Isaiah 53:1-6 - The Servant: Despised yet Bearing Our Griefs

All right, let's take our Bible and go to Isaiah chapter 53.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

Isaiah 53.

If you don't have a Bible, you can find one in the front of you in the pew, and page 650 will get you right in the ballpark of Isaiah 53.

Years ago, I was serving as a senior pastor in Northern California in a fairly large church, and there was a couple there.

Most people didn't know.

They were quiet, very unassuming, um, just largely unknown, not one of the more prominent families in the church.

Uh they they dressed very simply, they spoke very softly, and they carried themselves without any pretense at all.

And they came up to me one day after the service and asked if I would officiate the wedding of their nephew and his fiancee.

And when the day came, uh they gave me the address, and it was uh their home, one of their homes, uh up on the shore of Lake Tahoe.

Beautiful place.

And I drove up, and it was a large walled, fenced compound with a gate.

And as I entered in, there was this magnificent uh building.

The ceremony and the reception were held out on this large patioed area uh overlooking Lake Tahoe.

And we all sat down, it looked beautiful, and uh I came home telling my sons that we had uh gazpacho in handcrafted ice uh goblets, which was really kind of fun.

And the house had uh a boat dock, its own private boat dock with several several boats could be uh moored there, and they gave me a tour of the home.

And as we went through the home, they took me into a room that was had just had a piano in it, and they said from time to time Paul McCartney would rent out their home and he would compose some of his songs on that piano.

I was stunned.

They were very soft-spoken, plain in appearance, modest in their speech, often overlooked, and um they didn't carry any airs, they never sought attention, they lived without any sense of ostentation as far as you could tell.

And I remember thinking to myself then, how many times have they passed in the halls of our church and nobody ever paid any attention to them?

Last week, when we introduced the fourth servant song, we talked about small things subtly happening, so soft and so quietly, so easily misunderstood and overlooked.

And here in the fourth song, we have some more of that.

A small, unremarkable, unassuming Savior who enters into this world, but not with fanfare or a spectacle, not with accolades of a king, but silently and quietly.

The scriptures tell us that the day would come when kings would be in silence over him, but before that he had to suffer in silence.

And that this exalted and lifted up one would be marred by humanity.

And so here in Isaiah chapter 53, in the first six verses, the paradox that was introduced to us in the last few verses of chapter 52 is deepened.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

Because this servant comes to us quiet, unassuming, silent, but in reality, he is the arm of the Lord.

And when he is revealed, he is revealed to us and sadly received by us with disbelief, with resistance and rejection.

But the passage invites us, despite how unassuming and unimpressive he might be, that there's something vital and necessary for us to see in him, because he is the very means of our redemption.

And so let's walk through the first six verses of Isaiah 53 together and see this person who's unoppressive in appearance but divine in nature, who's despised by men but bears our grief, who's pierced for our transgressions and brings us peace.

Let's listen closely to this humble Savior.

And our first point will be in verses 1 and 2, where we see the servant's appearance.

Who has believed what we've heard?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of a dry ground.

He didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him.

What a remarkable way to speak about the Savior whose coming.

No majesty, no beauty, no outward impressiveness, no grandeur.

Humility.

And this isn't a comment comment about his physic any physical deformity or any of that.

This is a statement about his condescension.

He doesn't meet us with the worldly expectations of grandeur and greatness.

He grows up like a tender shoot, fragile, overlooked, easily dismissed.

He's like a root out of a dry ground, unlikely to have one, unimpressive, maybe even seemingly lifeless.

And Jesus fulfilled all of that.

Born in the obscurity, not in royalty, born in Nazareth and not in Jerusalem.

His arrival is announced to shepherds and not to sages and senators.

And when people meet him, they're shocked.

Even his own disciples in John 1, 46, Nathaniel, can any good thing come out of Nazareth?

Matthew 13, the people say, Isn't this the carpenter's son?

And they were offended by him.

And therefore they reject him.

Every line of Isaiah 1 to 6, every line of Isaiah 1 to 6 finds its fulfillment in the New Testament.

It echoes all the way through everything we read from Matthew to Revelation.

But here's the mystery behind it all.

This one who comes without greatness, this one who comes without fanfare, this one who doesn't come seemingly connected like we would expect, with nothing that we might desire when we first look upon him.

Look at verse 1.

He is the arm of the Lord.

