Isa 53:4+5, Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. 
    	This is the day that we set aside as a society to celebrate the glorious work of Jesus Christ. The crucifixion and the resurrection were the very reason that He came to this earth. So many people set their minds and focus on the Christmas holiday and forget that what we remember at Easter is the very heart of why Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of God, was born. There is no greater truth in all the universe than the fact that God, the Son, took upon Himself our sins and our trespasses and our shame and our death. He became our sin in order to make a way for us to come into a living relationship of Holiness and Righteousness as the very Children of God. 
	This was no happenstance thing that just developed. It was no desperate effort by God to rescue that which He had created in some kind of anxious and frantic gamble. This plan of the salvation of humanity was already in place even before sin entered the world. This was so because Our Omniscient God knew that there was only one way in which to show the core essence of His love for you and for me. He knew, from before even the very creation of the universe that our salvation was only in Jesus, the Only Begotten of the Father, the prophesied Suffering Servant.
	Our morning’s reading showed that the Lord was moving in the hearts and minds of His prophets, revealing to them what was to come. The fact of the salvation of the people of the Old Testament rested on their looking forward to the Messiah, the Promised One, Who would take away their sins and establish His righteousness. 
So many people misunderstand and think that the salvation of the Old Testament patriarchs rested in their trying to fulfill the Law, the Ten Commandments. The reality is that the Law had its place, showing that any human effort could not accomplish that perfect holiness and righteousness that was required. It served the people well in giving them a way to live that would protect and keep them from the harm and danger of the other nations, if they would give themselves to it. But it was never intended to be their salvation. They were the recipients of God’s grace in Christ by the fact that they were looking forward to the Messiah, and counting on God to make His Christ their salvation, their faith was in His Great Promise. 
This was detailed for the nation by Isaiah, as we just read and by the other prophets, such as Zechariah. Zech 3:8+9. Zech 3:8+9, 'Now listen, Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you — indeed they are men who are a symbol, for behold, I am going to bring in My servant the Branch. 'For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,' declares the Lord of hosts,' and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. 
    	In this, we have the promise of the Lord to remove our iniquity. His Servant, the branch, from the lineage of David, as often foretold throughout the Old Testament writings, will be the One by Whom the land will be cleansed. The land refers to the inhabitants of the land and not the physical earth itself. His Servant would cleanse the people by the pouring out of His blood, in His death. All who would call upon Him would be saved. His blood would cleanse away every stain and sin. 
	This is detailed for us in Rev 7:9-17. Rev 7:9-17, After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen." And one of the elders answered, saying to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and from where have they come?" And I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. "For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes." 
	Zechariah as well describes the Christ as the Shepherd as foretold in Zech 13:7-9. Zech 13:7-9, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, And against the man, My Associate," Declares the Lord of hosts. "Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered; And I will turn My hand against the little ones. "And it will come about in all the land," Declares the Lord, "That two parts in it will be cut off and perish; But the third will be left in it. "And I will bring the third part through the fire, Refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, 'They are My people,' And they will say, 'The Lord is my God.'" 
	Jesus referred to Himself as the Good Shepherd, as we read in John 10:14-18. He detailed how all those who would believe upon Him would be gathered together by Himself. He also described how He would choose to lay down His life for those whom He would gather. His life would not be taken from Him, but He would lay it down in order to establish the salvation so necessary for the humanity whom God had created for His own purposes of familial relationship.  John 10:14-18, "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. "And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd. "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. "No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father." 
	Jesus took our sins and burdens and griefs upon Himself in obedience to the Father. He did so willingly and without reservation because He knew it would establish a reconciliation between God and man as was always the purpose and the plan of God for us. This is further detailed for us by the Apostle Paul in 2 Cor 5:18-21. 2 Cor 5:18-21, Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 
	This declares the fact that the Most Holy and Righteous and Perfect Son of God became sin, our sin, and nailed it to the cross forever. It was necessary and the only way in which reconciliation and redemption could take place. The Law could not do it and the very best efforts of man could not accomplish it. Only the Messiah, the Christ, sent from the heart of God for this express purpose could bring our salvation into being. Gal 3:13+14. Gal 3:13+14, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us — for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" — in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 
	The Writer to the Hebrews, in Heb 9:24-28, offers a full explanation of what Jesus was able to do as the Suffering Servant prophesied by Isaiah. Heb 9:24-28, For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. 
	This is also attested to by the Apostle Peter as we read in 1 Peter 2:21-24. 1 Peter 2:21-24, For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. It is by Christ’s wounds that we are healed for all of eternity. All the righteous judgment of God, which we fully and absolutely deserved, has been completely and forever satisfied by the death and the resurrection of Our Lord and Savior.  
	As the Apostle Peter continues in his letter, 1 Peter 3:18+19, 1 Peter 3:18+19, For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison… On the cross, Jesus willingly paid the ultimate price, setting aside His place at the right hand of the Father and suffering the vast and absolutely unwarranted and unjustifiable abuse by the power of this age. He did this so that we could have complete propitiation for our sins by His righteousness.
	The Apostle John, in 1 John 2:1+2, gives us the full accounting of this as he encourages us to allow the truth of the suffering of Christ to have its complete and active effect in our lives. We are to abide in the reality that in Christ Jesus, we are now freed from the consequences of our trespasses and therefore should no longer give into any practice of sin. 1 John 2:1+2, My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. 
    	The Apostle John continues this truth for us, in 1 John 3:1-5, as he highlights the reality that our hope, now and forevermore, is set in Jesus Christ. 1 John 3:1-5, See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. Amen.
	As we are gathered together, today, this Easter Sunday, let our minds and our hearts focus on the fact that because Jesus Christ suffered the death that should have been ours, we are now fully partakers of His resurrection life. We are now made to be part of the very family of God, in Him. We are freed from our slavery to sin and death in Him. We are able to live our lives in the full assurance that the very love of God constrains us to be as He is. He is our life! He is our peace! He is our righteousness! He is our justification! And He is our source of strength and wisdom and endurance to face everything of this age in victory, the victory of Jesus Christ resurrected and Triumphant! The Lord bless and keep you in the knowledge that because Jesus lives, we now have everlasting life to the praise and the honor and the glory of God on high. So be it!
	Isa 53:11+12, As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors. Amen. 

We pray that every family has a marvelous Easter today, celebrating the goodness and the grace and the mercy of God given to us in His Only Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. As each one of us goes forth, let us do so with the heart that seeks to serve God and declare that He is worthy of all praise and honor and adoration for the so great salvation that He has made to be our very eternal life. This is not a day to just accept what this age puts forth in its efforts to devalue and set aside the reality of Jesus, Whom we celebrate today and every day as we live and walk on this earth. Let Jesus Christ be honored and adored for the fact that He took upon Himself our sin and our transgressions and thereby has given us His righteousness and His Holiness in our adoption as the Children of God. Honor and reverence Him as we give testimony to the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified, and died, and rose again to live forevermore as Lord and Savior of all who will call upon Him. Praise His Holy and Awesome name. 

This morning’s benediction is Deut 32:2-4. "Let my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, As the droplets on the fresh grass And as the showers on the herb. "For I proclaim the name of the Lord; Ascribe greatness to our God! "The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He. Amen.