Printer Friendly VersionVeteran 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.
