spend a lot of time there. I’m also on Blue Sky. But reach out to me on social media. Let me know what you think about these episodes. The season of Lent is a time for drawing back from our normal day to day We are in this 40-day season following Jesus on the way to the cross. Now, Lent is the 40-day season before Easter because in one sense, Lent is preparing us for Easter Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, but there is no resurrection without first crucifixion. This is at the very heart of the gospel that Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures, and on the third day rose again. But we don’t want to rush too quickly into Easter joy. We during the season of Advent want to slow down. and reflect, meditate, think on the cross, to do as the Apostle Paul says, and to know nothing among ourselves other than Christ crucified And so on today’s episode, I want to start a biblical exploration of the cross, but we’re not going to start in the Gospels, we’re going to start in the Old Testament. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, Christ did rightly die for our sins according to the Scriptures. Now, the scriptures that Paul was talking about are the Old Testament scriptures. Jesus didn’t get parachuted out from heaven out of nowhere without some kind of context. Jesus was born to a particular woman in a particular family at a particular time in history In a particular cultural context, and that was a Jewish context. And so if we’re going to look at the death of Jesus, his crucifixion we have to start in the Old Testament. All of the Gospel writers make allusions back to the Old Testament, but it really seems like it was Matthew’s theological project. To show us how throughout the entire life, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, that all of these actions were to fulfill what was spoken of in the scriptures, that is, in the Old Testament. And so there are many verses in the Old Testament we could look at But I want to take some time to walk through two different places, two different chapters in the Old Testament, Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. These two chapters in the Old Testament give us prophetic images of the death of Jesus hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus came on the scene. So I’d like to walk through, and I think what I’ll do today is walk through verse by verse Through Psalm 22. We won’t do the whole chapter, but most of it. And then also Isaiah 53. I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation. This is the translation that I’m currently using for my daily Bible reading. you might want to follow along in a different translation and compare. I have found that Bible study is pretty effective when we use different translations. I have my favorite or my go-to translations, but really there are no bad translations. They just give different kinds of perspectives And sure, I could make recommendations towards the translations that I prefer, but For me in my Bible reading, I like the variety. I like to see how different translators translate things differently and and how they contrast. But for today’s podcast episode, I’ll be reading in the New Living Translation. This has been a translation I have enjoyed. I’ve spent two years reading through it a few years back Uh the last two-year cycle, I was reading Eugene Peterson’s The Message Translation, and I found myself back in the New Living Translation and have been enjoying it thoroughly. So let’s start in Psalm 22 looking at these prophetic images of the cross, and I’ll just walk you through verse by verse So let’s get started. Psalm 22, verse 1. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Now this psalm was composed by King David When King David was perhaps running for his life from Saul, and he was in a moment where he felt utterly abandoned by God Other translations say, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? King David wrote these words as a cry and a plea for the presence of God when he was feeling Pushed aside, abandoned by God. Now this is the historical root of Psalm 22. But this verse, Psalm 22, verse 1, appears in the Gospels on the lips of Jesus When Jesus is being crucified, he cries out, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why have you forsaken me? I think in the message translation, it’s why are you miles away from me? Now, Jesus spoke these words from the cross. Probably because he was reciting Psalm 22. Perhaps he was using the words of Psalm 22 as his prayer. Because when Jesus was being crucified, he felt in his soul abandoned by God Now, we know that Jesus said, the Father and I are one. Jesus, in human form, was the second member of the Trinity. Coequal and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. There has never been a time in history or a time before creation when there was ever division or separation among the members of the Trinity. They have always been united. And so God the Father and God the Son, along with God the Spirit, were always unified. So It wasn’t so much that as Jesus was being crucified, that God the Father abandoned him, turned his back on him as if he was too holy to look upon Jesus dying for our sins. But in Jesus’ human heart and soul, it