The Suffering of an Exalted Servant

This morning, we're finalising. We're finishing our look at the book of Isaiah at the servant songs. We've been dealing with four poems, four passages in the second half of Isaiah that introduces a mysterious figure that I sort of have alluded to or have imagined in my mind as a mosaic puzzle piece that just gives us glimpses and insights into the Messiah, into a promised saviour for God's people. And I'm a Christian, and I believe that those all point to the man Jesus Christ. So we get a wonderful portrait, I believe, of Jesus in these passages.

Now, this morning, I wanna start by asking you if you remember the story found in the book of Acts between a man called Philip the evangelist and a person that he met on a dusty road in a desert somewhere called or labelled the Ethiopian eunuch. Now, we find this story in the midst of a massive revival happening in a place called Samaria, just outside of the place Judea. The cousins, so to speak, of the Jews were coming to Christ, coming to belief in Jesus in massive numbers, and it was led by this man called Philip. Not an apostle, but a man who was so filled with the Spirit and had such a passion for the good news of Jesus that he preached and proclaimed it to anyone who would listen. And people were believing in droves.

And then Luke, who writes the Acts of the Apostles, says all of a sudden, as Philip is praying, he is taken and he is dumped. He's placed in this desert on the side of a road somewhere, miraculously scooped up and placed in this place. And as he's trying to figure out what's happened, he notices a chariot, a royal chariot passing by. And as he is watching it, he hears within the chariot someone reading from the book of Isaiah. And he listens and he hears that it is Isaiah chapter 53.

And he runs up to the chariot and he finds within this chariot someone. The Bible says coming from a region which is modern-day Ethiopia or perhaps Sudan. And he is, in fact, the royal treasurer to the queen of, say, Ethiopia. A very important man. A man who was a eunuch. A man who served in the royal court.

Now he's obviously returning from perhaps Jerusalem or some place. He's a God fearer. And Philip hears this man reading probably out loud, because you didn't read internally in those days. You read out loud. And he runs up to the chariot and yells, "Do you understand what you are reading?"

And the man says to Philip, "How can I understand these words if no one will explain them to me?" And Philip goes on and he jumps into the chariot. I don't know if he did that very gentlemanly like, asked for permission, or he just plopped himself and invited himself into this royal chariot. I'm guessing it's like a limousine. There'd be caviar and champagne available to him.

And probably not. But they're talking, and Philip gets to explain Isaiah 53. Now this morning, we're going to look at that passage. Luke records that Philip begins with this passage. It says in Luke in Acts 8, and explains the good news of Jesus Christ from this passage. So let's start there this morning, and we're gonna read from Isaiah, actually, 52, the last few verses, because you'll see that it's definitely part of the servant song, the last servant song.

We're gonna start at Isaiah 52:13 and we're gonna read through to chapter 53:12. It begins like this: "Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be lifted high. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So shall he sprinkle many nations.

Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which has not been told them, they see, and that which they have not heard, they understand. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before Him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him and no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. As one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with His wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted yet He opened not His mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. By oppression and judgment, He was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that He was cut out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? They made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man in his death. Although He had done no violence and there was no deceit in His mouth.

Yet it was the Lord's will. It was the will of the Lord to crush Him. He has put Him to grief. When His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring. He shall prolong His days.

The will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. Out of the anguish of His soul, He shall see and be satisfied. By His knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous and He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide Him a portion with the many and He shall divide the spoil with the strong because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet He bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. So far, our reading.

Now if you remember, as we previously worked through it in the previous songs of the servant, we've dealt with passages in chapters 42, 49, and chapter 50. And in that, we catch these glimpses. We catch these little snippets and insights of this servant. We saw in chapter 42 that He is gentle and meek. A bruised reed, He doesn't break.

A smouldering weak wick, He doesn't snuff out. We saw in 49 that He is a wise preacher, a man who speaks with insight into the souls of man. We saw last week that He is a wise counsellor, a teacher giving words that will bring life and light to those who find themselves in darkness. But throughout those words, throughout those songs, we also find a recurring theme. And I don't know if you picked it up—we did mention it—but it's like a snowball that starts at the top of the mountain, very small.

It's an allusion in chapter 42, but it snowballs and grows and grows until we get to this chapter. And that recurring theme is that this servant must suffer. That He will suffer. And by the time we get to this passage, the little pieces of mosaic of this mysterious servant is absolutely screaming at us on this point. He will go through hell.

Now for many of us, we might be familiar with this passage and we probably read it very often from the first verse of chapter 53, don't we? "Who has believed what he has heard from us? Who has believed our report?" the NIV says.

