The Suffering Servant (Isaiah 52.13 - 53.12)

Introduction

Over the last six weeks, we’ve been seeing how the Old Testament is watermarked with prophetic anticipation of Jesus. The exodus, for example, points forward to his deliverance from the slavery of sin. The day of atonement points forward to a perfect sacrifice which removes our guilt and shame.

 

But while some Old Testament passages point to Christ in a quite obscure way; a snake on a pole, a curse for one hung on a tree, others bring him into strikingly sharp focus. No passage more so than Isaiah 53, which paints a portrait of the Lord’s future sufferings and death as clear as any passage in the New Testament which looks back to them. 

 

Susan Pearlman, who is Jewish and who believes in Jesus as her Messiah, once talked about a survey that was conducted on the streets of Tel Aviv.  The survey asked, “Who do you think the 53rd chapter of Isaiah describes?”Most people interviewed were unfamiliar with the passage. (The modern state of Israel is, in point of fact, quite secular). 

 

But when the respondents were shown the text, most answered that they did not know who it referred to, but many said it sounded a lot like Jesus. When you read Isaiah 53 it is unquestionably a sketch of Jesus and his passion. It is unmistakably him. 

 

Though written around 750 years before his birth, it describes Jesus’ afflictions, saving death and ultimate vindication so exactly, so unerringly, and in such detail, that you’d be forgiven for wondering if it was composed after the event. But we now know for sure that it wasn’t. 

 

Because in 1947 a young Arab boy, throwing stones into a desert cave, stumbled upon 900 perfectly preserved ancient parchments – we call them the Dead Sea scrolls. 

 

Radiocarbon dating established that these scrolls were written down around 100 BC. The Isaiah parchment was fully intact and practically word-for-word identical to the oldest manuscript they had known until that time (which dated back to 600 AD). 

 

So any doubts that any of Isaiah might have been written after Jesus died were settled then once and for all. What we’re about to read is unquestionably a prophesy of the future, not a report of the past. Let’s read it together now:

 

See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
Just as there were many who were appalled at him – his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness –
so he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. 
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, 

and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; 
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, 
because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

 

Prayer…

 

Here, then, is a prophetic song in five stanzas, each consisting of three verses, which tells us that God will appoint who will serve, then be “highly exalted” not after he has triumphed, as we might expect, but “after he has suffered.” 

 

It says that people will reject him, that his death sentence will be undeserved, that he will be innocent in word and deed, and that he will not retaliate by protesting. It says that his suffering will be so severe as to render him physically unrecognisable. It says that his death will be caused by the piercing of his body but, like a lamb led meekly to slaughter, he will go silently to his death. 

 

It says that this man, in death, will carry the weight of our sin himself and that he will pray for his adversaries as his life ebbs away.Then he will die alongside lawbreakers and be buried in a rich man’s tomb. And it explicitly says that all this, all of it, will be no accident, but God’s resolute plan and purpose. 

 

Every detail of this chapter was graphically fulfilled when Jesus was arrested, put on trial, taunted, mocked, flogged, crucified, killed, buried and raised from death.

 

Jesus carefully identified himself with this suffering servant when he said, in Mark 10.45, that he “came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

 

His glorious exaltation

 

“See, my servant”, says God in 52.13, “will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.”

 

The song starts with the word, “See…” Or in some Bible translations, “Behold.” In other words, God is signalling that he is about to reveal something to us of primary importance. He is appealing to you to give your undivided attention to what will follow. 

 

For centuries, the Jews had imagined that their royal Messiah would be elevated head and shoulders above the rest and be wondrously revered. They still do. They’re still waiting. 

 

No one ever imagined that their saviour and king would be humiliated and bruised and crushed. But it was all written down! It was staring them in the face. God says that he would be raised up and exalted - but only after he had suffered. 

 

His ordinary appearance

Verse 2 says that there was nothing about the way Jesus looked that would cause you to take a second look. I take that to mean he wasn’t especially athletic or handsome. 

 

He was from a nowhere town called Nazareth. It was a bit of a dump; the armpit of Israel. No one expected anything of note to come from there. 

 

There is no physical description of Jesus anywhere in the entire New Testament. We don’t know if he was tall or short, blue eyed or brown eyed, clean shaven or bearded, curly haired or bald. His face and physique weren’t what you noticed about him at all. 

 

Except for revelation from God, you would never have looked at him and thought, “Oh, clearly, this is the Son of God.”

 

His humiliating rejection

In v3, it describes a man who will be turned upon and rejected. The hostility towards this servant figure is calculated and pronounced. 

