The Suffering Messiah

Isaiah 53: 1 – 6 (NIV): Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 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. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Reading this today, it is easy to forget that it was written more than 700 years before Christ was born. Isaiah even writes it as if it had already happened. It is an amazing prophecy. The idea of a suffering Messiah had always run counter to people's expectations of the Christ. They expected him to rule with power and authority, conquering enemies and setting the captive free, but Isaiah states that, instead, he would be rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. This can't be!

Didn't Isaiah himself state in chapter 9 that the Messiah would rule on David's throne forever? But that's just it, a mortal man cannot rule forever. Only a god can do that. Yes, the Messiah will rule forever and will conquer his enemies, but first he conquered mankind's biggest enemy: separation from God. The only way he could do this was to suffer and die. Sin cannot go unpunished. Not if God is Holy. Someone has to pay for our sins. That's what the Messiah did for all who believe. That's what Isaiah said he would do in this passage.

I'll never forget the day it dawned on me that if I am to be like Christ, I will be familiar with suffering. The Bible teaches that “all things work together for the good” for those who are in Christ, but the next verse tells us how. They make us more like Christ, which is God's goal for us. We want to skip that part and go straight to the “reigning forever with Christ” part, but just as Christ had a job to do first, so do we. We have the job of becoming like Christ – and that will involve some suffering.

We can take such joy in knowing that the Promised Land is awaiting us; we have been set free and are on our way. But we have a desert to cross to get there.