sure felt like that. Let’s continue on. Verse 2 Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief. This is speaking of the anguish that Jesus was feeling on the cross Next verse Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them. They cried out to you and were saved. They trusted in you. and were never disgraced, but I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all Those are powerful words because it’s a sense of the abandonment of God when there is a recorded history. Of God showing up and rescuing God’s people. But God, where are you now? Jesus was being scorned and despised by all Psalm 22 continues, verse 7: Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads at me, saying, Is this the one who relies on the Lord? then let the Lord save him. If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him. And of course, when Jesus was being crucified, he was done so publicly. Roman crucifixion was always public, because it was not only a harsh form of execution and punishment for evildoers for the rebellious, for lawbreakers, it was also an act of public humiliation to strike fear in the public. Don’t mess with Rome Or this will happen to you. So Jesus was crucified in public, and there was a crowd, and they were mocking him. Matthew 27, 43 indeed says they were saying, well, let God save him if he’s supposed to be some holy prophet. Let’s continue. Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb, and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast. I was thrust into your arms at my birth. You have been my God from the moment I was born. The psalmwriter here is speaking of the deep connection he had with God from his birth And of course, Jesus had that connection at his conception. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. And even before his conception, he had that connection with God. He was one with God. The Psalm continues, Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help me. Jesus in his crucifixion felt completely abandoned with no help. His disciples were all scattered. Peter, who he was close to, denied him, not once, not twice, but three times. Now it’s important to note that while Jesus’ twelve disciples, his male disciples, all departed There were female disciples. There were the women who always stayed close. You see that in the Gospels through his crucifixion. Through his death and his burial, the women stayed close. I always find that interesting. The psalm continues in verse twelve. My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls, fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in. Like lions they open their jaws against me, roaring and tearing into their prey. My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax melting within me. My strength has dried up like sun-baked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. In crucifixion, the person who is dying is losing all of their bodily fluids, not just their blood. And dehydration sets in. Jesus from the cross said, I thirst. But let’s continue with the Psalm. You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead. My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs, an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet. Now that’s an interesting line there in Psalm 22, verse 16. They have pierced my hands and feet. At the time David was composing this psalm, crucifixion was not at its height of popularity. It’s the Roman Empire. that made crucifixion such a popular form of torture. They have pierced my hands and feet. This is, I think, where we most clearly see how Psalm 22 is forecasting the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Verse 17, I can count on my bones, my enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing. They gamble for my clothing. Again, Matthew’s gospel shows this really clear. Matthew 27, verse 35. that people were tearing Jesus’ garments off of his body and they were gambling for them. The Psalm continues, Lord, do not stay far away. You are my strength. Come quickly to my aid Save me from the sword, spare my precious life from these dogs, snatch me from the lion’s jaws and from the horns of these wild oxen. This is such powerful imagery that the the nails that had went into the flesh of Jesus, they were like the teeth of a ferocious lion. And Jesus’ body was racked with pain. Indeed, it was the teeth, the sharp teeth of death that had impaled the body of Jesus. And all of this is forecasted in Psalm 22. Now I want to skip down to the very last verse, Psalm 22 verse 31, which in the New Living Translation says, His righteous acts will be told to those not yet born. They will hear about everything he has done. Now, the final words from Jesus on the cross was, it is finished. Now it depends on which gospel you’re reading, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Some gospel writers have into your hands I commit my spirit. But I I believe it’s John’s gospel that says it is finished. These are the final words of Jesus. It is very possible that the final words of Jesus on the cross were the final words of Psalm twenty two. Jesus could have been completing Psalm 22 as a prayer. And so the last things he may have said was, they will hear everything he has done. everything he has