This arm of the Lord is a metaphor for God's power.

Power displayed in deliverance.

God's power displayed in judgment.

God's power displayed in salvation.

Listen to some verses that say that.

Exodus 6.6.

I'll redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

Deuteronomy 4.34.

God delivering Israel by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm.

Psalm 44 and verse 3.

It was not their sword by which they won.

It was your hand, your arm.

Psalm 89.

You scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.

Psalm 98, his right hand and his holy arm to work salvation.

Isaiah 51, 9.

Awake, awake, put on strength, old arm of the Lord.

Isaiah 52, 10.

Right before this, the Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations.

And you would think, you know, like teenage boys would do, roll up the sleeve and show you the biceps, right?

God says, let me roll up my sleeve, and you're like, is that all you got?

Is that all you got?

Isaiah 53.

This servant is the arm of the Lord.

And what does he look like when we look at him?

Unimpressive.

Not desirable.

This is the embodiment of God's saving power.

And this is how he came here.

The arm of the Lord in human flesh.

Divine strength in human weakness.

Eternal word made vulnerable.

Augustine put it very well.

The word of the Father, by whom all time was created, was made flesh and born in time for us.

He without whose permission no day completes its course desired a day for his human birth.

The maker of man became a man.

The ruler of the stars had to be nourished at his mother's breast.

He that's bread, the bread, became hungry.

He that's the fountain cried out that he was thirsty.

He that's the light had to fall asleep.

He that's the way was weary on his journey.

He that's the truth bore the testimony of false witnesses.

He that's the judge had to be brought to a trial before a mortal judge.

He who's the foundation had to be suspended on a cross.

He, courage, became weakened, he, security, became wounded, he, life, died.

Isaiah chapter 6 saw the Lord high and lifted up.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

And Isaiah 52 said that this servant would be high and lifted up, because he is none less than God Himself.

But here he is revealed to us in humility and humanity.

So much so that he's easily overlooked and quickly dismissed by all those who look at him.

From the throne to the manger and from majesty to meekness, the servant's path is one of fulfilling God's redemptive plan.

And he speaks with one voice, a lowly one, a quiet one.

And here he confronts humanity's perennial temptation to judge by appearances.

We assume people are worthy or unworthy of our attention or our allegiance based upon whether they can capture our attention, whether they can gain our respect, whether we can give them our allegiance.

God said, You want a king?

I'll give you a king.

And here's Saul, and this is what it says about him a handsome young man.

There was not a man among the Israelites more handsome than he.

A little bit, anyway.

He stood head and shoulders above everybody else.

Why was that there?

Because that's what a king was.

Strong, vigorous, tall, good looking, that's our king.

And when the people saw him, they said in 1 Samuel 10, 24, Long live the king! Why did they want him to be the king?

Because he looked the part.

He had stature, he had presence, he was impressive.

It made the people feel secure that they could have a leader like that.

But his reign unraveled.

His heart wasn't aligned with God, and his physical strength didn't match his inner obedience.

And so when God was to choose a successor to him, Samuel the prophet said to the people, Do not look at his appearance or his stature.

Because humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.

And it's that lens that Isaiah is calling us to adopt.

The servant doesn't come with Saul's stature.

The servant doesn't come with Saul's physical impressiveness, but he's divinely appointed.

He is the arm of the Lord.

We fall into this trap still, don't we?

Charismatic speakers, well, they've got the wisdom I don't have.

Polished resumes, well, they've got the abilities we're looking for.

And we assume that the people with the deepest and most assuring voice is the one that needs to be followed.

Be careful.

Be careful.

Because if we think like that, we're going to miss the servant.

Because he doesn't come to meet our expectations.

In fact, he comes to confront them.

He is the arm of the Lord, but he's clothed in humility.

The gospel doesn't flatter us.

The gospel is meant to confront us.

But in confronting us, it frees us.

And so look again.

Don't dismiss this one, Jesus.

Look at your expectations again.

And look at what he is, not what you think he ought to be.

Here's his assurance, his appearance, but let's let's look at his rejection because it's tied hand in hand into the second point in verse 3.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering, who knew what sickness was.

He was like someone people turned away from.

He was despised, and we did not value him.

Now, Isaiah brings us face to face with the emotional and relational cost of the servant's mission.

It's a sorrowful, sorrowful moment.

He's not just overlooked, he's despised.

He's not just misunderstood, he's rejected.

