Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on Isaiah 53:1-12.
Sacrifice. Sacrifice can mean different things to different people based on what it requires and what the end result is. For the Old Testament Jews, sacrifice was all about trying to get right with the Lord. Rules were drawn up and procedures established so if the guy making the sacrifice did it just right, he was assured that the sacrifice accomplished what it was supposed to - make God forget to punish him.
There is another sacrifice that goes beyond time and things. Giving up a part of your body for somebody else really takes some soul searching. Jackie had a beauty parlor lady who had a liver that was not functioning. It was a life or death thing for her. Her brother gave her part of his liver and it saved her life. That’s a big sacrifice for her brother to make. This kind of sacrifice gets even more critical when it is something that you might need later on, like giving one of your kidneys. If you give a kidney and then your’s is damaged, you are out of luck.
Now, we get to the ultimate sacrifice. What would be the ultimate sacrifice? Giving your life for someone else. Sometimes people make this sacrifice because something happens so fast, they didn’t have time to think. They acted on impulse. A grenade is thrown into a group of soldiers and one guy falls on it and saves the others, loses his life. A brave sacrifice which may have been the result of reaction. The classic example of reaction verses calculated actions is: suppose you are driving a bus load of senor citizens on a winding mountain road. You go around the curve and there standing in the road right in the path of your bus is a little girl. If you swerve, you’ll go over the side of the cliff and everybody on the bus including you will be killed. If you don’t swerve, you’ll run over the little girl and she will be killed. What would you do? Any decision you make now would be a calculated action. I’d be willing to bet that if you didn’t have time to think about it and weigh the pros and cons, you would swerve to miss the little girl. But, there are those who know that they will die and still will sacrifice themselves for others. I think of the people on the plane on 9/11 who sacrificed themselves so that the Muslim terrorists couldn’t crash into the congressional building. Today's lesson deals with the ultimate sacrifice.
The verses in our scripture are a poem which is called the servant song. It’s interesting that for quite a long time Jews as well as Christians cherished these verses. In some early Old Testament translations, the Jews even identify the unmentioned servant as the Messiah which puts them right on board with the Christians interpretation. Later, probably because the Christians had adopted this song as supporting Jesus as the messiah, Jews stopped using these verses in their services.
We need to understand that a prophet was a messenger of God. God told him to say certain things and he obeyed. It is quite likely that the prophet might not have even known exactly what the prophesy meant. Isaiah may have looked around and tried to apply it to Hebrew history or to what was happening to the people in exile. That's what we humans do - put things in context with what we know or understand. He might have thought that the servant in his prophesy referred to Moses or David or even Cyrus, the king who let the exiles return to Jerusalem, or maybe even the nation of the Israel itself. Most of us look at these verses and see a striking resemblance to what Christ went through after the Last Supper. So, I prefer to think that God was giving Isaiah a message about the future Messiah who was Jesus. With this background, lets see why Christians feel this song is so important.
Isaiah 53:1 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.
What's the question? Who will believe what we have heard. Like so many of the verses in Isaiah, identifying who the pronouns referred to, helps us understand what the prophet is trying to tell us. The “who” and “whom” are all of the people not in the know concerning God. In that time who didn’t know God? The world. If the “who” is the world then the “we” who know God would have to be who? The Jews. So, the prophet is really going to say some things that the Jews already know and the rest of the world should know. In other words, this is said to give the world a chance to ask their questions and get answers.
(1) Grew like a root in dry ground. This meant that he didn’t have the best environment for growth. From birth, events were stacked against him. Do you seed your lawn in the fall? After you put down the seed, what do you have to do? Water the lawn a lot. If you don’t water the lawn what happens? The seeds won’t germinate and the ones that do will whither in the sun’s heat. In other words, dry ground can’t be expected to produce healthy grass shoots.
