Peace be with you. Friends, with our readings
for this weekend, we are on very holy ground,
because we're dealing with the imagery, symbolism,
and theology of the suffering servant. It's an image of extraordinary
importance in our great tradition. And we start now
in our first reading. It's taken from the book
of the prophet Isaiah. I might have mentioned this
before to you, but the scholars
divide Isaiah. The first 39 chapters they think is associated
with the historical Isaiah. Then the central section,
chapters 40 through 55, they call it Deutero
or Second Isaiah, associated most likely
with a figure around the time of the return of the
captives from Babylon. Then they think 55 through
the end would be a third Isaiah. But I won't get into
all those details. What's important is the
suffering servant imagery is taken from this middle section,
this Deutero-Isaiah, dealing with the triumphant
return of the exiles. So this section is particularly
lyrical and beautiful. It's the language of triumph
and comfort and return. It's joyful.
Listen to how it begins. Here's the opening lines
of chapter 40. "Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem ... that she has served her term,
and her penalty is paid." Good news.
The exiles have paid the price. They're now coming home. And we hear throughout this
section of the overwhelming majesty and power of God. Listen, here's an example. "See, the Lord GOD comes with might,
and his arm rules for him.... All the nations are as
nothing before him. ... To whom will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Lord." This is the powerful
God of Israel now bringing his people back triumphantly
from exile. This section's filled with
the language of light and hope. God who seems
to have abandoned his people now reveals himself
as gracious and powerful. Now, sprinkled throughout
this section of Isaiah, sprinkled throughout
this triumphant section, are these poems,
let's call them —there are four of them— dealing with the figure
of the servant of Yahweh, a special servant who will
do the work of the Lord associated with salvation. Now, here's the first reference. You'll find it in chapter 42,
which is a particularly beautiful and famous chapter of Isaiah. Listen: "Here is my servant, whom
I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.... He will not grow faint or
be crushed until he has established justice for the earth." Okay. There's the triumphant,
powerful God of Israel bringing the exiles back. And now, now he's going
to appoint a servant who will establish justice,
not just for Israel, but through Israel for
all the nations of the world. Okay; it fits in perfectly
with the triumphant, powerful tone of Deutero-Isaiah,
this servant of the Lord. But then things start getting
more complicated. Listen now. This is our reading for today. It's taken from the
fiftieth chapter of Isaiah —so right in the middle of
this second section— and the servant is
being further described. And listen. "I gave my back to those
who beat me, my cheeks to those
who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting." "Okay, wait a minute," the readers of Isaiah
must've thought. "Wait a minute. I thought we're talking about
triumph here. God bringing the exiles back,
appointing a servant who will now bring his justice
to all the nations, right? Isn't that what
we're talking about? And now he's not only enduring
these things; he's giving his back
to those who will beat him, his cheeks to those who’ll
pluck his beard? He's not even shielding his
face when they spit at him? Wait a minute.
I don't get it. This is the servant you're
talking about?" Mm-hm. Now go to chapter 53, which is the most famous of
these suffering servant songs. See because now
that's the motif. He's a servant of the Lord,
but he's a suffering servant. Now listen from 53: "He had no form or majesty
that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance
that we would desire him. He was despised and
rejected by others; a man of suffering and
acquainted with infirmity; and as one from
whom others hide their faces." Okay, I'm still
not getting this. This is the triumphant servant
of Yahweh who will bring justice to all the world? You know how important the
appearance of the king was in the ancient world. And it hasn't changed
that much —how appearance-conscious
we are about our leaders: that they look good,
they look impressive. But this one: "no form or majesty
that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance
that we should desire him." And then, you'd think the
triumphant servant of the Lord would be someone
full of power and majesty, but here he's despised. He's rejected. He's a man of suffering
and acquainted with infirmity. Okay, this is
a little bit puzzling. And it gets even
more puzzling. Listen now
—I'm still in chapter 53. "Surely he” —the servant—
"has borne our iniquities and carried our diseases;
we accounted him stricken, struck down by God,
and afflicted. He was wounded
for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment
that made us whole, and by his bruises
we are healed.” Hm. Okay. Here's what I meant when
I said we're on a very holy ground here. This indeed is the
great servant of the Lord, who indeed will bring justice
and salvation to all the world. But how will he do it?
What's very clear now —not in the customary way,
not in the way of worldly kings, not through armies and
through conquest, but precisely by bearing
the suffering of the world, by taking upon himself the punishment that is due
to the world. What could this mean? Now, imagine people for
the first time encountering these texts from Isaiah,
and they're wondering, "Well, I get it, I suppose,
but how does this work? What does it mean?" Well, we can think of some
ready examples, I think. The great Maximillian Kolbe,
the priest at Auschwitz who gave himself
to save another man who had been chosen
for execution. Kolbe simply came forward
and said, "I'm a Catholic priest.
