Reading: Isaiah 52-54, Psalm 119:65-96
Isaiah begins his final run up to his dramatic reveal of the Servant’s role with yet another promise of restoration for the people of Zion, and how they will see how God brings about their salvation and takes his place on the throne. Then he begins another descriptive “Servant Song” in 52:14, which continues through the end of chapter 53, in which the Servant rather shockingly takes on the role of sacrifice to purify the people. Finally, chapter 54 tells what God will do for his people because of the Servant’s actions.
The prophecy of the suffering Servant is fairly well known to many in Christian churches because it so clearly spells out what Jesus was doing in his suffering on the cross. However, I want to take a step back from that for a moment and, once again, attempt to see this prophecy from the perspective of the people who first heard it and who read it for hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.
Isaiah’s prophecies have been getting progressively more shocking and radical, especially in his “book 2” following the disappointment of Hezekiah. This character of the Servant, who fulfills all the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures, who speaks and acts as if he is God himself, is already a tough pill to swallow. That he will come only after Jerusalem is totally destroyed by a foreign nation and the people returned by the actions of yet another foreign nation flies in the face of their belief that they are the chosen people of God. We don’t see records of conflict between Isaiah and other prophets. We will have to wait for the book of Jeremiah for that kind of story. But it is entirely possible that Isaiah was writing against other people who were reading the same Scriptures he was. Again, tradition tells us Isaiah was executed for the things he said in his “book 2.” But all this pales in comparison with what he says about the Servant here.
The way the Servant is described, especially in 53:4-7, plays on the ritual identification from the book of Leviticus. Remember that? The people would bring an animal to the tabernacle, identify themselves with it, and then kill it for their purification and atonement. Here Isaiah runs the program in reverse. The Servant is the sheep led to the slaughter, and he is afflicted for their sins. But it also plays the other way. The people are sheep, and the Servant is identified with them. To hear this after hearing how the Servant was the fulfillment of all God’s promises to Eve, Abraham, Judah, and David would have been stunning. To be that fulfillment the Servant had to be the king. Would the king somehow be the sacrifice for the people? Surely not! Surely there must be some interpretation in which our champion, our anointed one, messiah, is purely victorious.
We might scoff at this now, but that is exactly what happened, and continues to happen. Think of how many mental gymnastics humans do today to make various writing say something other than what they say. The academic arguments over the meaning of words that have gone on for hundreds of years. That the ancient people of God did not understand this, or chose not to understand it, should not make us feel superior because we have the benefit of hindsight. No, instead it should make us cautious about things we cannot accept and so explain away. The story the Hebrew Scriptures are telling is about a suffering Servant, a king who dies for the sins of his people. But the story doesn’t end there.
The last line of chapter 53 tells us that this Servant, who was sacrificed for the sins of his people, also makes intercession for them. The sacrificed Servant has become the priest, the one who makes atonement. Isaiah is saying that this Servant, who already occupies so many roles, is also the high priest that we read about in the books of Moses. Recall that the high priest carried the guilt of the people into the presence of God. His role is to interact with God directly in a way the people cannot. Isaiah has held up the Servant now as savior, king, priest, and sacrifice. This is the peak of the Isaiah’s “book 2.” It is the revelation that it is God’s Servant on the altar whose coals purified the prophet’s lips in chapter 6. It is the answer to the question posed in the books of Moses about interacting with God, in Judges about a king who teaches right behavior, in Samuel about an Anointed One, and in Kings about an eternal ruler. Everything else Isaiah has to say is response to this.
The response? Jubilation! Isaiah proclaims a party. A celebration. The people of God have been badly wounded by the overflowing anger for a moment of their God because of their sins, but God’s Servant has erased those sins, and now everlasting love and compassion will define their relationship. The Servant’s actions will bring a time like the days of Noah, referencing the creation reset button of the flood. After the flood God swore never to reboot creation through that kind of destruction again. Instead he has acted through his Servant to reset his relationship with his people. It is God making everything new through the Servant’s suffering, instead of the destruction of the corrupt world. From the days of the Servant onward, God says any strife is not from me. The Servant’s actions will deal with God’s wrath towards his people forever.
The end of chapter 54 makes it clear that the destiny of those the servants of the God of Israel, secured by the actions of the Servant, is forever determined. Nothing will rebuke them. Nothing will destroy them. God has forgiven them. The prophecy of Isaiah about the Servant was a shock, the outcome of the Servant’s actions are even more a shock. In the next chapters Isaiah will proclaim the universal availability of salvation because of the Servant’s sacrifice.