In looking at Ruth, I’m not going to start chronologically – I think instead I will likely look through the eyes of each main character at least once if not more. I want to start with Boaz, because in many ways he is the most startling character in the book.

I say that because in the Old Testament I can think of a number of female characters who do and say exactly what is needed at the time: Hannah, Abigail, the unnamed midwives in Exodus 1, Deborah, Esther, Huldah – the list goes on.

By contrast the number of male characters in the Bible who always act with real integrity in their dealings with others is quite limited – very often a Biblical narrative revolves a key flaw or flaws in a male character. Daniel is one exception, perhaps, but beyond Daniel it is hard to find such a character. Furthermore Boaz is an unusual character because he isn’t a leader of a tribe or kingdom. In a time of ‘judges’ who ‘judge’ through military success he is simply a wealthy landowner. A ‘mighty man of worth/wealth/strength’ (to highlight the different possible nuances of his description) in Ruth 2:1.

In this post I’m going to focus on Ruth 2, and on the portrayal of Boaz in this chapter. When we read Hebrew stories like Ruth, we need to pay attention to the way things are told, and read the story with the bigger story of the OT and of the whole Bible in our minds.

By the way, when I say ‘story’ I don’t mean ‘made up, fictional’. Rather I’m referring to the reality the just about all OT history is told by means of stories. ‘Story’ means history told in an interesting and gripping way, which we have often lost in our modern world, but one of my old A level history teachers used to say “history is stories” and I liked his classes a lot better than the other history teachers…

The Old Testament story tellers do not (usually) tell us what they think directly. They usually show us what is happening and expect us to draw our conclusions – sometimes focusing our intention on particular things by repetition. We don’t usually hear much in the way of the characters internal thoughts – we are usually shown the action from on a onlookers perspective, and so we need to listen carefully to the things the story teller shows us (almost as if paying attention to the camera of a movie director), and to the words we hear the characters say to each other.

Here in this chapter we get brief descriptions of events, and we see key actions of Boaz and Ruth, and we see conversation happen between them. In these events, actions and dialogue we see the characters filled out. As see this, we are drawn into the story and begin to see the questions it asks of us. We see how this story’s part in the big story the Bible is telling might challenge us and cause us to live differently.

² And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”

Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” ³ So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.

⁴ Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”

“The Lord bless you!” they answered.

⁵ Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”

⁶ The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. ⁷ She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”

⁸ So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. ⁹ Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

Ruth 2:2-9

We will come back to Ruth and Naomi’s words and actions in another post. For now we focus our attention on Boaz, the man whose field ‘it just happens’ (another phrase we will come back to) that Ruth is gleaning in. Gleaning refers to the practice of leaving some of the harvest for those too poor to own land, so that they could find food to eat.

Notice how Boaz appears. He is, we already know a man of some substance in the area. He comes to the field from the town and greets his workers. This greeting: “Yahweh be with you” could just be empty words, or it could be a sign of someone committed to following Yahweh and his ways in an age where many did not. At any rate, it is an encouraging sign, that causes us to read on in the hope that his words will be seen to have substance.

Boaz immediately notices a different person gleaning in his fields. A young woman. We don’t know his reasons for noticing Ruth at this point. All we know is that he does, and that he asks about her.

He is told that she is the Moabite who came back with Naomi. Notice how the overseer doesn’t even know her name, or think it significant – although we will see later in this chapter that Boaz does know something of this story. Ruth is simply labelled as the foreigner. The outsider. And so we wonder. How will Boaz react? He has obviously noticed her – whether simply as someone different, or maybe as someone attractive we do not know.

It is what he does next that starts to show his quality. He speaks directly to her. He encourages her to remain in his field, with his women, and tells her that he has told his men not to touch her, and that she can drink of the water at any point. In an age, remember the previous post, when men are doing unspeakable things to women Boaz ensures that this foreigner, this stranger, is protected and cared for.

Boaz is a man who respects and allows others to flourish. He is respectful of Ruth as a woman, and he is accepting of her status as an outsider. He does not take advantage. Remember the book of Judges, and the way in which women then, and sadly now, are too often treated. Boaz’s actions are a model of how to use your status and strength to support those who are most vulnerable.

