The Suffering Servant: The Lord Keeps His Promises

Introduction

In 2007, a social experiment left a lasting impression. World-renowned violinist Joshua Bell disguised himself (jeans, a long-sleeve tee shirt, a baseball cap), and set up one Friday morning in the crowded hall of a Washington, D.C. subway station. For about 45 minutes, right in the middle of rush hour, he played six classical pieces on a Stradivarius valued at several hundred thousand dollars. An expert consulted before the experiment had predicted that, out of a thousand passersby, 75 to 100 would stop for at least a moment and that he would collect $150. Three days earlier, his 2,000 seat concert hall was sold out, and the cheapest ticket cost $100.

The result in the subway: more than 1,000 people walked past him. Only 7 stopped to listen. He collected $32.17. The beauty of the music was exactly the same as three days before. So was the musician. But what people saw in front of them didn't match what they expected a great artist to look like. So they didn't recognize him.

That day, immense joy passed within arm's reach. Ears with no desire to listen, eyes with no desire to see, caught nothing of it. That's tragic. But something far more tragic happened once in history. And it touches on the exact reason you celebrate Christmas: the coming of Jesus Christ, the promised Savior.

His birth was no accident. Centuries in advance, the prophets had announced that he would be called Immanuel, that he would be born of a virgin, that he would be light in the midst of darkness, that he would be given the names "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9). They also knew that he would one day reign as a righteous king. And the New Testament (Matthew in particular) repeats it chapter after chapter: "This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet." The promise was kept. The Savior came.

So what welcome did he receive? John 1:11 settles it: "He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him." The text you're about to open today explains why. It also reveals what this rejected Savior accomplished for you, and the hope he gives to anyone who receives him. It's Isaiah 53:1-6, the great chapter of the "suffering servant," the fourth part of the series "The Lord Keeps His Promises."

The text: Isaiah 53:1-6

"Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; 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, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:1-6, ESV)

Outline of the message

1. A Savior rejected by sinners (v. 1-3)

The first verse opens with a double question: "Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" This isn't a neutral question. It's a cry, a pained astonishment.

Throughout the Old Testament, "the arm of the Lord" refers to God's overwhelming power and authority. Every time that arm is displayed, it shows a strength far beyond anything humans can imagine. Remember the exodus from Egypt: it's that same "outstretched arm" that delivers Israel, that strikes down Pharaoh's army, that parts the Red Sea. Isaiah 51:9-10 picks up the image: "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord... Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?" Nothing can withstand that arm.

And that same arm was displayed in Jesus. During his ministry, he did what only God can do: he turned water into wine, cast out demons, calmed a storm with a word, opened the eyes of the blind, made the lame walk, raised the dead. Sign after sign, he proved he really was the promised Savior, the mighty God come in the flesh.

And yet, how many believed? Few. John 12:37-38 states it plainly: "Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 'Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?'" Why such widespread rejection? Verse 2 gives two reasons.

A disappointing beginning

"For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground." The word translated "young plant" or "shoot" describes the small sprout that pushes up from the stump of a felled tree. In horticulture, it's pulled out: it steals sap from the main tree. It's a sprout no one notices, or that gets thrown away. And the second image, "a root out of dry ground," is even more telling: nothing living is supposed to come out of soil scorched by the sun.

The people were expecting a powerful, dazzling Savior. And Jesus comes into the world looking like that small sprout: his parents aren't a reigning king, but a carpenter from Nazareth and his fiancee. He's born not in a palace but in a stable, laid in a feeding trough for animals. It isn't ministers or dignitaries who come to see him first, but shepherds, the most despised social class of the time. In the eyes of the world, nothing about it looked like the arrival of a king.

A disappointing appearance

"He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." The text doesn't say Jesus was ugly. It stresses that, to those expecting a spectacular Messiah, he looked ordinary. A man like any other.

