The Burden of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:3-4)
Hello, and welcome to the podcast where we believe every day is a great day with Jesus. This is season 11, episode four of today with Jesus. I'm Robert Hatfield.
Dan Winkler:And I'm Dan Winkler, and we're so glad that you've joined us. I tell you, we've been a little hit and miss this particular season. Yeah. Have. There's kind of reason for that.
Dan Winkler:First of all, of course, my wife became very ill and we had to take a break, but she's doing so much better. We started our season then at PTP back in August and had two sessions underway. And then kinda go from there, Robert, and sharing what what's taking place in our lives.
Robert Hatfield:You know, the wise man says for everything there is a season, and, this this has been quite a season. And I'm not talking about our podcast season. This season has impacted our podcast season.
Dan Winkler:Yeah. Season of life. Yeah.
Robert Hatfield:It wasn't long after PTP that my my grandmother fell ill, and, she had taken a fall and broke a bone and just there was too many things working against her. And so after about a week of battling and hospitalization, she went under hospice care and passed peacefully, near the September. And so, anyway, that explains a little bit of our absence there. We were we spent a little time in Panama City, Florida where she lived helping her and helping my aunt who's been caring for her. And that was precious.
Dan Winkler:You were able to do it.
Robert Hatfield:Yeah. We were really
Dan Winkler:glad. Really
Robert Hatfield:glad. And then, maybe a week or so after that, we got word that a mutual friend of of yours and mine, LaDon Sain, the wife of our good friend Paul Sain, she'd spent some time on hospice, extended periods on palliative care that transitioned into what we think of as more traditional hospice care. And after about a week of just really fighting, her, she passed eventually very peacefully into eternity, and funeral service, as we're recording this, was just about a week and a half ago. So it's just been a season lately of some of that and a lot of good folks who are in our prayers. We grieve with hope and, with a heart set on Jesus and all the good blessings that Jesus affords to us.
Robert Hatfield:But that explains our absence, and we appreciate everybody being patient with us through that.
Dan Winkler:Well, Jesus whenever death comes into our lives, Jesus never means more to us than he does at that moment, because of that special word that you mentioned just a minute ago, hope. He gives us hope. Actually, we're in Isaiah 53 this season, and it kind of predicts Jesus coming and, what he was gonna go through and why he was willing to go through all that, that being to give us hope. Yeah. So that, as Hebrews says, Robert, you know, we don't have to be afraid of, we're not in the bondage of being afraid of death anymore, and we can face it, be it our own death, or the death of a dear friend, or the death of a dear family member, we can approach it with, of course, an acute sense of loss, but with a great spirit of peace, knowing that you don't put a period where God put a comma, there's just a comma in transition, and we're going to see our loved ones again, and rejoice for all eternity together, wow, won't that be something?
Dan Winkler:I can think of LaDon right now, I didn't know your grandmama, but I can think of her at the same time, going around meeting all of these wonderful people that they have studied about in the Bible for all of their lives. And I can see LaDawn, for example, meeting all these folks, so that when it comes time for our beloved friend, Paul, and even ourselves to make a transition of our own, she says, come over here, let me introduce you to this person.
Robert Hatfield:That's right.
Dan Winkler:And you know, mean, just, there's just something cool like that's going on and, and Jesus makes that possible. And years, years and years before Jesus ever came as a little baby and drew his first breath, God, through the prophet Isaiah was predicting that it would happen. So let's take the time to get into our episode now, and let's read Isaiah 53, I like to do that, I like for us to do that each episode this season and with your great voice, would you mind doing all 12 verses? Sure.
Robert Hatfield:I'll be glad to.
Dan Winkler:Okay. I'm gonna listen to it at about verse three. Your maleforous voice is just gonna, you know, ooze me on into a peaceful somber. So if I'm not around when you get through, wake wake me up.
Robert Hatfield:Thank you. Wow. I appreciate Okay. Here we go. We are back.
Robert Hatfield:No. It did not feel great.
Dan Winkler:I could say more of this. It's not just your maleforous voice, but when you start to preaching is when I go to sleep.
Robert Hatfield:Yeah. That's plenty. Thank you. You've said it all. That's good.
Dan Winkler:Okay. Alright. Let's get serious and get into verse one.
Robert Hatfield:This is Isaiah 53. Who has believed what he has heard from us and to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
Robert Hatfield:And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, with his wounds, we're healed.
