Jesus knows about being wounded. It’s what makes Him tender and compassionate towards us. Before He was born, the prophet Isaiah foretold Jesus’ future:
My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care.
Isaiah 53:2-3
We have crossed the road to avoid the wounded man attacked by the cares and sorrows, the hurts and sins, of this life. And the thing is, they were our cares and sorrows, our hurts and sins.
He was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed!
Isaiah 53:5
Through His wounds, His suffering and death on the Cross, Jesus brought about our healing. He paid our every debt and the price for our recovery. We are healed because we see Christ suffered and died and it didn’t mean that God had abandoned Him. Which means our pain and suffering don’t mean that God has abandoned us. Through Christ, God shows that He will meet our every need. In Christ, suffering wasn’t the end of the story. His suffering was overwritten by God’s power with victory. And now that same power that raised Jesus from the dead, that overwrote suffering and death – that’s the power that lives in us (Romans 8:11). So there is hope for us and that’s Good News!
If Jesus has already accomplished all this, why do we get attacked by life? Why do trials and cares come into our path? I don’t know the specific reason for your particular sorrow. But I wonder if perhaps others are healed by our wounds.
I’m not saying that our suffering can bring about anyone’s salvation. That was a one-time deal that has already been redeemed. Jesus is the only one who could do it, He’s the only one who can do it, and He’s the only one who will do it because He was the once-for-all payment. The window is closed. No one can add anything to Christ’s finished work on the Cross.
However, our wounds lead us to places where others are hurting. And if we are a Christ-follower, we carry His light inside of us. That means we take His light to the cancer floor, the sickroom, the shelter, to the single mother, the abandoned child, the drug addict. And when we do, we carry His message of hope. We tell about how Jesus was our Good Samaritan, how He picked us up and cleaned us up and healed us. We become Christ’s ambassadors, sharing the wonderful message that Christ came to the world to rescue us, to defeat the sin that causes suffering, and to give us hope of a new, eternal life in the power of God.
Christ died only once as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again but not to deal with our sins again. This time he will bring salvation to all those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:28