"Who to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" But very obviously, this passage, this poem starts not at verse one, it starts at verse 13 of chapter 52. Beginning with the words "Behold my servant". Now remember again, four weeks ago, we looked at chapter 42. How did that start?

"Behold my servant." In the midst of all that was happening in Israel, the gloom and the terror that they were in, a light shines and God says, "Behold my servant, the one in whom my soul delights." Israel had so disappointed their God, but there was one, a servant in whom God's heart delights. And now, like a bookend, the last of the poems begin with the same words, "Behold my servant". And it takes us through five movements, five phases or stanzas through this entire poem.

The first movement we find, like I said, at the start in verses 13 through to 15 in chapter 52, and it gives us a brilliant summary statement of the entire poem. It introduces us that He is a man who will be exalted and lifted high, just like a brilliant introductory paragraph. You know how we were taught at high school how to write in English? It gives an overview of the conclusion of what's going to happen. He is lifted up.

He is exalted, and He will triumph. But like a good introductory paragraph, it also hints at something else and something that is sinister. It indicates to us a triumph but an unexpected one. "Behold my servant," God says, "shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted."

Three ways of saying the same thing. He is honoured and He is praised. But we also see this honour and triumph comes amid some unlikely circumstances. It is unexpected as we see in verse 14. Many are astonished.

Many are astonished because his appearance is so marred beyond human semblance. Verse 14 says his form beyond that of the children of mankind. There's something interesting. There's something surprising about this victory. He is marred. He is damaged beyond human semblance.

Now, one of the commentators on this passage says this is so acute. This is so all-encompassing, these words that the question isn't "Who is this?" "Who is this that has been damaged like this?" It is so disfiguring that it's a question of "What is this?" This person in this disfigurement doesn't even represent or look like a human being.

In every sense, the violence that has happened, the damage, whatever has happened is supernatural. It is above the natural. It is beyond human. In this opening stanza, there's a little hint of this disfigurement. We see in verse 15, however, that something comes from this as well.

And again, like I said, a great opening paragraph is it says, just this word: "He shall sprinkle many nations." As astonishing as his marred disfigurement is, so astonishing is the fact that He sprinkles the nations. Now for a seventh century Israelite hearing this in the time of Isaiah, that word "sprinkle" comes to mind immediately as being linked to the sacrificial system. A sprinkling happened when an animal was sacrificed and a person or persons was sprinkled with the blood of a lamb or the sacrifice or an object was sprinkled with blood in order to purify or cleanse it. The forgiveness of sin happened in that sprinkling.

And that but that's all that's mentioned here. A sprinkling of the nations. So somehow and that's it's just left there. Somehow, this disfigurement is related to the sacrificial system. It sort of just hangs there, but notice also very, very importantly that this is a sprinkling of not Israel, but the nations.

And this has already been alluded to elsewhere. Remember chapter 42? That the servant will come and establish justice to whom? The nations. The world, the ends of the earth will receive the shalom peace of his justice that He establishes again.

And so just as we're trying to make sense of it, it moves to the second stanza, verses one through to three, where we see a misunderstood humiliation that takes place. Look at the question at the beginning of chapter 53: "Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" The NIV says, "Who has believed our message?"

Who can believe this? And what we start seeing is, well, no one can. No one has believed this message because this message is hard to comprehend. This message is hard to believe. It is confusing.

Why? Well, because the servant begins so humbly. He comes up so unannounced. Look at the unpromising beginnings of the servant of the Lord. He grows up before the Lord like a young plant, Isaiah writes, like a root coming out of dry ground.

The NIV says, "A tender shoot." Tender. Fragile. Weak. Prone to die.

This little servant comes up. Now, again, I'm not a horticulturalist. I don't have a green thumb, not like John Campus who does all our gardens here, keeps them looking beautiful. I don't have a green thumb, but I can tell you a plant doesn't survive very well in dry ground.

But this is what the image is. This little spindly little sprout coming through the cracked ground. The beginnings of this servant look pretty ominous. And Isaiah goes on with that and he says, "There is no form or majesty that we should look at Him. There is no beauty that we should make us desire Him."

There is no impressiveness here. Keep moving along, guys. There is just ordinariness in this man. There is a passing in the street and not looking back at him sort of idea coming into place here. There is a kind of "everybody else-ness" here.

And it's not just humble beginnings, it is inauspicious beginnings. The beginnings that lead to a lifetime of suffering. Verse three: He was despised. He was looked down upon. He was rejected by men, a man familiar with sorrows, acquainted with grief.

