Sermon Notes

53 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?2 For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.3 He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases, yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
(New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, NRSVue)

53 Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?
2-6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.7 He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence. (The Message, MSG)

From its earliest Jewish and Christian interpreters to present day biblical scholars, Isaiah 53 has both blessed and vexed its readers. In Jewish tradition, the suffering servant is a blessing because he represents a savior figure who would come to restore Israel. In Christian tradition, the suffering servant is a blessing because he prophetically describes the passion of Jesus of Nazareth thousands of years before his birth. However, for over two millennia, both Jews and Christians have struggled with questions surrounding why the servant had to endure such violent persecution and what this type of brutal suffering actually produces; especially in light of their own horrific sufferings and persecutions. Perhaps that—the experience of horrific suffering—is why Isaiah 53 is such a comfort to contemporary Christians and all others who suffer without cause or justice. If God would vindicate the suffering servant, then surely God can do the same for us!

The book of Isaiah covers events from the eighth century BCE until the sixth century BCE (733 BCE – 515 BCE) and is divided into three parts. Isaiah 1- 39, also called First Isaiah, explores the time when ancient Israel and ancient Judah lived under constant threat of Assyria’s political and military dominance from 733 – 539 BCE. Isaiah chapters 40 – 55, also called Second Isaiah, or Deutero-Isaiah, cover the time period when Judean exiles are living in Babylon a declining Babylonian Empire and ascending Persian Empire from 539-515 BCE. Although they ponder whether God has forsaken them, Isaiah writes to assure them of God’s love and fidelity. In 539 Cyrus of Persia comes to power, defeats the Babylonians, and allows the Judean exiles to return to their homeland. Isaiah 56 – 66, called Third Isaiah, spans the time period when Judean exiles continue to return to their homeland which is now the province Yehud/Judah within the Persian Empire. These chapters address the Judean’s joy and pain of rebuilding their cultural/religious identity while dealing with the political/financial obligations of the Persian overlords.
Although the book of Isaiah is attributed to the prophet Isaiah, since ancient times biblical interpreters recognized major portions of the book were composed by other writers. That the entire book is pseudonymously ascribed to the 8th century Jerusalem prophet, Isaiah ben Amoz, reflects the practice of honorific titling within the wider culture of the Ancient Near East. Most biblical scholars agree that the three portions of Isaiah are written during three different time periods by a prophetic community for whom the prophetic teachings of Isaiah ben Amoz, was the theological thought center. The book of Isaiah likely began as a group of prophetic speeches that were remembered and orally transmitted by those who knew Isaiah the prophet. Recent scholarship on Isaiah focuses on interpreting the book as a literary whole that testifies to the LORD as the sovereign of the world who has the power to deliver Israel/Judah.
This week’s lesson, Isaiah 53:1-7, comes from one of the “servant songs.” Throughout Second Isaiah, a figure called the LORD’s servant appears in several places. Biblical scholars call the four texts which describe this figure in detail the “servant songs” (42:1-7; 49:1-7; 50:4-10; 52:13-53:12). From a literary context, these songs are Hebrew poetry, and were likely set to music like the book of Psalms. The writer of Second Isaiah says this “suffering servant” was consecrated before birth, is an instrument of Divine justice, and will ultimately be the one who gathers Israel back together through his suffering and violent persecution. Because the fourth “servant song” actually starts at 52:12, it is important to read these verses to have a proper literary context of the printed lesson:
13 See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high. 14 Just as there were many who were astonished at him
—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals— 15 so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate. (NRSVue)
This is where the printed lesson picks up.

