The Baby who Became the Suffering Servant

Introduction

I want you to use your imagination this morning. (Pause) Imagine that you and a group of your friends have been following a man around for some time now, and by the way, he’s an awesome teacher! Then, one day you arrive at a small town only to have some of the people who live there bring one of their friends out to see the man you’re traveling with. The man they bring out, their friend, he’s blind. What do you think your teacher’s going to do? Maybe he’ll recommend a good doctor, or maybe he’ll give some good advice to help make the blind man’s life a little easier. You’re standing there, waiting, watching; everything is getting pretty tense at this point! Then, the man you’ve been spending all this time with, the teacher, takes the blind man by the hand and leads him away from all of his friends. What happens next blows your mind because it’s not at all what you’d expect. Your teacher looks into the eyes of this blind man, and then he spits on them, after which, he asks the man, “Do you see anything? (Mk. 8:23). To your surprise this once blind man responds that he’s now able to see people walking around, and they look like trees! (Pause) To your surprise, your teacher isn’t satisfied and so he reaches up and touches the man’s eyes which, then, completely opens them allowing him to see everything with total clarity! What do you think you would you do in this situation; how would you react? (Pause) Well, it wasn’t long after that when Peter confessed his teacher, who was Jesus, to be the long-awaited Messiah. It was after Peter’s confession that we’re told Jesus began to teach his disciples the truth that he would have to go to Jerusalem to be killed, but after that he would rise from the dead. Now, when you and I read that in our Bible, we tend to be completely taken aback by what happens next in the story. You see, after Peter heard Jesus say that he, that is Jesus, would have to be killed, we’re told that Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him (Mk. 8:32). The reason you and I tend to think that Peter must have been out of his mind is because we know the rest of the story; we know what happened. (Pause) More often than not we read our Bible that way, looking at those like Peter and saying, “If I had been there, I wouldn’t have acted like that! I would have believed!” The truth is that we would have been just like Peter, slow to see, and also slow to believe. (Pause) This morning we’re going to take a quick look at Isaiah 53 which, in its OT context, taught that one day a servant would come who would be rejected, and yet, suffer for the sins of his people. (By the way, if you’ve ever wondered why people like Peter seemed so slow to believe, especially when they heard passages like Isaiah 53, you need to bear in mind that in this passage the term Messiah is never used.) Now, some of you are probably wondering, “What does this have to do with the Christmas season?” Well, here’s your answer, sometimes I think we have a tendency to leave Jesus in the manger. You see church, the baby whose birth we’re celebrating would go on to become the man who would bear the punishment that we deserve, and that is the core message of the gospel we’re commanded to preach. So, let’s look at what the prophet Isaiah had to say.

Isaiah 53 NKJV

1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. 9 And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. 10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. 11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

Prayer

The Servant Who Would Be Rejected

Isaiah 53:1–3 NKJV

1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Isaiah begins in v.1 one by asking a couple questions, he says, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” Now, that’s interesting when you consider the fact that Isaiah, when he received his commission way back in chapter six, was told, by God nonetheless, that the vast majority of the people he was sent to wouldn’t believe a word he had to say. In fact, Isaiah was told that the message of redemption he would preach to them would actually “10make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy …” (Is. 6:10a). So, the questions asked by Isaiah here at the beginning of chapter fifty-three are rhetorical, in that although Isaiah was probably hopeful, he in all reality knew that the people wouldn’t repent, and in the end would suffer God’s judgement at the hands of the Babylonians. (Pause) You might be wondering why I would bring that up. It’s because these rhetorical questions, I believe, serve to lay the foundation and illuminate what’s going to be said in the rest of chapter fifty-three. You see, it can be pretty hard to believe in something you don’t expect, after all in Isaiah 11 the prophet had told the people that the Branch, that’s the same “tender plant” that’s mentioned here in Isaiah 53:2, was going to rule over the whole earth. In other words, he was going to be the king of kings! But when this “king” showed up he didn’t seem to meet the criteria most people were expecting. Remember the story I told you about Peter a few minutes ago? Peter, just like everyone else, wasn’t expecting Jesus to look, think, or act the way he did when he came, and so that’s why he was rejected by so many of his own countrymen! Let me ask you, what do you expect when you think of a king? It’s probably somebody with a regal appearance; someone handsome; someone who will sweep you off your feet, right(?). I think most people think that way when they consider what a king should be.