Robert Hatfield:All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that's led to the slaughter, like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.
Robert Hatfield:And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.
Robert Hatfield:He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied, and by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Dan Winkler:Isaiah 53. Beautiful reading, isn't it?
Robert Hatfield:Yeah. Beautiful.
Dan Winkler:You know, a lot of times I'll hear gentlemen before we partake of the Lord's supper, read this, and just, it just takes me back into not time. It takes me back into the heart of Jesus himself and into the heart of God and all that grace actually has provided for us through Jesus. This is just a tremendous reading of 12 verses. Now, I took note, Robert, while you were reading there in verse 11, it says out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, many to be accounted righteous.
Dan Winkler:So here you have Jesus in predictive prophecy described as God's servant, and it's easy to see all the way through the chapter that this servant is indeed a suffering one, and so often Isaiah 53 is referenced as a song or a scripture that is in reference to God's suffering servant, of course, Jesus. Now we're breaking it down into several sections, and the preacher in us just won't let it rest. We have to let each one of them, or the preacher in me, let me put it that way.
Robert Hatfield:Yes.
Dan Winkler:Thank you. They they each each observation has to begin with the same letter or it has to rhyme. We we make jokes about that, but the first section that we began dealing with after an introduction of Isaiah 53 was verses one and two, and that focused on the body of God's suffering servant. And we made these two observations just in reflection. First of all, we said that the body of God's suffering servant Jesus was unassuming, unassuming in that he drew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground, and we even referenced Matthew 2six 48 where Judas had to actually pinpoint which of the individuals in the Garden Of Gethsemane was actually Jesus.
Dan Winkler:He wasn't tall and foreboding and easy to recognize, he just kind of blended in with the rest of mankind. His body was unassuming, and then second, and speaking with great reverence and respect, his body was unattractive, like a root out of ground. He had no form or majesty, comeliness, some translations say, that we should look at him, beauty that we should desire him, and so as was said of Moses in Hebrews eleven twenty three, his parents saw that he was a beautiful child. Well, you couldn't say that about our Lord's body. He was not a beautiful or overly handsome individual, unassuming, unattractive, but Robert, it wasn't what Jesus looked like.
Dan Winkler:It wasn't just actually who Jesus is, but what Jesus offered to mankind that drew people to him and that draws us to him as well, and that gets us into the next two verses, verses three and four, where we transition from the body of the suffering servant to the burden of the suffering servant. In predictive prophecy, God through Isaiah referenced the burden that his suffering servant Jesus was going to carry, and in this predictive prophecy, the burden of Jesus falls under two headings. I'd like for you to read verses three and four again for us, then we'll look at the headings. I'll take one, you take the other, and let's watch this beautiful passage unfold.
Robert Hatfield:Mhmm. Sounds good. Verse three. Okay. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.
Robert Hatfield:Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
Dan Winkler:Okay, now looking at those two verses, we think about the burden of Jesus in reference to the affliction of others that he carried and the rejection by others he had to endure. Let's pause for a moment. Think about that, and then we'll come back in just a minute and watch them unfold. Okay?
Robert Hatfield:Sounds good. This is today with Jesus from the Light Network. Encourage your soul, enlighten your mind, and empower your faith. This is the Light Network. So we have, two headings from Isaiah 53 verses three and four.
Robert Hatfield:Tell us tell us what those two are again as we dig into these two verses.
Dan Winkler:We're dealing with the burden of Jesus in as predicted by Isaiah hundreds of years before Jesus actually lived, and those, the burden of Jesus falls into two headings, the affliction of others that he addressed and the rejection by others he had to endure. Let's look at verse three. I'll deal with the first one, throw you the second one. Verse three talks about the affliction of others that he was going to bear. You you see that in verse three when it says, he was despised and rejected by men.
Dan Winkler:You'll talk about that in a minute. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. That word grief is of special interest. You come down to verse four and it also says, he has borne our griefs. There it is again, and actually the word, the Hebrew term translated griefs, some footnotes might even bear reference to this, carries the idea of our sickness, And so in predictive prophecy, Isaiah tells us that Jesus was going to engage in a ministry in which he addressed the physical ailments of mankind among his peers.