¹⁰ At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”

¹¹ Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. ¹² May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

¹³ “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”

¹⁴ At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”

When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. ¹⁵ As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. ¹⁶ Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebukeher.”

Ruth 2:10-16

Here we learn why Boaz shows such favour – the same word that we often translate ‘grace’ in English to Ruth. He has learnt of what she has done. Her loyalty and kindness to Naomi have become known – her sacrifice in giving up her own home to stay with Naomi, and her choice to come and find shelter from the God of Israel. Boaz is a man who thinks highly of such behaviour. His treatment of Ruth is not motivated by her looks, or her sparklingly personality – although it seems likely from the narrative that she certainly had a forceful character. Rather his treatment of Ruth is motivated by what he has learnt of her character, and especially of her loyalty to Naomi, and to Naomi’s God.

His treatment of Ruth is not grasping. He doesn’t see her goodness as something he will possess for himself – rather it is something he wants to give space to and enable. He wants to help Ruth support Naomi. His care and kindness extends to the whole family. Boaz may be a wealthy man, but here he uses his wealth and status to care for another.

Boaz’s actions in this chapter stand by vivid contrast to the actions of other men in the Bible narrative. Both in his care for the vulnerable and his grace towards the faithful outsider he contrasts sharply with the behaviour of many. Boaz was not afraid to be different and to be faithful in a world where it would have been very easy to take advantage of a vulnerable young outsider.

Boaz’s use of his strength stands as an example to others. It is the sort of manhood I want my sons to grow into. It is the sort of manhood I aspire to – and yet – how easy it is not to have this sort of manhood. Sometimes people who wonder why we (Roz mostly) home educate our children ask how they will be “socialised” if they don’t go to school. I’m never quite sure what this means. I mean, I went to school and I don’t know how to socialise.

As far as I recall the main thing I learnt at school (other than academics) was how to survive. As a new kid at school I remember watching a boy with a broken arm being taunted, and a year or so later a friend ended up leaving the school after he was dropped on his head by other pupils. I learnt how not to attract attention, and how to avoid any sort of bad behaviour. I genuinely didn’t notice much bad treatment that I’m sure went on, because I was so good at avoiding even being where it might happen.

What I didn’t learn at school was how to be a Boaz. I didn’t learn how to actually make space for others to live and flourish. And it is that art that we need to cultivate in our own characters and in those of our children, especially in a culture that is heading and further and further in a Judges 19 direction.

We do that by loving and desiring the same sort of things that Boaz evidently did. Boaz delighted in people who showed compassion and loyalty to others. Boaz chose to make sure that the people he was responsible for supported and showed compassion to the weak and vulnerable. He was a person who rewarded goodness, a person who rewarded virtue. That is a radical thing in our world. Our entertainment revolves around talent, skill and physical beauty. Our politics revolves around the ability to be popular, to seem to get things done, never mind the consequences for others, and the ability to simplify and avoid hard choices by grabbing a quick headline.

To be like Boaz is to be radically different. Boaz in this story reflects the character that Christians find exemplified supremely in Christ. Very often in OT narrative a reoccuring them is “don’t be like x – human leaders fall, but Christ will never fall”. But Boaz reminds us that virtue is possible. Virtue is to be aimed for. It is not a dirty word. Christians are supposed to be good people, and are supposed to do what is good. Perhaps Boaz helps us to see what it means to live out Paul’s injuction to Titus:

³ At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. ⁸ This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

Titus 3:2-8

Doing good is relational. It is about thinking about the other person, and about what they need. Do we do that? Is that how we live? Is that how I live? Boaz reminds me that goodness is lived out in ethical decisions that seek to benefit those I come into contact with – especially the weak and vulnerable.

In ministry that is perhaps the key question to ask of myself. Am I the sort of person who seeks to make space for others to flourish? Do I ensure that those I am responsible for protect the weak and vulnerable? Or am I more concerned with building my kingdom here and now? Am I truly strong, and do I truly use that strength to help others grow even if my own reputation might be diminished? Go back to Boaz and reflect on his strength – and on how he uses that strength.