(2) No form or comeliness. First off, what in the world is comeliness? To have a pleasant appearance. Queen Elizabeth may not be brightest light bulb, but, she sure knows how look to regal. There are people who impress us with how they look and move. Cary Grant or John Wayne walking across a room didn’t need to say a word to get noticed. So, the servant didn't have a pleasant appearance that would attract attention.
(3) He was despised and rejected by others. What does it take for you to really despise somebody? He either looks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame or he does something horrible like killing somebody. Sometimes we dislike somebody based on the first impression we have of them. They remind us of an attitude or lifestyle that we don’t like. After getting to really know that person, sometimes we find that they aren’t that bad after all. So, the servant didn't get invited to tailgate parties.
(4) A man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. In this case "sorrow" is just another word for "suffering." What is suffering for you? A lot of time suffering is if Cox Cable is shut down just when Dancing With The Stars starts. It may be like hurricane Camille a few years ago and not having electricity for two weeks. It may even be like going to Surf Riders and them not having crab cakes. We sometimes confuse inconvenience with suffering. Isaiah’s servant will really suffer physically and emotionally.
(5) One from whom others hide their faces. Now that’s a pretty bad looking guy. He looks so bad that people can’t bring themselves to look at him. Ever see somebody who has a wart on their nose? Do you stare at the wart or look away? We usually look away because either we are turned off by the wart or we don’t want the person to see how uncomfortable we are with their nose dwelling wart. You see, it is easy to look at attractive people, but, we sometimes feel uncomfortable looking at ugly people.
(6) We didn’t take any account of him. What does that mean? He wasn’t worth our attention, so, we acted as if he didn’t even exist. Ever stand at a counter in a store and be totally ignored? The salesperson acts as if you were invisible? How do you react? Anger. Frustration. To considering somebody as having no value is probably one of the biggest insults you could ever pile on a person and that is how the servant is treated.
Isaiah’s servant isn’t the beautiful person we see portrayed in pictures hanging on Sunday School walls. This servant is a nobody. His features are like everybody else. His physical statue is just average. You know what average is? The best of the worse and worse of the best. He is just your run of the mill person. Your average Joe. Only, this person will spend a lifetime of suffering.
Jews wouldn’t understand why a servant of God would be ugly. In the Old Testament there was a correlation between beauty and blessing. The first King of the Hebrews, Saul, was described as a handsome young man. Joseph was so good looking that Potiphar’s wife couldn’t keep her hands off of him. King David was described as ruddy and handsome with beautiful eyes. Everybody agreed that these guys were good looking and that played a part in God blessing what they did. So the formula for the Jews was - beauty equals blessing. Now if physical beauty equaled blessing, where did that leave Isaiah’s servant who caused people to hide their faces when they saw him? Without beauty meant that he was without blessing. And, without blessing he became a nobody from no where.
Being ignored was suffering of sorts. But he was also despised by people for no good reason. The “man of sorrows” was so unattractive that people couldn’t bear to look at him. That was suffering. Why does the servant have to suffer like this? The next verses give us the answer.
Isaiah 53: 4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted.
The servant had a rough life. Was it his fault? Kind of because he did two things. What were they? Bore our infirmities and our diseases. This doesn’t mean that he actually caught the flu bug that was intended for us. It means that he took away the guilt and shame that the people of the world felt. Ever been sick with shame? You did something that you were so ashamed of that it made you physically ill? You can’t eat. Headaches. Depression. Those are the infirmities and diseases that the servant takes on himself. Bear in mind, these were not his infirmities or diseases, but, the world’s.
Here is the irony. Even though the servant is carrying the load of their shame, the world sees him suffering because of it and thinks that he looks this bad because of something he had done. They looked on him and thought, “He must have really messed up for God to punished him like this.” Even today, something really bad happens to somebody and the first thought some people have is to wonder what he did to make God so mad. The world can’t accept that the servant is in such a bad way because their sins were the diseases that racked his body.