Dan Winkler:It's of interest to me, Robert, that here in verse four, he has borne our griefs. This is one of the seven times in the New Testament that the book of of that Isaiah 53 is actually referenced in a specific fashion. You go to Matthew chapter eight verse 17 and you remember when Jesus healed the mother-in-law of Peter? And it's in Matthew eight verse 17 where he does that, and then we are reminded that he did that because Isaiah tells us he was going to carry our illnesses, bear our diseases there in Isaiah 50 three:three-four. So Jesus knew from Old Testament predictive prophecy that His ministry was going to be all about helping people.
Dan Winkler:I'd like to look at two passages that just illustrate that, and then I'd like to throw things in your direction in reference to the rejection that he had to experience. The first New Testament passage I want to turn to, to show Jesus as one who addressed people's physical maladies, can be found in Matthew chapter 15. In Matthew 15 we read beginning with verse 22. He's been in Tyre and Sidon, and there he helps a Syrophoenician Gentile woman with a demoniac daughter. We read of that also in Mark's Gospel.
Dan Winkler:He leaves Tyre and Sidon and comes down to the Southeast section of the Sea Of Galilee called the Decapolis, and we pick up there. Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat, go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. Let me see, am I in the right place? No, I'm in chapter 14. Here we go.
Dan Winkler:Then Jesus called His disciples, that do happen, doesn't it? Then Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, I have compassion on the crowd, and He feeds the 4,000. Before He feeds the 4,000, He has engaged in a multitude of miracles. Before He fed the masses, He healed the masses. Read beginning with verse 30: Gray crowds came to him, bringing with him the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others.
Dan Winkler:And watch what it says. They put them at his feet and he healed them. Therapew oh, therapeutics, healed them. So that the crowd wondered, they were awestruck when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. Now the word that is translated lame means limping or maim and it's the same word Jesus used in Matthew 18 for those without a foot.
Dan Winkler:So people were sent to Jesus without their limbs, and he put limbs back in their place. Blind translates a word that means to be enveloped with smoke and therefore unable to see. Jesus put sight, restored sight to sockets that were empty of ability. Crippled translates a word that means crooked or bent, AKA malformed or misshaped. Mute translates a word that means to be blunt and it's used for sight or for hearing, and then many other diseases, maladies were successfully addressed by Jesus.
Dan Winkler:Here's an example of Jesus doing what Isaiah said he was going to do. The second passage I want to read is back a few pages to Matthew chapter 11, when John the Baptist sent word to Jesus and asked, are you the one we're looking for? And so he told John's ambassadors to go back to John and say this, Matthew 11 verse four, Jesus answered them, go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Jesus did exactly what Isaiah hundreds of years prior predicted that he would do.
Dan Winkler:I pause only to say this, when grave illness strikes me or my family or someone close, where do I want to go? Don't I want to go to the one who knows all about that, and who miraculously addressed that, in hope that through His providential care today He can speak to our Heavenly Father on our behalf, and they can set providence in motion to help me, to help us, so I fully believe that we need to be taking our sicknesses, and our illnesses, and our disappointments back to Jesus, who can talk to our heavenly father and let them and their omniscience kick providence in motion to help us. Jesus bore the burden of people's affliction, He still does. Hebrews four says, we don't have an high priest that can't be touched, can't sympathize with the feelings of our infirmities, He can be touched. He feels with us when we have problems.
Dan Winkler:So we still need to be going to Jesus with the burdens that we carry and let Him make them His own. Talk to us about this idea of his being rejected by others.
Robert Hatfield:Sure. I go back to Isaiah 53 and I look at, the first part of verse three, and it says he was despised and rejected by men. ESV has a footnote forsaken by men. And then it emphasizes again, he was despised. The end of verse three, but we esteemed him not.
Robert Hatfield:In fact, the end of verse four says, we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. So Isaiah taking on the the persona of the Jewish people contemporary in Jesus's day said, we thought that he was enduring everything that he endured because God had set his face against this servant. It it speaks to a whole lot of things. Jesus knows what it means to be lonely, to be betrayed by friends. Matthew twenty six fifty six.
Robert Hatfield:You've referenced Judas earlier in the episode to be mocked by enemies. Mark fifteen thirty one. You know, the people surrounding the cross to be abandoned by the very crowd that once praised him. I mean, you can compare and contrast, for example, a passage like John twelve thirty one. Now is the judgment of this world.
Robert Hatfield:Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. I've done the same thing you did, and I have, typed in the wrong verse. Not 31, John twelve thirteen. They took the branches of palm trees and went out to meet him crying, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.
