Stripes

Stripes

Does anyone else get what I like to call ‘Bank Holiday Syndrome?’ Let me explain. Bank holiday syndrome is when you wake up on a sunny spring/summertime bank holiday and decide the only appropriate activity for the day is DIY. It is the sudden, unquenchable, all-consuming desire to go to B&Q and buy equipment to change something in my house that does not need changing.

Sometime last year, I decided that I wanted to spruce up my Home Office. When we moved into our house it was all the colours of the rainbow, so I swiftly had it painted completely white and had been working on changing the rooms based on how I feel about them since then. And on this day, I decided that white was no longer conducive of hard work in my office, and that my office needed a striped feature wall. I won't bore you with how it went, but as a lot of my hyper fixations go, I got bored 3/4 of the way through the job and genuinely did not finish it for another seven months. You'll be glad to know that the feature wall in my office that is now full of artwork and picture frames and the stripes are now finished, even if it took the best part of a year to get there. There's just something about the stripes.

It is funny to me that in preparing this piece for Good Friday the Pattern on the wall in my office is what stood out to me. Seemingly, the patterns on my wall don't have anything to do with Jesus, Easter, the crucifixion, or our salvation. My walls may not, but stripes? Now they most definitely do. I have done a few Good Friday posts in recent years, and I tend to focus on the torture that Jesus went through instead of us. And the reason I do it is because I believe I would be doing you an injustice if I didn't go into a few details. You see, crucifixion was not the only punishment Jesus endured on Good Friday. We think about Easter, and we think about the cross, as we should, but we cannot ignore what he went through on the way to the cross.

For a little context, the individual who sentenced Jesus to death officially was a gentleman named Pontius Pilate. He was the 5th governor of the Roman Empire in Judea and presided over Jesus’ trial. Pilate thought Jesus was innocent right from the beginning but decided in order to appease the angry mob that were calling for blood, he would have Jesus flogged instead. Flogging (or scourging) was a Roman punishment involving a whip - flagellum, which had multiple leather thongs embedded with sharp objects like metal, bone, or glass. The goal wasn't just pain but to tear flesh and weaken the victim severely. The sharp objects would dig into the skin of the recipient, then the Roman soldier would drag the whip down the individuals back, maximising and deepening the wounds. The flogging Jesus endured caused deep lacerations and torn skin, as the sharp objects embedded in the Roman whip ripped through His flesh, muscle, and even nerves. This wasn’t just surface bruising; it resulted in open, bleeding wounds from His neck to His calves. The intense beating likely led to extreme blood loss, causing hypovolemic shock, a condition marked by a rapid heart rate, low blood pressure, and possible fainting or collapse. The scourging also caused severe nerve damage and muscular trauma, often exposing bone and leading to excruciating pain. Many victims of such flogging didn’t survive. But Jesus did.

Why? Why would He endure this? Maybe you are reading this, and you don’t believe Jesus is God. But you’re asking, if he was? Why would he subject himself to death at the hands of the very people he was trying to save? It doesn’t make sense. Why would he allow the pain, the humiliation, the suffering. Why would he hand himself over? Why would he not just save himself? Why would he be obedient to his task, even unto death? The answer can be found in the title of this piece of writing, the answers can be found in a simple word, stripes.

I’d like to point you to this scripture – ‘But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.’ (Isaiah 53:5 NKJV) I have read this scripture my whole life, and used it in the context of healing, which it can absolutely be used for. But writing this has showed me, there is so much more to it than physical healing. In the original Hebrew when the scripture speaks of being wounded, it speaks to a tearing of flesh, both physically and spiritually (our sinful nature), so his flesh was torn so ours would not rule over us. The word for transgressions in Hebrew does not actually mean mistake as we sometimes believe, it means deliberate, conscious rebellion. So, Jesus was not just wounded for our mistakes, he was torn for the things that we do that are deliberately against him too.  The word in this verse that is used for bruised speaks to a deep, severe crushing that destroys. What was destroyed? Our iniquities, which translates to our moral crookedness. The sin we can’t help, the nature to sin that is in us because we are human. So not only has the power of our deliberate sin been destroyed, so was the tendency to sin that we were born with. The chastisement for our peace, literally means that the discipline, correction and punishment that was required for our wellbeing, wholeness and completeness (peace) was left to him to carry. And by his stripes, we are healed.

And that’s where I want to land this plane. Healing in this context means to be cured, or restored, both physically and spiritually. But I have written over a thousand words, just to tell you about stripes. The Hebrew word for stripe is ‘chavura’ which means a mark or injury left by bruising or wounding. (We mentioned bruising and wounding earlier in the verse and what that means). Guys, it’s the MARKS or STRIPES that were left on him that are the reason for our restoration. It’s the EVIDENCE of what he chose to endure, the history the sacrifice he made. Scars are indicative of remembrance. It is through days like today, remembering what he did, choosing to believe he was exactly who he said he was. Accepting the gift that resulted from his obedience and love for us even unto death that opens the door to healing, and restoration of both body, and spirit. It’s all in the stripes. It’s in the reminder of what he chose to endure, for me and for you.

Last thing, I promise. I have laboured over this text for days, so if you have read this far, thank you. If you haven’t noticed already, I am big on words and what they mean. And stripe doesn’t necessarily just mean pattern, or scar. In the military, stripes refer to marks on a soldiers uniform that detail rank, or authority, based on years of service or sacrifice. Hence the phrase ‘earn your stripes’. Both stripes in the military sense and in the sense of suffering represent marks. But Jesus, in a way that is poetic and as beautiful as he is, has stripes on his body that represent both. Sacrifice, suffering AND authority.  The marks left by his suffering has GIVEN him the authority call us healed, whole and restored. And the only thing you have to do to be included? Recognise the sacrifice that gave him the stripes, accept the freedom they give us access to in body, and in spirit.

Jesus earned his stripes, and he did it so we would not have to. You are loved beyond measure. You were worth going to the cross for. You were worth the stripes.

We love you,

Agape x