From all perspectives, this is a man who is humiliated. Utterly, utterly un-majestic. More plain, more uninteresting than a trip down the Nullarbor Highway. No plants, nothing to see, just desert. Boring.

But there's this glimmering, gleaning gold in the mud. The person with a careful eye sees the gleam of gold in the ashes. Notice the way that Isaiah asked the question: "Who has believed the message from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Now that's the Old Testament's way of saying God's power is involved here. The arm of God means God's power.

And the question is, who has noticed it? Who has seen it? Who has picked up on these things? And there is this idea that it is so hidden, it is so misleading that people aren't going to see it because they've taken up with the external things, but there is something happening here and it is powerful. The unexpected triumph is masked and takes place by a misunderstood humiliation.

But then the third movement through verses four and six. We are taken further down, further down from the triumph to the humiliation and now to profound sufferings. Profound sufferings. The second half of verse four introduces it like this: "We esteemed him stricken, smitten."

Who? Who by? God. Not mankind, not his neighbours, stricken and smitten and afflicted by God. In other words, what the servant will go through will be so horrendous that people will look at it and think this man is cursed by God.

This life, this suffering, this death of a man will be something that people will think this man has been cast out to the furthest extremities of God's kingdom. He is outside of the camp. This man is under the judgment of a holy God and everyone will say, "How sad. Such a sad situation." They will click their tongues with sympathy and say, "Poor fellow." Verse five says, "He is pierced.

He is crushed. He is wounded. He will die. But hang on. Hang on.

There is something happening here. This man worthy of being despised, this man worthy of tongue-clicking sympathy, this man's curse is not his. This man's pain, his suffering, it says is for us. What is going on here? What is going on here?

The punishment, it says that brings us peace has been on Him. What does this mean? What can it mean? In one sense, we look at the situation and we think what a horrible, sad way to end a life, but there is something mysterious and powerful starting to happen here and we start getting this indication that it is for us. It is for us.

And that brings us to the fourth stanza, the fourth movement in the story. And we've come from the introduction of unexpected triumphs moving to the servant's misunderstood humiliation. We've dug into his profound suffering. And in the middle of it, it says that the servant has submitted himself to this perfectly. Perfectly.

Verse seven: "He was oppressed and He was afflicted and yet He opened not His mouth. He was like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that is before its shearers is silent. So He opened not His mouth. By oppression, by judgment, He is taken away. They give Him a grave among the wicked, although He has done no violence and no deceit was found in His mouth."

This is the moment where this wave of realisation, I don't know if you've ever experienced it in your life, this wave of shock hits you. It's that moment where you have to clasp your mouth closed as you realise this man is innocent. This man hasn't done all these things that have caused his punishment, that have brought him to this place of being pierced and crushed and wounded. This whole thing, this whole story is a sham. No lies.

No violence. And justice, justice has been oppressed. We see the servant of chapter 42, the one who would not even break a bruised reed, broken. The man who would not snuff out a smouldering fireplace, but breathe life into it again.

His life is cut short. What is going on? Because this happens for us. This happens for us. Friends, for me, this is one of the most impressive and most moving things about the Gospels when we move ahead into that.

And we know already that Philip explains that this is Jesus. But as we move to the accounts of Jesus' life and his ministry, these words of the Old Testament find their meaning and fulfilment so powerfully. It gives me goosebumps every time. And the reason I'm a Christian and the Christian I am, the reason I have hope for my life despite difficult times is because of this. That a man named Jesus from a humble village in Bethlehem, in the backwater town of Nazareth in Galilee, having grown up—

this man was pierced and he was crushed. On a hill, Golgotha, on a cross. But that's not it. It was for us. It was for me.

And as the four Gospel accounts zoom in and all do, they zoom in and spend all their time really on the passion week, on the account of Jesus' death and his resurrection, those final hours. The Gospel accounts peaking and climaxing at this point in the story. Astoundingly, astoundingly, we see Jesus not opening His mouth in any rebuttal, in any defence of why this is such an oppression, such a suppression of justice, such a breaking of every moral and lawful code there is that a man completely guilty can be sent to death in such a horrendous way. Accused of two things: blasphemy against God and political treason against the king.

And He stands before His accusers and He doesn't argue. Why? Because He understands that actually what is happening there is the fulfilment of this. What is happening there, wonders of wonders, is that Jesus who has no sin of His own is coming into the presence of God having gathered up the sins of His people. And He carries them on His shoulders onto the chopping block, onto the slab of the altar and awaits for the deed to be done.

The throat to be slit. His blood to be spilt. And He is stricken and He is smitten by God and He is crushed under our weight of sin. Now this is exactly His understanding of what is happening. He understands His humiliation.