Picture Israel's first king, Saul: "he was taller than any of the people, from his shoulders upward" (1 Samuel 9:2). That's the idea people had of a king. Jesus, by contrast, had nothing physically remarkable: no particular presence, no distinctive clothing, nothing that caught the eye. If you had passed him on the street, you wouldn't have said, "That's the Savior who just walked by." He didn't fit the people's mental picture. And that's precisely why they let him pass by unnoticed.

Worse still, they didn't just ignore him. Verse 3 says: "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief... we esteemed him not." Throughout his three years of ministry, Jesus was constantly rejected. Not only by the Pharisees and teachers of the law, but also by those close to him, by his own family, even by one of his disciples. He kept on loving, having compassion, serving. In return, the crowd eventually shouted, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" The Savior who came for sinners was rejected by the very people he came to save.

2. A Savior substituted in the place of sinners (v. 4-5)

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted."

Notice the word "our," it comes up three times in verse 4 alone, and six times across verses 5 and 6. That's the key word. The Savior isn't carrying his own sorrows. He's carrying ours. It wasn't natural for him to suffer. What fell on him wasn't his, it was yours, mine.

At the cross, the crowd got the interpretation wrong. They thought, "This man is being punished by God for his own sins." The chief priests, the passersby, the soldiers mocked, "He saved others, let him save himself if he's the Son of God!" They didn't understand why Jesus was suffering. Verse 5 lifts the veil: "But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed."

Jesus didn't suffer for his own faults. He had none. 1 John 3:5 says, "in him there is no sin." He was perfectly obedient, in everything, to the very end. But this sinless Man was "pierced" for your rebellion and "crushed" for your wrongdoing. "Rebellion" here means the deliberate refusal to acknowledge God. "Wrongdoing" means whatever unjust, wrong thing you do before him.

In other words, the one who had nothing to answer for took the place of those who, like you and me, have never stopped refusing God. Peter puts it this way: "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18). And Paul: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Hold on to this: the righteous Savior came to be the substitute for the unrighteous. On the cross, it wasn't his own sins weighing on him, it was yours. The punishment your rebellion deserved, he drank to the last drop so that peace between you and God could become possible.

Look at what's happening here: ordinarily, whoever has caused the hurt seeks forgiveness from the one they've hurt. Here, it's the opposite. The offended God took the initiative, sent his own Son into the world to carry, in your place, the penalty that was yours. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). That's the love of God. A love that doesn't depend on your worth, or on what you've done to earn it, a love that goes all the way to the sacrifice of his Son for the very people who reject him.

Pastor J.C. Ryle summed up this substitution in a series of contrasts worth pausing over:

• Jesus was wounded so that by his wounds we might be healed.
• Jesus, sinless, was declared guilty so that we, guilty, might be declared innocent.
• Jesus wore the crown of thorns so that we might wear the crown of glory.
• Jesus was stripped of his clothing so that we might be clothed in an everlasting righteousness.
• Jesus was handed over so that we might be accepted and blessed.
• Jesus was numbered among criminals so that we might be acquitted and declared righteous.
• Jesus was powerless to save himself so that he might fully save others.
• Jesus died the most shameful death so that we might live forever in glory.

3. A Savior who becomes the hope of sinners (v. 6)

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

The text compares all sinners to sheep. It's fitting. A sheep is not a bright animal. It's unable to survive on its own, fragile, often stubborn. There's a video circulating of a shepherd struggling to pull a sheep out of a muddy ditch, only for it, the moment it's free, to jump joyfully right back into the same ditch. Why? Because sheep aren't wise.

That's your nature and mine. We're not wise. We're stubborn. We fall back into the same faults, despite our good resolutions. "This time, I won't do it again," and we do it again. We don't listen to the Shepherd's voice, we prefer our own, or the world's, or our own desires. Each of us turns to our own way and goes astray.

But there's hope here. This Shepherd exists. He laid on himself the iniquities of straying sheep. He gave his life for them. His name is Jesus Christ, crucified for you. Peter puts it clearly: "He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls" (1 Peter 2:22-25).

