Isaiah Chapter 53 Verse 1

· There is no doubt in my mind that as Isaiah was writing these words about the coming Savior of the world, that he had to have stopped mid-chapter and thought, “Who is going to believe this?” A Savior, a hero is undefeatable, unstoppable, indestructible, triumphal…, and yet in this chapter you find a warrior that is wounded and a Savior that is slaughtered! A true real reason why Israel today denies Jesus as Messiah!

· But then Isaiah says, “Well, here’s who will believe, receive this, understand this, those that the arm of the Lord (the strength of God) has been revealed!” Who can understand that to love someone with unconditional love is the highest form of war anyone can wage? Who can understand that salvation and freedom and autonomous satisfaction actually comes from sacrifice!? Who can understand by faith that God is love and love yields…, love serves?

· We are a race of human beings that are in constant competition with one another. Trying to get what we need for ourselves and accomplish our own will and serve our own senses, emotions and feelings…, and that is our human nature. When all of the things we truly want for ourselves and for our lives are found in discovering the way of our Creator which is to love. Specifically, to love God first and then to love each other as God loves us… We should be in constant competition with our flesh, not each other, and then we’d win!

· So, Isaiah says, “Who can believe what’s in this chapter…? To whom it has been revealed.” Why? Why would God choose to reveal wisdom and power and fullness of joy to some and not to others? Simple. God resists the proud, those that push for their own and live unto themselves, and yet grace flows to and through the humble.

Isaiah Chapter 53 Verse 2

· A root out of dry ground will be the Messiah. A perfect Man amongst a fallen race of humans. Different yet the same. Holy yet wholistic. The most lush timber standing alone in the driest of deserts… AND, who has believed, who can connect and accept that love is the reason, answer, plan and command from on-high? You, I can be and by the grace of God will be a tender plant, a root out of dry ground!

· And we begin the only detailed description of Jesus Christ physically that we have of Him prior to ascending to heaven. That description we have of Him in Revelation Chapter 1. Isaiah tells us things we wouldn’t expect to read of the perfect Son of God… Not specifically or extra-ordinarily handsome. Not built like a body builder. Just normal. Plain. Doesn’t say that Jesus was ugly but people weren’t drawn to Him because of His physical appearance…

Isaiah Chapter 53 Verse 3

· Isaiah describes Jesus with acute accuracy but please remember that although Jesus was despised and rejected, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He was also a Man that walked in constant victory, in joy and in service to others. Yes, Jesus understands my pain and my times of down and depression, AND He also gave me the path and example of mission-minded communion with the Father that leads to overcoming self-focus, self-pity and emotional gloom.

· Folks get stuck on themselves and I get it. This world is hard and this life is hard and we aren’t, no one is, all that we want to be or all that we know we can be. However, you and I have truly no excuse to be without joy for long seasons of our lives… Joy is a fruit of walking in the Spirit. Therefore, to be filled with joy is a result of commitment, faith on our part to hide ourselves in the God, and the mission that we are on to glorify Him!

· Hide not your face from Him but rather set out to hide yourself within Him! When you are down, reach out to pray for someone. When you are especially fleshy, serve more! Romans 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Many times, those that ask if they can pray for you need you to pray with them just as much… So, don’t disappear from church (hide your face), be here more than ever in those times of rejection, sorrow and grief. “But I don’t feel like it.” Yep… and? Do you spirit like it? Do you faith like it!?

Isaiah Chapter 53 Verses 4 – 5

· This is what Jesus took for me, did for me, what would become of the future in terms of Isaiah. Seven hundred years before Jesus would even be born and yet we have such amazing detail from Isaiah. So many carry such heavy amounts of griefs and sorrows, hidden away and stored in the deepest corners of their hearts and who they are…, have you tried taking any of that to Jesus? Yes, He died for my sin and yes, His body was bruised and broken for my salvation, but the Bible also says that He has carried and borne my grief and sorrows…

· We are told that Jesus was esteemed smitten, stricken by God and afflicted. It wasn’t understood at the time that He went to the cross WHY He was going to the cross. We know now, Isaiah revealed it also here, that all that He went through wasn’t because God had forsaken Him and wasn’t taking care of Him but it all was for the highest purpose…, forgiveness of all sin, peace between creation and Creator and the ultimate healing of humanity.

· Folks take this verse to say that we all should be healed of all ailments. They will go to this verse and say that it says it right here, “By His stripes we are healed.” And so, with enough faith, it must be God’s will that we are all healed of all issues, ailments and illnesses. There is no doubt that all issues, ailments and illnesses are a result of the fall and not the original plan of God. However, can God heal? Yes! Is it always His will to heal everything? No. How can I be so sure? Because ultimately everyone does face death… So, at some point, everyone is NOT physically healed…, Aging the way we age is also a product of the fall. It in and of itself is an ailment. Also, to take this view terribly contradicts the personal experience of the saints in the Bible and throughout history.

· We have one example of an ailment that was healed in the Bible but we are given why that ailment existed at all. John 9:1-3, “Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.””

· Also, Lazarus (Luke 16) who was homeless, penniless, family-less, covered in sores…, was he physically healed? No. And yet when he died, the angels came and took him to paradise. A man of faith. A man of righteousness. This is a conversation that can go on and on and certainly not one to divide over, go to war over, argue about…, if you want to believe that God’s will is for you to never suffer then take that up with the cross of Christ… But for me, this world and this life (as Paul says) is nothing compared to the one that is to come where everyone, all people will be healed entirely…, how/why? By His stripes…

Isaiah Chapter 53 Verse 6

· Not a man or a woman alive or that ever has been that could have saved themselves (well except Adam and Eve – before they sinned). All have gone astray. All need a Savior. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Isaiah Chapter 53 Verses 7 – 9

· He was crucified between two thieves, His grave with the wicked. And He was laid in a borrowed tomb. Borrowed from a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea. When questioned/interrogated by Herod, Jesus said not a word to Him, He opened not His mouth. And Pilate said of Him in Luke 23:14-15, “You have brought this Man to me, as one who misleads the people. And indeed, having examined Him in your presence, I have found no fault in this Man concerning those things of which you accuse Him; no, neither did Herod, for I sent you back to him; and indeed, nothing deserving of death has been done by Him.”

Isaiah Chapter 53 Verses 10 – 11

· How important is purpose to you? Is it more important than feelings? Interesting question. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him… That’s only more true than the truth that it destroyed the Lord to bruise Him also. A horrible day for God personally. His only begotten Son being terrorized, harmed, humiliated and ultimately killed. The personal pain no one will ever know but Him alone. And yet, the purpose, agreed upon by the Father and the Son before the dawn of creation. Planned and purposed… the joy of my salvation and yours outweighed in importance anything else…

Isaiah Chapter 53 Verse 12

· He was numbered with the transgressors so that I may be numbered with the great. That’s really what it all comes down to… Without what Jesus has done for me, my life is filled with obstacles, hardships, its tedious, troublesome and certainly a short time…, and then it gets even worse. As God is here, now, forever with all of us in the Person of the Holy Spirit and yet I pass from this world to the next carrying with me my iniquity, and the next life, God is not there…

· But because He has poured out His soul unto death, my soul has been redeemed unto life. So, this life is, as purposed and planned by God from the beginning, glory to glory, growth to growth, upgrade to upgrade as I learn of Him and then enter into what He has secured for me, life eternal in the presence of a God!