1 Who believes what we’ve heard and seen?
Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?
2-3 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
In the opening verses of the lesson text, Isaiah asks the question, “who will believe what we have heard and seen…that God’s saving power would look like this?” His question is not merely rhetoric. The prophet speaks to invite his hearers and readers to consider how the servant’s suffering is emblematic of how God is both present and active as they endure suffering. While Christians read this figure as Jesus, it is important to note that would not have been the perspective of the writer of Isaiah. For Isaiah, the suffering servant is a Jewish messianic figure. Jewish scholars have interpreted this sufferer as an individual person, the Judean community in exile, and a future Jewish figure who suffers before redeeming the world through Israel. However, when Christians adopted the “suffering servant” as a Hebrew Bible prophecy of Jesus Christ, Jewish interpreters abandoned this interpretation.
As Christians, we look back into the Hebrew scriptures—which were the only scriptures that Jesus and the early Church had—to read and interpret this scriptural passage through the suffering and passion of Jesus of Nazareth. Without getting into the debate about whose interpretation of the suffering servant is correct (Jewish or Christian) it is important to delve into what the text says about the suffering servant. The text says the servant was one who was not particularly special in appearance; nothing that anyone would take a second look at. Further, people would overlook the servant, look down on him—literally pass him by, thinking he was scum—because he suffered and was disfigured by his sufferings. However, the writer of Second Isaiah says the suffering servant grew up before God and this “scrawny” person was the way that God chose to reveal Divine saving power.
This is the main point that we should take away about the identity of the “suffering servant.” They were not the politically connected, wealthy, well-dressed, high class individual. They would have been scorned. Further, based on the description of the servant, some scholars even think they might have had a disabling condition, or what we would call a disability. They would have been at the bottom of the social structure, without prestige or power.

NOTES FOR REFLECTION: How would we have reacted to the suffering servant during Isaiah’s time? How do we react to those sufferers who exist at the bottom of the social structures within our own time? Do we despise, reject, overlook and ignore those who are suffering, disabled, without resources? Are we as callous as those in Isaiah’s day who, “looked down on him” not realizing that God was on the side of the oppressed sufferer?

4-6 But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
Verses 4-6, we hear the voices of those writers/singers who utilize graphic language to help the hearers/readers to understand the brutality of the servant’s suffering. Although the speakers initially attribute the sufferer’s victimization to Divine judgment, they realize he suffers the consequences of their own sin and transgressions. The significance of the servant’s suffering lies in the fact that he suffers not for his own mistakes and transgressions, but for other’s mistakes and transgressions. He takes on other people’s mess so they might be free, whole, and healed. By his stripes, the whole community is healed. The plural nature of these voices underscore the fact that the servant is a representation of the community of exilic suffers and their individual and collective suffering.
In verse 6, the writer invokes the character of sheep to explain how the people of Judah have stubbornly followed their own ways like sheep who ignorantly have no clue how their actions would affect them or those who come rescue them in times of trouble. According to Second Isaiah, God allows the sins of the “sheepish” people to be piled up on the suffering servant who atones for them, and suffers on behalf of them.
7 He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn’t say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
In the final verse of the lesson text, the writer of Second Isaiah asserts the suffering servant endured everything in silence—without saying a “mumbling word.” Invoking animal imagery again, the writer reminds hearers/readers that sheep and lambs often go to the shearing and slaughter without protest. The writer employs this imagery to explore the utter hopelessness of the servant’s predicament and the injustice of his situation. He didn’t do anything to deserve this fate, yet it has been heaped upon him. The writer wants the hearer/reader to respond emotively, “this is not right!” Where is the justice in this; suffering for crimes you didn’t commit? Second Isaiah invites us to consider the suffering that the servant is experiencing from a theological perspective that says “even in the midst of this miscarriage of justice—which renders the sufferer and the witnessing community silent in the face of injustice—God’s providence is still at work.” As the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “the moral arch of the universe is long, but it yet bends toward justice.” People who suffer needlessly due to evil and sin in this world must believe that God is at work.

NOTES FOR REFLECTION: People often view human suffering and assert, “God caused this to happen so God could get the glory by bringing deliverance.” However, that is flawed theology. God does not need suffering in order to be glorified. God automatically receives glory from the twinkling of the stars, the rising of the sun, and the melodious song of the nightingale. Instead, we should assert that although gross injustice occurs, God is yet working to deliver and redeem a sin-sick world that allows injustice to occur at all.

Ultimately, God will vindicate the suffering of the numerous “servants” who remain faithful to God. In the final verses of Isaiah 53—which are not part of the printed lesson—the suffering servant is vindicated by God. The righteous suffering servant will make countless others righteous by his suffering. As Christians, we see in Isaiah’s suffering servant Jesus of Nazareth who was victimized, brutalized, and crucified by the Roman Empire. However, he was vindicated when God raised him from the dead. If God vindicated the suffering servant and Jesus, God will also vindicate us when we suffer unjustly.

i. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. The Jewish Annotated New Testament: Second Edition (Kindle Edition), 502.