The Gospels tell us that Jesus was rejected by his own siblings who did not believe in him at first. He was deserted at the end by his chosen few followers. He was disowned by his most vocal spokesman. He was betrayed for money by a trusted friend. Twice in this section the word “despised” is used. 

 

And notice, the all-encompassing word ,“we” – every one of us here today – “we held him in low esteem.” If you are a Christian today, before your conversion, you dismissed him. You didn’t care about him. You didn’t value him at all. You never once treasured him. You never so much as looked his way. 

 

But by the wonder that is the grace of God, you were awakened as to the identity this servant through the gospel, and now you esteem him like no other.

 

His unfair trial

 

What about his arrest and trial? Isaiah saw in v8 and 9 that it would be a terrible miscarriage of justice. 

 

“By oppression and judgment he was taken away yet who of his generation protested? Though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”

 

No one stood up for him, did they? Everyone passed the buck. No one could be bothered. Pilate couldn't find a single fault in him and pleaded weakly with the crowd but then washed his hands of him. He was clearly innocent of every charge laid against him. 

 

His trial was a joke. The witnesses couldn’t even get their lame testimonies to agree. They kept changing the charges against him, making it up as they went along. It was a set up. 

 

He was held in contempt by his own people who thought nothing of releasing a violent murderer into the streets instead. 

 

Never, before or since, was one man found guilty by so many by the evidence of so few. Never has a punishment been more severe, for a prosecution more dubious.

 

His disfigured form

 

What of the physical features of his death? What did Isaiah see 750 years before the cross? He saw that the gruesomeness of his beatings would be so savage and bloodthirsty that people wouldn’t recognise him anymore.

 

“His appearance (v14) “was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness.” 

 

His flogging was an unrelenting tearing of his back, his arms and legs. His crown of thorns will have masked his face in blood.  

 

Verse 5 says “He was pierced…” Isaiah saw that his death was not going to be the result from poisoning, or hanging, or drowning, or burning, or suffocation - but from wounds punctured in his flesh. There would be blood, and it would be ugly.

 

“Many,” he says, “were appalled at him.”

 

His silent obedience

 

What of Jesus’ attitude to his suffering? Isaiah saw a man, in v7, who would go silently and without a fight to his execution. At no point did Jesus try to argue his way out of trouble. 

 

“As a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”

 

The Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod plied him with questions, but Jesus gave no reply. He went to the cross silently, because he went to the cross willingly. 

 

John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus died at the same time that Passover lambs were slaughtered in the temple to symbolically take away the sins of the people for another year. But Jesus was the Lamb of God slain to actually remove the sins of the world forever. 

 

His assumed guilt

 

Beyond his rejection, Isaiah, in v4, goes further saying that, being executed, people will actually believe that he is getting his just deserts. 

 

“We considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.” People felt this was God’s doing. The irony is that they were right.

 

His preordained destiny

 

It was no accident. It was purposeful. It was God’s plan, says v10, from beginning to end. “Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer.”

 

We are meant to know this; we are meant to know that behind this appalling suffering lay the saving purpose of God to display his love for sinners like us. It is intentional. What more could God do to persuade you that he loves you?

 

But the fact that people believed that Jesus was being stricken by God explains why there was so little open sympathy for him. In the Gospels, people say things like, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah.” We’re told the crowd jeered and laughed as he carried his cross. The leaders sneered at him. Men insulted him and spat in his face. The death squad played dice for his clothes. 

 

His merciful intercession 

 

What on earth did they think when he began to pray for his executioners as he hung there dying? “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” 

 

Isaiah, in v12, foresaw that too. “He made intercession for the transgressors.” But, even when he did that, people did not realise that the man they put to death was this figure Isaiah prophesied about. 

 

His undisputed death

 

Isaiah also makes it absolutely clear in v8 that his vision of a suffering servant was not an ordeal from which he later recovered. No. He faded, and faded, then he stopped breathing, and then his head dropped and his body hung limp and lifeless. 

 

“For he was says Isaiah, “cut off from the land of the living.”

 

He died of his injuries. The Gospels too describe how his death was certified beyond doubt. Research now shows that the copious flow of blood, followed by the copious flow of water described in John’s Gospel are medical evidence of cardiac rupture. Jesus died literally of a broken heart.

 

His distinctive burial

The Gospels also explain that, as a final indignity, Jesus died between thieves, and he wasn’t even accorded the honour of having his own grave. Instead, his lifeless corpse was hurriedly placed in the borrowed tomb of a wealthy man called Joseph of Arimathea. 

 

Isaiah, in v9, saw even that. “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death.” This is, by any standards, a compellingly vivid prophetic portrait of the Lord's passion and death.

 

His atoning sacrifice

 

But everything I have said so far is of secondary importance. Because the main burden of Isaiah’s vision is its spiritual significance. 

