September 25, 2005

God’s Suffering Servant

Isaiah 52:13--53:1-12

Veteran missionary Graham Staines of Australia pulled up beside a shabby little church building one Saturday evening in Manoharpur, South India, one of the poorest areas of the country, where he was to preach the next morning. Among his duties, he cared for about sixty lepers. In that there were no sleeping accommodations in the church, he and his two sons, ages 10 and 7, slept in his car. On an early Sunday morning exactly two years ago today (January 23, 1999), their vehicle was surrounded by militant Hindus, who doused it with kerosene and set it on fire. When Stains and his sons tried to get out of the burning vehicle, they were beaten and driven back into it by the crowd chanting, “Justice has been done; the Christians have been cremated in Hindu fashion.” The mob kept would-be rescuers at bay for over an hour until they were sure the missionary and his sons were dead.

When I read that in the Boise Statesman, I found myself screaming, “Why? Where was God in all of this? What do we do when the Savior doesn’t save? When the Deliverer doesn’t deliver?” That is precisely the question that haunted Jesus’ disciples in the wake of seeing their Messianic dreams smashed into a thousand pieces upon Golgotha’s rocky brow. They had bet their lives upon Jesus of Nazareth and lost.

Then like the sun breaking through dark storm clouds, Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of the suffering servant of God burst upon their troubled minds, enabling them to see what Jesus himself had been trying to teach them so patiently: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served (as befitting a messianic conqueror), but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (as befitting the suffering servant of God)” (Mark 10:45). The servant song before us became the key that unlocked the disciples’ understanding of this strange Messiah who would rather be “stricken” than strike, who would rather be “smitten” than smite, who would rather be “afflicted” than afflict—and who was (53:4).

This, the most eloquent, elegant, and profound hymn ever written, is composed of five stanzas that help us unlock the mystery of senseless suffering. Let its music begin to play upon the strings of our hearts. The first stanza celebrates

1. The Sovereignty of the Servant (52:13-15). The unusual aspect of this servant song is that it begins with the end of the story, the glorification of God’s servant who is “raised and lifted up and highly exalted.” Even “nations and kings will shut their mouths” because they will finally “see” and “understand” His true cosmic and redemptive significance. The problem for Jesus’ disciples was not His resurrection. To the contrary, it was precisely because “God raised [Jesus] from the dead” and “exalted [Him] to the right hand of God” that Peter could preach so confidently that Jesus was “both Lord and Christ [Messiah, Deliverer, Savior]” (Acts 2:24, 33, 36).

It was not the resurrection but the cross they could not understand. If Jesus was God’s Messiah, then why didn’t God take Him like Enoch of old, without having to pass through the valley of the shadow of death? Why didn’t God send one of His mighty chariots of flaming fire to scoop Him up and carry Him to heaven like Elijah? Why did He allow His only begotten Son to be subjected to such a cruel, humiliating, and torturous fate?

Or to put the question another way: considering the miracle-working power at Jesus’ disposal, why couldn’t He—like King David of old—simply crush all the Goliaths in the land, smash the Philistines into submission, and deliver his people from all tyrants and oppression forever? The surprising answer is given us in the second stanza that accents

2. The Suffering of the Servant (53:1-3). Sovereignty separates but suffering unites. That is, there is distance between a sovereign and his subjects. The more powerful the ruler, the greater the gap. Suffering, on the other hand, is the great leveler. It creates empathy and draws us to the one who is wounded. Suffering breaks down barriers, forges bonds of intimacy, and creates community.

The tidal wave of shock and grief on both sides of the Atlantic that attended the tragic death of Princess Dianna cannot be explained entirely on the basis of her celebrity status, her beauty, her amazing poise, or even in her last years, her exemplary compassion for the poor. What bonded her with vast multitudes of people from all walks of life was the heart-wrenching story behind what appeared to be a fairy tale life.

Abandoned by her mother at six, neglected by her father, raised by nannies, locked in a glamorous but loveless marriage, isolated from the royal family, betrayed by the man she loved, and forced into a divorce she did not want, she battled severe depression, bulimia, anorexia, and even attempted to kill herself. When this became widely known, millions identified. They felt one with her in her suffering.

Likewise, it was not Christ’s sovereignty but His suffering that bridged the “infinite qualitative distance between God and man” (Soren Kierkegaard). We too have been “despised and rejected by men.” We too struggle with the crippling effects of “infirmities.” We too have been broken by many “sorrows.”

