The Suffering Servant's Hope

Isaiah 53:3-5 (NASB 2020 edition)

3 He was despised and abandoned by men,
A man of great pain and familiar with sickness;
And like one from whom people hide their faces,
He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.

4 However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,
And our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,
Struck down by God, and humiliated.

5 But He was pierced for our offenses,
He was crushed for our wrongdoings;
The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him,
And by His wounds we are healed.

REFLECTION

The Christian year begins with Advent, a period of preparation for the greatest event in history: the birth of Emmanuel, God With Us. Just as the days leading up to a birth, Advent is a time of waiting. In Portuguese, the word "wainting" (esperar) shares the same Latin root (sperare) as "hope" (esperança) its noun form. But what is the hope of Advent? Liturgically, it is the anticipation of Emmanuel's arrival at Christmas.

         This is the same hope that the old Simeon recognized when he saw in Jesus the "light for the Gentiles" (Is 49:6; Lk 2:32). It is the messianic hope Isaiah proclaimed centuries before the first Christmas to our sin-oppressed world. This hope is fully realized in Christ Jesus, who came into the world “to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: He took up our infirmities” (Mt 8:17). “The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed” (Is 53:5). “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Rom 4:25).

         While men admire grandeur and despise poverty and suffering, it is in the pains and wounds of the Suffering Servant that we find reason for praise and hope for salvation. Without His wounds, there would be no Gospel (Lk 18:31-34; 24:26-27; 24:44-46). "But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer” (Acts 3:18).

PRAYER

Lord, give us hearts full of hope, anchored in Your love, awaiting faith in Jesus Christ, Your Son and our Lord. Fill us with gratitude for the grace that redeemed us.

Written by the Rev. Marcelo Lemos (Brazil), Companion of the NAMS Outpost Brazil and CEO of Editora Bereia (a Christian publishing house).

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A Light to the Nations