He's not just received with honor, he's received with contempt.

And at the end of it, we did not value him.

He's treated as if we would we would push him to the margins of our social connections.

We would dismiss him as irrelevant.

And we would avoid him as if he was an offense.

And all of this, again, in the life of Christ.

John 6, many disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

They were offended by him.

John 11, rejected by the religious leaders.

Luke 23, condemned by the state.

The political, the religious, and the populace all said no to him.

Everybody.

And he wasn't just rejected once, he was rejected repeatedly in every slice and sector of society.

The scriptures tell us that this rejection is found in all the places of the New Testament.

It is God's divine blueprint of salvation.

Now, for us, this is both a comfort and a challenge as believers.

It's a comfort to us because this is a Savior who understands sorrow.

He is a man of sorrow, as the scriptures say, acquainted with grief.

He knows suffering intimately.

He doesn't know grief from a distance.

He's entered into it.

He walked into it.

He carried it.

And this is part of who he is as a redeemer.

He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

He became human.

He's not surprised by our grief, and he's not impatient with our pain.

He walked the path of rejection.

And he walks with his children still as they walk that path.

There's a song.

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.

Nobody knows but Jesus.

He does.

Now, there's also a challenge here.

If he was despised, so may his children also be.

His faithfulness didn't bring applause.

Your faithfulness may not bring applause.

In fact, it might bring rejection.

His obedience didn't win popularity.

Your obedience will not bring popularity.

But we're not alone in that.

Our servant savior also suffered those things.

If you're here this morning and you don't know Christ as your Savior, like all of us, you can feel rejected, alone, suffering and silent, nobody understanding.

Here is a savior who's not recoiled by pain, who's not overwhelmed by the depth of your discouragement.

You see, he hasn't come and asked you for a list of credentials in order to be impressed by him.

He's invited you to come in the middle of your need.

He doesn't ask you to be impressive.

He wants you to be honest and to come as you are.

And I'm not just talking about suffering and difficulties and heartaches that life brings.

I'm talking about the worst of who you are.

Those things you wouldn't even share with your family that you think or maybe have done.

You see, he came for that as much as he came for all the other things.

He was rejected so that you might be received.

And we'll talk about that in just a moment.

There was once a man who had a skin disease.

The people avoided him.

He was untouchable.

They kept their distance.

He was cast out among the people and from the people, considered unclean.

But when he approached Jesus, Jesus didn't step back like the others had.

But he did more than that.

He touched the leper.

He touched him and said, Be clean.

There's a woman also who carried years of shame.

The scriptures say that her story was complicated.

And she was put on the outward edges of society, so much so that she had to go in the middle of the heat of the sun in the middle of the day in order to get water alone.

When other women would have gladly have gone together early morning to get the water from the well.

This is the servant Isaiah's describing here.

Yes, he's been rejected and he's moved by it all, but he's entered into it that we might be brought to healing.

So if you feel cast aside, if you wonder if God would ever draw near to you considering who you are, look again.

Look again.

Because the arm of the Lord is clothed in humility.

And this brings us to our third point, verses four and five.

Where the servant's appearance and then rejection brings us to a place where the servant's a substitute, the servant's substitution.

Look at verse four and five with me.

Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains.

But we in turn regarded him stricken, struck and down by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities.

The punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.

And now we're coming to the heart of the servant's mission here.

That the servant is not only despised, he's also burdened.

And he's not only burdened, he's pierced, and he's suffering not as a victim of circumstance, but as a substitute under divine judgment.

And Isaiah corrects our thoughts here.

Because we can see this person, unimpressive as he is, refused by us, and we might think that everything that's happening in him is because of who he is and how bad he was.

My watch is talking to me.

But the scriptures here give us a correction.

He was born our sicknesses, he carried our pains.

He was cursed for us.

He was despised for our rebellion and our iniquities.

This is substitution.

This is how the atonement, the being right with God happens.

Because the servant stands in our place and takes the punishment we deserve and carries a weight that we cannot bear.

And this is specific and complete.

And we'll talk about how complete in a second, but the punishment for our peace was upon him, and we're healed by those wounds.

The cross wasn't just some arbitrary ridding of this man that everybody should have rejected.

This was the arm of the Lord brought to a particular place for us.

No tragic accident, nothing to be overshadowed, nothing like Islam to say, well, it was just, it just looked like Jesus was being crucified.