 

No less than ten times between v4 and v12, Isaiah says that in his death, this suffering servant will somehow take upon himself all our sicknesses, sorrows and sinfulness. He himself will absorb the wrath of God and bear the punishment of death that our sin fully deserves. He himself will suffer the torment that is separation from God on our behalf. 

 

“Surely, he took up our pain and bore our suffering…” (v4)

“He was crushed for our iniquities…  By his wounds we are healed…” (v5)

“The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”. (v6)

“For the transgression of my people he was punished.” (v8)

“The Lord makes his life an offering for sin…” (v10)

 

Imagine you fall into a pit, and you can’t get out. You look at social media on your phone and you see a motivational post that says, “Believe in yourself and you will get out of your pit.” An optimist comes along and shouts down to you, “Well, things could be worse.” A pessimist follows close behind and shouts down, “Actually, things will get worse.” A journalist turns up with a film crew and asks you for an exclusive on how you fell into the pit. A politician arrives and says, “It’s the other party’s fault that you fell into the pit.” A psychologist looks down and tells you, “It’s because of your mother and father that you are in that pit.” But Jesus, seeing you, is filled with compassion. He climbs down, puts you on his shoulders, and helps you safely out, condemning himself to being in the pit in your place. If you will let him.

 

When I was about 20 years old, I was offered a free, all-expenses paid, two-week trip to Israel. It included flights, hotels, food, drink, tour guide, insurance – everything. 

 

I’ll tell you how it happened. A friend of mine had booked to go but, about two weeks beforehand, she landed a job and had to start during those holiday dates. She said to her new employer, “But I’m on holiday then.” 

They said, “We’ll reimburse you – and we’ll add the cost of your trip to your annual salary.” 

 

Well, I had just been saying to her how I envied her being able to go to Israel and see all the sights. She said, “Here’s my ticket. Take it. It’s yours. All paid up.” All I needed to do was renew my passport which was out of date. Everything was free. There was no cost at all. 

 

But if I hadn’t got up and sorted my passport out, I couldn’t have gone.

Jesus paid your debt in full on the cross, he climbed down into the pit to save you but unless you get up and accept what he offers by faith, unless you let him lift you out, you are no better off.

 

So believe Christ died and rose again for you! Receive him into your heart by faith! Commit your life to him today as your Lord and Saviour. No decision you make in life will be more important, or less regretted. Why delay it any longer?

 

This is what it’s all about. We cannot save ourselves. Even our good works cannot save us; they are filthy rags in comparison with Christ’s righteousness. The good news is this; the Lord so loved us that he was willingly crushed, bruised and punished for our sin. All our sins and mess were transferred on to him as though he were the guilty one. 

 

1 Peter 3.18 puts it like this: “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”

 

And even better than that, he gifts you his righteousness as if it were your own.

 

Satan hates the cross, because Christ defeated him on it; it seals his doom. When Islamic State terrorists spread over Iraq and Syria in 2014, the first thing they did in every town was to smash crosses on church buildings to bits. 

 

Satan hates the cross. Even in the UK, we have all heard of Christians who’ve been bullied, demoted and even sacked for wearing a cross at work. A few years ago, a well-known supermarket chain photoshopped out the cross from the roof of a church that featured on its yoghurt packaging. 

 

People seem to fall over themselves to promote other religious festivals in the UK, but for some strange reason, everyone seems to feel the need to censor or airbrush what Christ achieved on the cross. 

 

Why? Isaiah tells us why. “He was despised and rejected by mankind,” he was held in low esteem. And he still is. 

 

His triumphant resurrection

 

Did Isaiah see anything else? Was it just an appalling vision of undeserved suffering? Was there anything more? Yes, there is one last thing. 

 

750 years before the events, Isaiah, in v10, was given the revelation that after his trial, his suffering, his death and burial, new life would spring forth. “Though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days…”

 

When I saw what Kathie went through on four occasions she brought our children into the world, I felt that my love for her had never been greater. She was more beautiful to me than in those moments, though sweaty and noisy and messy, than at any other time. 

 

How much more the cross, though brutal, is beautiful because its agonies give birth to new life. 

 

“After he has suffered,” says Isaiah in v11-12, “he will see the light of life and be satisfied. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great… because he poured out his life unto death.”

 

This is the majesty of the cross. Out of its unsightly ugliness and gruesome darkness comes new birth, life forever, and unspeakable joy.

 

Ending

The very first verse of the next chapter in Isaiah says, “Sing, burst into song, shout for joy.” So, as we make our response, I want to invite you to come to the foot of the cross with an overflowing heart of grateful praise. 

 

Let's stand to worship...