A year ago, my wife and her sister discovered their family’s cemetery in Indiana. Surrounded by trees, it sits on an acre of ground in the middle of a golf course. Since then, she’s been trying to reconstruct her family’s genealogy. She made contact through the Internet with a fourth cousin she didn’t even know existed. Her cousin wrote back. I’ve received her permission to quote from her e-mail:

“My mom and dad adopted me when I was six weeks old. I was in contact with a fourth cousin, who will not correspond with me anymore because I was adopted. He doesn't consider me to be a true Garringer. I have found my biological family, but my birth father will neither acknowledge nor correspond with me either. It's strange. The family I claim as my own won't claim me, and the family I actually came from won't claim me either. Such is the life of an adopted child.”

Can you imagine the hurt, the pain, the unremitting ache behind those few terse words? The total sense of abandonment, of not belonging? Of having no real family? Living with the haunting fear that when she dies, it will be as if she has never been?

Biologist Konrad Lorenz wrote a landmark book some years ago titled, On Aggression. In it he told about a rat that had been removed from its clan for a couple of weeks and then reintroduced. It rushed up to its clan members touching noses with them. But they drew back. The rat didn’t realize he had lost the smell of the clan. They no longer recognized him. Then Lorenz writes this line: “There is no horror quite like watching the terror in a rat’s eyes when it is about to be torn to pieces by its fellow rats.”

“Despised and rejected by men.” Can you relate?

Oh, good news. The author of Hebrews writes, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been [tested, who has suffered] in every way, just as we are—yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (4:15-16). The third and most gripping of the stanzas reveals

3. The Sacrifice of the Servant (53:4-6). Isaiah takes us even deeper into the mystery of God’s agape, self-giving love: the servant not only suffers with us but for us. At this point we arrive at the most profound level of prophetic revelation concerning Jesus: namely, the suffering servant is also our sin-bearer. Unlike each of us who have “gone astray” and “turned to his own way” (v. 6), the servant was one who “had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth” (53:9). Because Jesus was the sinless “lamb of God” (John 1:29), He alone could become a “guilt offering” for our “transgressions” and “iniquities.”

Finally, like sunlight breaking through dark storm clouds, the disciples saw it: the Messiah and the suffering servant were one and the same. Or to put it another way, it was precisely through His voluntary suffering and death that Jesus fulfilled His Messianic destiny of nailing our sin to the cross, and reconciling us to God (2 Corinthians. 5:19).

A year ago, I was present at the dawn of creation, when “the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy.” At the dawn of the new creation of a new life, that is. I was there, in the delivery room, when our youngest daughter gave birth to Alexandra. A first-time experience for me. Never have I felt such sheer, unadulterated joy. Neither Beethoven nor Mozart ever made music to compare with that of a newborn baby’s first cry.

Two weeks later, we got a call from our son-in-law. He had to rush Deanna back to the hospital with severe hemorrhaging. She was drifting out of consciousness as she was wheeled into the emergency room. It took three pints of blood to stabilize her. If this had occurred in another country or at another time, she would not have survived. My daughter is alive because of doctors and nurses who have invested their lives in the servant-ministry of medicine. She is alive today because of three anonymous donors who gave up their life’s blood for my daughter’s sake. My daughter’s life has been saved by the blood! Literally!

I do not understand how the blood of one person can be extracted, processed, stored, and still retain its life-giving properties for another. Much less do I understand how the blood of Jesus shed 2,000 years ago is efficacious for me. But this I know, I am alive today in God and will be alive in God forevermore because of that blood that was shed for me. My life has been saved by the blood. Literally!

4. The Submissiveness of the Servant (53:7-9). The suffering servant of God accepts His fate without complaint or recrimination because He understands that God is working out His great redemptive plan through His sacrifice (53:10). His crucifixion was more than a tragic deed perpetuated by ungodly men. It was the triumphant deed of God’s redeeming grace. Jesus may well have been referring to this servant song when He reminded the two disciples on the Emmaus road, “Did not the Christ [Messiah] have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26).

If Jesus had ushered in the Messianic kingdom by the external, overwhelming, coercive force of marching armies and screaming jets, of smart bombs and nuclear might, as the disciples had wished, it would have all been undone in a day. For “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Humankind’s problems are not political or social but spiritual.

Through His atoning sacrifice, Jesus laid an axe at the root of that which undermines all earthly kingdoms and human communities: sin. The happy result is “a new creation” wherein the “old” passes away, and the “new” dawns (2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus will build His kingdom, not from the outside in, but from inside out.

In an exclusive interview on November 20 of this last year, Gladys Staines, widow of Gordon Staines, was asked what her first thought was when she heard the news of her husband and sons’ horrible death. She told the reporter that even before shock and grief, she found herself praying the prayer of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” It was a totally spontaneous act. But when grief did overwhelm her, she was utterly free of the bitterness and anger that would have ripped her heart to shreds. Asked if she planned to return home to Australia with her 13-year-old daughter Esther, she replied, “This is my home. I cannot walk away from the leprosy patients. I cannot leave those people who love and trust us.” At the time of the interview, she was in Delhi specifically for the purpose of raising support to build a 40-bed hospital for leprosy patients as a memorial to her husband.