The purpose of this blog is to be an encouragement to those in some sort of Christian ministry. We long for our home to be a space for those who are in Christian ministry to be able to come to in order to find a place of rest. But until such a time as that becomes possible, we want to live, and as part of living to write in such a way as to encourage others.

And so in this space to reflect on Scripture I will turn to look at the book of Ruth. My natural tendency, if I were to write a sermon series on the book of Ruth would be to divide it up into the 4 chapters and allocate one sermon to each chapter. As I’ve read Ruth I’ve wondered if that would be the best way or not. I wondered if it would actually work better to read – or even perform – the book as a whole in one session – to have it read, and read well, with different readers for the different characters. Then, following that session, to have a series on Ruth that picks up major themes – perhaps by looking at the key characters in the story and teases out what those themes have to say to us today, and how we can relate to them in our very different context.

And so, I think in this series, I will aim to look at different themes/concepts as they appear in Ruth, and see how looking at these themes in Ruth, in the context of the whole Bible, then impacts on how we live today. That is my aim at least.

And to start with we turn to the very first words of the book. At first glance in our English bibles it is hardly a surprise that Ruth is set in the time of the judges – because Ruth is placed straight after judges, and before 1 Samuel. But in the Hebrew Bible Ruth is placed in the “writings” section, and comes straight after Proverbs.

The Hebrew Bible is divided into “Torah” (Genesis – Deuteronomy), “Prophets” (Joshua-Judges, 1 Samuel – 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the ‘Book of the Twelve’ – our minor prophets), and “Writings” (everything else – ‘wisdom literature’ plus Daniel, Ruth, Esther, 1-2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah). It is possible that this reflects a general chronological order of writing, and certainly of putting the books together.

Ruth then, is not part of the early history – but it is a story deliberately told in that earlier setting. And so we need to see who the characters are at the start of the book of Ruth, and why it is so important that this story happens in the time of the judges.

In Ruth chapter 1 we learn that a man from Bethlehem (sounds like “house of bread”) leaves, with his wife and two sons, and settles in Moab because there is a famine in the land. Famines are common throughout the bible. Sometimes this man, who we learn next is called Elimelek (sounds like “El is King” – where El is the generic term in the Bible for God, and also the name of a Canaanite deity), is condemned by commentators for heading out of Israel at the first sign of trouble.

The narrative doesn’t make any comment – but then Hebrew narrative very often doesn’t. We are left to wonder – was this a lack of trust in God to provide? Or did there simply seem to be no other option? Moab, however, has not been a promising place prior to this – it is the place where Israel was seduced into idolatry and immorality on the very borders of the land. No Moabite to the 10th generation could become part of God’s people.

Whatever the reasoning behind the move, the outcome is devastating. In Moab, Elimelek and his two sons (who marry Moabite women in the meantime) die. Elimelek’s widow, Naomi, is left with her two daughters-in-law, one of whom returns to her own people. We will return to Naomi, and her remaining daughter-in-law, Ruth, and their conversation in a later post. But for now we read the beginning and end of chapter 1 together:

In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.

Ruth 1:1

²² So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

Ruth 1:22

Two women are walking back into Bethlehem, in the time when the judges judged. To feel the weight of that sentence we need to remember how the judges ruled. Is this likely to be a time when two women feel safe walking back into Judah? Will the judges help them do that? A quick look back in Judges leads us to think that two women would have every reason to be afraid. The last story in Judges tells us of a man who threw his concubine out into the market square to be raped by a local mob, so that they would leave him alone. The last judge in Judges, Samson, appears to see women only in one dimension, and is ultimately brought down by this blindness. An earlier judge sacrifices his daughter as an offering in repayment of a vow.

Judges is not a pleasant read, and with one or two exceptions, the time of the judges seems no place to be a woman, and seems to be a place where good examples of manhood are few and far between. It is a world where the leaders do not obey the rules that everyone else is supposed to, a world where leaders operate as seems good in their eyes, and their followers follow the same principles. So perhaps it is not an entirely unknown world for us too.

For two women to walk back into Israel is not necessarily the safe option that they are longing for. One of them is a foreigner in a world where foreigners could expect trouble. The fear must be that they will not be treated well. Ruth 2:1 introduces a key character in the book:

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.

