Procrastination: it’s what we do when we face a dreaded task. Why should I dive into writing that term paper when it’s not due for several weeks? Maybe I should wait for cooler temperatures before I clean out the garage? Perhaps this toothache will go away and I can avoid going to the dentist and having a hole drilled in my head? All legitimate questions, right? Like the hobo told Opie on the Andy Griffith show, “The best day to do something is tomorrow.”
What if God the Son, Jesus, dreaded His commission to go to the cross and postponed it until that indefinite “tomorrow”? After all, in order to accomplish the mission to save us the divine Son of God would need to leave the glory of heaven, come to earth and become a lowly human (big step down if you’re God), allow sinners to spit on Him, slap and punch and whip Him, and top it off by nailing Him to a cross while people hurled abuse at Him. Who could blame Jesus if He procrastinated for a few more millennia?
But Jesus didn’t drag His feet through the clouds from heaven to earth. He still came to save us. In John 17:4 Jesus prays to the Father in heaven, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work You have given Me to do”. And He did it out of love for you and me. In Galatians 2:20 Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” To Paul the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross was very personal – He loved ME and gave Himself up for ME. I like the old preacher who said, “If you were the only human who ever lived Jesus still would have come to die for you”. Jesus still came. He did not relish the sacrifice and pain He would endure but He still came because He loves us and knew the cross was the only way we could be saved from the fires of hell and have the hope of eternal life connected to His victory over the grave.
Read Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and then listen to the beautiful song He Still Came.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Behold, My Servant will prosper,
He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.
Just as many were appalled at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred beyond that of a man,
And His form beyond the sons of mankind.
So He will sprinkle many nations,
Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him;
For what they had not been told, they will see,
And what they had not heard, they will understand.
Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of dry ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we would look at Him,
Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him.
He was despised and abandoned by men,
A man of great pain and familiar with sickness;
And like one from whom people hide their faces,
He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.
However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,
And our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,
Struck down by God, and humiliated.
But He was pierced for our offenses,
He was crushed for our wrongdoings;
The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him,
And by His wounds we are healed.
All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all
To fall on Him.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off from the land of the living
For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?
And His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
But the Lord desired
To crush Him, causing Him grief;
If He renders Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
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,
For He will bear their wrongdoings.
Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the plunder with the strong,
Because He poured out His life unto death,
And was counted with wrongdoers;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the wrongdoers.