Isaiah 53:10 Yet it was the will of the
LORD to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he
shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of
the LORD shall prosper. 11 Out of his anguish he shall see light; he
shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant,
shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I
will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the
transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors.
The intention of this excerpt of this religious poetry is to
point to the purifying role of ‘the servant’[1]:
“The righteous
one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Isa 53:11). Instead of the righteous one withdrawing from
the sinners in order to retain his religious purity, he gets alongside of them
and his righteousness purifies them.
Here is the rub: for
generations people of faith have thought to isolate ourselves in order to keep
our faith pure. Isaiah suggests that our faith is preserved when we have been “numbered
with the transgressors ... and made intercession for the transgressors”
(Isa 53:12). Instead of Lent being a time where we withdraw from society to
find religious purity, let us discover our righteousness as we share our lives
with
the unfaithful, the unrighteous, and the sinful.
Thought:
May we be a healing balm
to the nations
A healing balm to the peoples of the earth
Till the whole world knows the power of Your name
May Your healing flow through us
A healing balm to the peoples of the earth
Till the whole world knows the power of Your name
May Your healing flow through us
Palm Sunday
The Wounds and Sorrows of
Ministry
The Scripture passage for
the day is drawn from Rueben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer
for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 136.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises
for the day
[1] As
mentioned over the past two days: many
Christians read this retroactively and discover a description of Jesus who was
unjustly crucified; there are other people of faith who see the
“servant” in Isaiah 53 as
a poetic symbol to describe the community of God’s people. Beginning with chapter 41, the equating
of God’s Servant with the nation of Israel is made nine times by the prophet
Isaiah,
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