Ruth 2:1

“A man of standing” sounds reasonably positive – until you remember what we have remembered above – men of standing do not necessarily turn out to be great. The words used can also be used to describe someone as a “mighty warrior” – and indeed are used as such in Judges 6 when the angel of Yahweh describes Gideon in such language. And Gideon starts obediently, but ends up heading down the wrong road. Is this Boaz going to be a true “man of worth” – or is he going to be like all the other important men we meet in Judges who take advantage of others, especially women, for their own ends?

We need to return to Boaz and see how his portrayal shows how a true man should act, and what real manhood is all about. He is one of the Bible’s few portrayals of a worthy man who lives up to his reputation. He shares that honour in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus with Joseph – but we will return to that theme in another post.

For now, observe that looking at a few key phrases and locations and then looking at other parts of scripture helps us to set the scene for what is happening here. It helps us tune into the background music and understand the difficult journeys these characters are making. It will help us as we look at the characters in more detail, to understand the contrasts that the text is making.

God has given us this story, not just to put another piece into David and Jesus’ genealogy, but to show us that an ordinary story of vulnerable refugees and an honourable man has a key role to play in his plans. In this story each of the three main characters plays a key role. Each has lines that only they can say, and actions only they can take. None of them are passive. None of them can be removed. Each has something to show us of what it means to trust in this God and live out our lives in a way that honours him in a world that seems increasingly like “when the judges judged”.

To be continued…

For Easter Sunday it is fitting to come to the final stanza of this servant song:

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:10-12

Here we see the success of the servant’s mission – and more than that, the servant will see the success of his mission and be satisfied. He will know that his mission is accomplished. He will see life, and he will put many right with God, because he bore their sins.

It would be a mistake here to read “many” but not “all” in a kind of pedantic counting game. “Many” here is “many” rather than “few”. The number saved by the servant will be vast. The only limits are in the hearts of those who refuse to allow their sin to be carried – those who refuse to allow the servant to serve them.

For the servant will see the light of life. Death is not the end. Easter Sunday is that most wonderful of days when we remember that Jesus tasting death is so we don’t have to. Easter Sunday morning gives us a foretaste of the day to come when Jesus will return and gather all his children home.

Easter Sunday is victory day. The day we know death is defeated and Jesus is victorious. As we read on to Isaiah we come to the passage that was read this morning at Easter Sunday communion services in Anglican churches up and down the country – Isaiah 65:17-25. This is Isaiah’s vision of a new heavens and a new earth – and this is the vision that the servant’s mission brings about. Read this:

¹⁷ “See, I will create
    new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
    nor will they come to mind.
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
    and its people a joy.
¹⁹ I will rejoice over Jerusalem
    and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
    will be heard in it no more.

²⁰ “Never again will there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days,
    or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
    will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach a hundred
    will be considered accursed.
²¹ They will build houses and dwell in them;
    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
²² No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
    or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
    so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
    the work of their hands.
²³ They will not labor in vain,
    nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
    they and their descendants with them.
²⁴ Before they call I will answer;
    while they are still speaking I will hear.
²⁵ The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
    and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.

Isaiah 65:17-25

There will be no more weeping or crying. People will enjoy the houses they build – rather than building and working only for others to enjoy the fruit of their labour. Work will no longer be empty or in vain. Children will no longer be doomed to misfortune. Think of that in our world where our luxury goods come from the misfortune and poverty of others.

Then there will be no more predators, no one who harms or destroys. The serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit, the punishment for which was returning to dust will himself eat dust. Old enemies will be reconciled. The world will be put right.

And all this comes from the work of the servant who suffers as our substitute. The gospel is good news, not simply for me alone, but for the whole world. For all of us, a place in a new world where all sin and sickness and sorrow is gone is offered. And as those who live looking forward to that world we are to live now as signs and heralds of what that world will look like.

There is a day coming when all who have trusted in the work of the servant will see the servant’s satisfaction. We will see creation itself made new. On that day our faith will be made sight. On that day we will see our world as it was meant to be, and we will step onto that world with transformed bodies and we will see the Servant who is the King, the Lion who is the Lamb, the Man who is God. We will see his face, and the face of the Father, the face of the one who Moses could not see. As Isaac Watts put it:

There we shall see his face,
And never, never sin,
And from the rivers of his grace
Drink endless pleasures in.

