I started off Lent blogging through Isaiah 42, intending to look at all the servant songs through Lent. That didn’t quite happen, but as we come towards Easter I thought it made sense to look at Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the final servant song. There are five stanzas to this song (we’d say verses if we were talking about any poem usually, but bible verses are different, so stanza’s is the word we will use), so if I manage to do one a day it will take us to Easter Sunday, with reasonably appropriate reflections for each day.
The verses for today are as follows:
13 See, my servant will act wisely;
Isaiah 52:12-15
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Here we are introduced to the figure of the servant in Isaiah 53. A figure that the New Testament writers associate with Jesus in numerous places – not least Acts 8 where the Ethiopian eunuch famously asks Jesus “who is the writer talking about himself or someone else?” As we read these verses it will become obvious why this association is made.
First of all the servant acts wisely – it is important to note this, because the actions of the servant will not meet with uniform approval. The results of this wise action will be that he will be “raised, and lifted up, and highly exalted”. This sounds good, and positive. And yet there is an appalling aspect to his ministry too. This servant will be disfigured beyond any human being, his form marred beyond human likeness.
We are told in v15 that the servant will “sprinkle” many nations – but it is difficult to see what this might mean, and there is a suggestion that there may be a second verb with the same consonants as this one, which means “to startle” – and that seems to make more sense here. This appalling ministry of the servant will be surprising indeed – and it will cause many to shut their mouths. The leaders of the nations will see and understand what has not yet been explained to them because of the work of this servant.
And so the song begins by setting us a series of puzzles to hold in our minds as we move into the rest of the song – puzzles that it is appropriate to ponder on the Wednesday of Holy Week, the day where there do not seem to be any events recorded in the gospels. This servant is one who is raised, lifted up and highly exalted – and yet marred beyond human likeness. This is one who plumbs the depths of human experience, causing nations to be shocked – and yet who teaches the leaders of the nations the ways of God.
These are themes that emerge in the gospels, where John especially views Jesus’ death on the cross as being ‘lifted up’ and ‘exalted’. Paradoxically it is precisely in the ultimate act of humiliation that Jesus’s supreme glory is displayed. It is in this revelation of divine weakness that strength is displayed, and even the kings of the nations will learn new ways.
We will explore those themes as they emerge in the song over the next few days. But I want to pause on the way that the Servant’s ministry causes rulers to shut their mouths and learn new ways.
For if you had walked around the rulers of the Ancient Near East in Isaiah’s day, or gone to meet the rulers of Rome and its opponents in Jesus’s day you would have seen rulers who viewed themselves as divine, or at least semi divine. They were far above ordinary mortals, governed by different laws. Might was right, and they would do whatever they could get away with. The idea that they might held to account was simply on no-one’s agenda.
Something changed that – from somewhere the idea that rulers should follow rules came. Even today when (for example) a leader is discovered to have broken rules that they had made for the rest of us to follow in a time of national crisis, and then deliberately lied about to those they are answerable to, we think they should be held to account. We don’t want them to behave like Roman rulers. Tom Holland in his book Dominion makes the case that it was Christianity that caused that change – that it is only with the advent and rise of Christianity that we get the idea that rulers should be held to account.
In other words, it is the startling ministry of a disfigured and marred servant, exalted on a cross that turns the world upside down. And in a world that has long declared all truth relative we should hardly be surprised when our leaders don’t treat truth with the respect it should have. We need to come back to the servant and his ministry to rediscover the basis for truth, and the way of true power.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 