Sunday: Isaiah’s Testing Truth
Isaiah 50:4-10
If Isaiah intended to convey only information, he would lay out all the details regarding the Messiah at once. But in order to teach, persuade, and give his audience an encounter with the Servant of the Lord, he develops a rich fabric of recurring themes in symphonic fashion. He unfolds God’s message in steps so that each aspect can be grasped in relation to the rest of the picture. Isaiah is an artist whose canvas is the soul of his listener.
Read Isaiah 50:4-10. Summarize what these verses are saying. How do you see Jesus in this passage?
Image © Dave OConnell at Goodsalt.com
We found in Isaiah 49:7 that God’s servant is despised, abhorred, and “the slave of rulers” (NRSV) but that “Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves” (NRSV). Here in Isaiah 50, we learn that the valley is deeper for the gentle teacher whose words sustain the weary (Isa: 50:4). The path to vindication leads through physical abuse (Isa: 50:6).
This abuse sounds bad to those of us in modern Western cultures. But in an ancient Near Eastern culture, honor was a life and death matter for a person and his/her group. If you insulted and mistreated someone like this, you’d better be well protected; if they got half a chance, the victim and/or his clan would surely retaliate.
King David attacked and conquered the country of Ammon (2 Samuel 10:1-12) because its king had merely “seized David’s envoys, shaved off half the beard of each, cut off their garments in the middle at their hips, and sent them away” (2 Sam: 10:4, NRSV). But in Isaiah 50 people strike the servant, painfully pluck out hairs from his beard, and spit at him. What makes these actions an international, intercosmic incident is that the victim is the envoy of the divine King of kings. In fact, by comparing Isaiah 9.6-7 and Isaiah 11:1-16 with other “servant” passages, we found that the servant is the King, the mighty Deliverer! But with all this power and honor, for some unthinkable reason, He does not save Himself! This is so strange that people didn’t believe it. At Jesus’ cross, leaders mocked him:
“He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!”(Luke 23:35, NRSV);
“Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him” (Matt: 27:42, NRSV).
| Read through Isaiah 50:4-10. Write down the spiritual principles depicted here that should be applied to our own lives. Look at yourself in light of the list you make. In what areas could you do better? If discouraged, then read on for the rest of the week. |
(27)
Christianity has a very upside down view of winning. Most of us think of winning as coming first in the race, answering the most questions in a test, punching the lights out of the competition in a boxing match, bombing the population of the enemy into a bloody pulp in a war, earning the most money in business and knocking off the competition in a corporate take over. Evolution teaches us that the strongest or most adaptable are the most successful.
If you want confirmation of that sense of success today, look at any of the TV entertainment reality shows (I don't look at them - the description in the TV guide is enough!) You win by being tougher, smarter, or more devious than the other competitors.
Yet the picture we get from the words Isaiah, and from the life of Jesus himself is very different. Yet so entrenched was the idea of competitive winning, that when Jesus made the link between the prophecies and himself, the Jews rejected it. They wanted a messiah who was a winner in the competitive sense.
The essential idea about salvation is neatly summarised in this conversation Jesus had with Pilate:
What is the truth of salvation? Is it about winning?
This idea is so important, the Gospels repeat it about 7 times.
secular(worldview)humanism has the view of winning by defeating "enemies." be #1. overcome adversity to be a success. all of these humanistic philosophies are antithetical to the Biblical Worldview or Christianity which The LORD Jesus Christ says "..love your enemies...", sacrifice your life for another, et.al.
So much fighting in our world. So much trauma, drama, conflict, aggression. The faces in our lesson's illustration show it. Those accusing snarled faces of nightmares can be hiding even behind the smiles seen in our waking.
Boom! Into this arena comes a promise I've never read before:
It's just so beautiful. Jesus always spoke words to uplift the weary. He always said things like, "Neither do I condemn you" and "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" and "I have prayed for you" and "Peace, be still" and "Come to me weary one and I will give you rest"....
