Last night, Daniel (our guest preacher) raised a thought provoking and challenging question…”who is the servant?” or perhaps more appropriate, “who is A servant of God?”
Our reading was the 4th of the Servant Songs in Isaiah found in within chapter 52:13-53:12. And if you don’t have a Bible of your choosing with you, you can read over that here:
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 Living Bible (TLB)
13 See, my Servant[a] shall prosper; he shall be highly exalted. 14-15 Yet many shall be amazed when they see him—yes, even far-off foreign nations and their kings; they shall stand dumbfounded, speechless in his presence. For they shall see and understand what they had not been told before. They shall see my Servant beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know it was a person standing there. So shall he cleanse[b] many nations.
53 But, oh, how few believe it! Who will listen? To whom will God reveal his saving power? 2 In God’s eyes[c] he was like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. But in our eyes there was no attractiveness at all, nothing to make us want him. 3 We despised him and rejected him—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we didn’t care.
4 Yet it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his own sins! 5 But he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed! 6 We—every one of us—have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us!
7 He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he never said a word. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he stood silent before the ones condemning him. 8 From prison and trial they led him away to his death. But who among the people of that day realized it was their sins that he was dying for—that he was suffering their punishment? 9 He was buried like a criminal, but in a rich man’s grave; but he had done no wrong and had never spoken an evil word.
10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to bruise him and fill him with grief. However, when his soul has been made an offering for sin, then he shall have a multitude of children, many heirs. He shall live again,[d] and God’s program shall prosper in his hands. 11 And when he sees all that is accomplished by the anguish of his soul, he shall be satisfied; and because of what he has experienced, my righteous Servant shall make many to be counted righteous before God, for he shall bear all their sins. 12 Therefore, I will give him the honors of one who is mighty and great because he has poured out his soul unto death. He was counted as a sinner, and he bore the sins of many, and he pled with God for sinners.
It’s so easy for us to read Jesus in this. And we should. He totally fulfills this prophecy. But Daniel challenged us to look beyond Jesus; to look into what the original audience heard, and also where we see ourselves in this text.
For the people of Isaiah’s time the suffering servant was a metaphor for the Israelite people. But they would have also thought about previous SERVANTS of God, like Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and David. What connections might this passage share with them, and other prophets like Jonah, Daniel, Amos, Jeremiah, Hosea?
Maybe take a few minutes to investigate these prophets if you don’t know much about them. Choose one or two, read through their book or look up a summary of what their mission was and what they went through. Then reflect on the previous question.
The point is that many of the servants that God “called” faced hardships and suffered. The imagery of Isaiah, particularly of being punished for our sins, automatically directs us to think of Jesus, but the truth is everyone who serves God will face some trials and suffer to some extent for their faith.
I say “the truth is…” but do you agree with me? Why or Why not?
And finally, Daniel challenged us to modify the meaning of the metaphor of the suffering servant from Israel to you and me – to us.
It’s hard, like Daniel said, to relate to the suffering part of our servant-hood today. But he’s right in that we are incorporated into “the servant’s” role. Jesus took on that role himself and we are made one with Christ, therefore we are the metaphorical servant come alive in Isaiah.
But more that just a metaphor, we are actual servants of God.
What does that mean to you?
How are you serving God day to day?