ADDRESS: THE PORTRAIT IN THE GALLERY - Isaiah 52:13-53:12
INTRO
The unfolding events of Tuesday morning –
Who would have thought what the day would bring
First attack – Bewilderment
Second attack – horror
Third attack – immense shock and panic
Powerful images
Watching the news has been compulsive viewing.
We have seen the same shocking images time and time again.
The world has yet to emerge from the shock of what has happened. Yet already there are the other reactions of anger, despair, questioning and blaming.
POINT It is at times like this that people ask questions about the love and power of God.
Why did God allow this to happen? Some will ask.
There may be no easy answers to this question, but what we do know is:
THESIS God Himself knows suffering enough to be able to care.
POINT Flicking through our newspapers we may have found horrific images.
Flicking through the Bible we find them too.
POINT *This morning we are going to take a look at one of the most powerful of all. It lies in the centre of God’s picture gallery. It takes the form of a song. In the song, God is first to speak.
God has an incredible story to tell. It is all summed up in a picture. God himself tells something of the story, and then he invites us in to see the picture.
(POINT - The reading is Hebrew poetry - not rhyming, but parallels - Note the parallels as we read)
READING Is 52:13-53:12
POINT When I read this passage I imagine it to be like the unveiling of a new portrait drawn for the people. The portrait is that of the Servant of the Lord. Everyone in the crowd is waiting for the portrait to be unveiled (like a new portrait of the Queen). Then the moment arrives and the cover is taken away.
POINT This is not unlike what we have here.
As soon as the portrait is unveiled there is the gasp heard among the crowd – one of shock.
and a SUCCESSION OF RESPONSES:
1. APPALLED - The Portrait Unveiled 52:13-14
IMAGINE
Such pictures should never be shown, we think. The sight is horrific:
It is like a mural - It tells its own story. There are several parts to the picture, but the part that draws our attention most of all is the picture of an intensely tortured body.
The picture is of a Suffering Servant
The Suffering
The form of a person, hardly recognisable as human, so severe has the beating been:
‘disfigured beyond that of any man --- his form marred beyond human likeness’
[Hundreds of wounds through many beatings]
Words used ‘Despised, smitten, pierced, afflicted, crushed’
The Scourge = A whip of several strands of leather with pieces of metal and sharp bone tied into it.
Flogged until his body was wealed and lacerated as one great bruise.
QUOTE from Questions of Life – Nicky Gumbell p48
APPLIC To empathise is to imagine what it is like to be in someone else’s position. To sympathise is to have experienced it yourself.
Jesus is able to sympathise!
2. ASTONISHED - The Portrait Described 53:1-4
POINT
The response of the witnesses turns from being appalled to astonished.
‘Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
viz. It’s unbelievable; who else has God shown this to?
POINT Here is the Messiah from the root of Jesse (the father of David). He is unassuming and innocent - yet despised and rejected.
His Sufferings
POINT The Common Belief
Suffering comes from God as punishment for sin.
*If this man suffered so much he must surely have been guilty.
QUESTION What was so unique about the death of Jesus?
Crossing the rubican (McGrath p72)
Have you ever heard the expression ‘Crossing the Rubicon’?
Account – 49BC Julius Caesar crossed a small river with a single legion of soldiers. The name of the river was the Rubicon.
What was significant about it?
It was not a particularly wide river and many other people had crossed it.
The significance lay in that it marked a national frontier.
It marked the boundary between Italy and Gaul.
By crossing it, Caesar declared war against Pompey and the Roman senate.
This had momentous results.
• The event was the crossing of a river;
• The meaning of that event was a declaration of war.
APPLIC There are parallels here with the death of Christ.
Many had been crucified before.
But the meaning here lies in:
• the person who had died and therefore
• the significance of his death.
3. ASHAMED - The Portrait Detailed 53:5-9
NB The most astonishing realisation of all was about to dawn on the witnesses in the gallery.
POINT As they looked into the detail of the painting, into the faces of the crowds looking on and mocking they saw their own.
POINT **He wasn’t dying for his own sin, he was dying for theirs!!!
“he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed”
APPLIC Who was responsible?
Not just Judas or Pilate. Not the Pharisees or the Jews or the Roman soldiers, but ourselves - our transgression and iniquity.
Isaiah 53:6 ‘We all like sheep, have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all’
THIS WAS THE TURNING POINT for the witnesses
It can be for us too - (Looking for a sign of God’s love? Here it is)
4. AMAZED - The Portrait Explained 53:10-12
Witnesses - Amazed at the purpose of God
v10 ‘It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer’
(Atonement)
Amazed at the wisdom of God
‘he will see his offspring and prolong his days’
(Resurrection)
Amazed at the outcome of God’s plan
‘He will see of the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied’
(Salvation)
Cf Isa 52:13 ‘he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
Here we have the Easter Story foretold
• "He shall be raised; Is 52:13
• he shall be lifted up; v13
• he shall be highly exalted." V13
= events that happened to Jesus after the crucifixion:
CONCL
APPLIC/CHALLENGE
Appalled? Astonished? Ashamed? Amazed?
This is the Son of God; the Servant of the Lord
(Gumbel Searching Issues p23 The Long Silence - read)
RESPONSE of prayer