Isaac Watts

And so this Easter, come back to the empty tomb. Listen to the joyful tidings “He is not here, he is risen.” And know that this resurrection makes utterly certain the final resurrection when we will be raised with him – and we will know that our labour in the Lord was not in vain.

The next stanza of the song highlights the silence of the servant, and seems appropriate for Easter Saturday – the day between Friday and Sunday.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.
⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Isaiah 53:7-9

The servant meets his fate in silence, and is assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death – though he had done no violence nor committed any deceit. I find it nicely ironic that there seems to be an automatic association of wealth and wickedness here. It is not a universal association – but in our society of massive extremes of wealth, where we are ruled by people who have far more wealth than we can ever imagine, and who seem to treat that wealth as an excuse for avoiding rules – in that sort of a society it seems like an apt warning to me – to avoid idolising wealth and riches, and to treat them with care and generosity when we get them.

But that is a side issue from the main emphasis here I want to highlight, and that is the silence of the servant. A silence which fits with Jesus on Good Friday as he goes to the cross, and a silence which seems to fit even more with Easter Saturday. A day for silence. A day when Jesus is in the tomb. A day which seems like it will go on forever.

A day when hopes are dashed. A day when the answers have fled. A day of despair. A day of darkness. It is not even a day any longer of waiting, because there is no hope. The Lord of life lies in the grave. The who “we had hoped would redeem Israel” (say the friends on the road to Emmaus) is dead. There is nothing left, nowhere else to go.

A day when the saviour lies silent in the grave. It is a day for all who today feel that God is silent. All of us, if we are honest face such days – and some face them as days that turn into years.

And as we stand with Joseph and the women as the stone is rolled over the grave, it is a day for us to pause. To face the darkness – and to sit in the darkness. To resist the temptation to jump too quickly to the end of the story.

Perhaps, as much as for anything it is a day for Psalm 88, that prayer of darkness:

Lord, you are the God who saves me;
    day and night I cry out to you.
² May my prayer come before you;
    turn your ear to my cry.

³ I am overwhelmed with troubles
    and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
    I am like one without strength.
⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
    like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
    who are cut off from your care.

⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
    in the darkest depths.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavily on me;
    you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.^[d]
8 You have taken from me my closest friends
    and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
⁹     my eyes are dim with grief.

I call to you, Lord, every day;
    I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
    Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
    your faithfulness in Destruction^[e]?
¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
    or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

¹³ But I cry to you for help, Lord;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, Lord, do you reject me
    and hide your face from me?

¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
    I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
    your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
    they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
    darkness is my closest friend.

With today’s stanza we come to the heart of this Servant Song. These verses are among the first that I underlined in my bible I had as a child. I can vividly remembering the impact that the idea that Jesus died for me, in my place, had on me – and indeed still has. Here are the verses:

Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:4-6

These verses give a vivid picture of the Servant’s accomplishment, and are taken up in the New Testament and used of Jesus. They convey the idea that somehow Jesus took up our punishment, that he suffered in our place, and that his suffering brings us peace. As we look at these verses we need to read them carefully, because reading carefully will guard us against ways this idea has been misused and distorted over the years.

First and, most fundamentally notice v4. See where the initiative lies. It is the Servant who takes up our pain and carries our suffering. He chooses to enter into this world with its pain and suffering. Jesus chose to enter our world. He chose to carry our burdens. When the Bible talks about the cross it is very clear that the cross is something that Jesus chose, just as it was part of the Father’s plan.

Then v4 switches to what the people watching the Servant think. They think the Servant is being punished and afflicted by God for his own sin. That is exactly what the leaders of the people in Jesus’ day thought at the cross. They mocked and taunted Jesus. They believed his death indicated that he was under divine disapproval for his own sin.

They were wrong – Jesus lived a perfect life. He chose the cross. And yet, v5 shows us here, Jesus was in some sense being punished. His wounds bring us life. He takes our place. While we, like sheep go astray, each one going to our own way, the LORD has laid on Jesus the sin of us all.