Robert Hatfield:And you Just days before. Just days before. And then you compare and contrast that with John nineteen fifteen when they cry out, away with him. Away with him. Crucify him.
Robert Hatfield:Pilate says, you want me to crucify your king? The chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar. So oh, absolutely. So Isaiah in Isaiah 53 notes that all of this would take place. He paints a picture of isolation.
Robert Hatfield:He's despised. We esteemed him not. It kind of reminds me of something else that, Paul said in Philippians two verses five and following. It says, though he was in the form of God, he did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped. He emptied himself, Philippians two verse seven, taking the form of a servant, which evidently looks like human beings.
Robert Hatfield:The end of verse seven says, born in the likeness of men. And it says being found in human form. And that's interesting. He was found in which which sort of describes the the way that people saw him. It's as if Paul is saying, in his humility, he was humiliated, to the point of death, even death on a cross because when people saw him rather than accepting him as the Messiah, they saw him only as a sufferer, one who is despised, one who is a human and nothing more than a human.
Robert Hatfield:Rejection. It's true. Jesus was, shall we say Jesus is because he continues to sympathize with us. He knows what it's like to be a human being, but he never, that doesn't mean that he in any way ceased to be God. He is Emmanuel, God with us.
Robert Hatfield:So anyway, I go all the way back to Isaiah 53 again. He's despised, he's rejected, we esteemed him. That's what made me think about Philippians two:eight. We found him only in human form and we deemed this is someone whom God has set himself against. He is smitten.
Robert Hatfield:He's afflicted. Now sidebar, we're gonna get to this as we continue through Isaiah 53. It pleased the Lord to do this. No one ever would have guessed that this is the plan of God to bring about human salvation. Although, irony of ironies, Isaiah told us that this was gonna happen.
Robert Hatfield:Right and this isn't the only time that we have predictive prophecy relative to the cross, relative to the Messiah. I'm sure that it must have been difficult to appreciate everything that was going on if you would have been a Jew in the first century time and to really and truly realize that we're living in the time when the Messiah has come. All of that though to say, and now stepping back into our text, here's someone who understands rejection, who understands being misunderstood, who understands being overlooked, underestimated. Jesus has walked all of those roads, and it is he who has said, I'm never gonna leave you. I'm never going to forsake you.
Robert Hatfield:So here's Jesus and he shows us if I ever find myself in a situation where I'm forsaken, where I'm betrayed, where I'm overlooked or underestimated, we all have those times, right, when people don't see us the way that we're trying to be now. Maybe they only remember who we were when we were less mature or made more mistakes. I'm not saying that Jesus was ever in that situation. I'm just making an application. Maybe we've got people who won't let us overcome the past that Jesus has now forgiven us of.
Robert Hatfield:Or maybe we just have good friends who, for whatever reason, that no fault of ours, betrayed, forsook. Jesus shows us. We forgive those who are, setting themselves as enemies against us. We pray for those who are enemies. Luke twenty three thirty four.
Robert Hatfield:We choose love rather than bitterness in those moments. Here's this servant who in the first part of Isaiah 53 is alone, seems to be forsaken. And from the perspective of the humans whom Isaiah pictures standing around and observing this individual, It seems that even God has forsaken him. But his example helps us to guide our response to rejection and to do that with grace and with endurance. And we'll see as we go through that, actually, God richly blessed him for fulfilling the plan that he and God the father in eternity past had had since before the foundation of the world, the loneliness.
Robert Hatfield:Despite
Dan Winkler:all that he did to help others in their affliction, He was rejected by them. And we don't need to think that Jesus just stoically pressed through all of this. I mean, it bothered Him. It, it is of interest to me that when you read in Matthew chapter 16, we were in chapter 15.
Robert Hatfield:Yeah.
Dan Winkler:You keep reading in, in chapter 16, come to Jesus asking who do men say that the son of man is? And Peter says, you're the Christ son of the living God. And it's in that context that verse 21 says, from that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Robert, that from this point seemed to have weighed so heavily on the heart of Jesus, he just wouldn't put it down, he talked about it all the time. Remember in Matthew 17, he's on the Mount Of Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah, And Luke tells us, they talked about his exodus, his deceased.