No, he actually was.

Paul said, if there's anything to glory in, I'm going to glory in the cross as shameful as it is.

Because he was pierced so that we might be pardoned, and crushed so that we be cleansed and wounded so that we would be healed.

And the scriptures are full of this language.

1 Corinthians 15, Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures.

1 Peter 2, he bore our sins in his body on the tree.

Matthew quotes this and says, He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.

Again, every line of Isaiah 53 finds its echo in the New Testament.

The servant crushed, pierced, burdened, and risen.

And here's the scope.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray.

We all, everyone.

No exceptions, no exemptions, no alternate path.

Every one of us.

We're not divided into categories of the righteous and the unrighteous, the great and the small, every single person in the same place.

We all unified in our wandering like sheep going astray, each of us going down our own way.

The image is pastoral, but the indictment is universal.

But here is the Lord who's come into the middle of that reality.

He's come into the middle of this willful lost society with every one of human creatures that he made running away from him and running away from his design and purposes for them.

Every single one.

And yet he comes.

And so he is here, coming after the sheep.

This is the heart of the Savior.

1 Peter 2, we read it, for you were like sheep going astray, but now you've returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

Not that we just woke up one day and said, I need to go back.

No, he went and got us.

He went and got us.

You know, there's two steps, and you're like, oh, look, the Lord is walking with me in my trouble.

And then there's the one footprint, and you go, Oh, the Lord's carrying me through my trouble.

Well, one guy went up to the gates of heaven and had the asked the Lord, he said, What was that sort of one set of footprints with the long mark in the sand?

And he said, That's when I had to drag you back.

This is the Lord grabbing us in our rebellion and bringing us back.

He bears our sins to bring us home.

And I want to speak to us as a church.

This is the foundation of why we're here.

And this is the Savior that we proclaim and that we adore.

He's not impressive.

We can't put him on the eye-level shelf of our grocery store and have everybody go, Well, I think I'll buy that.

There's nothing we can do that can market that.

He didn't come to be treated that way.

He came to bear sin and to do so in humility and suffering to death.

But through that punishment, we have peace.

He came so that we don't have to live under the shadow of condemnation.

But we can be embraced under in the shelter of grace.

And we don't have to approach God with fear, but we can approach him with warmth and confidence.

It's humbling, I know.

It levels us, it reminds us daily of who we are.

But it's true and it's wonderful.

And it's something we need to remind ourselves of every day.

Just like Martin Luther said, he said, I preach the gospel to myself every day because I need the gospel every day.

And if we walk into these doors without remembering the gospel, we're going to start acting like you need to be impressive for me to be impressed.

You need to be of stature for me to follow you.

We're going to have worldly judgments amidst this Savior and His people, in which there's nothing impressive.

But when we come rejecting comparison and rejecting pride, we're going to find no limit of his grace and of his mercy to us.

And so let us adopt the posture of our chief pastor, Jesus Christ, the shepherd of our souls.

This brings us to our last point, the effect.

We've seen the servant's appearance, the servant's rejection, the servant's substitution, but now the servant's effect.

In verse 5, he was pierced because of our rebellion.

He was crushed because of our iniquities.

The punishment for our peace was upon him.

And we are healed by his wounds.

So now Isaiah wants us to see the effect of this servant's suffering.

He's shown us his burden.

He's shown us his piercing.

But now he wants us to see the result.

That the wounds of this Savior are not wasted, but redemptive, and they accomplish what no earthly power can accomplish and what we ourselves cannot receive in and of ourselves.

Peace with God and healing for our soul.

And he gives these two phrases and he puts immense weight on them.

The punishment for our peace and healed by his wounds.

We can't leave the cross ever.

How's it going today?

Good.

How are you doing before God?

I'm well.

Do you have a confidence about heaven?

Yes.

Why?

Because of the wounds of Christ.

Because of the suffering of the Savior.

Why do you feel peaceful today?

Because you have a Savior who received no peace.

That's why.

Why are you whole today?

Because you had a Savior who was broken on your behalf.

He's absorbed the chastisement we deserve so that we might receive a peace we could never earn.

And here we hear these words reverberating in the gospels and reverberating in the letters of the apostles.

He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.

And yes, Jesus in his earthly ministry raised people from the dead.

He healed broken bodies.

And there's a big question today: is there healing in the atonement?