Sermon preached at King's Church darlington, 13 April 2025.

The Abandoned Victim (Psalm 22.1-31)

Introduction

The US-based British author Os Guinness begins his book entitled Unspeakable with a personal recollection of the 9/11 atrocity. He happened to be in New York City on that very day, and this is what he writes: 

“September 11th, 2001, was marked down in my calendar for a dinner discussion in Manhattan on the theme of evil. When the dinner did take place, a week after the ruthless terrorist strike, the only other people in the hotel were the survivors from an investment firm that had lost nearly 70 people in the tragedy. One of them who attended our discussion had made it down safely from the 104th floor of the second tower and was a harrowing witness to the day of terror. As our host said in introducing the discussion of some key readings on evil, “When I read some of these readings before September 11, I thought they were far too dark. When I read them again after September 11, they weren't nearly dark enough.”

Evil and the cross

Among the questions it seems most natural to ask in the wake of shocking calamities like 911 are, “Why?” “Where was God?” “Why didn’t he stop it?” And it is that very sense of utter bewilderment, that opens the psalm we are going to look at together today, Psalm 22. 

It’s a psalm of lament, or complaint, that carries an important truth - some of you need to hear this right now - sometimes God puts you on your own in difficult places and dire situations because he wants you to know that ultimately you don’t need anything or anybody but him.

In this sixth of seven Old Testament passages that speak prophetically about the cross, Psalm 22 sounds the depths of wretchedness, and desolation, and the pits of being Godforsaken, the sense that God himself has dumped you and walked away. 

The passion narratives in the Gospels, that describe Christ’s sufferings, include 13 direct quotes from the Old Testament and 5 of them, over a third, come from this one psalm. 

The heading of Psalm 22 says that it was written by David, as roughly half the psalms were. But when you read through the accounts of David’s life in the books of Samuel and Chronicles, no event described there remotely corresponds to the distress described here. 

Even when David is taking refuge in desert caves, hunted down like a dog by Saul, or when he is humiliatingly ousted from his throne by his arrogant son Absalom, nothing matches the afflictions, the indignity, or the loneliness expressed in this psalm. Nothing even comes close. So Psalm 22, though written by David in the first person, is patently not about himself. 

We sometimes think of David as a king, or a shepherd, or a songwriter, or a war hero. He was all these things. But in Acts 2 he is described instead as a prophet and this is a prophetic psalm, pointing unmistakably to the abandonment, anguish and agony of the cross around 1,000 years later. 

Psalm 22 is a prophetic vision of the Messiah’s sufferings. It depicts a man in extreme pain, thirsty, his hands and feet pierced through, surrounded, helpless, distressed, mocked and hated, the object of derision, his clothes the prize of a game of dice.

As we read through the psalm, three ways that Jesus suffered on the cross come into focus.

Verses 1-5 describe his spiritual abandonment. Verses 6-10 describe his mental anguish. And verses 11-21 describe his physical agony.

Spiritual abandonment

Let’s read the first section then; his spiritual abandonment.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises. In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried out and were saved; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

The first line of this psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was quoted, as I’m sure most of us know, by Jesus on the cross. Matthew and Mark both mention it.

Did you know that this is the only one of twenty-one prayers of Jesus in the Gospels where he does not address God as Father? That’s because, for the first time ever, Jesus felt the pain of separation from his Father. 

Jesus wasn’t expressing a loss of faith here; it was a loss of fellowship. It wasn’t a cry of doubt; it was a call of disorientation. On the cross, as the weight of the world’s wickedness pressed down on him, as the ugliness of sin crushed him, the Father turned his face away. 

“I cry out, but you do not answer,” he says in v2. Feel his loneliness and dereliction. All his desperate praying fall on deaf ears. The heavens are like brass. Why?

Day turns to night in v2, foreshadowing the darkness that came over the land as Jesus’ death drew near. 

“You delivered our ancestors” he says in v4. So often in the past, the Lord had brought about great victories, miraculous escapes. But this time, there is no rescue. Why? Why? Why? This is his spiritual abandonment.

Mental anguish

Verses 6-10 show us his mental anguish.

But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. ‘He trusts in the Lord,’ they say, ‘let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.’ Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

Feel his humiliation. “I am a worm, and not a man” he says in v6 as he listens to a volley of insults. He hangs there uncovered as people jeer and laugh. They goad him. What a loser. With a crown of thorns pressed down on his head, what sort of pathetic king is this? Both Matthew and Mark agree that both condemned thieves on his right and left begins by heaping insults on Jesus.

And it’s not just that they make fun of him. They hate him. “Scorned by everyone,” v6, “despised by the people.” They see him as a let-down. 