“I have high regard for the people of India and their tolerance,” she said, adding that the public reaction to the incident had been amazing. She had received thousands of letters from abroad and from Indians of all walks of life, most of them Hindus, apologizing for what had happened. Tens of thousands of copies of the book about her husband’s life and ministry she coauthored were sold within days of its publication, and continue to sell as fast as they can be printed. Because of her non-retaliatory submission to God, Gordon Staines is reaching far more Hindus with the gospel of Jesus Christ in death than he ever did in life. Truly, out of the blood of martyrs the church grows.

Someone recently sent me this wonderful story:

Last week I took my children to a restaurant. My six-year-old son asked if he could say grace. As we bowed our heads he said, “God is great and God is good. Let us thank Him for the food, and I would even thank you more if Mom gets us ice cream for dessert. And liberty and justice for all. Amen.

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby I heard a woman remark, “That’s what’s wrong with this country. Kids today don’t even know how to pray. Asking God for ice cream! Why, I never!” Hearing this, my son burst into tears and asked me, “Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?

As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table. He winked at my son and said, “I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer.” “Really?” my son asked. “Cross my heart.” Then in theatrical whisper he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing), “Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes.”

Naturally, I bought my kids ice cream at the end of the meal. My son stared at his for a moment and then did something I will remember for the rest of my life. He picked up his sundae, and without a word walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her, “Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes and my soul is good already.”

The last stanza of this marvelous servant song celebrates

5. The Satisfaction of the Servant (53:10-12). Here is the good news: Beyond death is resurrection. Beyond humiliation is exaltation. Beyond suffering is joy—the joy of the dawn of a new day, in which all sorrow and suffering and pain are past. The new day of God’s eternal dawn.

What does the servant see “after the suffering of his soul?” He sees a world increasingly populated by “his [justified] offspring.” He witnesses a universe where “the light of life” overcomes the “shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4). He receives a name “among the great” that will be superior to any other. As Paul exulted in his great Christ-hymn,

“Wherefore God has also highly exalted him, and has given him a name that is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).

Several years ago U.S. News and World Report did a lead story titled, “The Year One A.D.” On their cover they portrayed the face of Emperor Augustus, an image carved in stone on a thousand statues during his nearly half-century reign; it was during his reign that Jesus was born. Never had there been a ruler on the world’s stage like Caesar Augustus, and there would never be another like him who so thoroughly dominated his world and time. He was not just Man of the Year, not just Man of the Century, but Man of the First Millennium, in that he put his stamp upon the next thousand years more than any other.

The birth of Jesus of Nazareth, in a small village of a small country that most informed Romans never heard of, was a tiny, insignificant footnote in the mighty reign of Caesar Augustus. But now the name of Caesar Augustus is but a tiny, insignificant footnote in the story of Jesus. Oh, what a difference a few years makes.

Historian Lewis Mumford asks, “What informed Roman observer as late as the second century A.D., could have believed that his great empire would be taken over, from top to bottom, by the followers of an obscure Galilean prophet, hardly known by name to the educated?” It all came about not with marching armies, thrusting swords, smart bombs, and nuclear weapons, but through the gentle and non-coercive power of Calvary love.

At the height of Communist East Germany’s oppression of the Church, Billy Graham managed to get permission to spend one day touring East Berlin. His tour guide happened to be one of the harassed and persecuted pastors. In late afternoon, his host pointed out a giant television tower, which the Communist government had built as a proud monument to its technological expertise. It was crowned with a spherical globe that housed a restaurant. When it was finished, the authorities discovered, much to their chagrin, that sunlight reflected off it in the shape of a cross. They tried everything to erase this optical phenomenon, known as asterism, even covering the dome with paint. But nothing worked. “No matter how hard they try,” remarked Graham’s host, “they can’t get rid of the cross.”

At midnight on November 9, 1989, the hated Berlin Wall came tumbling down with a crash that reverberates still. The diabolical East German Communist government soon followed, imploding upon itself like a deflated balloon. And now it seems a distant memory, like a vapor that appeared for a moment and then was gone.

But the cross still reflects from that television tower dome. It towers over a thousand houses of worship all through those formerly Communist countries, as well as tens of thousands all around the world. We just never grow tired of contemplating the cross.

In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o’er the wrecks of time;
All the light of ancient story,
Gathers about its head sublime.