accomplished, everything he has finished. Which we don’t know for sure, but I wonder perhaps if the gospel writers didn’t quite hear Jesus correctly. We don’t know. But Psalm 22 is a great place to start. The other chapter in the Old Testament that I think really gives us moving, powerful, prophetic images of Jesus’ crucifixion and death is Isaiah 53. Let’s look at that chapter. Isaiah 53 is such an important chapter. Indeed, the entire book of Isaiah is so important to understanding the life and the ministry and the mission of Jesus. Some scholars have called Isaiah the fifth gospel, in fact. My daily Bible reading has me in Isaiah, the second half of Isaiah, starting in Isaiah 40. In fact, in reading Isaiah 40 through Isaiah 66, this second half, this has been I don’t know, the eighth, ninth, tenth time I’ve been reading through this section of Isaiah, I continue to see Jesus more and more showing up. But Isaiah 53. What an important and I think moving chapter. So let’s jump in and we’ll just go verse by verse Isaiah 53, verse 1. Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. One of the reasons I love Isaiah so much is the poetic imagery Isaiah, as one of the Hebrew prophets, perhaps the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, speaks in poetry. His prophecies are poetry, in the sense that they’re filled with imagery and metaphor. In reading Isaiah fifty three, for me, my imagination is stirred as much as my intellect. So Isaiah is speaking of the servant of the Lord Which in its historical context can be understood as Israel. Israel is God’s servant And then it’s even clearer in the forties and a few chapters back that Isaiah is speaking of Israel as the servant of the Lord. But now there’s a switch in Isaiah in the 50s where Isaiah is speaking of the servant of the Lord being an individual one to represent Israel. That would be a coming king, a coming Messiah. And Jesus, of course, is that king. Jesus is the full embodiment of Israel Jesus sums up all of Israel’s identity and vocation. Jesus becomes Israel in person And Jesus grew up as a root out of dry ground. There was nothing spectacular about Jesus. He was a day laborer. He was a carpenter. He came from a working class family. And for thirty years, this is what Jesus did. He worked alongside his dad. He took his hard hat and his lunch pail to work every day. There was nothing special about Jesus, nothing majestic about his appearance. He looked like any other day laborer in the first century Jewish Roman world. He had calluses on his hands, he had lines on his face. There was nothing about his appearance. that caused him to stand out. Verse three. He was despised and rejected A man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief, we turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care This is the Lord’s servant. This is the coming Messiah, the reigning king, and he was rejected Now Jesus warned his disciples. You see this in the Gospels after the Mount of Transfiguration where Jesus takes uh Peter, James, and John, and they go up on this mountain, and Jesus, his clothes begin to shine, and Elijah and Moses, and it’s this fantastic, mystical experience on a mountain, and And as Jesus is leading those disciples down the mountain, he begins to tell his disciples that they have to go to Jerusalem, where Jesus will be betrayed. handed over to the religious officials, he’ll be rejected by the scribes and the chief priests, he’ll be killed. But on the third day he rose again And I don’t think the disciples had any imagination to understand any of that, even though Isaiah 53 said it would be this way, that he would be despised and rejected that he would become a man of sorrow, and again we despised him. We didn’t care. Verse four Yet it was our weaknesses he carried, it was our sorrows that weighed him down, and we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins The key phrase in that verse is, we thought. Jesus would come to carry our weaknesses, to carry our sorrows Jesus would come, according to Matthew’s gospel, to carry the weaknesses of sickness and disease, to carry our grief. And according to Isaiah 53, 4, we thought his troubles were a punishment from God. So Jesus is being crucified, and there is a vantage point in which it can look like Jesus is being punished For his own sins. It has that appearance. Just hang on to that phrase, we thought. We’ll come back to it in a moment Then the most important verse of this chapter, Isaiah 53, verse 5, but he was pierced for our rebellion. crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed So his, notice the language of Isaiah 53, he was pierced for things we had done wrong. He was being crushed for things we had done wrong, our sins. He was beaten that we might become whole. The new Revised Standard Version says, Upon him was the punishment That made us whole. So there was punishment in the crucifixion of Jesus. It was Roman punishment It was Pontius Pilate who washed his hands and sealed his fate. So was Jesus punished that we might become whole? Yes. But who did the punishing? We thought God was doing the punishing, but in actuality, Jesus was being punished by humanity, by the Romans. Let’s continue on. Verse 6, all of us like sheep