In v10, he thinks back to his childhood, moments of tenderness and safety, being held and comforted in his mother’s arms. Mary of course is there at the cross, distraught, barely able to watch, but unable to walk away from her boy.

Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ depicts the final 12 hours of Jesus’ life. The film divided critical opinion. Many panned it for its excessive violence. One critic called it The Greatest Gory Ever Told. 

On its release, the New York Post ran a front-page story reporting audience reaction as extremely positive with some viewers weeping and declaring they would never be the same again.

But some viewers left the cinema sniggering. One said he had to press his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud as he watched. He called it the most preposterous thing he had ever seen. 

In the psalm as well, they mock him and laugh at his useless faith; “he trusts in the Lord, let the Lord rescue him.” On the cross they goad him in the same way; “he saved others, let him save himself.”  

Physical agony

If v1-5 speak of his spiritual abandonment, and v6-10 describe his mental anguish, v11-21 tell us of his physical agony. He is utterly drained and in an advanced state of exhaustion.

Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus was scourged before carrying his cross to Golgotha. The Romans used whips with pieces of bone and iron attached. By the time they nailed Jesus to the cross, his back will have been like butchered meat. Such was the severity of the flogging they dished out, that David describes in v14 all his bones being out of joint. 

The shock from loss of blood and the heat of the midday sun would have led to extreme dehydration. Verse 15 mentions this; “My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, [that’s a fragment of sun-baked clay] and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.” All four Gospels describe Jesus’ thirst and that he was offered vinegar to drink, which he refused.

Verse 16 describes the tell-tale wounds of crucifixion. It says, “they have pierced my hands and my feet.” This is particularly remarkable because the Jewish means of capital punishment in David’s time was stoning. But crucifixion, blunt iron spikes through the hands and feet was a form of execution devised by the Romans four centuries after Psalm 22 was written. In fact, in the days of King David, the city of Rome hadn’t even been founded, let alone developed into an empire!

David talks about being surrounded by roaring lions, strong bulls, powerful dogs and wild oxen. Fierce animals, snarling, snorting, prowling; these are what the pack of villains in v16 seem like to him. Intimidating and terrifying, like the sadistic execution squad that had the grim assignment of being the human face of Rome’s killing machine. 

Jesus went through living hell and his pain was excruciating. Like Os Guinness’ reflections on evil, in the wake of 9/11, this psalm isn’t nearly dark enough.

Resurrection

Psalm 22 is a lament, a grieving song – or at least the first 21 verses are. Because from v22 onwards, the tone suddenly shifts from pain and torment to praise and triumph. 

The psalm is like the flight of a boomerang. Only a fool would judge the flight of a boomerang based on the first half of its trajectory, and only a fool would criticise God’s hiddenness from Jesus while he was suffering on the cross.

Here’s how the psalm ends - v22: 

I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honour him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfil my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord will praise him – may your hearts live for ever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him – those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!

Why does the psalm change tone so abruptly? Because David’s prophetic focus travels from Good Friday to Easter Sunday and beyond. It’s all about the Messiah’s resurrection and ascension. He is raised from death, and he reigns on high.

God has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one, v24. Now, Jesus can build a mighty church from all the families of the nations (v27), and all future generations (v30). The poor (v26) and the rich alike (v29) will feast and worship and be satisfied. He is worthy of praise (v22) and honour (v23). Many will turn to the Lord and bow down before him (v27). His rule and dominion (v28) extend to the ends of the earth. He has done it (v31)! Or as Jesus put it, “It is finished!”

A couple of weeks ago, the former world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman died. Curiously, the fight he was probably best known for was one he lost - to Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa; the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle.” 

When you watch the fight on YouTube, it is scarcely believable Foreman lost that bout. Foreman absolutely pounded his opponent for seven rounds. He landed punch after punch and Ali was barely able to move himself off the ropes. Everyone thought the outcome was a foregone conclusion. 

But Ali’s strategy, was to soak up every punch until Foreman’s strength was spent, his arms heavy and stiff with lactic acid. Then, in the eighth round, Ali sprung off the ropes, and with just a few, well-aimed, powerful blows Foreman was down and out for the count. 

The devil had Christ on the ropes on Good Friday: he landed every blow; mockery, spit in the face, getting thumped blindfolded, thorns pulled down on his head, flogging, shame, extreme thirst, spikes through his hands and feet, blood loss, shock, excruciating pain, exhaustion and slow asphyxiation… and it looked to all the world that Satan had won by a landslide. 

But Jesus was soaking it all up, and in the eighth round – or rather, on the third day – he rose again, and dealt the evil one an authoritative and decisive knockout blow.

Response

As he got older, the genius artist Michelangelo declined many prestigious and lucrative commissions, choosing instead in his last few years to depict the crucifixion. 

