Read Isaiah 52.13-15, 53
Cast your mind back several thousand years with me to Abraham and his son Isaac (see day six). God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, but then intervened at the last minute to stop Isaac being harmed and instead provided a ram for the sacrifice. Now I’m sure Isaac wasn’t up for quibbling with God at this point, but a ram? The sacrifice was supposed to be a lamb, and Abraham had told his son that God would provide one.
In the intervening years there have been a lot of lambs. At least one for every household every year at Passover to remember God freeing his people from slavery (see day eight). The blood of the lamb painted over the doorposts to protect the sons from death. And all the lambs that were sacrificed as offerings to God when the people broke their promise to live as he asked them. So many lambs. So much death. So much blood spilled. Will this carry on forever?
We don’t sacrifice lambs when we fail in my culture, so this feels weird. But what do we do? Sweep it under the carpet and hope nobody notices? Feel awful about it but simultaneously powerless to fix it or stop it happening again? Or perhaps we just redefine failure by offering an excuse about why it wasn’t really our fault. We don’t sacrifice lambs, but we’re stuck with the same patterns and cycles of wrongdoing that God’s people were thousands of years ago. We just don’t know what to do with them.
As Isaiah continues with his vision of future happenings we read of a coming servant. One with no great majesty or beauty. One who many do not welcome, and whose appearance is damaged. One who is so very familiar with suffering, and who is despised. Why? Because he has taken up our wrongdoing. He is afflicted by the pain, suffering and punishment due to humanity for every time God’s good ways to flourish have been rejected and people have chosen to go their own way. The severed relationship with God that humanity has continually chosen and deserved is laid not at their door, but upon him. He is pierced and he is crushed for the transgressions of others.
This servant has done no wrong, but he is led like a lamb to the slaughter.
A Lamb who is not a lamb, but a man.
A Lamb who offers no protest, but is silent at his fate.
A Lamb to end all lambs.
Don’t we need this Lamb? One who can take on all the mess that we just can’t fix and, frankly, sometimes don’t even want to. One who is familiar with the pain and suffering that sometimes seems our closest friend, and who can take it from us. One who can restore us to relationship with a loving God who knows how we can live well when we are bewildered by our inability to do so.
So, who will this Lamb be? The Passover rules dictated a lamb must be a firstborn son, with no defect. Absolutely perfect. Who can be this perfect man? And which father would sacrifice such a son?
Isaiah doesn’t tell us. But neither does he leave us here in darkness. After the Lamb has died, he will see light – the light of life – and he will receive a portion among the great. His death is not to be a pointless sacrifice, for his act will save many from their wrongdoing. If I want him to, he will save me.
He will be the Saviour.
And he’s coming.
Reflect
Where do you need a Saviour?
What unhelpful patterns in your life do you feel trapped by?
Where do you need hope?
What wisdom do you need to life in a way that flourishes you and your loved ones?
Susie lives in NE Fife and works in ministry. She loves being with friends, feeding people and half finished creative projects.