How can this be? How can the death of Jesus, an innocent victim, bring about our healing and our peace. It can happen because Jesus is not only only the Servant who suffers, he is also God himself come among us as a human being. The cross is not about God punishing an isolated individual in my place. The cross is about God himself stepping into human history and in his own person taking all the weight of my sin on himself. John Stott in his superb book The Cross of Christ calls this the self substitution of God.

If the Servant was merely another human he could not pay the price of sin. He had to be divine. He had to be God himself. And so Jesus enters human history, born of a woman, laid in a manger. He grows up and lives as one of us, and yet also as the God of history. He lays down his life, and bears our sins. He is God – and yet somehow as God feels what it is to be abandoned, forsaken and punished by God.

Jesus does that out of love. He dies for us because he loves us. God gave Jesus out of love for us, and Jesus willingly took that burden out of love for us. Somehow by entering into the mess of our broken world, and bearing the weight of the punishment and God forsakenness that our own choices to reject God’s way bring on us, Jesus brings about our healing, our wholeness.

And because he does that there is no need for us to do that. Yes, to follow Jesus is in one sense to pick up our crosses, to die to ourselves and to say yes to God’s way. But, equally we are not called to redeem anyone else by our suffering. We cannot change anyone’s heart by suffering for them. We cannot bear the sin of another. Jesus suffering as a victim is not a license to turn anyone else into a victim. We are not to twist the cross by making others into victims. It is Jesus and Jesus alone who can save and change others.

And so we come back to the cross this Good Friday and when we look at the man on the cross, whipped to within an inch of his life, crowned with thorns and gasping for breath, we look, not only on an innocent man suffering, but on God incarnate bearing the weight of a world in rebellion. God’s act of self sacrifice opens the way for us to come back to God. When we look at the cross we see the love of a God whose arms are stretched wide for the whole human race.

That last line is taken from a song I used to listen to each Good Friday of my teenage years, and for many years since – Wooden Cross Rider by Garth Hewitt. For me Good Friday has always been special. It is always a day to remember, and this song sums up so well what this day means for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPW0ry4Jx9o – excuse the random 1970s album cover – I notice that it dates from the year of my birth – the song itself expresses so well what Good Friday is all about.

And fundamentally the most important thing this Good Friday, and indeed any day at all, is that we pause and remember that Jesus death has brought us peace with God – and that peace is a gift. I do nothing to earn it or make it happen. The most fundamental reality about the Christian life is that it is about gift – and Good Friday is the day that makes that gift possible. Easter is a good time to stop and remember that it is all about God’s gift.

Postscript
I know that for many this idea of substitution, and especially the idea that Jesus took our punishment is one that is hard, or even offensive. I know too, that for me it lies right at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. If you are someone who struggles with this at an intellectual level my first place to go would be, as I’ve already alluded to in the blog above, The Cross of Christ by John Stott – I think Stott does an amazing job of explaining the key concepts in the cross, as well as giving a wonderful overview of the implications of the cross for the Christian today – it isn’t an ‘easy reading’ book though, and does require a degree of effort (which is well worth it) – at a more popular level Mark Meynell’s Cross Examined is worth looking at. Also worth mentioning if you are into reading more academic theology is Violence, Hospitality and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition by Hans Boersma – this is a really good look at the cross and understanding in the light of criticisms about divine violence.

As we move on in the song we come to this stanza:

Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isaiah 53:1-3

Here we have the description of the servant. If we’ve read the rest of Isaiah we will remember that roots and shoots from the line of Jesse have been promised – and we’ll also remember that they are supposed to be kings. But here there is nothing about this root that attracts us to him.

The Servant has nothing about his appearance that draws us. Charismatic leaders have large followings – in the secular world, and in the church. We have witnessed over the last few years in the evangelical world many charismatic (small c) leaders whose reputation has turned out to be somewhat hollow. Either they have been manipulative bullies, or sexual predators, or financial frauds, or some other kind of sin has been hidden away. What looked good from a worldly perspective turns out to be hollow and empty.

The Servant is the opposite. He doesn’t pull the crowd with the latest music, the most compelling talking or glittering reasoning. He suffers. He knows what pain is like. He is despised. In a world that thinks leaders should be able to avoid pain he is despised because the suffering and sorrow is etched all too clearly on his face.

