The Suffering Servant

Isaiah 53:4-6 “Surely he hath borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows: Yet we did esteem him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned every one to his own way; And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

I. Intro

We are finally here on Resurrection Sunday. As we think about that wonderful time of celebration I want to take you back to the book of Isaiah as we read from chapter 53. I want you to remember as we look at our text today that Isaiah wrote this some 700 years BEFORE the birth of Christ. Isaiah, with great precision almost as a man who saw the events unfold before him, wrote about what would happen to Jesus when He came to earth to save mankind. Isaiah told us that Jesus was going to be rejected by His own people and we still see that rejection today. In our passage today we are going to see that Isaiah not only spoke of the rejection Jesus would face some 700 years before it happened; but he also spoke of the suffering that Jesus would endure, giving the people of his day insight as to the why it happened. In our society today people have the mentality that they do not need Jesus because they are too good to need a savior or they feel that they can follow the path of their choosing to heaven. I saw a T-shirt once that showed a picture of Jesus’ bloodied body on the cross with the something that basically said, “If I am alright and you are alright, then why did this happen”? People today look at Jesus and they wonder,if He was the Son of God, why did He die like He did? People have a hard time believing that a loving God would allow His one and only Son suffer and die. Today I want to talk to you about why God allowed His one and only Son suffer and die on the cross. The Easter season as we call it is a unique time because it is a time in which many people will come to church that do not usually come. It is a time when we need to really think about what Jesus has done for us. It is my hope that after today’s message that we will all have a clear understanding as to why Jesus suffered and died on the cross and by the way why He rose on the third day! I hope that today, we will all walk out of here with a renewed commitment to love and commit ourselves to Jesus because of what He did for us.

II. The Reason Jesus Suffered

In verses 3 and 4 Isaiah tells his listeners that when the Messiah suffered, people would turn their backs on Him because they believed that He had to have done something to deserve the punishment that He was receiving. This is part of the reason that verse 3 says that He was despised. At the end of verse 4 we see that we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. People could justify His treatment because they thought He deserved it. Look at how this was fulfilled in Matthew 27:39-44 “And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.” The only way that people could be so cruel to Jesus was to write Him off as a sinner. Today people write Jesus off as just a good teacher, a fable or anything else to justify not following Him. The religious leaders incited the hostile feelings toward Jesus because they did not want to lose their power structures. Today we put Jesus on a lower level than we should because we do not want to have anyone tell us how to live our lives. The Jews of the day were very black and white. In t heir thinking if you are being punished, you must be guilty. Seeing Jesus hanging on the cross made many of them forget all the great things that Jesus had done over the course of His ministry. Isaiah and the rest of the Bible tell us the real reason that Jesus suffered. Let’s look at the passage.

The first reason that Jesus suffered:

1. He suffered so He could bear our griefs (4)  Isaiah says that one of the reasons that Jesus suffered was so that He could bear our griefs. The word griefs in many contexts referred meant diseases and sickness. Matthew in Matthew 8:17 said after Jesus had healed many people of various illnesses and possession, “This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: "He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases." The word for grief means sickness, disease, anxiety, and affliction. It does not refer to sins, but to sufferings. It means that the Messiah would take upon himself the suffering of people, and would remove their sources of grief. It does not refer here to the fact that he would take their sins. The word “bore” means as when one removes a burden from the shoulders of another, and places it on his own. The word means “to take up, to lift, to raise” Jesus wants to lift your source of grief from you, He wants you to place ii on His shoulders so that He can carry it for you. You do not have to bear your griefs alone.

The second reason that Jesus suffered:

2. He suffered so He could carry our sorrows (4) Perhaps the proper difference between this word and the word translated griefs is, that this refers to pains of the mind. Anxiety, or trouble of the soul; that to bodily that comes as a result of sickness and disease. Suffered so that He could carry our sorrows. Many of us are fighting fears in our minds about many things, Jesus wants to carry those for you. Hebrews 4:15 “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Do you think the false gods of today can be of any real help to people? Can Buddha carry your sorrows, can Allah carry your sorrows.

3. He was pierced through for our transgressions. (5) Jesus did not suffer for His own sins (of which there were none to suffer for), but for OUR transgressions. Look at some of the verses in the New Testament. Matthew 20:28 “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Romans 3:25 “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;” Romans 5:6-8 “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus was pierced or wounded by thorns, nails and a spear for our sins.

