A remarkable thing happened this week, a convergence of ideas and expectations. On Monday evening, I felt very strongly I needed to interrupt my preaching through
The Acts of the Apostles for a sermon series appropriate to Advent and Christmas. With this intent, I read through much of the prophet Isaiah and settled on the famous text of Isaiah 53, which we will read together in a few minutes.
On Tuesday morning, Michael sent to the worship team his music selections for the worship service today. This included hymn #87, “Arise, Your Light Is Come.” This is a familiar tune, FESTAL SONG, with text taken from Isaiah 60 and 61. These are very familiar passages, and we will sing this song after the Lord’s Supper.
Third, the zoom Bible study group met on Tuesday morning and decided to spend the rest of this season focused on Isaiah. Charles sent an email to me and others outlining his plans to study Isaiah chapters 1, 7, 9, and 11.
This rather spontaneous convergence on the poetry and stories of Isaiah inspires me and confirms in me the leadership of the Holy Spirit. What part of Holy Scripture could be better than Isaiah?
Think of all the wonderful promises and stories in Isaiah. What comes to your mind?
- Isaiah the prophet has a powerful encounter with the Living God, recorded in chapter 6. “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is full of your glory.”
- What about this, in chapter 40: “The grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of our God stands forever.”
- Or this promise to all of us: “have you not heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of all the earth. God never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of God’s understanding. God gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. You will become weak and tired and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. You will soar high on wings like eagles. You will run and not grow weary. You will walk and not faint.”
- Here is a promise to us all: “Seek the Lord while he can be found. Call on the Lord while he is near.”
- When Jesus initiated his ministry in Galilee, what did he say? He quoted Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to comfort the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to tell all who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
How many of the texts of Handel’s
Messiah come from Isaiah? “For unto us a child is born, and the government shall be upon his shoulders.” And, “And He shall feed his flock.”
These portions of the Word of God have nurtured believing people for millennia. They are precious and powerful for us today. If you are discouraged today, here is a word for you: “I will restore the crushed spirit of the humble, and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.” (57:15. To a congregation like ours, the Word comes: “Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done a wonderful thing. Shout for joy from the depths of the earth, break into song… for the Lord has redeemed us and is glorified among us.” (44:23)
To a nation searching for a new way forward, Isaiah gives this admonition: “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.” (1:17). And to all of us who seek a time and place to worship, Isaiah gives the text of a new song: “I will tell of the Lord’s unfailing love. I will praise the Lord for everything. I will rejoice in the great goodness which comes to us from God’s mercy and love.” (63:7)
If you had only one book from the Bible, only one, Isaiah would be enough to teach us about God and the savior, about life and hope and salvation. Thank God for Isaiah.
I
Isaiah the man was a prophet, a poet, and a preacher of the Hebrew people in the 8
th century BC. That is the period of 700-800 years before Christ, when Assyria was the dominant world power. In 722, Sennacherib was the king of Assyria. He brought his armies to Israel, captured Samaria, and surrounded Jerusalem. That story is told in Isaiah and also in Kings.
Much of the book of Isaiah is connected to this time and these issues. It speaks of judgment against the nation for their indifference to the poor and marginalized. Isaiah was a court prophet, acquainted with the high and mighty and focused on national issues. The Tuesday Bible Study group is going to focus on episodes from this part of the book of Isaiah, part one.
A second part of the Book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40, addresses a later time, associated with the challenge with Babylon. Babylon is the empire that succeeded Assyria. They were the armies that finally surrounded Jerusalem and captured her and took off many of her citizens into captivity. The Babylonian Captivity. You remember the song, “By the Rivers of Babylon” 1974, I think by a Reggae group named Boney M. The song was a quote from Psalm 137 about the Babylonian captivity of the Hebrew people.
In the midst of this defeat and deportation, this prophecy of Isaiah published four songs, called the Servant Songs. These songs envisioned a time of redemption and renewal for the Hebrew people. God’s agent for this transformation was the Servant. These four psalms are called the Servant Songs and include the famous chapter 53.
Isaiah is a very political collection of poetry, prophecies, and stories. All of these seek to interpret the political fortunes of Israel. Yet, when it came time to describe the agent of God’s renewal for the nation, the Servant described in not a person who seeks power and position, but one who is disregarded and disfigured. He suffered and died rather than succeeded to high office. He was a blameless man but nevertheless was mistreated and murdered. “We considered him receiving the judgement he deserved from God” the text says, and I paraphrase, “but, in reality, he was bearing the judgment for our sins not his.”
Jesus and the first century Christians read Isaiah. They applied many of its statements to Jesus. They saw, as we do, that Isaiah 53 (and many other portions of Isaiah) helps us understand who Jesus was and what happened to him. They saw, as we do, that the Suffering Servant poems describe a person like Jesus. He was wounded, not for his own sins, but for ours.
You remember that this was the text of the Bible that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading while riding in is chariot. Remember his questions, “How can I understand this unless someone explain it to me?” and “Who is Isaiah the prophet describing: himself or someone else?”
The reading of this text that day in the chariot had a powerful impact on that one man. He asked, “What keeps me from being baptized today?” Nothing, and he went down in the water with Philip and was baptized.
Let’s read together this famous poem, as we prepare to fellowship around the Lord’s Table.
The Reading of Isaiah 52-53
A Thus says the Lord
B My Servant will prosper. He will be exalted.
C But many were amazed when they saw him
His face was disfigured. He seemed hardly human.
You would scarcely know him as a man.
D He will startle many people. Kings will be speechless
They will see what they had not been told.
They will understand when they had not heard about.
A Who has believed this message?
To whom has the Lord revealed this course of action?
C My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground, like a root in dry ground.
D There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
Nothing to attract us to him. Nothing. Nothing.
C He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
We turned our back on him and looked the other way.
D He was despised
We did not care. We did not care.
A It was our weakness he carried.
We did not care.
B It was our sorrows that weighed him down.
We did not care.
C We thought his troubles were a punishment…from God!
D We thought his troubles were a punishment for his own sins!
A But he was pierced for our rebellion.
B He was crushed for our sins.
C He was beaten so we could be whole
D He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
D We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
And the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
The Lord laid on him the sins of us all. The sins of us all.
A He was oppressed and treated harshly
Yet he never said a word.
B He was led away, led away
like a lamb to the slaughter.
D Like a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned
He was led away, led away.
A No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short.
B He was struck down for the rebellion of my people.
C He did no wrong. He deceived nobody.
D Nevertheless, nevertheless …
He was buried like a criminal.
He was put in a rich man’s grave.
B It was the Lord’s plan to crush him. It was the Lord’s plan to cause him grief.
D Nevertheless, nevertheless …
His life is made an offering for sin, an offering for sin.
B He will have many descendants
He will enjoy a long life, a long life.
B The Lord’s plan will prosper in his hands.
A When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied.
Because of his experience, many will be counted righteous.
For he will bear all our sins, all our sins.
B I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier
Because he opened himself to death.
D He was counted among the rebels He carried the sins of many.
He carried the sins of many.
He carried the sins of many.
He carried the sins of many.
Now let us gather around the Lord’s Table and give thanks for the Lord Jesus Christ, his life of compassion and courage, his death for you and for me and for the world, and the promise that one day we will gather with him around this table in the Kingdom of God.
