“Who has believed
our report? And to whom has the arm of
the Lord been revealed? For He shall
grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see
Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A man of sorrow
and acquainted with grief. And we hid,
as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” –Isaiah 53:1-3 (NKJV).
Isaiah writes of the “Suffering Servant”
in the past tense, so assured is he that the Messiah will be “wounded
for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities”(Isaiah 53:5). He begins the account of the Suffering
Servant in Isaiah 52, and continuing it, asks, “Who has believed our report?” Isaiah
uses the past tense of verbs to tell of the Suffering Servant. Known as the past prophetic perfect, he views
the future as if the event is already accomplished. The rhetorical questions he asks: “Who
has believed our report? And to whom has
the arm of the Lord been revealed?” have the implied answer, “No one.” Isaiah’s exceptional poetic language
describes the obscurity, appearance and rejection of the Messiah. Not like a stately tree, noticed and admired
by all, the Messiah would be as “a tender
plant,” struggling in arid soil. And
so the human life of the Messiah would be one of obscurity and humility. We think of the fulfillment of this
prophecy. We know of the humble
circumstances of the birth of the Lord, the record of the famly’s flight to
Egypt to escape the death decree for little children, and then of the family’s
return to Nazareth. But there is silence
until He is twelve and is in the Temple, talking with the doctors of the law,
being, as He said, “about His father’s
business.” Again, obscurity from age
12 until about age 30 when He is announced by the forerunner, John the Baptist,
(also predicted in prophecy), and enters upon His brief years of public
ministry and teaching. Then came trouble
with the Jewish authorities that led to his death. Isaiah, in the focal passage for today,
foresees how the Messiah will be “despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
The question, “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” is quite probing
and calls us to reflect upon God’s revelation of Himself to the people. There is a stark contrast in power between “the arm of the Lord,”indicating
strength and power, and “a root out of dry land,” the latter
image being one of weakness. Let’s
consider “the arm of the Lord” and
its appurtenances. In creation, God used
His fingers as the Psalmist declared: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of
Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that
You are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him? (Psalm
8:3-4, NKJV). When God delivered the
Israelites from Egypt, it was by His strong hand: “for by
strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place” (Exodus
13:3). Yet when the Suffering Servant
came to redeem mankind it was by “His
mighty arm.” And the sad commentary,
given in the past tense by the prophet Isaiah, and now in the era following the
coming of Messiah and the mighty sacrifice His death accomplished, Isaiah’s
prophecy is still coming true. Mankind
still rejects the Savior. While the
Savior lived and walked among men, John records: “But although He had done so many signs before them they did not
believe in Him” (John 13:37). So
strong did John see this as fulfillment of prophecy that he quoted Isaiah 53:1
to substantiate that Jesus was indeed the Suffering Servant. We come now, in the year of our Lord,
2012. A great controversy exists
concerning the “political correctness” or the “offense to some” of including
Christ in the very mention of Christmas.
This is the “Holiday Season.”
Does this not echo for our day, strongly and with the guilt associated
with the omission, that even in our day He is “despised and rejected of men”?
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