December 30: The Sin Bearing, Suffering Servant
♫ Music:
Day 28 - Saturday, December 30
Title: THE SIN BEARING, SUFFERING SERVANT
Scripture #1: Isaiah 52:13–15 (NKJV)
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; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider.
Scripture #2: Isaiah 53:1–6 (NKJV)
Who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 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.
Poetry & Poet:
“Jesus of the Scars”
by Edward Shilito
If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.
The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.
If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.
The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.
THE SIN BEARING, SUFFERING SERVANT
Astonished: Filled with sudden and overpowering surprise or wonder.
When was the last time you were filled with wonder or overwhelmingly surprised? When considering God’s Suffering Servant, the prophet Isaiah states that many will be “astonished” at the level of suffering incurred. Some theologians call Isaiah’s description, “His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men” (52:14) as the most graphic one-sentence description of divine suffering in all the Bible.
Yet, does it astonish us?
Or, does hearing about Jesus’s betrayal, false judgment, whipping, and crucifixion strangely fall a little flat? Not that we ever lose sight of its theological significance—by his stripes we are made spiritually healed (Isa. 53:5)—but, does it sometimes not fill us with wonder? The Christian tradition is just that—a tradition filled with common rituals (communion, altar calls, praying the Lord’s Prayer) and stories (Nativity narrative, woman caught in adultery, Peter’s denial, feeding of five thousand) that easily evokes a robotic response. I unthinkingly take the communion cup and wafer, or think when hearing the Prodigal Son story—I know how this ends.
This Advent season, let’s invite the Spirit to fill us with wonder—through images, Scripture, poetry, and story—at the suffering of God’s Servant.
Image
Does looking at Bruce Herman’s graphic multi-colored painting cause you to want to turn away? The flesh has been ripped away exposing muscles, tendons, and sinews. What could possibly do such damage to the human body? We know historically that Roman soldiers beat Jesus with a lead-tipped whip called a flagrum that consisted of three separate strands, each ending with lead balls. How many strikes could a normal person take before they passed out, confessed to a Roman crime, or recanted a heretical belief? Afterall, there’s only so much a person can take. Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga ponders God’s capacity to suffer. “Some theologians claim that God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong. God’s capacity for suffering, I believe, is proportional to his greatness; it exceeds our capacity for suffering in the same measure as his capacity for knowledge exceeds ours. Christ was prepared to endure the agonies of hell itself; and God, the first being and Lord of the universe, was prepared to endure the suffering consequent upon his Son’s humiliation and death.”
For a moment, consider both Herman’s painting and Plantinga’s observation. Just as we assert God knows all (omniscience); his capacity for taking on suffering equally has no end. In short, the Suffering Servant never tapped out. He took on the collective sin and suffering of humanity—including yours and mine. Such a realization led the Apostle Paul to assert, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20).
Astonishing, isn’t it?
Story
How much can God relate to our pains or suffering? For sure, an all-knowing being can observe what we go through, but does he get it? Consider the following true story.
Father Damien, at his own request, was assigned to a leper colony on Molokai Island, Hawaii in 1873. The colony had no medical doctor or priest to care for them. Father Damien’s motivation for going was simple—he couldn’t imagine a person living out his or her last days in isolation with no one to care for them. With profound empathy, Father Damien did everything for the members of the colony—he bathed them, dressed festering ulcers, built coffins, dug graves, and held worship services. He served the colony for twelve years. One Sunday everything changed. Father Damien stood in front of the congregation of lepers and opened his robes to show the first signs of leprosy. He began his sermon with the words, “We lepers.”
Is God’s understanding of our suffering more like Father Damien before he contracted leprosy or after? In other words, is God an outsider trying to empathize with our suffering, or an insider who has personally experienced our pain? Christianity’s radical answer is that God does not merely empathize with our suffering, He has experienced it firsthand. The prophet Isaiah informed listeners that the coming Messiah would be “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (53:3).
Knowing that our God is acquainted with our pain brings great comfort. Theologian John Stott confesses, “I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” Today, take time to read Isaiah’s words with fresh eyes as we consider a Savior who, as noted by poet Edward Shilito, stumbled to the throne as he shared our weakness, suffering, and pain.
Astonishing, isn’t it?
Prayer
Savior, Today let us look upon your scars with new eyes. Let us thank you for being acquainted with our grief. Forgive us for often taking it for granted. Today, let us be astonished by your great sacrifice.
Amen
Tim Muehlhoff
Professor of Communication
Co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Art:
With His Stripes
© Bruce Herman
2002
Encaustic on wood
36 × 24 in.
Collection of Sandra and Robert Bowden
About the Artist:
Bruce Herman (b. 1953) is an American artist, writer, curator, and educator who until 2022 held the Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in the art department of Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. He achieved both a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. from the School for the Arts at Boston University, where he studied under Philip Guston, James Weeks, David Aronson, Reed Kay, and Arthur Polonsky. He joined the faculty at Gordon College in 1984 and was awarded various chairs and positions until he was awarded the aforementioned position. His work has been shown around the world in more than one hundred fifty exhibitions, and he has paintings housed in the Vatican Museum of Modern Religious Art, the Cincinnati Museum of Fine Arts, and the DeCordova Museum. Herman’s art has been exhibited in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and most other major cities in the USA, and abroad in Italy, England, Israel, Japan, and Hong Kong. Herman’s art and writings are published in a thirty-year retrospective in Through Your Eyes (2013, Eerdmans Publishing). His published essays are found in many print and online journals, including IMAGE, Comment, Books and Culture, and many others.
https://www.bruceherman.com/
About the Music:
“Intercession for the Transgressors (Isaiah 53)” from the album from Isaiah Oratorio
Lyrics:
The Sin Bearing, Suffering Servant
He was rejected, acquainted with grief,
And we hid as it were our faces from him;
Despised, rejected, acquainted with grief,
We esteemed him, esteemed him, esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows:
We esteemed him, afflicted, afflicted of God.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities:
With his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned everyone to his own way;
Oppressed, afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth;
As a lamb to the slaughter, he opened not his mouth.