The question is simple: have you finally received this Shepherd? Or do you keep walking past him, the way the crowd in the subway walked past Joshua Bell?

Application for this Christmas season

This text calls you to a clear decision. If you're still turning your back on this Savior, if you're wandering like a stray sheep, if you're stubbornly resisting God, this Christmas, repent of your rebellion, turn to Jesus, receive him as your Savior and your Lord.

Take time to reflect on what happened at the cross: the Righteous One in the place of the unrighteous, the Shepherd in the place of the sheep. Let this sacrifice bring you to your knees. This is how the Son of God showed that "the Lord keeps his promises."

And if you already know this love, you have, more than anyone else in this world, a deep reason to rejoice. Your life no longer belongs to you: it has been bought at a great price. Live this Christmas, and all the week to come, with gratitude, joy, and a desire to give everything for the One who gave everything for you.

Key takeaways

1. The promised Savior didn't come the way people expected. A humble birth, an ordinary appearance: he was overlooked by those hoping for him (Isaiah 53:1-3; John 1:11).
2. On the cross, Jesus took on what was yours to bear. Not his own wrongs, yours. That's the substitution described in Isaiah 53:4-5.
3. Peace with God is a gift, not a wage. It's God who took the initiative, sending his Son while you were still rebellious (Romans 5:8).
4. You're a fragile sheep. Without the Shepherd, you fall back into the same ditch. Return to the One who gave himself for you (1 Peter 2:24-25).
5. Christmas isn't first of all a sentimental holiday. It's the commemoration of a Savior who came to die for you. Everything starts there.

Personal application

1. Do I truly believe that the cross is my substitution, that Jesus bore my sins in my place?
2. Is there a recurring sin I keep going back to, like the sheep to the ditch? What does this text say about my need for the Shepherd?
3. How do I "walk past" Jesus in my everyday life? Where does my gaze look for the dazzling instead of the Savior who comes in simplicity?
4. If God took the initiative to reconcile with me, who am I called to reach out to first around me this week?
5. How does the way I live out Christmas show that I'm responding to the Savior's love, rather than just enjoying the gifts and the meal?

Verses cited

• Isaiah 53:1-6 · the suffering servant.
• Isaiah 51:9-10 · the arm of the Lord that parted the Red Sea.
• Isaiah 9:6 · the names of the promised Messiah.
• John 1:11 · "his own people did not receive him."
• John 12:37-38 · the unbelief and the quotation of Isaiah 53:1.
• 1 Samuel 9:2 · the royal portrait of Saul.
• 1 John 3:5 · "in him there is no sin."
• 1 Peter 3:18 · "the righteous for the unrighteous."
• 2 Corinthians 5:21 · becoming the righteousness of God in Christ.
• Romans 5:8 · Christ died for us while we were still sinners.
• 1 Peter 2:22-25 · straying sheep returned to the Shepherd.

FAQ

Why does Isaiah 53 apply to Jesus even though it was written seven centuries earlier?

Because the New Testament explicitly says so. John 12:37-38 quotes Isaiah 53:1 to explain the unbelief that surrounded Jesus, and 1 Peter 2:22-25 draws directly on Isaiah 53 to describe his work on the cross. Written roughly 700 years before Jesus, this text describes with precision a despised, suffering servant, pierced for the sins of others, a description literally fulfilled in the passion of Christ.

What does "he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities" mean?

This is the heart of the substitution. Jesus took on, in your place, the punishment your rebellion against God deserved. He didn't just suffer alongside you or to set you an example: he bore your guilt, so that God can now declare you righteous without doing violence to his own justice. This is what Paul calls "becoming the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

How do I know if I'm truly "a sheep returned to the Shepherd"?

Two signs come together. First, you recognize that you can't save yourself: you've turned from your rebellion to trust in Jesus, who died and rose again for you (Mark 1:15). Second, you now walk in his footsteps, you listen to his voice, you obey his word, you live for him rather than for yourself (1 Peter 2:24-25). It isn't perfection; it's a direction.