53 Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He grew up before Him like a tender [a]shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should [b]be attracted to Him.
3 He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of [c]sorrows and acquainted with [d]grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.4 Surely our [e]griefs He Himself bore,
And our [f]sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
[g]Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was [h]pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our [i]well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To [j]fall on Him.
The chapter continues on from the previous one, in describing God’s servant. Previously, we saw only that He would be marred, but now God goes into a bit more detail. It’s kind of wild how this passage about the seems so clear in hindsight. It describes this servant as not particularly attractive, that He would be despised and forsaken.
He was to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He would bear our griefs and sorrows, and in the end, God would even cause all of our sins to “fall on Him.” How could anyone who read this passage expect a conquering king? There is no one (that I’m aware of) who could possibly fit this bill, except Jesus himself. Yet even the disciples were confused, not willing that Jesus should suffer or be in danger.
They knew the plot, that the religious leaders wanted to kill both Jesus and Lazarus–because that miracle was just too big to hush up any other way. And yet Jesus walked straight into the “lion’s den” of Jerusalem, at the time of Passover, to become the final lamb. And speaking of lambs, v. 6 tells us none of us are immune, “all of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way…”
This is not unlike Paul’s writing that all have sinned, and all have fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3). But instead of us bearing the punishment, or offering perennial lambs on the alter, God sent His own Son to bear it all. Every last thing we’ve done, every rebellious deed of our wicked hearts, Jesus carried it to the cross. Yet we are so stubborn, and many refuse to listen, or understand.
I was reading something yesterday from another religion, and it reminded me of Paul’s writing to the church at Thessalonica. He told them, “God [b]will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false… (because) they did not receive the love of truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” It isn’t because the truth isn’t out there, and it isn’t because the truth is hateful or mean.
On the contrary, when you contrast it with certain other religions, the love and mercy is startling. Yet either way, we have the choice. We can choose to believe in this strange, suffering Servant, or we can believe the delusion–which takes many shapes and forms. God offers us His grace, but it only works His way, we don’t get to have grace and then continue taking pleasure in wickedness. As Joshua said, “Choose this day who you will serve.” The ball is in our court now.