Sermon: The Bearing Servant (Isaiah 53:4 6) Dan Mueller, 19th March 2017, Lent 3 Text Isaiah 53:4 6 4 Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our pain; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the discipline that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 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. Matthew 26:69 75 NIV 69 Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard [of the high priest, where Jesus was being held], and a servant girl came to him. You also were with Jesus of Galilee, she said. 70 But he denied it before them all. I don t know what you re talking about, he said. 71 Then he went out to the gateway, where another servant girl saw him and said to the people there, This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth. 72 He denied it again, with an oath: I don t know the man! 73 After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away. 74 Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, I don t know the man! Immediately a rooster crowed. 75 Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times. And he went outside and wept bitterly. Walla Walla Lutheran Parish Dan Mueller Page 1 of 6
Sermon Our sickness an image Have you ever been really sick in hospital? Imagine you re lying in Albury Base hospital. You ve just seen a whole dose of doctors. They ve poked, prodded, squished, jabbed, scanned, and tested you. The diagnosis is not good: you re suffering from an incurable, chronic, and terminal sickness. The prognosis is even worse: months, perhaps years, of intense suffering and affliction, inevitably followed by death. After all the tests, there s a lull in the activity you re lying in your bed, tired and worn out. You feel ill and weak. Intense bursts of pain pulsate from your head through your body. Trying to distract yourself, you flick through the TV stations when you realise how utterly helpless you are: there s absolutely nothing you can do to cure yourself. Will power offers no cure. No amount of money can buy an antidote. Friends and family cannot take away your pain. You re completely powerless to do anything. Our sickness the reality This scenario is not far from reality! The prophet Jeremiah captures the fallen human condition well when he says: The [human] heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV) Likewise the Augsburg Confession says: Since the fall of Adam all people who are born are conceived and born in sin. All people are full of evil inclinations from their mothers wombs and are unable by nature to have true faith in God. This inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin, and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. (Augsburg Confession, article II) Our Old Testament text paints a similarly debilitating picture. Isaiah the poet uses words such as sickness, grief, sorrow, pain, transgression, iniquity, discipline, and wounds. We are sick, ill, and diseased. We are injured and weak, he says. The other word picture our poet employs is that of a labourer carrying a heavy load. We have a weighty basket on our shoulders. The heavy burden we carry is slowly weakening our bodies. Muscles spasm in agony as the load becomes heavier with each step. We are in pain: not just immense physical pain, but emotional turmoil and mental torment. We experience anguish, grief, and heartbreak. Has life ever made you feel like this? Perhaps you feel like this now: the burden of life crushing your bones? Or perhaps you remember a time when it all seemed to much to bear? Walla Walla Lutheran Parish Dan Mueller Page 2 of 6
Eventually our text describes the human condition using theological words: transgression, iniquity (which is sin, guilt, and punishment rolled into one), chastisement (which means discipline to correct us). Isaiah rightly describes us as sinful and rebellious people, alienated from God broken. Our text highlights the universal nature of our condition in verse 6, which is bracketed with the phrase we all. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6) We all indicates the extent of the problem: everyone is infected! Consider our gospel reading: even Peter, who walked with Jesus, rubbed shoulders with God face-to-face, couldn t escape the sickness of humanity. He outright ignored Jesus, ignored what Jesus had said to him: he rebelled against God. If Peter can t overcome the sickness having come face-to-face with Jesus, how can we? The result of our condition is serious death. The poet uses words such as punished, pierced, crushed, and wounded. Pierced means to spear through fatally (e.g. Isaiah 51:9). Crushed is used to describe people being trampled to death. Our wounds are not clean cuts or surface-level abrasions, but open, festering lacerations and deep punctures (Psalm 38:5). We instinctively want to heal ourselves, but the reality is that we cannot. At times we may try to forget, occupying ourselves with living life and frivolous fun, yet the human condition will catch up with each of us: one day we all will die. And we are helpless to stop this. We are completely powerless to do anything. The people in Isaiah s day wanted to fix the problem with more worship, more sacrifices, more rituals. But God sees through their efforts: their worship is empty, their sacrifices merely go through the motions, and more hypocritical rituals do not please Him. 11 What makes you think I want all your sacrifices? says the LORD. I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle. I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. 12 When you come to worship me, who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony? 13 Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts; the incense of your offerings disgusts me! As for your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath and your special days for fasting they are all sinful and false. I want no more of your pious meetings. 14 I hate your new moon celebrations and your annual festivals. Walla Walla Lutheran Parish Dan Mueller Page 3 of 6
