The Promised Suffering Servant

27/7/11 Isaiah 50-52; Psalm 92; 2 Peter 1

S: Isaiah 53:3-12 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!

But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.

He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.

Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.

He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.

But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.

When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.

I will give him the honours of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

O: Isaiah had so many prophecies of Jesus, no wonder then Handel wrote his opera The Messiah he could take so much of it from Isaiah. As I have been reading these chapters in recent days, the music from that musical keeps ringing through my mind because I recognise the passages from it.

This passage shows clearly the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, a prophecy which Jesus fulfilled in detail, even to the point of being pierced and whipped and buried like a criminal, yet in a rich man's tomb.

Jesus died without fathering a single child (v. 8) but He has so many descendants (v. 10) because we are all His spiritual children.



A: Jesus died for our sins! He took our punishment! He was whipped so that we could be healed! Let us honour Him! Let us follow Him! Let us love and obey Him!

P: Father, I repent of my sins. Thank You for Your love for us, for Your great sacrifice which You predicted hundreds of years before Jesus came! Truly, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us! I love You, and I want to follow You! Amen!