Week 29 Isaiah 53
Yesterday I was looking at Isaiah’s Servant – what he was like & what happened to him. Visible things. Obvious things. His sad & adversity-plagued life. His death.
Isaiah was also interested in explaining not-so-obvious things. What the Servant was actually accomplishing behind the scenes. The meaning of his life. I found a couple of those today:
• The Servant will carry our weaknesses
• He’ll be weighed down by our sorrows and diseases
• He’ll be wounded and crushed for our sins
• He’ll be beaten that we might have peace
• He’ll be whipped, so we will be healed
• The Lord will lay on him the guilt and sins of us all
• He’ll make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear their sins.
So the Servant didn’t just live his own life & die his own death. He was also a stand-in for sinners. A kind of pinch-hitter for the rest of us. Scapegoat for the World.
Yesterday it looked like the Servant would have an unlucky & unfortunate life. But today Isaiah makes it clear there’d be no accident: it was the Lord’s good plan to crush (the Servant) and fill him with grief.
The “good plan” of the Lord will be a hard and bitter plan for the Servant. Still…Isaiah predicted that when the Servant sees all that will be accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. In retrospect it’ll be worth the very high cost.
Note: quotes from Isaiah 53:4-6 10 11 (NLT)