They are a burden to me. I cannot stand them! (Isaiah 1:11 14 NLT) We can t fix this ourselves: good intentions, pomp and ceremony, our own will power, all the money in the world, even our friends and family, cannot fix the root cause of the problem our sick hearts and heavy-laden shoulders. We realise we are completely powerless to do anything. And that is exactly where God wants us needs us to be. For when we despair of our own strength, He is free to come and bear the load and carry us. Our healing an image Imagine you re back in Albury Base hospital. You re in your hospital bed, sitting up now, eating your lunch, trying not to spill tomato soup on your gown. You re so weak you struggle to hold the spoon steady; moving with a slow, careful motion you inch the spoon shakily toward your mouth. It all seems too much, so you drop the spoon back into the bowl, and flop back against your pillow. You close your eyes, frustrated, worn out, fighting back tears. Suddenly the doctor pops in and declares he will bear your sickness, he will take on your pain and suffering. Out of the blue your prognosis has been completely reversed: you re going to live after all! How do you respond? Our healing the servant bears our sickness This is the image our text paints. God s Word to us today starts with surely. Surely! he has borne our sickness and carried our pain. As with the doctor popping in out of the blue, surely expresses a note of surprise. The Servant is disfigured and rejected, but now something surprising happens. The Servant comes: Surely! He has borne our sickness, and carried our pain. What a startling contrast! We despise the Servant yet he bears our sickness?! We reject him yet he carries our pain?! But there s still more surprises. The poem has an alternating emphasis between he and us. 5 He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the discipline that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5) He is pierced, crushed, disciplined, and wounded on account of us! The Servant lifts up, raises, and bears the burden we should bear; he shoulders and transports the load we should rightly move, he takes the punishment in our place, on account of us. He for us. But why is he for us? Verse 5 says, to bring us peace and healing. God is not some raging tyrant, demanding blood. But he does desire Shalom ( peace and fullness ) which is right order and justice, right relationship and right community. We are healed as God sets out restoring our health back to a right state after being sick. Walla Walla Lutheran Parish Dan Mueller Page 4 of 6
Jesus accomplishes all this for you he is the Bearing Servant. His life, suffering, death, and resurrection brings you eternal peace and healing. He was pierced, crushed, disciplined, and wounded for you. He shoulders your burden on the cross. The Word comes to dwell with humans, God comes near to you, in flesh and blood, bearing your sickness and carrying your pain. He takes your place and heals the root cause of your brokenness. What does this mean? So how do you respond to the surprise prognosis? Now that you ve been healed, how will you live your new life? Now that Jesus carries your burden, what are you going to do with the freedom he freely gives? What does all this mean? 1. God does the bearing Firstly, I think it is important to realise it is God who does all the work. We do not contribute to the lifting or bearing or healing Christ alone does the heavy lifting. The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. The LORD not only allows this, but He is the active agent. In fact when we try to contribute to the work, we actually end up loading more burdens on our backs. Wh end up trapped like the people in Isaiah s day; when we try to work to please God, but actually end up displeasing him because we don t meet His high demands. Our lives become an empty and hypocritical list of jobs to do, we simply go through the motions. We end up trapped by the language of the Law: you must go to church to give to God, you need to tithe your income, you ought to help others. But surely Christ comes to free us from the demands of the Law. He lifts up and carries what God demands. He fulfils these musts, needs, and oughts and removes them from us. By the power of the gospel, Jesus transforms the language of Law into the language of Grace: you must go to church to give becomes you may go to church to receive from God; you need to tithe your income becomes you are free to tithe you income to support God s mission; you ought to help others is transformed to you want to help others out of love. Amazingly Christ does all this without our full understanding or co-operation! 2. God enters into our everyday existence Secondly, this means that God is near to us now as we are. We don t need to get well before coming into God s presence. We don t need to finish transporting our loads before meeting God. We don t find God up there, far away in heaven, apart from our everyday life. Rather, our text tells us we encounter God down here, in the dirt, with us. Jesus, the Servant, takes on our griefs, sorrows, and afflictions. It is not just our sin and rebellion and iniquities that Christ deals with on the cross. God also enters into our everyday existence: our pain, our suffering, our sickness, and weakness. We find spiritual meaning, not in things outside of our everyday experience, but in the very midst of our messy and afflicted lives. Walla Walla Lutheran Parish Dan Mueller Page 5 of 6
We find God in the bath: in the water of Holy Baptism. We find God around the table: in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. We find God in simple words: as we forgive each other and are forgiven. Challenge My challenge for you this week: What area of your life seems heavy at the moment? Where are you weakest and afflicted? How might Jesus enter into your weakness and bear your pain? I invite you to bring this to God in prayer this week. Blessing So may you meet with God as he comes near to you in the body and blood of the Bearing Servant, Jesus Christ. May he come near to you as you are sick, in pain, afflicted, rebellious, wounded. May he bear all this for you, may he do all the work, may he be pierced, crushed, disciplined, and wounded, so that you may be healed and have eternal peace with God. Amen. Walla Walla Lutheran Parish Dan Mueller Page 6 of 6