This text is a promise to uplift me, and also to empower me to uplift others, too. I read this that He awakens me Morning by Morning with insight on how to speak words to all the weary around me, He's awakening my ear to be that of the sheep, training me to hear His voice in every situation.
When I got married, my wife came from India. From my perspective, it was a beautiful tropical place. I wanted to move back to India but my wife having arrived in America through marriage did not want to go back because she understood the privilege of living in America.
Then I think about all the missionaries who have come to establish churches in India. They gave up everything and many instances lost the family members to adverse circumstances and still served God.
What is sacrifice?
John 10:17-18
17 The reason the Father loves Me is that I lay down My life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father.”
He had the power not to lay down his life. He willingly died.
I had been disciplining myself doing portion control. After the third day, being hungry I gave into my temptation and I ate and I ate. Simple test of faith and I fail constantaly and consistently.
What a contrast in faith and disciplin in my redeemer, not once, He gave into the temptation.
What the author of the lesson ascribes to Isaiah’s doing, I identify as being entirely in God’s, the Author of Life's, hands. I see God: “in order to teach, persuade, and give Isaiah’s audience an encounter with the Servant of the Lord, He (Israel’s Father) develops a rich fabric of recurring themes in symphonic fashion.” It is God who unfolds His message in steps so that each aspect can be grasped in relation to the rest of the picture.’ God ‘is the artist whose canvas is the soul of His Servant’s listeners.’
Reading Isaiah Ch.50, I see Isaiah the Prophet and Servant of God speaking the Words of God about Himself and the work of the Servant of God; the God who is still God of Israel. The Words of God to His people are meant to prompt them to find answers to His questions; God wants them to think about why they doubt and abandoned Him and treat His servant with disdain and this applies to our time as well.
Isa. 50:5-9KJV– God’s Words speak to the trouble and abuse Isaiah encounters from the people who do not want to listen to the Words of God spoken by His messenger. Unlike the people who Isaiah addresses, he has not turned away from his God.
v.5: ”The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.”
v.6: ”I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.”
Isaiah is not deterred by the harassment of the people who do not want to hear God’s words of warning and assurance even though they physically harm him.
v.7-9: v. 7:”For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
The Lord God inspires Isaiah’s cries for righteous justice and reminds him at the same time that v.9: “…lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.”
Isaiah 50:11KJV lets us know that help will come from no other power than God’s loving Mercy and Grace. Regardless the circumstances, to always love and trust God with all our heart and not to lean on our own understanding is what we need to remember – Prov.3:5-6KJV.
Dear sister Brigitte,
I agree so much with the fact that the messages given to Isaiah were from God. They didn’t originate from Isaiah’s thoughts or ideas. That thought crossed my mind as I read the lesson today also.
Yes, my first thought on reading the quarterly for this portion was "Isaiah was the writer/messenger, not the Author". No drama or reason to praise a man, only Truth to learn and an Example to follow, the Lamb of God.
What we can learn from Isaiah is faithfulness.
Perhaps the greatest test of Jesus's final days was enduring the inhumane abuse and demonically-inspired cruelty by the very people that He came to save. If He thought just for a moment to take vengeance against His tormentors, legions of His angels would have immediately struck them all down dead. But He patiently endured the most shameful, malicious and dehumanizing treatment for our sakes, that we sinners would be saved by His sacrifice and received and treated as heaven's best!
So true Nanci, we must never forget that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Right from the beginning of the book of Isaiah and these study guides it is made plain that the visions and messages are from the LORD via Isaiah. However sometimes when the LORD inspires someone - like you or me or even Isaiah - He leaves it to us to share it in our own words and format.
The author of this quarter's study guides is a Hebrew scholar and a teacher of Old Testament at a University so I would hesitate to criticize him, rather give him the benefit of the doubt that when he says Isaiah did this or that he means "Isaiah under the guidance of the Holy Spirit" did it.
He has showed you,o man,what is good:and what does the Lord require of you,but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8