The Suffering Servant: An Obedient Servant… A Servant Helped by the Lord.

+ In the Name of Jesus +
The Suffering Servant:
An Obedient Servant…
A Servant Helped by the Lord.
Sermon on Isaiah 50:4-9
Lent 2023

The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. ⁵ The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away. ⁶ I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. ⁷ Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. ⁸ He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me! ⁹ It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who will condemn me? They will all wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them up.

1. There are many things in the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ that are opposites—either things that are opposite of what they should be, or opposite things happening at the same time. Sometimes the physical and visible are reflecting an equal and opposite spiritual and visible reality. I think of the sign Pontius Pilate put above Jesus’ cross—“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” He put it there to mock Jesus and to irritate the Jewish leaders—but what he wrote in mockery was really the truth—Jesus is the King of the Jews, and the king of all.
2. Today’s/Tonight’s section from Isaiah 50 presents us with some opposites. Here, Isaiah writes, and we really see the wonder of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In Isaiah 53, he writes like an eyewitness to Jesus’ suffering, but here he writes from the Savior’s perspective—as if it is Jesus himself speaking. The first opposite is something happens the opposite of what should happen. Jesus is an obedient servant—an obedient servant who is punished. From the rising of the sun, his ears are open to any instruction or command. In the gospels we see Jesus acting as such an obedient servant. Even as a Twelve year old child, he was “about his Father’s business” (Luke 2:49), studying and speaking about God’s Word at the temple. And after that account, we are told, “He went down to Nazareth with [Mary and Joseph] and was obedient to them.” God himself, the Word made flesh, the lawgiver at Mt. Sinai becomes an obedient child—and at the same time, an obedient servant to his Father, and an obedient servant for the sake of all humanity. During Lent we focus especially on Jesus as the Lamb of God, giving up his innocent life as atonement and payment for the sins of the world—those “crucial days and hours” on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. Jesus work as Savior also included the previous thirty-some years of an obedient life. Without that holy life, the death would not be an innocent death. And that obedient life is what he exchanges for our sin. Not only does he take something from us, he gives us something. He took our sins away by bearing the punishment for guilt in our place, he also gives us something. That holy record, that perfect obedience of Jesus is what covers us. All those miracles—feeding the thousands, cleansing the lepers, even raising the dead—that was Jesus’ obedience, too, helping and befriending his neighbors in their needs.
3. And now comes the opposite thing—for this perfect obedience he was punished. Obedient people shouldn’t be punished. Righteous people shouldn’t be punished. Rebels should be punished. Those who break the law should be punished. The Savior speaks, “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” Obedience to the point of death. The depth of disgrace and shame, but what comes next? The opposite. “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. …I know I will not be put to shame.” How is disgrace and shame not disgrace and not being put to shame? Well let’s think about something Jesus said on Palm Sunday afternoon. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23). Jesus knew about the suffering, shame, pain and death, yet he says, “The time has come for me to be glorified.”  Jesus calls all this “glory” because he knows it is the ultimate, highest way he will display the glory of his love. Thursday night, Jesus told his disciples, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). “What wondrous love is this, O my soul?” the hymn says. Displaying the extent of his love through suffering was his glory. By undergoing disgrace, he was not disgrace. By enduring shame and spitting, he was not put to shame because he showed how much he loved us, how much he was willing to endure to make us his own.
4. The Servant is helped by the Lord. That’s an opposite, too. Masters don’t help servants. They give orders to the servants. But Jesus is not alone as he carries out his plan—not until the darkest moments. Also on Palm Sunday afternoon, after Jesus said, “The hour has come for [me] to be glorified,” the Father answered from heaven, “I have glorified my name, and I will glorify it again.” (John 12:28). That’s very much the same testimony as “This is my beloved Son” at Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration. Testimony for those who were there and heard it. Also testimony for Jesus. “Keep going Son! You’re doing my will! I am well-pleased with you!” In Gethsemane, he pours out his heart to his Father, praying intently, vigorously, sweating drops of blood. Then, an angel attended him. Helped as he serves. Helped as he suffers, all until that darkest moment, “My God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). Even then, in the darkest hour, he knows how it will end, when he says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
5. “He who vindicates me is near.” Jesus says through Isaiah. How do we know that Jesus did not die as a guilty human being? How do we know that he didn’t die as a blasphemer and criminal? “The third day he rose again from the dead.” Easter is the proclamation that though Jesus bore the wages of sin, death lost its sting and the grave lost its victory. Easter is Jesus’ vindication—that is, the judgement of innocence, holiness, and God’s approval. Jesus came to do some opposite work on us, too. To take sinners and make them righteous. To take people who deserve nothing but God’s punishment and give them the right to be children of God. To give people who must endure death the hope of eternal life with him.
6. In Romans 8, St. Paul wrote: “So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. ³ Indeed, what the law was unable to do, because it was weakened by the flesh, God did, when he sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to deal with sin. God condemned sin in his flesh, ⁴ so that the righteous decree of the law would be fully satisfied in us who are not walking according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.” In other words, Jesus is our righteousness. Jesus is our solution for sin. He is also our power for holiness. Our power to deal with sin—as we stand before God, but also to win victories over sin each day as we live in him. We are helped by our God as we live in obedience. We are helped by our God as we live in hope.

Amen.