Isaiah 53
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD! Awake as in the ancient days, In the generations of old. (Isaiah 51:9)
Anticipation has been building up over the past few chapters.
Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem (Isaiah 51:17a)
Suspense grows as something great is about to happen.
“Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city!” (Isaiah 52:1)
Reading the past few chapters, one expects the coming of a great king or warrior, or perhaps some grand miracle, to deliver the Israelites who have been suffering in captivity.
“Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52:7b)
Then comes Isaiah 53, one of the songs of the Servant, and that great thing, doesn’t seem to come.
“He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. 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 53:2-3)
“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. 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. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.” (Isaiah 53:8-10a)
To many, the description of a Man who suffered and bore the wrath of God is quite an anticlimax after all the suspense, anticipation, and build up!
This subversion of expectation reminds me of a scene which Elder John saw in Revelation 5.
The lion is a symbol of strength and power, the king of animals. When we think of lions, we think of majesty, power, and victory. Lambs, on the other hand, are weak and helpless, at the mercy of wolves and bears, unable to fend for themselves.
John was told that a Lion has prevailed to open the scroll. But when he looked, he saw instead a Lamb that was slain (Revelation 5:4-6). Who is this Lamb? Why was He slain?
This links back to Isaiah 53, which tells us that this Lamb was slain for us!
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. (Isaiah 53:7)
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. (Isaiah 53:5)
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God (John 1:29, 36), was led as a lamb to the slaughter, for you and me.
And this is precisely the message of Isaiah from these few chapters. All the anticipation and build up, all the promises of deliverance and hope of victory, all point to the death of Jesus on the cross.
The single most important event for us Christians.
When we think of a “victorious Christian life” what comes to mind? What does “Jesus delivering us” mean to us?
Do we only consider God’s physical providence in our lives, or is Jesus’ death on the cross for us at the forefront of our minds?
It is human nature for us to focus on more tangible things. Even the disciples who followed Jesus for three years, after seeing Jesus resurrect from the dead, asked about when He will restore the (physical) kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6).
Like the disciples, our understanding of the “victory” and “deliverance” that we expect as Christians is still rooted in the physical, material things of this world.
But lest we forget, our victory is the cross. Our deliverance is because of the cross.
We are no longer in captivity, no longer in the bondage of sin, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We are no longer under the power of darkness but are in the kingdom of the Son of His love (Col 1:13). When we were baptised, the blood that Jesus shed on the cross takes effect in our lives and washes our sins away.
This is the key reason why we are Christians today, not because we expect God to grant all the desires of our hearts, or to work miracles in our lives.
No matter what we are going through, even in the midst of adversity, let us remember the death of Jesus on the cross, the source of our victory and eternal glory. And let us remember that just as Jesus suffered and died for us, we too should expect to suffer for His sake (1 Peter 2:20-24).
As we read through and meditate on Isaiah 53, let us reflect on these two aspects:
1) Why am I a Christian today? What expectations do I have in my life as a Christian?
2) What does the cross of Christ mean to me?
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
For those of us in TJC Singapore, let us prepare our hearts for the upcoming Holy Communion this coming Sabbath day.