Illustration: How many of you have ever seen the movie The Passion of the Christ? It came out when I was in college. While I was there, one of my friends told me about a discussion his history class had engaged in about the film. The professor was talking about how realistic the movie was, and how it gave an excellent depiction of first century life in ancient Palestine under Roman rule. He also said that the crucifixion scenes in the movie were extremely realistic too. If you’ve ever watched the film then you’ll certainly know that those scenes are gruesome. When the professor asked the class about their take on the film, my friend told me that one young lady in the back of the room quietly raised her hand, and when the professor called on her, she said the following, “I’ve watched the movie, and I know those scenes you’re talking about are definitely horrific, but that dude that Mel Gibson got to play Jesus, he was good looking!”

When you think about a king what do you think about? Most people are like that young lady in my friends’ class, they tend not to think in terms of Isaiah 53:2 and 3. Look at what’s said there. Isaiah told his listeners that this servant king wouldn’t be “comely” and that there would be nothing about his appearance “that we should desire him”. No, instead Isaiah told his listeners that this servant king would be “despised and rejected”, he would be “a Man of sorrows” whom the people would turn their faces from and not “esteem”. Everything that the people imagined a king might be, this Servant would not fit the profile.

(Appeal) Now friends, when I read something like that it really makes me stop and think because Isaiah is describing the king I serve. If you’re a believer, he’s describing the king you serve too, and so goes the king, so go his people because if this servant king was rejected and persecuted so too can his people expect to be as well. In fact, Jesus even told us as much. He said, “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you …” (Jn. 15:20). That sounds really bleak doesn’t it. But take heart because he also said, “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me” (Lk. 10:16). If you’re here today and that’s you, and you’re rejecting Christ, he’s the baby we’re celebrating, all of this, the Christmas season is about him, and you cannot have Christmas with the Christ. So too, you cannot have a truly a meaningful life unless he is part of it. If you’ve never made the decision to make him part of your life, why not do so today!

The Servant Who Would Be Our Substitute

Isaiah 53:4–6 NKJV

4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

-Let’s take a look at vv.4-6, the servant who would be our substitute.

Illustration: The highest award a person in the United States military can receive for distinguished service is the Congressional Medal of Honor. According to Public Law 88-77, July 25, 1963, the requirements for receiving the Medal of Honor are as follows: [quote] “a recipient must distinguish himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.” In other words, the person must be willing to lay down their life for others at the risk of losing their own. The person must be willing to be a substitute.

The interesting thing about most interviews you’ll hear with those brave servicemen who receive this award and actually live to talk about it is that more often than not, in their humility, they will say in that when they actually performed the act that warranted their receiving the medal, they really weren’t considering the implications of what they were doing. They did what they did in the moment simply because they knew it needed to be done. I think we’d all agree that we should be more than grateful for people like that because they’re a big part of why we enjoy the freedoms we do in the United States. That said, I want you to consider what Isaiah says in vv.4-6 concerning the servant who would be (and is) our substitute. (Pause) The first thing I want to point out to you is all of the third person pronouns in vv.4-6, all of the He’s and Him’s. They’re important because they points to the truth that this “Servant” who suffers on behalf of God’s people is a literal, living breathing person, not some figment of someone’s imagination. Second, take a look at the contrast that’s created in the way Isaiah uses these third person pronouns (the He’s and Him’s), which are all singular, with the first-person plural pronouns, particularly the word we. Verse 4 says, “4Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” What Isaiah is saying here is that even though Jesus would do all of this for his people, they actually thought his suffering what justified as a punishment from God for something he had done! Look at vv.5 and 6, “5But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way …” Church, even though we are who we are in our self-centeredness and sin this servant who is Jesus Christ has given himself as our substitute. We know this to be true because Isaiah says here that God has “laid on Him the iniquity of us all”. Friends, Jesus didn’t have to do what he did. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision, but in doing what he did for believers he received from the Father a kingdom that will never ever come to an end.

(Appeal) The question you must ask yourself today is whether or not you are part of that kingdom. Have you placed your faith in the baby we celebrate at Christmas? He is your only hope! I ask you, are you resting in him?

The Servant’s Suffering Appears to Be in Vain

Isaiah 53:7–9 NKJV

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. 9 And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

-Look at vv.7-9.

