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 THUMBNAIL
SKETCH - This poem reveals for the first time the servant’s suffering and
ill-treatment yet strangely, even mysteriously, woven within God’s purpose. We are
also introduced to the divine name Adonai (cf. 48:16) and which is repeated in four
of the six verses. God is thus the presence behind the teaching, preparation, and ultimate
vindication of the servant. [1]
NOT A LAMENT - The passage is similar to what we read of in the
laments of the psalms, though with a difference. Both describe suffering and affliction
but here the lament underscores God’s sustaining and upholding power within
suffering. There’s no attempt to wheedle God to give justice nor demands for God to
rectify the situation. The poem says that God has come to be faithfully present within the
servant’s suffering and in fact, that it is in the very act of God’s being
faithfully present that affliction arises in the first place. Thus the servant-with such
knowledge-bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
 What’s the
first thing that you hear in the morning? Radio? Alarm? Kids? Dog? What is your knee-jerk
response?
Recall how you have been encouraged when you had just about given up.
What words restored hope and energy?
Describe the relationship between the servant and the Sovereign Lord in this passage.
What gives the servant confidence and hope in what appears to be dire circumstances?
 Isaiah 50:4-9 might be
what the Triumphal Entry would look like from a Christ-viewpoint as a servant who is in
deep relationship with the Sovereign Lord. In the passage, God’s promise is to stand
with the oppressed and with those who serve God through troubling times. The servant is
vulnerable here and relies totally on God. While the passage has long been valued by
Christians as descriptive of Jesus’ suffering, the image itself reveals the meaning
of Jesus’ suffering. In its original setting this song affirms God’s
relationship to Israel and offers comfort to the suffering exiles of Isaiah’s time:
God is there for the faithful. The encouragement is timeless-that could well be a
homily’s point if using this first lesson. The promise of God’s enduring
presence extends to all who follow Jesus in risking humiliation and physical harm to
affirm God’s will for life.
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[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible VI (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), page
436.
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