He Was Pierced for Our Transgressions: A Good Friday Sermon

Seven hundred years before a Roman nail was ever driven, the prophet Isaiah described this day. Picture a courtroom where the sentence has already been read and the penalty is death — and then, before the guilty party can be led away, another steps forward and says, 'Let it fall on me.' That is the scene Isaiah paints. Tonight is Good Friday, and the strange, offensive wonder of this day is that we call the execution of an innocent man 'good.' Why? Because He did not die as a victim of circumstance, and He did not die because of any one nation or crowd. He died for sin — your sin and mine — and He did it on purpose. Turn with me to Isaiah 52:13, and let the oldest Good Friday sermon ever written show us the One who was pierced for our transgressions.

• Isaiah does not present a glorious hero the world rushed to admire; he presents a Servant men turned their faces from (53:3).
• 'We esteemed Him not' — the prophet includes himself, and includes us. The problem is not out there in some guilty group; it is in every human heart.
• Scripture never lays the blame for the cross on 'the Jews' or on Rome alone — it lays it on all of us: 'We all like sheep have gone astray' (53:6). The responsibility is universal because the sin is universal.

Illustration: Imagine driving past someone stranded on the roadside in the rain — and you look straight ahead, grip the wheel a little tighter, and tell yourself someone else will stop. That instinct to look away from suffering we would rather not deal with is exactly what Isaiah describes. We did it to the Servant of God Himself: we hid our faces and kept driving.

Application: Resist the ancient temptation to find someone else to blame for the cross. Good Friday asks each of us a personal question before it offers comfort: Is my sin in view here? Tonight, stop looking away. Look at Him, and let your own name be among the 'we' who esteemed Him not.

• Every clause of 53:5 is substitution: pierced 'for our transgressions,' crushed 'for our iniquities,' the punishment 'that brought us peace was upon Him.'
• The LORD Himself 'laid upon Him the iniquity of us all' (53:6) — this is not a tragedy that spun out of control but a rescue that heaven planned.
• Isaiah 53:10 tells us 'it was the LORD's will to crush Him' as 'a guilt offering.' The cross is not God failing to stop evil; it is God absorbing its penalty in the Person of His Son.

Illustration: Think of a blood transfusion: healthy blood leaves a willing donor's body and enters a dying patient's veins, and the life that was in the one becomes the life of the other. At the cross something greater happened — our guilt was transferred to Christ, and His righteousness offered back to us. Paul says it plainly: 'God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God' (2 Corinthians 5:21). [Pause here for a few seconds of silence before moving on.]

Application: Hear this personally: 'by His stripes we are healed.' If you have been trying to pay down your own guilt with good behavior, religious effort, or self-punishment, stop. The debt has already been paid in full by Someone else. Your part is not to pay — it is to receive what He has done.

• 'He was led like a lamb to the slaughter... He did not open His mouth' (53:7). His silence was not helplessness; it was surrender.
• Jesus Himself removed all doubt about who was in control: 'No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord' (John 10:18).
• This love is not forced and not reluctant — the Servant 'poured out His life unto death' and 'bore the sin of many' and even 'made intercession for the transgressors' (53:12), praying for the very people He was dying for.

Illustration: A soldier who falls on a grenade to save his squad is not a victim of the blast — he chose it in a split second of love. Now stretch that image across eternity: Jesus did not stumble into Calvary. From before the foundation of the world He walked toward it with open eyes, and at any moment He could have walked away. He stayed because He loved us.

Application: You are not loved by Jesus grudgingly or by accident. He saw the cross clearly and chose you anyway. Let that settle the question of your worth to God — not that you earned it, but that He willingly paid it. Respond to willing love with a willing heart.

• The passage does not end in a grave. 'After the anguish of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied' (53:11) — a whisper of resurrection on Friday.
• 'By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many' (53:11). Justified means declared righteous — the courtroom verdict reversed.
• It opened with exaltation — 'He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted' (52:13) — because the suffering Servant is also the triumphant King.

Illustration: Good Friday is like the darkest hour of the night just before dawn. We linger here tonight in the dark on purpose, because we know Sunday is coming. But even in the darkness, Isaiah already lets a line of light fall across the page: He will see, He will be satisfied, He will justify many.

Application: Do not leave tonight thinking only of a dead Savior. The One who was pierced is the One who is now exalted, and He offers you a share in His satisfaction — to be counted among the 'many' He justifies. Will you be counted among them?

So I ask you plainly: have you come to the pierced Servant and received what He accomplished for you? Becoming a Christian is not turning over a new leaf or joining a church; it is trusting that Jesus took your place and rising from these chairs forgiven. If you have never done that, tonight is the night — you can simply, in your own words, confess your sin, thank Him for bearing it, and ask Him to be your Lord. If you already belong to Him, let this Good Friday renew your wonder: go home and thank Him that He was pierced for you, and come back Sunday ready to celebrate that the grave could not hold Him. For all of us, let's be quiet before the cross for a moment, and then bring Him our worship.