He did many, many line drawings of it and he chiselled a famous sculpture called La Pietà of Jesus’ body being taken down from the cross for burial. And he said, “Neither painting nor sculpture will be able any longer to calm my soul, now turned towards that divine love that opened his arms on the cross to take us in.” 

Why is the cross the supreme symbol of our Christian faith? Why not a manger to remind us that he came humbly as a baby? Why not an empty tomb to remind us that he conquered death? Why the cross? 

Because, more than anything else, it tells us that we are loved. And it tells us that we are friends of God. Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friends. 

Kenneth Bailey, in his book Jesus, through Middle Eastern Eyes, reports an event that was confirmed to him by a high-ranking American intelligence officer, serving in Jordan at the time.

One night in the early 1980s, King Hussain of Jordan, was informed by his security police that a group of about 75 Jordanian army officers were at that very moment meeting in a nearby barracks, plotting a military overthrow of his kingdom. The security officers requested permission from the king to surround the barracks and arrest the plotters. 

After a long pause, the king refused and said to them, “Bring me a small helicopter.” So a helicopter was brought. The king climbed in with the pilot, and they flew to the barracks and landed on its flat roof. The king then told the pilot, “If you hear gunshots, fly away at once without me.” 

Unarmed, the king then walked down two flights of stairs, and suddenly appeared in the room where the plotters were meeting. He then quietly said to them, “Gentlemen, it has come to my attention that you are meeting here tonight to finalise your plans to overthrow the government, take over the country and install a military dictator. If you do this, the army will break apart and the country will be plunged into Civil War. Tens of thousands of innocent people will die. There is no need for this. Here I am! Kill me and proceed. That way, only one man will die.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. They saw a king, ready to lay down his life for the people he loved. It melted their hearts and from that day on they would walk through fire for their king. So the rebels, as one, rushed forward to kiss the king’s hand and feet, and they pledged loyalty to him for life.

As you reflect on what Jesus was willing to go through for you, what is your response going to be? Are you going to kiss the hands and feet of the King of kings, still scarred with the wounds of the cross? Are you going to pledge loyalty to him – maybe for the first time today, or perhaps in coming back to him after a season of listening to the enemy? Are you ready to walk through fire for your King, if that is what it takes?

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 6 April 2025.

Cursed (Deuteronomy 21.22-23 and Galatians 3.7-14)

 

Introduction

 

Back in 1994, as civil war was wreaking havoc in Burundi, a nurse walked into the hospital lavatories and spotted something in one of the toilets. It was moving. It was a newborn and premature baby girl who had been left abandoned, but miraculously, she was still alive. The only reason she didn’t drown is that her neck was caught in the U-bend of the toilet bowl.

 

The nurse fished her out, cleaned her up, and contacted a woman called Chrissie Chapman, who was the only person in Bujumbura taking in abandoned babies or orphans at the time. Chrissie took this baby in when she was five days old and gave her the most beautiful name, the only name to adequately capture what her little life embodied: Grace.

 

This precious baby girl, just 5 lbs in weight, was put on antibiotics as a preventative measure because her severed umbilical cord had been in contact with the toilet water. We will never know, but it seems likely that these antibiotics, due to their high dose, were what led to Grace losing any sense of hearing. 

 

Months later, a specialist diagnosed her with profound deafness, and there was nothing that could be done. Can you imagine a more cursed start to life? Thrown away down a toilet and with a life-defining disability... 

 

I’ll come back to that story later because it has a remarkable twist. But our world is both rich in blessings and blighted by curses, and that is what I’m going to be talking about today.

 

So far in this Before the Cross series we have seen four prophetic pictures of Christ’s afflictions for us from the first four books of the Old Testament. The fifth book in the Bible is Deuteronomy, where we find yet another prefiguring of the cross.

 

If you’ve ever read the Bible through, first of all, well done for getting past Leviticus; it’s not an easy read as we noted two weeks ago. But secondly, you may have noticed that when you get to Deuteronomy, it often duplicates, sometimes almost word-for-word, what you’ve already just read in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. 

 

And you may have asked yourself why? Why does God repeat himself in this way? To answer that question, we need to travel back in time to the world in which Deuteronomy was written. We would have to set our Time Machine to somewhere around the year 1250 B.C. If we could do that, what would we see? 

 

We would see that for four decades, God’s people have been going nowhere, round and round in circles in the Sinai desert. It’s nothing to do with the fact that the men didn’t ask for directions either. The Bible tells us that the reason it has taken the Israelites 40 years to complete a 12-day journey is stubborn unbelief. Unbelief literally gets you nowhere. 

