The Cross of Christ

In 1804, Thomas Kelly, an Irish pastor, wrote a hymn that helps us step back and process what really took place 2,000 years ago on the cross of Christ:  “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted.”

Of course, as a church we gladly join together in upbeat, celebrative songs of praise to our all-glorious God.  It’s fitting to call out to the Lord with shouts of joy as his beloved children.  But it’s appropriate as well—and even more than that, it’s urgent—to enter into songs that are sobering and solemn:  worship music that helps us grasp, and feel, the appalling, cover-your-mouth gravity of Jesus’ crucifixion!

This hymn can do just that, IF you clear away the clutter and quiet your mind before the Lord to take it in.  Let me say it again:  make space in your heart and block out those incessant 2017 distractions, and ask the Lord to help your soul go where this minor key meditation takes you.

Verse one sets the scene and especially helps us recognize just who it is there languishing “on the tree”—that Jesus of Nazareth is the long-awaited Messiah and, indeed, the divine Son of God:

Stricken, smitten, and afflicted, see him dying on the tree!
‘Tis the Christ by man rejected; yes, my soul, ’tis he, ’tis he!
‘Tis the long expected Prophet, David’s son, yet David’s Lord;
By his Son God now has spoken: ’tis the true and faithful Word.

Verse two acknowledges Christ’s unspeakable suffering, and not just in physical terms but as he was the victim of betrayal by all his followers. And even more than that, especially as he bore the punishment of divine justice.  Read this verse very slowly:

Tell me ye who hear him groaning, was there ever grief like his?
Friends thro’ fear his cause disowning, foes insulting his distress;
Many hands were raised to wound him, none would interpose to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that Justice gave.

Verse three turns attention toward us and how we’ve all made light of sin—shrugging it off, avoiding the blunt fact that our self-serving ways amount to a great evil.  And yet, as you fall to your knees in honest confession, look up and see who it is that “bears the awful load”:

Ye who think of sin by lightly nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load;
‘Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God.

Verse four then highlights God’s achievement at the cross—the life-saving, hope-giving, joy-infusing, substitutionary death of Christ:  his death on our behalf; his saving love in which we boast.  Read it.  Sing it.  Cherish it:

Here we have a firm foundation, here the refuge of the lost;
Christ’s the Rock of our salvation, his the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded, sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded who on him their hope have built.

Thomas Kelly’s hymn oozes with biblical images of the “long expected prophet” from Isaiah 53.  As you step into Good Friday and turn your heart toward the cross of Christ, take time not only to reflect on a great worship song like “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted,” but also to ponder the promise of our Suffering Substitute as foretold in Isaiah 53.

Click here to listen to Fernando Ortega singing of the One who was “despised and rejected.”