Suddenly, that little electric light over their heads turns on. The world finally gets the picture. The servant didn’t DESERVE the punishment and suffering because of anything he did. The servant ACCEPTED the punishment - the consequences of sin - which should have been the world’s punishment. He didn't have to accept them, but he did. Because the servant took on the world’s sin, what happens to him? He was wounded, crushed and bruised. A lot of bad stuff happened to the servant, maybe, more than might have been necessary. In other words the servant went further than he needed to make sure that the coverage was absolutely complete. The servant was willing to pay any price, endure any indignity and suffer any pain just so that the world will gain something. And as a result of the servant’s action, what happened to the world? They got off the hook. They were healed. How will they know that they are whole and healed? They will now be in a right relationship with God. Because of the servant, they will be forgiven, redeemed and restored. Who is putting all of this on the servant? God.
Verse 6 is a familiar verse that we have heard a lot of times. But, what does it mean? It means that even though the shepherd is present, even though the shepherd is still protecting the sheep and even though the shepherd is guiding the sheep, we sheep still find a way to wander off the reservation. As dopey old sheep, we know this is how we sheep are. Back in the days of the prophet, there was even a greater threat associated with sheep wandering off.
If you had a dog and it ran out the door to chase a car or a neighbor’s cat, the odds are that eventually the dog will find his way back home. Dogs have been known to walk hundreds of miles to get back home. Lassie didn't have any trouble crossing the Atlantic to get back to jolly old England. Well, sheep are a different animal. Since none of you own sheep, I can freely say this. Sheep are dumb as a fence post. If they wander off, they have no idea how to get back to the flock. Once a sheep is lost, they stay lost until the shepherd FINDS them and BRINGS them back. The idea is that even if we are as dumb as sheep, God has sent us the servant who is willing to go out and find us and lead us back.
Summing up these verses, although people have sinned and deserve to be punished as a consequence of their sin, God has sent His servant to accept the punishment deserved by the people. By doing this, the people can be put back in harmony with God.
Isaiah 53:7 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 his shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. 9 They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
The picture of the sheep was to remind people of the sacrifices made at the Temple. Through the sacrificial rituals of the Jews, their sins were partially removed. Remember we talked about that when we studied the scapegoat. Now, the perfect sacrificial lamb or scapegoat will make a clean sweep of all of their sins. A sheep about to be sacrificed doesn’t say anything. The perfect lamb doesn’t either. This sacrifice will end in the death of the servant. Where will he be buried? In the rich man’s grave.
Isaiah 53:10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. 11 Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their inequities. 12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressor; yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
All and all, this seems to be a bad deal for the servant. But, God says that the servant will see that his sacrifice has great rewards. The servant did this so God’s will can be realized for the people and he will see the fruit of this realization in the numbers who will be brought righteous before God.
Finally, God declares that the servant would be rewarded for what the servant had done. The servant didn’t take on this job for personal recognition or glory. He volunteered for all of this without ever expecting anything personal in return. What do you think would have happened if the servant had have told God, “I’ll take on all of the sins of the world and go through all of the pain and suffering if in return I’ll never have moles in my front yard again?” If the servant had tried to strike a deal with God, then God would have looked for a better servant. You see, it was only after the sacrifice made by the servant that God even lets the servant know that God was going to reward him. There was no trade off deal up front. No this for that thing.
You have heard the song. You have read the descriptions of the servant. You have seen the servant’s necessary sacrifice. You’re the jury. Is the servant Jesus or not? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. No where outside the New Testament are the last days of Christ so powerfully described as in this song. Right down to being buried in the rich man’s grave. There is a line drawn from Abraham down to us. God’s covenant with Abraham required Abraham’s descendants to bring the world to God. God didn’t say how or when, but, he sure gave a lot of hints. No greater hint is given than our study today. The chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, vested with this responsibility boiled down to one man born five centuries later to make all of us God's chosen people. And that man was Jesus.
Prayer: Father, ready us for the sacrifices required of us in this time so that we may share in the reward of bringing the world to you. Amen.
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