BORN TO DIE

By Sean Fryer

“Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.”—Isaiah 53:10

What if I told you the only reason you were born was to die? That doesn’t sound very fun. It actually sounds very depressing. So many of us spend our whole life trying to find our purpose, and I hope in the last few days you’ve seen you do have a purpose, and you have that purpose for one reason and one reason only . . . because Jesus was born to die.

Think about that for a second. Yes, there is more to His life than just His death, but ultimately He came to earth as a baby with the shadow of the cross over His whole life. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus constantly reminds His disciples, “My hour has not yet come.” Until finally, “Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’” (John 12:23). We get the glory we’ve been talking about because Jesus was glorified first! And that glory only came after He went through the ultimate suffering first. 

You know the word excruciating? It comes from crucifixion. They had to make up a word to describe the pain Jesus felt on the cross. Isaiah describes Jesus like this: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:3).

What a life! This, by the way, was written 700 years before Jesus was born. He knew exactly what the purpose of His life was. He also knew that after all of this suffering, He would be resurrected and eventually sit at the right hand of the Father in heaven, which is why Isaiah 53:12 tells us, “Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.  For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” 

Jesus was born to die, for us! It literally says he poured out his life unto death. He came and suffered all of that because He loves us. He came to this earth knowing His destiny was the cross because He wanted us in Heaven with Him. So, when you’re faced with the trials of life, know that Jesus faced a lot of suffering Himself. He knows what you’re going through because He went through it, too. He did it for you!