Take me." And so Kolbe, by his wounds,
by his bruises, by his self-sacrifice,
saved this other man. Less dramatic examples: the mother of a child who
stays up all night, denies herself sleep that
she might care for a suffering child. She bears in her own body
the suffering of her child. The dad who brings his kid
to skating practice at 5:30 in the morning. That's less dramatic than
Maximillian Kolbe, but still the same idea. By his suffering, he brings life
and betterment to his son. Or think of a
friend who says, "I'm going to donate
my own kidney that my friend might live." So we begin to get it,
we begin to see that we can bring life to others,
we can bring salvation —it just means healing—
to others, precisely by taking upon
ourselves suffering. Okay. All of this, I suggest
to you, all of this —let's say Isaiah,
the second part, is written they think
around the year 500 BC— so for all these years,
Israel had carried within its mind and heart this idea,
this image of the suffering servant, God's servant, who will
bring justice to the world precisely through suffering. Okay? With that in mind, we come
to the famous scene, which is in
our Gospel: the scene of Jesus and the
disciples at Caesarea Philippi. "Who do people say that I am?"
"Who do you say that I am?" And of course, it's Simon Peter
that gives the correct answer: "You’re the Christ,
the Son of God." Okay. I've preached often on
that passage; consult those homilies. But I want to focus now
on the follow-up. Once Peter makes
the confession —"Yes, you are the Christ,
you're the Son of God"— listen now. Here's in our Gospel. “He began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders,
the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed.” Now, I want you, friends,
to move into that kind of wrenching psychological space
the disciples must have been in. They watch their Master at work —teaching and healing
and performing miracles— and they're guessing,
they're wondering: Is he the one?
Is he the Messiah? And then, at this climactic
moment, Peter, speaking for all of them, says, "Yes, you are.
You're the Christ. You're the Son of God." I mean, how thrilled they
must've been. Here's the long-awaited "Mashiach,"
the anointed of Israel. Here's the new David,
who will drive away the enemies of the nation. Here's the one
who will establish justice, yes for Israel
and for the whole world. But then Jesus reminds them
of these strange passages from the book
of the prophet Isaiah. What he's saying is,
"Remember what it means to be the anointed
of the Lord. Remember what it means
to be the servant of the Lord." He "must suffer greatly,"
"be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the
scribes, and be killed." At the end of his life,
Jesus was indeed persecuted, arrested, beaten, spat upon,
dragged through the streets, nailed to a Roman cross,
endured all of that suffering, and died. Who is he? Well, Peter confessed correctly. He's the Christ, the Son of
the living God. He's the servant who'll bring
God's justice to the world. How will he do it?
Precisely as Isaiah predicted. Not through worldly power
and triumph, but by taking upon himself the sin and cruelty
and dysfunction of the world and swallowing it up
in the ever greater divine mercy, Jesus journeying all the way
to the bottom of human dysfunction, so as to bring into
that darkest place something of the light
of God's forgiveness. It was precisely in
his suffering that he accomplished this
great act of justice. In Zeffirelli's
"Jesus of Nazareth" —which I watched as a kid;
it came out in the 1970s. It's a wonderful film about
the life of Jesus. And it stars many of the biggest
stars in the world at the time, including the great
Laurence Olivier. People saw him as,
at the time, the greatest actor
in the world. And he plays Nicodemus,
the one who came at night to talk to Jesus. But Nicodemus
is there as the procession with the cross
is going on, as Jesus is moving
toward Calvary. And they show Nicodemus,
and the great face of Laurence Olivier is communicating
this anguish and confusion. But then he begins to recite exactly these passages
from Deutero Isaiah. He begins to recite
the passages dealing with the
suffering servant. "By his wounds we are healed." It represents the moment
when the Church began fully to understand
what was at stake. Yes, he is the "Mashiach."
Yes, he is the Christ the Son of the living God. Yes, he is the one
who will bring God's salvation to all the world. But he will do it precisely
by bearing the pain and suffering of the world. Friends, move into the
power of these texts. Can I recommend:
get out your Bibles; go to that central section,
chapters 40 through 55 of Isaiah; read those passages; and maybe like Laurence Olivier
in the film, repeat those passages. They'll help you
understand precisely how Jesus brought
salvation to the world. And God bless you. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video,
I invite you to share it and to subscribe
to my YouTube channel.