And so this Easter, as we reflect on the one who came and lived out the mission of this servant, come back to look on his sufferings that caused him to be despised and rejected by men – and yet were the means by which he accomplished the salvation of the world. Let us remember that if we following a suffering servant we are likely to have to suffer too. And let us remember too that authentic leadership is likely to be provided by people who also know the reality of suffering and who are not necessarily the most impressive or smooth.

Remember that we follow the one who could be described as a man of suffering, familiar with pain. We worship the man of sorrows – and it seems appropriate to use the words of that hymn to reflect more on the Easter story.

1 Man of sorrows what a name
for the Son of God, who came
ruined sinners to reclaim:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

2 Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
in my place condemned he stood,
sealed my pardon with his blood:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

3 Guilty, helpless, lost were we;
blameless Lamb of God was he,
sacrificed to set us free:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

4 He was lifted up to die;
“It is finished” was his cry;
now in heaven exalted high:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

5 When he comes, our glorious King,
all his ransomed home to bring,
then anew this song we’ll sing:
Hallelujah, what a Savior! 

Philip Bliss

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;
    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.

Isaiah 52:12-15

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.

It has been a while, but I didn’t want to not do this one, since it is around the final lines of this servant song, which is all about the servant’s perseverance – and in particular the servant’s perseverance in bringing about justice. Read these lines again:

42 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
    and he will bring justice to the nations.
² He will not shout or cry out,
    or raise his voice in the streets.
³ A bruised reed he will not break,
    and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
⁴     he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
    In his teaching the islands will put their hope.”

Isaiah 42:1-4

Then we need to read these lines again:

In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth
In his teaching the islands will put their hope

Isaiah 42:3-4

In v3 we read of a “bruised reed” and a “smouldering wick”. The word translated bruised in v3 is the same as the word translated “discouraged” in v4, and the word translated “smoulder” in v3 is the same as “falter” in v4. The point is that while we are very often discouraged, and very often faltering, the servant is not. He will bring forth justice and he will not be discouraged until the work is done.

In our world right now we need justice. We’ve all seen pictures of the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in the Ukraine. We’ve seen the pain and grief etched on the face of the Ukrainian president. I’ve received emails from colleagues in the Ukraine giving personal stories behind the horrifying headlines. The horrors of the Ukraine cry out for justice.

When we lift our eyes beyond Europe we see yet more horrors across the globe. There are wars, there are brutal military dictatorships, there is persecution. We long for justice and we cry out for justice. And we wonder what God is doing. We cry out to him. At least we should cry out to him. We should cry, in the words of so many Psalms, “How long O Lord?” We should bring our protests, our questions and our tears to God. It is the only response of those who believe both that somehow God is good, and that somehow he is sovereign in this broken world.

And the answer of Isaiah 42 to the question “How long?” is “until the job is done – and it will be done”. Jesus will complete what he has started, and he will not give up. He does not run out of energy. He does not become exhausted. He stands at the side of the open graves and he weeps with those who weep. He stands as one whose hands and sides have been pierced. He stands as one who has been brutally whipped by brutalised soldiers. He has been exposed. Left naked for oppressors to taunt. He knows.

And in that knowledge he will bring forth justice. He will do it. I have no clue why it is taking so long. The answers to such questions are not given to us. I don’t know if we would comprehend. I don’t know that (as Rich Mullins pointed out in song) “it would hurt any less even if it could be explained”. But somehow we hold to the reality that he will finish what he has started. That justice will be done and seen to be done.

And in that knowledge the islands – the distant lands, the furthest parts of the earth from Isaiah – will put their hope in his teaching – in his torah. The servant will come, and his teaching will give us the hope to keep on in the midst of all that discourages and makes us falter and flicker.

In the midst of appalling suffering and utter brokenness we can come back to the one who does not flicker and falter, who never gets discouraged or broken. The one whose tears never exhaust him. The one who with utter dedication will bring about justice on this earth. This is our God. The servant King whose scars will make all things well.

In the midst of all the gruesome news that comes day by day the words of this poem come to mind, written in the midst of the horrors of World War I.

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.

If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

Jesus of the Scars – Edward Shillito