Sin is not redeemed by scrubbing it out of existence, but by taking it in as a sacrifice that makes “many to be accounted righteous." This is obviously what Jesus did. We cannot do this in and of ourselves. But we can participate in what Jesus does with the sins of the world. He takes them. Suffers them. We can enter the way of Jesus' cross and participate in Jesus' reconciliation of the world.
This is a radical shift from condemning sin and sinners — an ugly business at best. We no longer stand around as disapproving spectators of the sins of others, but become participants in the sacrificial life of Jesus as he takes the sins of our children, the sins of our pastors, the sins of our friends, our sins.
Isaiah 53 requires a radical revision of our imaginations to take this in: to see sacrifice, offering, and suffering as essential, not an option, to salvation. This is most difficult to grasp — difficult for the Hebrews in Babylon, difficult for Christians in North America. There is a fathomless mystery at the heart of this: making right by means of another, Another.