And people will use that term and they will go off and they will do nothing but think about lengthening somebody's leg or getting somebody out of an armchair.

He's going to get you out of the grave.

Okay?

Right?

He's going to lift you into a glorious presence.

That's the healing of the atonement.

Those things in Jesus' earthly ministry are just whispers of the wonder that's coming.

This is it.

Everything that sin is broken, including our bodies, will be redeemed.

Here is our Savior.

Giving us peace and giving us wholeness, the likeness of which we can't even begin to imagine yet.

Eye is not seen, nor is ear heard, nor is it entered into the hearts of men, the things God has prepared for those who love Him.

What is it like?

We don't know.

We just throw images out and kind of amazed at the images.

But the reality behind those things is beyond us.

Beyond us.

But here it is, bought for us with a price.

The Savior who has suffered, suffered our rejection, suffered the condemnation from the Holy Father for us.

What does this tell us?

Your past does not define you.

Your failures do not disqualify you.

Your grief does not isolate you.

All of these things are born by the Savior, and in Him you can have peace with all of it.

And this is why we worship.

This is why we come to someone so unimpressive as Him.

And it shapes our life and it anchors our hope.

And it gives us strength even at our weakest moments.

Because the punishment that brought our peace was upon him.

And by his wounds we're healed.

And if you don't know the Lord is your Savior this morning, you don't have to pretend that you're whole.

Right?

He's not asking you to carry your wounds and suffer so he might receive you.

He suffered those for you.

There's once a woman who suffered for years.

She spent everything she had trying to get better, but nobody could help her.

And therefore she lived in isolation and shame, silence, and perhaps even the suffering of poverty, because she spent all that she had to try to get better.

And one day she saw Jesus and touched him.

And Jesus said, Go, go.

You are well.

Go in peace.

All the strivings that we might go through to try to feel better about ourselves, or to try to cover our guilt, or try to sort of fill that gnawing ache in our soul.

You could spend everything you have in aura and still find that well empty.

But you come to Jesus, He'll say, Go in peace.

You are well.

We can't ignore him.

And it's a question of recognition here, isn't it?

It's a question about our attention.

It's a question about our response.

Because he's not going to be clamoring for it.

He comes quietly, like a root out of dry ground.

He doesn't have any majesty, no beauty, no physique or form that catches our eye.

And when we do look at him, we quickly look away.

But look again.

Look again.

And look again until you understand why he's here.

And when you see who he is and why he's here, you'll understand more about yourself and who you are.

As a believer and as someone who's not yet come to Christ.

This servant is overlooked, but he can't be ignored.

He is the arm of the flesh clothed in humility, a man of sorrows who enters our grief, a substitute who stands in our place, a healer who brings us peace, a shepherd that pulls us away from wandering and straying, and a savior who delivers us from our iniquity.

So, church, let's be grateful.

Let's be grateful that we have a Savior who's done this for us.

And let's be humble in our posture.

Let us walk like the Savior walked.

And for those of you that don't know Christ, look again.

Because what you don't want to look at is the very place you need to look.

Look to Christ and be healed.

Let's pray.

Lord, we've heard the word of the prophet Isaiah.

And he's caught our attention.

And we've seen your servant despised, rejected, pierced.

And we have to confess, Lord, that in discomfort and denial we've looked away.

And we've turned our own way.

And yet you laid the iniquity of us all on Him.

Thank you for revealing your arm, not in power against your enemies, because that is what we are and deserve.

But you revealed your arm in humility because that's what we need.

In suffering, in substitution.

Thank you for these wounds that make us whole, and for this punishment that brings us peace, and for this reach that brings us home.

We pray, Father, that this word would not pass us by, but it would take root within us.

And I pray, Father, that it would humble any of us who are proud and comfort any of us who are afflicted and awaken any of us who are so full of ourselves we can't emote look.

But for those of us who know the Savior, deepen our gratitude and shape us by our Savior to be gentle.

Open our eyes to see a Savior.

And for those that don't, Father, we pray that they would be drawn near, to hear this wonderful invitation, to find in Christ healing and peace that they long for, and not miss this servant because he comes so quietly, and not to overlook the arm of the Lord because it's clothed in such humility.

Lord, I pray their eyes would be opened so they would see him rightly.

And that they would trust him.

And that they would follow him.

And Lord, we ask this in the name of Jesus, the servant who saves.

Amen.