Be Still And Know

READ: Isaiah 53:5-6 NLT '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. 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.' Isaiah was ministering amongst a people in Exile. They were living in Babylon (modern Iraq) far from home and everything seemed hopeless. They longed to be allowed to return to Jerusalem but as the years passed that seemed increasingly unlikely. In this bleak situation Isaiah boldly proclaims that God has not forgotten them and that he will send a servant who will bring them salvation. As we read these words we see them as a staggeringly powerful prophecy about Jesus, the Messiah. As we walk towards Easter we need to do so with a renewed amazement at God’s willingness to send his own son into the world. No other person could have done what Jesus did. He alone could take upon himself the sins of the world. Only because he was th