Dan Winkler:He talked to them about what he was fixing to go through his rejection. In the Garden Of Gethsemane, I read in Luke's account, Luke chapter 22, that, you know, he prayed that the God might release him from, the, the cup, the burden that he was going to have to bear. And in verse 43 of Luke 22, there appeared to him, Jesus, an angel from heaven, strengthening him. The angel came empowering to empower Jesus. But the next verse says, being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, literally in a a straightened out position if you please.
Dan Winkler:He, after the angel came to help him, even in more agony groveled in the sands of Gethsemane. I put that together. I don't want to make more out of it than is there, but in my mind what I'm reading is, he's praying for God to take the cup away. God sends an angel to empower him and strengthen him by saying, this isn't just, it's just not going to happen. You are going to go through this.
Dan Winkler:And so, in agony Jesus prays even more about the matter. This rejection pained our Lord. Hebrews tells us He endured the cross suffering shame, and yet He was willing to go through all of that and address the afflictions of people because of who He was: Jesus our savior. Jesus, the son of god.
Robert Hatfield:What about Hebrews five seven that says that he was offering up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him
Dan Winkler:from death. So, his heart was broken in Gethsemane. And yet despite the fact he didn't want to do what he had to do, he went ahead and did it, doing the will of his father. He not only did it because it was the will of his father, he did it because it was the need of you and me. Thus, we could read in Revelation chapter one, Jesus described as the one who loved us and gave himself for us.
Dan Winkler:Mhmm. I'm loving Isaiah 53. I look forward to our next study when we get into verses five through eight.
Robert Hatfield:Me too. Yeah. The burden of the suffering servant, well, it reminds me as I appreciate the burdens that he endured that I can come and lay my burdens down at the cross of the suffering servant. And his burden becomes my blessing. His sorrow becomes the subject of my song.
Robert Hatfield:And as we'll see later in Isaiah fifty three five and following, his wounds will even be the source of my healing. And so, it doesn't it doesn't seem fair that he he would be so burdened because of something that I have done, and yet that's the beauty of the grace and the mercy expressed to us in the highest form of love ever shown to man through the cross of Jesus Christ. I love it so much.
Dan Winkler:Thank you. You know, if you look at Hebrews two, it talks about his humanity as you described so beautifully a minute ago. And then you you come into chapter four, and it's in chapter four that tells us that he has passed through the heavens. Seeing we have he's passed through the heavens and is there to, of course, as our high priest sympathize with our weaknesses, and then verse 16, something that you reminded me of, he says, let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We're all going to have times of need in life, but when our times of need come, we have someone sitting next to God who can sympathize with, understand what we go through, and he's there to be our high priest having passed through the heavens to sit next to God for that expressed purpose.
Dan Winkler:So He's one who, you know, bore the burden of other people's affliction, and he bore the burden of other people's rejection, and yet he doesn't hold rejection against us. He still is willing to hold on to our affliction. I think I saw five four three two one come up on the screen.
Robert Hatfield:I pushed the wrong button. I'm sorry. Oh, you did. I'm not counting you down.
Dan Winkler:That's that's two mistakes that you've made in in this episode.
Robert Hatfield:I know.
Dan Winkler:But I'm not counting.
Robert Hatfield:I'm just gonna go ahead and get next episode's mistakes out of the way. That's all I'm saying.
Dan Winkler:Don't worry. Okay. Oh, me. For our study together today. I'm I'm I'm so thankful for Isaiah 53
Robert Hatfield:Me too.
Dan Winkler:And even more so for the suffering servant of God Yeah. Who came and was willing to suffer for me and is willing to suffer with me even today.
Robert Hatfield:Today with Jesus is all about helping us grow closer and closer to Jesus every single day, and, we want to remind you, you can find us every Tuesday. We we were gonna do it every other week, and now that we've missed some weeks, we're gonna go back to every week and hopefully be able to cover the material that we wish to cover between now and when this season ends. And so join us every week, the lightnetwork.tv. You can find us. Look for today with Jesus or search for us in your favorite podcast app or on YouTube, and, you can see some of these mistakes that I'm making when I flash five four three two one on the screen.
Robert Hatfield:That's right. Only me.
Dan Winkler:Not no. I said not only you.
Robert Hatfield:Oh, not only me. Okay. We continue through Isaiah 53 next week, the Lord willing, covering verses five through eight. We'll look at the beatings of the suffering servant. Until then, let's live today and every day with Jesus.
Robert Hatfield:See you then.
Dan Winkler:God bless everybody.