 

But now, finally, at the end of those 40 years, God’s people are camped on the plains of Moab, on the east bank of the River Jordan, beyond which lies the land flowing with milk and honey that God has promised to give them. Only three people who experienced the dramatic and miraculous escape from Egypt through the Red Sea 40 years earlier are still alive; Moses, Joshua and Caleb. 

 

Everyone else who fled from Pharaoh at the first Passover has since died in the wilderness. So we’re looking at an almost entirely new nation. And Moses, a very old man now, knows that soon, in a matter of a few days, this young generation will, at last, take possession of this promised land - and he, Moses, is not going to be one of them. God has revealed to him that he has about a week to live. 

 

So Moses spends the last days of his life writing down and explaining God’s word all over again for this new generation. This is what we call Deuteronomy. Deutero meaning “second”, and nomos meaning “law,” it’s the second law. Because it's a repeat of all that stuff in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers – except that this time it is for an entirely new audience. And that explains why you have a sense of deja vu when you read it immediately after what comes before. 

 

The key message of Deuteronomy therefore is this; every generation has to discover God for itself. The faith of those who lived before us is not sufficient to get us through. It is not enough to say, “well, my dad was a deacon in the Baptist Church.” Or, “my grandmother was on the flower rota at Saint Hilda’s.” Or “our family is staunch Methodist going back three generations.” Listen, you are truly blessed if you come from a Christian family; that’s the best start in life anyone can have. But at the end of the day, you cannot inherit someone else’s relationship with God; it has to be your own. 

 

If you’re a parent, the most valuable gift you can give to your children is to model and live out an authentic relationship with God through Jesus Christ. They see that. They see that your faith is fake, when doesn’t seem important to you. They see when it does, when it is real. Pray that your children will know and love the Lord for themselves. Show them a life of faith that they will want to emulate. This legacy is more precious than anything you can leave in your will. But, remember, in the end, you can only hand on your faith so far. They have to embrace it for themselves.  

 

Blessings and Curses

 

I started by mentioning blessings and curses, because this is one the main themes of Deuteronomy. Obedience leads to a blessed life. And disobedience leads to a cursed life. But God is always more eager to bless than to curse; the word, “curse”, appears 31 times in Deuteronomy. But the word “bless” appears 44 times. God is a God who delights to bless. His plan and purpose are that we flourish under his blessing.

 

The very first words spoken over Adam and Eve after God gives them life and breath are words of blessing. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number’.” 

 

When God calls Abraham - a pivotal moment in salvation history - he says, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 

 

When God establishes the priesthood, foreshadowing Jesus as the perfect bridge between God and us, he says to the priests, “This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.” 

 

The first Psalm begins with blessing. “Blessed is the one… whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on it day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers.” 

 

The first recorded public teaching in Jesus’ ministry is the Sermon on the Mount - and the very first word on his lips is, “blessed.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus went on to say, “bless those who curse you…” 

 

On and on it goes; this golden thread of blessing throughout the Bible continues until the very last chapter of the very last book which says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city [of God].” 

 

You need to know that God is for you, he wants you to thrive. He is eager to bless you. This is his plan. But the whole truth is that God does not only bless, because the entry of sin into the world in Genesis 3 resulted in his curse.

 

Back in the nineteen-seventies, there was a church in West London, which displayed posters on its public billboard to attract the attention of passers-by. One notice carried the following message: Are you tired of sin? Then come inside. But regrettably, there was too much blank space on the poster and underneath someone had scribbled, “If not, call Raunchy Rick on 337269.”

 

The devil loves us to think that sin is great, and that hell is where all the fun is. It’s a lie. Sin alienates us from God. It never satisfies. It messes up your life. It’s addictive, and wearying, and controlling, and energy-sapping. Sin is slow death by strangulation. It brings you under a curse that you feel you can’t get free from.

 

One of the curses in Deuteronomy comes in chapter 27 and it says this; Cursed is anyone who does not uphold all the words of this law [that is the law of Moses, summarised in the Ten Commandments] by carrying them out.”

That’s a problem, because James 2.10 says, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” 

 

Imagine keeping all God’s law, all your life, except just one time you covet someone’s dress, or you take a pen home from work, or you tell a little lie – it’s the same as if you’ve broken all the commandments. Does that seem unfair? 

 

Here’s how it works: imagine you buy a beautiful white carpet for your living room, and on the first day, someone spills a bottle of ink on it. They might say, “oh, what’s one small ink stain? Get over it. 99% of the carpet is fine.”

But all you can see when you walk into your living room is that ugly ink mark on your beautiful, expensive carpet. When you try and clean it, it just makes the splodge worse. The carpet is ruined. 