have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. Jesus was the perfect one. We are the imperfect people. Sin is a missing the mark. Thomas Merton said that sin is always a moving away from love. So I see the commands to love God, to love neighbor, to love one another, to love enemies as a path leading to everlasting life. And sin is whenever we depart from that path, whenever we get off of that road and go our own selfish way. So Isaiah 53 is giving this perfect picture of humanity’s condition. God has shown us the way to life, but we keep choosing the way of sin, the way of death, the way that departs from the way of love. It’s like in the old hymn, Come thou fount Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, Take my heart, O take, and seal it for thy courts above. Humanity has a tendency, and I’ll make it personal. I have a tendency to want to go my own way. We are all sheep going our own way, and that own selfish way of ours is the way of sin. And so God takes all of humanity’s sinfulness and puts it on Jesus. Why? so that ultimately Jesus can become the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The sins of all humanity were laid upon Jesus on the cross that Jesus might take it away. Isaiah 53 continues, He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as sheep is silent before their shears, he did not open his mouth. Now Jesus spoke a few times from the cross. He spoke a few times during his trials But for the most part, Jesus didn’t insult the crowd that was mocking him. He didn’t revile them. He didn’t speak words of vengeance. For the most part, In his crucifixion and death, Jesus remained silent because silence can sometimes be like thunder. Verse 8. Unjustly condemned he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream Jesus died when he was 33. Just at the at the peak of his popularity, Jesus’ life was cut short. Back to Isaiah fifty three, but he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong, and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal, he was put in a rich man’s grave. And in the Gospels we’re told that it was Joseph of Arimathea. who took possession of the body of Jesus after his death and laid Jesus in his own tomb. It was a borrowed tomb. Now We’re in the season of Lent focused on the cross, but spoiler alert, Jesus will not stay in that rich man’s grave, that rich man’s tomb very long. Now listen to this next verse, verse 10. But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants he will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands I appreciate the New Living Translation using this phrase, the Lord’s good plan, and using it twice. It was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief, and then the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands Do you see the imagery there that this was God’s plan, that Jesus would be crushed, but then prosper? In this I see the crucifixion and resurrection. This was the plan of God all along, that Jesus would die for our sins and then rise for our salvation. Now it says it was the Lord’s plan to crush him, but remember verse 4 and that little phrase, we thought. It appears to us that God is crushing him. And remember, verse 4 said, It seems that God was punishing him for his own sins. But I love what the message translation says, how the message translates verse 5, but it was our sins that did that. We thought God was crushing Jesus, that God was punishing Jesus, but our sins did that. The way I read verse 10 was it was God’s plan to have Jesus crushed Now it looks like God’s doing the crushing, but again, it was humanity that did the punishing, not God. And this is typical in how the Old Testament views punishment So Israel, the northern kingdom, was taken away into exile. And it looked like God was taking them away in exile, but it wasn’t God, it was the Assyrians. Assyria was a tool of punishment. It was God’s plan. God allowed it to happen, but God was not taking his people captive. That was Assyria. Judah, the southern kingdom, was carried off into exile by Babylon. Did God destroy God’s own temple? and enslave his people and carry them off into a pagan land? No, that was the Babylonians. But it appears that God was doing it So Jesus dies as an offering for sin, as Isaiah 53:10 says. It was God’s good plan all along. not only for Jesus to be crushed, but for God’s plan to prosper through Jesus’ resurrection That though Jesus didn’t have his own descendants, he would become the firstborn of many brethren. that through Jesus’ sacrificial death he would have a new family, that we, you and I, Could become children of God, made new and born into a new family by the blood of Jesus Well, that’s all we have for today. We’re going to continue to look at various Bible passages through the season of Lent so that we can focus on the cross of Jesus That we might draw near to Jesus in his suffering and death, that this time might be transformative for us, and that we might prepare ourselves for Easter joy. I know in focusing on the crucifixion and torture and death, these are tough passages of scripture, but I promise you it will be worth it. So stick with me. Well thank you for listening to today’s episode, Go in Peace and Be Kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.