THE SUFFERING SERVANT
PART IV
Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently;
He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high.
Just as many were astonished at you,
So His visage was marred more than any man,
And His form more than the sons of men;
So shall He sprinkle many nations.
Kings shall shut their mouths at Him.[1]
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
So He opened not His mouth.
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge, My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.[2]
From the highest heaven to the lowest depths of hell, and back again, journeyed our triumphant Lord. His journey led Him through total rejection, utter grief, smitten by God and man, His countenance marred more than any man’s. This last Servant Song tracks the redemption story and the spiritual journey of our marvelous Messiah as He suffers on our behalf.
In my discussion of the last three Servant songs, I have stressed the importance of our identifying with our Lord through and in our sufferings and using them to bring freedom to others whether through intercession, wise counsel, or simply a cup of cold water. In this last Servant Song, I want to emphasize the victory of suffering and the fruit of what our Suffering Servant Messiah will reap by His sufferings.
There is no merit in just plain suffering. In the Kingdom to come it is said that "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”[3] Thankfully, the coming fullness of the kingdom of God has no suffering in it. We have, however, much that can be gained by our willingness to suffer as we minister to the pains of mankind, in general, and specifically Israel, in this age.
Bruised, wounded, acquainted with grief, oppressed, afflicted, silent in the face of accusation, cut off, rejected, despised: Jesus bore it all. And what shall be His reward for all this? For in this last Servant Song, the victory and the rewards rise gloriously from the dust of suffering and death. Scripture says "He shall see His seed,” meaning that that which has come from Him will live and go forth and be like Him! This is the Commonwealth of Israel—both believing Jew and Gentile together as one new man. "He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied." What does He see? He sees the family He has redeemed for Himself; He sees His Bride! He sees all that He has endured and longed for! And He inherits it! Kings will shut their mouths when they see how complete and everlasting His victory is. His triumph will be seen before the whole world!
As prophetic, end-time people, we are called to stand with God as He gathers in Israel and all those destined to be His. To do so, it would seem that we shall also be bruised, wounded, acquainted with grief, oppressed, and afflicted since the nature of the world and the nature of the mission have not changed. “The servant is not greater than the master.”[4] Biblically speaking, the issue of Israel is the chief spiritual issue of the end of the age. And while yes, we focus on the Great Commission, God's invitation to all mankind, we must also focus on God's heart to redeem Israel. The apostle Paul says that Israel has been temporarily blinded that the fullness of the gentiles can come in, and he also says that their ultimate salvation will be life from the dead.[5]
Paul then says that it is the place of the Gentiles to provoke Israel to jealousy by modeling the Gospel of grace before them.[6] To us it has been given to understand the great grace and plan of God and to stand with God, and be His hand to gather the fullness of His inheritance in. How He has longed to gather Jerusalem and they would not!
When you care for someone deeply, their suffering becomes your suffering. Is God suffering? The atonement part of the suffering of Jesus is gratefully past, but the entering into, the gathering up into Himself of the fullness of His inheritance is yet to come in human history. To wait with so great a love and longing has with it an aspect of suffering. In the movie Last of the Mohicans, the character Hawkeye is separated from his love, and the song "No Matter Where You Go I Will Find You" captures his passion for her. God wants to save all peoples, but He has not forgotten Israel and is returning to find her and gather her willingly as His own. So whatever we end up suffering for His Name and His purposes will be little in the wake of what He inherits and what we inherit! For we have an inheritance also, and it is an everlasting bridal covenant with our Maker and Lord. He inherits us, and we inherit Him!
Jesus front-loads all His suffering in human history so that He might reap all the glories of His victories on the back end. God says, "I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong because He POURED OUT HIS SOUL UNTO DEATH, and He was NUMBERED WITH THE TRANSGRESSORS and HE BORE THE SIN OF MANY, and MADE INTERCESSION for the transgressors.” Note these aspects: the pouring out of the soul, the identification with sinners, the bearing of what had separated them from God, and the intercession for them in their fallen state.
These are the things the Church at the end of the age will be called upon to do for Israel. We will pour out our souls, we will stand with those who are alienated from God so that they might hear and be brought to their Messiah, and we will bear with not only their rejection of the Messiah but their reproach of us as His heralds. We cannot atone for their sins as that has already been accomplished, but we must stand and call them back to God. We must intercede for them as God gets ready to gather them into His bosom. This is a glorious suffering so close to the finish line of this age that everything pales in comparison. Our Lord is so close to His victory, so close to inheriting that which satisfies His soul. How can we not give ourselves to such a worthy cause and an inestimable victory? Church, we must rise up. Victory awaits. A momentary bit of suffering seems so small a thing to offer Him.
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 52:13-15
[2] Isaiah 53:2-3, 7, 10-13
[3] Revelation 21:4
[4] John 13:16
[5] Romans 11: 8-15
[6] Romans 11:14