Illustration: One of the most awe-inspiring accounts of resilience in the Christian faith can be found in the story of William Tyndale. (Pause) Tyndale was born somewhere between 1490 and 1494 in Gloucestershire, England. He was a highly educated man, reading and speaking a total of seven languages. At a point in his life Tyndale became encompassed with the desire to see the people of England have access to the Bible translated into their own language. Not long after that he crossed the English Channel to continental Europe where he met the famous German reformer, Martin Luther, and eventually produced the first printed copy of the New Testament in English. Lured by the possibly of coming home to England, Tyndale began the journey only to be captured at Antwerp in 1535. He was eventually tried and condemned to be burnt at the stake for heresy, despite many pleas that his life be spared. Many people today still recall the famous last words of William Tyndale, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!” Tyndale would never live to see it happen and frankly the majority of the people who were alive at that time probably thought everything William Tyndale attempted to do was in vain. However, sometimes appearances can be deceiving and sixty-eight years later a group of men met to begin the process of producing a new English translation of God’s Word. They were blessed to be able to utilize the work of a man named William Tyndale, and in fact, over eighty percent of their translation was based upon his efforts. The work they produced became what is regarded as the most influential piece of literature in the English language. Many of you have it with you today; it’s the King James Bible. (Pause) You see, even though the suffering of William Tyndale might have seemed to be in vain, it wasn’t! When you think about it, it’s easy to see why those who were alive at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion might have thought what he was doing was pointless.

Isaiah, prophesying many years before the event, said that the Christ would suffer severely, and yet, he wouldn’t open his mouth in complaint (v.7). In v.8 the demeanor of Jesus is compared to that of a “sheep before its shearers …” In v.9 Isaiah even speaks of the death and burial of Jesus in the family tomb of rich man named Joseph of Arimathea (Mt. 27:57). Friends, the point of Isaiah 53:7-9 is that those who saw what happened to Jesus on the cross, and from the perspective of the watching world, his suffering was pointless; it accomplished nothing. He was simply another Jewish rebel who was getting what he deserved, and if the story ended there it would be pretty bleak wouldn’t it, but that’s just not how God works, we’ve still got vv.10-12!

The Truth About the Servant’s Suffering

Isaiah 53:10–12 NKJV

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. 11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

Let’s finish by looking at the last three verses of Isaiah 53. Verse 10 sets up a contrast with what’s just preceded in vv.7-9. Remember, in those verses to all outward appearances the suffering of the Servant would have seemed to be in vain, pointless. In vv.10-12 we’re presented with the truth concerning the Servants suffering. Here in v.10 and 11 we’re told, “10Yet it pleased God to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul and offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper His hand. 11He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.” Now, that a mouthful isn’t it! In his discussion of what Isaiah is talking about in this text, Bible scholar Peter Gentry offers what’s probably a more understandable translation. “10But Yahweh accepted the crushing of him whom he had made sick, If his soul makes a reparation offering He will see offspring, he will prolong days … What Yahweh wants will prosper by his hand. 11Because of the labor of his life he will see light, he will be satisfied; By his knowledge, the just one my servant will bring justification to the many and he will bear their offenses.” (Pause) I want you to look long and hard at that phrase there in v.10, “He shall see His seed/He will see offspring …”, and here’s why. “People [can] only “see [their] offspring” in life.”[1] Here’s what that means. The only way that the Servant, here in this text, will “see” (i.e. experience) his offspring is if he returns to life after he’s crushed! The only way a person can “see/experience” their offspring is if they’re physically living. The idea is similar to what’s going on at the end of the book of Genesis. “In Gen 48:11, Israel (Jacob) tells Joseph that he did not expect to live to “see” Joseph’s “offspring” (that is Manasseh and Ephraim) when Joseph brings his sons to (Jacob) Israel to bless them. Another example is found in Isa 61:9. In that text the prophet—when offering a message of restoration—declares that all the nations will “see” the “offspring” of Israel and know they are blessed by Yahweh. In both passages, there is a visual identification of an offspring. The same word is used in each passage. Thus, these passages suggest that seeing offspring refers to a living being actually seeing descendants, either their own or those of another group of people.[2]” Just let that sink in. (Pause) What that means is that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a historical fact, and that the Servant he speaks of here, Jesus, is alive and well today! Church, what Isaiah says here, what he said hundreds of years before it actually happened, proves that this baby who was born 2000 years ago, not in a palace built for a king, but in a stinking, smelling, and unsanitary stable is who he says he is, the Savior of the world! (Pause) Look at v.12. I like the way the HCSB translates it, “Therefore I will give Him the many as a portion, and He will receive the mighty as spoil, because He submitted Himself to death and was counted among the rebels; yet He bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.” Church, the very people, the rebels, who did this to the Servant (that is Jesus), are the very people he is interceding for! Now, here’s where this hits home for me, and hopefully you; it’s when we come to understand that we are numbered among those who are the rebels because we are all in rebellion. (Pause) Do we not realize that had we have been there at the cross we would have driven the spikes just like those Roman soldiers. We are just as guilty as they, and everyone else there was. And so this, my friends, is why we celebrate Christmas; it’s because even though the Servant who came as a helpless baby, and was rejected by those he came to save; he allowed himself to be numbered with us, we who are the worst of sinners, “and made intersession” for us.

[1] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Is 53:10.

[2] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Is 53:10.

Invitation

Prayer