Isaiah 53:1-12
Our Suffering Servant and Savior
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Jesus is always forgiving...He is our Savior who forgives...As our Suffering Servant, the Prophet told us about how our Messiah would be...The fact is, it was our suffering He took on Himself; He bore our pain and our sins...But we thought that God was punishing Him, that God was beating Him for something He did...But He was being punished for what we did....It is our suns that put Him on the cross...It was our sins that caused Him to die on the cross...He was crushed because of our guilt...He took the punishment we deserved, and this brought us peace and eternal life...We were healed because of His pain...We had all wandered away like sheep...We had gone our own way...And yet the LORD put all our guilt and our sins on Him...He was treated badly, but He never protested...He said nothing, like a lamb being led away to be killed...He was like a sheep that makes no sound as its wool is being cut off...He never opened His mouth to defend Himself...He was taken away by force and judged unfairly...The people of His time did not even notice that He was killed...But He was put to death for the sins of His people and for us...He had done no wrong to anyone...He had never even told a lie...But He was buried among the wicked...His tomb was with the rich...But the LORD was pleased with this Humble Servant who suffered such pain and agony...Even after giving Himself as an offering for sin, He will see His descendants and enjoy a long life...He will succeed in doing what the LORD wanted...After His suffering He will see the Light of Heaven, and He will be satisfied with what He experienced...The LORD says, “My Servant, who always does what is right, will make His people right with Me; He will take away their sins...For this reason, I will treat Him as one of My Great People...I will give Him the rewards of One who wins in battle, and He will share them with His powerful ones...I will do this because He gave His life for the people...He was considered a criminal, but the Truth is, He carried away the sins of many....Now He will stand before me and speak for those who have sinned...
Pastor and author John Piper wrote, “There is no greater sin than to hate and kill the Son of God...There was no greater suffering nor any greater innocence than the suffering and innocence of Christ...Yet God was in it all..."It was the will of the LORD to crush Him." (Isaiah 53:10)...His aim, through evil and suffering, was to destroy evil and suffering. "With his stripes we are healed."(Isaiah 53:5)...Is not then the suffering of Jesus Christ meant by God to show the world that there is no sin and no evil too great that God, in Christ, cannot bring from it everlasting righteousness and joy?...The very suffering that we caused became the hope of our salvation..."Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."(Luke 23:34)...