Suffering And Glory - The Song Of The Servant

Messianic Prophecy - “Suffering & Glory”

Lent is a sober season in the Christian calendar. It’s a time of reflection and consideration.

So a sober question during this season of Lent. Do you ever feel you're just scraping by in this life?

I don’t just mean financially, although that is an issue for many of us as well. But scraping by…because of our wounds. Because of being paralyzed by our fears.

We’re racked with doubts about ourselves, our friendships. We’re scraping by because life has hurt us, we sense. Loss that we’ve known has left us lost.

We bear physical wounds from evil done to us. We bear the scars of guilt because of harm we have done to others.

We live with diseases, or we live with the knowledge that disease has taken someone we were close to away from us forever. Or we live with the fear of disease.

We live our lives in a bubble, perhaps rarely allowing even those closest to us to truly get close enough to know us. Perhaps we fear being known. Our experiences have diminished us.

We look at children and on the occasions when we remember we were children once, we wonder at how we got to here from there.

Once we were carefree and alive. Now, it’s all about scraping by. Sober questions during Lent.

We’re in the midst of a study together looking at Old Testament prophesies about the Messiah.

And today in Isaiah 52 and 53 we learn more about the Messiah who was yet to come in that day.

In chapter 52, there are some scattershot comments about the Messiah that nicely sets up chapter 53, which follows a more narrative approach to the identity of the coming Messiah.

This passage is frequently quoted in the NT and has been referred to as the “gospel in the OT” or the “gospel of Isaiah”

13 See, my servant will act wisely ; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him - his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness- 15 so he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.

Here we see that the Suffering Servant, another name for the Messiah,

1. As to His conduct, will be wise in what he does. He will act wisely. He will be prudent, considered, thoughtful and He will have insight. Some translations say here that he will prosper - his life will be fruitful.

2. He will be raised, set on high, and highly exalted - somehow - it’s not clear in this part of the text, but of course the exaltation of Jesus is referred to often in the NT.

3. Yet He will repel many somehow.

4. He will be, at some point in his journey, so disfigured as to be barely recognizable as a person. (The film The Passion of the Christ attempted to show this. The director said that he exercised great restraint in doing this because to show what Jesus actually went through and how he would have looked would have put the film in the category of horror, which he didn’t want to do)

5. Yet He will sprinkle many nations - that word is an odd rendering of the Hebrew that we find in most translations - it’s actual meaning is to spring, to leap, to startle or cause to leap. But we know his blood will be shed

6. King will shut their mouths or be silenced because of him. Interesting to note the thousand of kings and queens have come and gone since the coming of the Messiah, yet Jesus remains the King of kings.

7. Even though they have not heard the prophetic word, kings will understand the mission of the servant when they see his humiliation and exaltation.

So those are the scattershot comments about the Messiah at the end of Isaiah chapter 52 that we will see today start to get fleshed out in Isaiah 53.

Today we’ll be looking at just the first 5 verses of Isaiah chapter 53 about The Suffering Servant, our Saviour Jesus Christ, and how and why it is that He came to us, and why it is that 2000 years later,

Jesus is still so important, still so central to the lives of soooo many people, still inspiring places like the Yonge Street Mission to reach out to the hurting in His name.

So let's begin by considering the bigger picture of Who God is, and of what He accomplished in coming to us in Jesus Christ.