Monday 26 November 2007

Background

Isaiah 53 is the most difficult chapter in the Bible. It waswritten by an anonymous prophet (one of the two or three prophetswhose work is gathered together in the book of Isaiah) during thetime when the Jews were exiled in Babylon around 540BC. But who orwhat is it talking about?

It doesn't help either that the Hebrew it is written in is verydifficult and some verses are almost untranslatable - compare someof the various Bible translations and you'll see.

The identity of this 'suffering servant' has baffled many readersfor centuries. Is the prophet talking about someone he knew, likethe prophet Jeremiah, or a contemporary leader, or even abouthimself? Or is this servant the people of God as a whole, for inthe rest of his chapters (Isaiah 40-55)'God's servant' is the nation, or at least a faithful part ofit?

These are unanswerable questions, but the first Christians had aquite different take on this obscure and difficult passage. Whenthey looked at their Bible, our Old Testament, as they tried tomake sense of what had happened to Jesus they found their answerhere. Jesus was God's true servant, the Messiah, the chosen one,who had suffered and died as part of God's plan to bring salvation.For examples see Matthew8:17, Luke22:37, Acts8:32-33 and 1 Peter2:22-25.

This is why this reading features in Holy Week and Good Fridayservices. Whether this anonymous prophet meant anything like thatis another and very controversial question, but that's how thefirst Christians, and possibly Jesus himself, read it.

To Ponder

Why do you think this 'suffering servant' poemmight have been chosen as one of the readings in this week's themeof 'Christ the King'?

The servant in this poem suffers as part of hisdiscipleship. What insights might there be into the nature of ourdiscipleship today?

Do you find anything disturbing or unhelpful inthe images in this poem?