The Suffering & Glory of the Servant - Lent, 2005

 

 

            Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 is known as The Suffering and Glory of the Servant.  Isaiah writes four servant songs.  This is the fourth and the longest of the four.  This passage is quoted more frequently in the New Testament than any other Old Testament passage.  It is referred to as “The Gospel of the Old Testament.” 

 

            In 1531, Martin Luther preached on this section from Isaiah on the Saturday before Easter.  Of this passage he wrote, “In the entire Scripture of the Old Testament there is no place where the purpose of Christ’s suffering is so precisely and clearly delineated as in this text…That is why every father should read it often to his children, so that they might learn it by heart and that our youth might become familiar with it and be strengthened in their faith.”  (Sermons of Martin Luther:  The House Postils  © 1996 by Eugene Klug.  Baker Publishing House)

 

            In 1935, Pastor Otto Boecler based Lenten midweek sermons on this passage from Isaiah.  As this passage was true to God’s people through Isaiah over 700 years before Jesus’ passion, it was true 1500 years after the passion at the time of Luther, it was true four hundred years later as Pastor Boecler preached, these words are true for us today.  God’s word is truth [John 17:17] to all of his people in all times and places.  We have a God whose word and actions never change [Numbers 23:19].

 

            Today, as we gather in the somber and austere ambience of Ash Wednesday, we ask the question, “Why did Jesus have to go through all of his suffering and death?”  It is a good question.  Without knowing why, his suffering a death may wrench our hearts because of how macabre/extreme it was.  But that suffering and death would mean little else to us other than our sorrow and compassion for him.  In this passage is not only the prophecy of the suffering Jesus is sent to do as God’s faithful servant here on earth, but it is the message of the greatest joy you and I have as a result, and the greatest joy God has as he fulfills his love for us.

 

            “See, my servant will act wisely...”  The servant God speaks about through Isaiah is the Messiah.  Jesus acts wisely according to God’s perfect and holy standards.  It is a guarantee to you and me today that all that Jesus does is perfect and holy, that there are no mistakes and no room for error.  It is great comfort to us to know that Jesus will not do anything of his human will, but God’s glorious will to save us.

 

            “Who has believed our message?”  Isaiah must have felt he had proclaimed God’s word until he was blue in the face and yet so many people did not believe God’s words given him to proclaim.  It had been 700 years since the Exodus and conquering the Promised Land.  Many people were looking past the sign of the sacrifice of atonement and instead to a worldly leader in a kingdom of power and pleasure.  At Jesus’ time, many were looking past God’s promise to redeem his people from their sins to a Messiah who would overpower the Roman occupation and restore an earthly kingdom unseen since David and Solomon.  In 2005 countless souls look past the reality of human sinfulness and its eternal consequences to a religion that will make everything “hunky-dory” here on earth.  It is the most wonderful the message of a savior who will bring you to eternity with God in heaven.  But who believes it in this world?  Who believes that salvation is found only in Jesus Christ?  We live in a pluralistic society not just in equal rights practice, but also in belief that no matter what you believe.  We hear the false assumption, “We all believe in the same God and will end up in the same place anyway.”  The pundits of this world reject that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the father except through me,” [John 14:6].

 

            “…to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”  It is surprising how completely God has made himself known throughout all of the earth.  When the spies entered Jericho, Rahab stated that how God had delivered the Israelites beginning from Egypt through their most recent conquests.  But Rahab was unlike the rest of Jericho’s citizens as she proclaimed that this God is the one true God.  God saved her  and her family on this profession of faith.  All others perished.   Through proclamation of his word, God has revealed his mighty arm, his means of salvation to all people everywhere.  He continues to reveal it everywhere as missionaries go out, as people tell each other, as his word is spoken and sung in all corners of the earth.  His mighty arm is Jesus.  His arm has worked salvation for him.  This has been made known to the nations, and this salvation has been seen in all the ends of the earth [Psalm 98].  Today our ascended Lord and Savior sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

 

            “He grew up before him like a tender shoot…” [v. 2]. Jesus is the shoot from the stump of Jesse.  This  fulfills God’s promise that the Savior would be from Jesse’s lineage through David.  As a tender shoot Jesus humbled himself and left his heavenly throne to come to earth as a simple human.  No one around him except his parents knew who he really was until he revealed himself through his word to the disciples.  He suffered every temptation that you or I will ever be submitted to.  Why did he lower himself to do this? 

 

            “He had no beauty or majesty, He was despised and rejected by men, even those closest to him, he was despised and we esteemed him not.”  One of his closest disciples betrayed him and the other eleven abandoned him at Gethsemane.  His own people including the temple leaders rejected his teachings and planned for his crucifixion.  How often did Jesus have to rebuke his closest disciples and those openly opposed to him?  Today, how often do you run after other things in this earth that promise something “more exciting” than Jesus?  How many times have you neglected to witness his love to others in your deeds, your words, your thoughts?  How often do you neglect his word, in fact despise his word as you set out to do things “Your way,” and not according to God’s love and commands of love.  How many times do you look for a Messiah who will give you the wealth and riches of the earth, the esteem of others?  How often do you, “…esteem him not?”

 

            As we contemplate how humble Jesus was, and is today in his perfect servant role, we also contemplate how terribly we daily fail to look to him for both our salvation and our way of life.  In our pumped up egos, we fail to see the beauty God portrays here for us.  Jesus comes to this earth to do one thing.  That is to carry all our griefs and sorrows on his head, to bear our sins for us, to become less than us so we can see how he is greater than us, and how all of this that he does in our behalf is to make us one with the father again. 

 

            Before us stands the crucifix with Jesus’ body hanging helpless and despised.  The people, the leaders of the church, even the criminals executed with him all mocked him.  He was spat upon.  He was beaten and whipped and disfigured beyond belief.  He was posted up on a cross in public view to be humiliated and ridiculed.  Think about it.  Who wants to carry around the body of a dead man on a cross and parade it as a thing of glory?

 

            Hussein’s statue was dismantled in shame.  Mussolini was hung in the village for citizens to retaliate against even his corpse.  Lynch mobs leave victims in public to bring shame and fear to others.  Yet this Christ on this cross is the most glorious of things we can behold because it portrays to what extreme God already went on your behalf because he loves you that much. 

 

            Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

 

            2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

 

            1 Corinthians 1:27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

 

            1 Corinthians 1:30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-- that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

 

            2 Corinthians 12:10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

 

            Romans 10:16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?"  17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

 

            Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

 

            Acts 4:12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

 

            John 6:47 I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.

 

            1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

 

            John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.