surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows

Good evening brothers and sisters,
Today's reading is a beautiful word from the Book of Isaiah about God's suffering servant who is sent to bring Israel back to God. This passage wasn't written about Jesus, but we believe Jesus fulfilled the hope expressed here. God's servant takes the sins of the people on himself and receives the punishment we deserve in our place. It isn't fair, but the servant agrees to "take one for the team" in a big way. In worship today we read this passage once in good Presbyterian intellectual engagement and once trying to let the passage speak right to our heart about God's love and redemption for us in Christ. If you have the chance this evening I'd suggest doing the same thing: read once for "head" understanding and once more to let God's love sink into your heart. Jesus loves you.

God bless,
Sam

Isaiah 53:3-12

³He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. ⁴Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

⁵But 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. ⁶All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. ⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. ⁸By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. ⁹They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. ¹¹Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. ¹²Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.