4. He was crushed for our iniquity (5)This verse refers to the fact that Jesus was crushed under the weight of OUR sins. The weight of the world’s sin would crush Jesus. The word used here means to be broken to pieces, to be bruised, or crushed. Applied to mind, it means to break down or crush by calamities and trials. The use of the word here, no doubt, is meant to imply the most severe inward and outward sufferings. It was my sin that sent Jesus to the cross. We must understand that it was not only the Adolph Hitler’s of the world that sent Jesus to the cross, but it was also the sins of every person ever created, it gives us a sense of appreciation of what Jesus has done for us.

5. He was punished (chastened) for our well-being (5) The word chastening refers to punishment inflicted by a parent to their child in order to correct their faults.

An article in the National Geographic (9/91) tells of a young man from Hanover, Pennsylvania, who was badly burned in a boiler explosion. To save his life, physicians covered him with 6,000 square centimeters of donor skin, as well as sheets of skin cultured from a stamp-sized piece of his own unburned skin. A journalist asked him, "Do you ever think about the donor who saved you?" The young man replied, "To be alive because of a dead donor is too big, too much, so I don’t think about it." Difficult to do, yes, but Christians have also received a similar gift--overwhelming, and worth thinking about.

Jesus was punished for our well-being or for our peace. 1 Peter 2:24 “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” Jesus died so that we could have peace with God through Him. When we sin we are at war with God and Jesus died so that we could have our sins forgiven. That allows us to be at peace with God, which in turn leads to eternal life! Ephesians 2:15 “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;” Colossians 1:20 “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” Jesus stepped in and took the punishment that was we deserved! (USE STANDING BEFORE THE JUDGE ILLUSTRATION) (Strips healed)The healing here referred to, is spiritual healing, or healing from sin. Pardon of sin, and restoration to the favor of God, is represented as an act of healing. When we are awakened and convicted about our sins we are often crushed, broken, bruised by the weight of our sins, and the removal of the load of sin is represented as an act of healing.

III. The Ultimate Purpose behind Jesus’ Suffering

The ultimate purpose behind His suffering was so that the lost sheep would be able to come home. Look at verse 6. It tells us that we have like sheep gone astray. 1 Peter 2:25 “For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” Jesus suffered and died so that He could be the shepherd who leads us home. 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

Actor Kevin Bacon recounted when his 6-year-old son saw Footloose for the first time: He said, "Hey, Dad, you know that thing in the movie where you swing from the rafters of that building? That’s really cool, how did you do that?" I said, "Well, I didn’t do that part--it was a stunt man." "What’s a stunt man?" he asked. "That’s someone who dresses like me and does things I can’t do." "Oh," he replied and walked out of the room looking a little confused. A little later he said, "Hey, Dad, you know that thing in the movie where you spin around on that gym bar and land on your feet? How did you do that?" I said, "Well, I didn’t do that. It was a gymnastics double." "What’s a gymnastics double?" he asked. "That’s a guy who dresses in my clothes and does things I can’t do." There was silence from my son, then he asked in a concerned voice, "Dad, what did you do?" "I got all the glory," I sheepishly replied. That’s the grace of God in our lives. Jesus took our sin upon himself and did what we couldn’t do. We stand forgiven and bask sheepishly triumphant in Jesus’ glory.

Jesus was our scapegoat. In the Old Testament, in the book of Leviticus chapter 16, we have what has been called the scapegoat. In our day a scapegoat is someone who takes the blame or the fall for something they did not do. On the Day of Atonement (the day that the sins of the people were forgiven) two goats were taken to the priest, one was chosen to be slain as a sin offering. When this one was slain, the blood of the goat was sprinkled on objects to cleanse to alter cleanse the altar, the sanctuary, and the tent of meeting from defilements of the past year. The second goat was said to be “the scapegoat.” By laying his hands on the goat’s head, the priest transferred the sins of the people to it and then had the goat led away into the desert, picturing the removal of the sins. Jesus had your sins placed on Him so that you could have eternal life.

IV. Conclusion

Who sent Jesus to the cross? I did, you did. The contemporary Christian music artist Carmen has a song called “This bloods for you.” While Jesus was being mocked and beaten, while He was dying an agonizing death on the cross, He was thinking about you.  This is one of the reasons that the Hebrew writer writes the following in Hebrews 6:4-6 “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” When we have accepted Jesus and then when we just toss that aside, we are telling God that the death of His Son was not good enough. Today we have a choice to make, are we going to live our lives like we believe there is a God in heaven who sent His Son to die for us so that we could have peace with God and eternal life? Or are we going to live like God is some fairy tale? The choice is yours today, just as Joshua said in Joshua 24:15, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. I hope that during this Easter season you will come to realize how much God loves you and how much He wants to be center of your life.