He understands His suffering. He understands His rejection and finally His crucifixion. And Jesus stands before Pilate and Herod and the teachers of the law. He accepts the accusations of blasphemy and treason. Why? Because we are guilty of those things.

We have blasphemed the name of our Lord who said you are to love one God only. You are to serve Me. And we have said, "God, I can serve myself. Thank you very much. I place myself at the cornerstone of my life, at the centre of what I do."

And we blaspheme the God who created us. Jesus takes on the accusation of treason because the God who should reign over our lives can't and doesn't because we've said to Him, "God, I am my own king. I choose these terms. I live like I want to live." Jesus Christ bears that.

And the verdict of guilty is placed on Him. Now we may look at this and friends, I have to say to you this morning, if there is anything, if there is absolutely nothing that you've heard in this sermon, let it be this one thing. This is done for you. For you. Let that ring true today.

You may have all sorts of reasons for being here this morning. Your routines have just led you in that way that you can be here. Your habits bring you here on a Sunday. You may be here at the invitation of a friend or a family member. You may look at the life of Jesus and think to yourself, "What a remarkable life.

What, how great is that to emulate this life? What an interesting and charismatic man. What a lovely man." My friend, if you do not realise that this man is your Lord and your Saviour, then you are still like the people of Isaiah 53. Who has heard and received this message?

Who has understood it? Who believes it? You are still like those people because you despise Him in your heart. His death, His suffering, His sacrifice was for you. He took on that sin.

He was murdered as a murderer for your murder. He was cursed for your blasphemy and there is only two ways life and eternity can go for you. Either you believe that this was done for you, not for your wife, not for your husband, not for your children—it was done for you. And that His sacrifice has indeed covered your stains or you believe it was not done for you. It could not have been done for you and the sin remains yours.

And if you understand these words, these mysterious words, these words of hope tucked away in the mud, and if you put your trust and obedience firmly on Christ, you will have eternal life. Otherwise, you are lost eternally. So do you understand? Do you understand?

Do you really understand? Young people, do you understand? Do you believe? And will your life be marked by this understanding? The Ethiopian eunuch said to Philip, after reading these words out loud and not understanding, he says to him, "How can I understand if no one has explained them to me?"

This morning, friends, these words have been explained to you. How did Philip's witness respond? How did the Ethiopian respond? He said to him as they were travelling in the chariot, "There's a puddle of water right here. Let me be baptised right now."

And there and then in the middle of some unknown desert, this man gave his heart, gave his life, gave his everything to Jesus Christ, was baptised and became a Christian. This morning, will you receive this news? Now, you—we didn't get to the end of this passage, did we? Verses 11 through to 12. And we see that, hallelujah, the plan is fulfilled beginning with the words, "It was the will of the Lord to crush Him."

No one took it. No one did this to the servant. It was God who decided to do it. This wasn't a tragedy. This was a plan carefully succeeded.

It says He was the one who put the servant to grief, but when His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring. That is us. He shall see His offspring and He shall prolong His days. The will of the Lord, the will of God will prosper in the hand of Jesus Christ. The servant has been victorious.

The servant has won. It's a complete reversal of fortunes. The gold has been brought out of the ashes and the unexpected triumph introduced in the opening verses has arrived and God says, "I will now divide the spoils with Him like a strong man divides the spoils after a battle. He carries his bounty with him and his bounty, friend, is his church. The glorious wonderful saints sitting around you.

The ones that will be together at the end of days worshipping Christ for eternity because of this, this wonderful truth, this amazing reality. Hallelujah. He has done it. The sacrifice has been completed. The sin has been paid for.

The forgiveness and the cleansing is mine. And all the glory and all the grace and all the power goes to our Lord and our King Jesus. Let me pray for us. Father, Saviour, Lord Jesus, we thank You for these wonderful, incredible truths. These wonderful, beautiful insights, Lord, of that extreme moment.

Those extreme events, Lord, where history itself shuttered to a halt, where the world held its breath. Where tears were shed, where hearts were broken. That moment, however, where hope was finally found. A Saviour powerful enough to deal with our sin and gracious and loving enough to go through with it. Lord, may these truths, may this reality be our eternal God against despair in our life, against sin that we'll seek to conquer, against minds that will wander, hearts that will be led astray like sheep.

God, may these realities and this truth summed up in Isaiah 53 be our eternal hope. And God, may every person here this morning know it, understand it, and believe it for themselves. For us, You have done these things. And to You goes our eternal everlasting gratitude forever and ever, O God. Amen.