He was taken from prison,
Made his way with the wicked,
He has done no evil,
No deceit in his mouth.
Yet it please the Lord to bruise him,
Bruise him, bruise him.
For he shall bear their iniquities,
Bruise him, bruise him.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great,
Because he hath poured out his soul unto death.
He was numbered with transgressors;
and by his knowledge shall he justify,
He bare the sins of many, made intercession,
Intercession for the transgressors,
Intercession for the transgressors.
About the Composer:
Described as a “bright star on the jazz horizon,” Stephen Anderson is a critically acclaimed composer and pianist, whose music has been published on nineteen compact discs. Dr. Anderson is professor of composition and jazz studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and serves as director of jazz studies and director of the UNC Summer Jazz Workshop. He earned a D.M.A. degree (2005) and a M.M degree (2000) from the University of North Texas and a B.Mus. degree from Brigham Young University (1997). Anderson’s work with the Dominican Jazz Project and Marimjazzia Latin jazz ensembles have led him to perform at multiple festivals in the Caribbean, as well as in Central and South America, since 2014. Associated with the 2022 Jazzomania Jazz Festival IV, and as founder and director of the Dominican Jazz Project, Anderson was formally recognized and distinguished by the minister of culture, Senora Milagros German, of the government of the Dominican Republic, for “his research and contributions to the national musical heritage.” In 2011, Anderson began work on his first choral composition, Isaiah, for chorus, string orchestra, and piano. Anderson writes, “I began to realize the significance of what the piece could become. Handel’s oratorio, the Messiah, drew heavily from the book of Isaiah. Isaiah was important to both Jews and Christians across the world due, in part, due to the numerous Messianic prophecies contained throughout Isaiah’s writings.” The fifty-minute piece premiered at the University of North Carolina on November 21, 2013, at Hill Hall Auditorium.
https://music.unc.edu/people/musicfaculty/stephenanderson
About the Performers:
University of North Carolina Choir, Susan Klebanow, conductor, and soloist Jeanne Fischer
The UNC Chamber Singers, under the direction of Susan Klebanow, is an ensemble of twenty-five voices. Its repertoire encompasses vocal chamber music of different styles, with emphasis on Renaissance, Baroque, and twentieth-century/twenty-first-century music.
https://music.unc.edu/undergraduate/ensembles/uncso/
Susan Klebanow is the director of choral activities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she conducts the Carolina Choir and UNC Chamber Singers and teaches courses in conducting. Her B.A. is from Brandeis University and her M.M. in Choral Conducting is from the New England Conservatory of Music. Klebanow has led choral festivals, workshops, and clinics throughout the United States, Mexico, Italy, and Hong Kong. She has guest conducted many choral and instrumental ensembles, including the North Carolina Symphony, the Emmanuel Church of Boston Bach Cantata Series, Mallarme Chamber Players, Boston University’s Opera Theatre, and the University of Veracruz Baroque Festival Chorus in Mexico. A performing pianist, harpsichordist, and accomplished soprano, she has concertized extensively with contemporary music and early-music groups based in Boston, North Carolina, and Mexico City.
https://music.unc.edu/people/musicfaculty/susan-klebanow/
Jeanne Fischer received her B.A. in music and English from UNC-Chapel Hill. She continued her studies in the United Kingdom on a British Marshall Scholarship, completing an M.M. and Artist’s Diploma at London’s Royal Academy of Music. She received her D.M.A. from the University of Maryland on a graduate fellowship. She teaches studio voice and French and Italian diction. Dr. Fischer has performed as a soloist throughout the US and the United Kingdom, with groups such as the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the Bach Sinfonia, Ensemble Courant, the Washington Bach Consort, Princeton’s Dryden Ensemble, and the University of Maryland Symphony. Her recordings include Bach’s Lutheran Masses with the Rochester-based early music ensemble, the Publick Musick, and the Magnolia Baroque Festival radio broadcasts of Moravian solo anthems. In the UK, she was selected to perform in the St. Martin-in-the-Fields Outstanding Young Artists’ Series, the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, and the Dartington International Festival. She is the recipient of several vocal prizes and awards, including first place in the Voice Young Soloists Competition, the Royal Academy of Music’s Ethel Bilsland Award, and the Diploma of the Royal Academy of Music (DipRAM). Prior to coming to UNC in 2006, Dr. Fischer taught voice at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, VA. She has also served on the faculties of Oberlin’s summer Baroque Performance Institute, and the Magnolia Baroque Institute at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Phi Beta Kappa, and Early Music America.
https://music.unc.edu/people/musicfaculty/jeanne-fischer/
About the Poetry and Poet:
Edward Shilito (1872–1948) was an English minister, poet, and author who served in six different churches. He wrote many articles and two volumes of poetry.
https://music.churchofscotland.org.uk/hymn/418-away-with-gloom-away-with-doubt
About the Devotion Author:
Tim Muehlhoff
Professor of Communication
Co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project
Biola University
Tim Muehlhoff is a professor of communication at Biola University and co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project designed to reintroduce civility into our private and public disagreements. Tim is also an author whose latest book is Eyes to See: Finding God’s Common Grace in Unsettled Times (IVP).