THE SUFFERING SERVANT
PART I
Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles,
He will not cry out, nor raise His voice in the street.
A bruised reed He will not break,
And smoking flax He will not quench;
He will not fail nor be discouraged,
Till He has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands shall wait for His law.[1]
If there is one word that many Christians seem to want to avoid, it is the word “suffering.” Let's face it—no one wants to suffer—yet suffer we will. We would do well to ask ourselves, “How shall I view suffering in my life?” “How will I best view suffering in the light of the entirety of Scripture?” for like it or not, suffering will come to you no matter what your present theology says about it.
The Book of Isaiah has four Servant Songs, which paint a picture of what the Servant of the Lord, the Messiah, will be like. As we look at the ultimate Suffering Servant we can ponder our own call to obedience in the face of suffering. Let us begin by looking at the first of the Servant Songs in Isaiah 42. In this passage, God tells us to “Behold!,”—to look at His Servant and see why He delights God. The first thing we see is that He calls no undue attention to Himself. He is in the low places, the down-and-out places, where calling out for prestige will not accomplish the purposes of God. The intent of this Servant is to look for those whose light is almost out and whose wound's have almost cut them in half. God delights in Him because of His heart to redeem!
The Messiah does not come to those who are well, but to those who need a physician.[2] He is a Wounded Healer marked with the “wounds given to Him in the house of His friends.”[3] He is of the house of Israel but here He brings justice to the Gentiles. He is a High King in a low place. His power does not lead Him to pomp and circumstance but to seek out those who have been left for dead.
Dear friends, His calling, His concerns, His heart-cries, and His sufferings have been bequeathed to us—His beloved sons and daughters. He who, by His own suffering, bought us out of the dragon's lair, calls us to the “fellowship of His sufferings.”[4] Do you see that there are times that you suffer for no reason other than that you are a Christian standing in the place that God has called you to stand, bandaging up a bruised reed so that it does not snap in half, or pouring oil into a lamp that is about to go permanently dark? Where else would we desire to be but about our Father's business? Who else would He desire to send but those who understand His heart?
The saving grace of the Suffering Messiah is poured out through the hands and feet of His own that He sends forth to every dark corner of the earth to bring forth the glorious light and healing that comes from His saving Hand! It is a privilege to stand with Him! This is our call as His blood-bought friends, His blessed bond-slaves. Ours is to search with Him for the lost ones, knowing what it means for His gentle hands to have picked us up and mended us when we had almost broken apart?
But, you ask, what if the suffering that comes to me is not so noble? What if it is because of my ill-advised choices? Or because I live in a world ravaged by sin and death? What if I am just a mess-up of not knowing what to do? Then you are one, like all of us, that He is still in the process of saving to the uttermost! This does not disqualify you! Do not waste your suffering, but allow God to bring to perfection what He has planted in you. Peter says, “None of you should suffer as a murderer or a thief or wrongdoer, or even as a meddler [one wonders at the backstory of that choice word], but if you suffer as a Christian do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear that Name.”[5]
Bearing His Name, despite our own imperfections, is our great honor. Our many mistakes are rich fodder to learn the kind heart of God firstly toward ourselves so that we can share that honestly with others. If you are thinking that is too hard a task, know that He has already addressed that handily in this passage: “He will not fail nor be discouraged, till He has established justice in the earth.” He is up for hard! He will not give up on you or His mission till the ends of the earth are brought under His just rule.
The Messiah, here on earth, was made perfect through His sufferings.[6] If it was within the wisdom of God that Jesus learned and was perfected through suffering, then it cannot be ruled out of your life as something that was for Him but thankfully not for you. I don't have all the answers as to why it is this way, but what I have learned, in the small sufferings that have befallen me, is that I am a far better Christian for having suffered and sought God in the suffering, than if my suffering had simply been circumvented.
We are not shallow beings—our depths are great, as is our Lord's. To engage with the purposes of God, to watch a dying world not willing to come to God, to stand with God as He calls and reaches out to the downtrodden, involves suffering. There is more luminescent, numinous beauty in the inner chambers of our hearts that waits to be perfected by suffering than we can imagine. Let us not shirk from it.
Rose-Marie Slosek came to know the Lord in the early seventies and has a passion for organic church and the maturing of the Body of Christ. She serves on the Emmaus Online Lead Team, leads Maranatha Northeast, and a local home fellowship. She can be reached at rmslosek@comcast.net.
[1] Isaiah 42:1-4
[2] Mark 2:17
[3] Zechariah 13:6
[4] Philippians 3:10
[5] 1 Peter 4:15-16
[6] Hebrews 2:10
