March 29, 2026
"The Suffering Servant Died for Us"
Isaiah 50:4-9
I don’t know if we remember or not but several months ago I preached on one of what we call the servant songs. I said that there are four of them, all in the prophet Isaiah. Well, our text for today from Isaiah is one of the servant songs. It is the third one to be exact. The fourth servant song will be one of the readings on this Good Friday.
Our text, the third servant song, is most fitting for this week called Holy Week. Our Lord went through a lot during this week in terms of suffering. This servant song bears this out. It describes some of the suffering our Lord actually experienced.
The amazing thing about this song which describes what our Lord endured on the night of His arrest and trial before the Jewish religious authorities is that it was written about 700 years before any of it happened. Isaiash, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote what would happen to our Lord—and in some detail. If we read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ arrest and trial, we see that they echo Isaiah’s account. They record what happened to Jesus, just as Isaiah had predicted in this servant song.
The main point in all of this isn’t that we marvel at Isaiah’s ability to predict the future. It was certainly a gift from God. Not just anyone can predict the future. But the point of our text this morning is what God had in mind for a Savior. It wasn’t a political savior like many had hoped for. It was a Savior who would take on Himself the sins of the world. He would be the sacrifice that God would accept in payment of the sins of the world.
This might have been a little confusing to many of the people of Isaiah’s day. The idea of a human being taking on the sins of the world and being sacrificed on account of them must have been something they couldn’t wrap their heads around. For one, they had been taught to sacrifice animals for sins. This was the law they had received from Moses. Animals were sacrificed for sins. The Israelites had been observing this practice for almost 750 years when Isaiah wrote our text. So, to think that God had a human being in mind for sacrifice was unthinkable to them.
And secondly, it was forbidden to offer human sacrifices. The pagan nations around them did that. God’s people weren’t supposed to do that. They weren’t like the pagan nations. God had called them to be separate from them.
So for God to indicate through Isaiah that a man would take on the sins of the world and be sacrificed for them was not at all easy for the people to grasp. Moreover, they probably couldn’t envision a day when they would no longer have to offer animal sacrifices.
But as I often say, God does unexpected things. This is a case where God’s plan deviates from human expectations. The Messiah that the people were expecting would not come to deliver Israel from its enemies but to save it from its sins. Isaiah makes this especially clear in the fourth servant song which we will read on Good Friday.
Before I proceed, let me make it clear that the servant in these servant songs is Jesus. Isaiah is speaking about Jesus in our text for this morning. I don’t want anyone to be in the dark on this text. Jesus is in mind here.
Let me remind us that the theme or main idea of the Bible is salvation in Jesus Christ. It’s not a long, convoluted theme. It’s quite simple. Again, it is about salvation in Jesus Christ and how this plan of God’s unfolds in human history. There is certainly other material in the Bible, but the main purpose of the Bible is to reveal God’s plan of salvation in Jesus Christ for all humanity. Not hard to remember.
Our text from Isaiah is one of the appointed readings because it was during this week that it was fulfilled. It was fulfilled in Jesus. Isn’t verse 6 a description of what happened to Jesus? “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” This is exactly what Jesus experienced at the hands of evil men. Just read the Gospel accounts. Jesus fulfilled this text. And again, during this week of Holy Week.
Jesus knew what awaited Him. Yet, He continued into Jerusalem. He knew that He would have to suffer and die for us—and went through with it. Verse 5 of our text says, “The Sovereign Lord had opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back.” Jesus went through with God’s plan to save us through Him. He became a servant for our sakes.
It’s unbelievable what God in Jesus did for us. Who would have ever expected God willingly to humble Himself before people whom He created? It blows my mind that Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. It should have been the other way around. Jesus deserved to have had His feet washed. He was much more deserving of this act than the disciples were. Yet the Creator washed the feet of those He created.
What is really disturbing was how the created treated the Creator on Maunday Thursday and Good Friday. The Creator of the universe was subjected to beatings and humiliation beyond our comprehension. The evil men who treated Jesus in such a terrible way had no fear of God and didn’t restrain themselves from treating Jesus the way they did. They had no fear or respect for God. How could they have treated God, Jesus, the way they did and not feel any guilt whatsoever. They spat on Him, pulled His beard out, and mocked Him. Then they had Him crucified. They felt no shame at all.
Yet Jesus didn’t resist. The most powerful being in the universe let those whom He created treat Him with such indignity. He could have destroyed them all in an instant, but He didn’t.
How many of us, if we were in a similar situation, would allow others to trample all over us if we had the power to subdue them? My guess is most of us would use our power to prevent those who wished our harm from carrying out their evil wishes against us. But Jesus didn’t use His divine power to crush those who were against Him.
Why did Jesus go through with it? Why did He allow Himself to be treated as such? I think you know how I’m going to answer these questions. Jesus did so for us. He did so to forgive us our sins, to reconcile us to God. I’m sure we have heard this before. Jesus suffered on our behalf because He loved us so.
But couldn’t Jesus have gone about saving us in a different way? Did He really have to go through all this suffering at the hands of evil men? Couldn’t He have simply said the word that our sins have been forgiven and let it be at that?
God could have certainly done that. When Adam and Eve had sinned, God could have said to them that their sins had been forgiven and told them to depart in peace—and done nothing more. But had God only done that, would they have understood the severity of their sin? Most likely not. God gave them animal skins to wear, a constant reminder to them that a living animal had to die for their sin. A live creature had to be sacrificed on their behalf.
Jesus sacrificed Himself to show us that our sin is more severe than we think it is. If God had just said that our sins were forgiven in word only, we would probably think that our sin isn’t that big of a deal. But when we are told what Jesus had to go through for us and our sin, we come to have a different perspective on our sin. We realize it is a big deal before God. It cost Jesus His life.
Every Sunday we confess our sins and hear me announce that our sins have been forgiven. Maybe for some of us my announcing that our sins have been forgiven seem to us to be merely words—and nothing more. I hope we think differently about the absolution. The words of forgiveness I speak in the absolution are based on Jesus’ death and resurrection, concrete acts that took place in history. Jesus’ death and resurrection give the words in the absolution their power. If Jesus hadn’t suffered and died and then rose from the dead, the words of forgiveness in the absolution would be meaningless.
But praise God they are not. May the suffering of the servant, Jesus, in our text serve to remind us of the price He paid for our salvation.