 

Or imagine someone serves you an omelette made with 6 eggs, one of which was left out in the sun for a week. But the other five were fine! “And look, what’s one tiny dose of salmonella or e-coli? It’s microscopic, it’s no big deal.” Yes, it is a big deal, you’ve got food poisoning! Your whole body feels terrible!” 

 

If I pull just one pearl off a necklace, all the other beads fall to the floor. And in exactly the same way, just one sin in my life breaks friendship with God, and it shuts the door to heaven, and it puts me under a curse. It’s a big problem and it needs a big solution. Thankfully, there is one and curiously it comes in the form of another curse in Deuteronomy. Chapter 21, verses 22-23. Here’s what it says:

 

“If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse.”

 

Primitive societies used to expose the bodies of anyone guilty for a capital offence after their death; it was the strongest expression of reproach and disgrace to convey the shame of the crime committed. It was designed to dissuade the living from repeating offences like murder and rape themselves. 

But this scripture shows how God preserved the dignity of even the worst criminals by insisting that their corpses be removed from public disgrace and buried before nightfall.

 

It’s a very obscure law, for a very different kind of society to our own. But even as recently as the French Revolution people used to display severed heads on spikes. They still do such things in places like Syria today. 3,500 years earlier, God mandated respect for the dead and dignified burial customs. 

 

This strange law might well have got forgotten in one of the least read, least obviously relevant parts of the Bible, were it not for the fact that the Apostle Paul picks it up in his letter to the Galatians many years later. As always with Paul, his logic is very tightly packed together, so you need to concentrate, but here’s the passage:

 

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” 

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

 

So in other words, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is saying, “No one ever manages to go through the whole of their life with a perfect record.” Let me try and illustrate that… 

 

There are two men sitting next to each other on an airplane, let’s call them Bill and Ben. Eventually, they ask each other what they do for a living. Bill says he is a businessman. Ben says he is a pastor. As soon Ben says that, Bill squirms uncomfortably in his seat. 

 

But then Bill says, “Well, as it happens, I’m a Christian too!” Ben says “Well, that’s great. What church do you go to?” “Oh,” says Bill, “errr, my wife goes to… what’s it called… well, she goes there every week and I go with her at Christmas and Remembrance. I am a patriotic and law-abiding, good person. When it comes to my professional life, I have a reputation of being honest.” 

 

In fact, Bill thinks he is an upstanding citizen and an excellent role model. In his mind, can barely put a cigarette paper between his moral goodness and God himself. So pastor Ben says, “That’s fascinating. Tell me, would you be interested in me explaining to you what the Bible says about all this?” and Bill says “Yes, that would be great.” 

 

So Ben draws a ladder on a napkin. He says, “Let’s call this the Ladder of Goodness. We will put God on the top rung and that makes sense. He is a perfect God. He is a holy God. At the bottom of the ladder, you have axe murderers and terrorists.” He turns to Bill and says, “Where do you think you should put yourself on this ladder? Where do you think you fit? But before you commit yourself, let’s put some other names on the ladder.” Bill says, “OK then.” 

 

Ben says, “Who would be, to your mind, the holiest, best, most morally upright Christian in your entire lifetime?” Bill thinks for a minute and says, “Well, that would have to be Mother Teresa, hands down.” Ben says, “I wouldn’t disagree.” I think Mother Teresa was fantastic. But when you read her writings or listen to her interviews, you find surprisingly that she did not speak highly of herself at all. She talked about how impatient she was, how angry she got, how hard she was on her colleagues. I think she would put herself about… here. Under halfway down!

 

They come up with a few other names. Billy Graham, Pope Francis, I don’t know - Cliff Richard, Jenny Coltman… But each time, Ben talks about what they have said about their own unworthiness. “Pope Francis, for example, when they approached him about becoming Pope, he said, Don’t pick me, I am a sinful man.” Billy Graham in his autobiography, talks about his many failings and weaknesses. So they put a few more crosses on the ladder.

 

Then Pastor Ben turns and says, “Now, where are you going to put yourself on that ladder? Mother Teresa is about halfway down and Billy is underneath her and I put myself right down here near the bottom. Where are you?” 

 

There it is, in visual form, the curse that falls upon everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law. Bill says, “I’m screwed.” Ben says, “That’s right! So am I! We all are. That’s the point. The Bible says, all have sinned and fall short. But God has bridged the gap between his infinitely beautiful moral perfections and our undeniable moral wretchedness by giving his Son.”

 

“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Jesus took the full deadly curse of that huge gap upon himself on the cross.

 

John Stott says, “To the unbelieving Jew it was inconceivable that the Messiah should die ‘on a tree’, that is, under the curse of God. To the unbelieving Gentile it was ludicrous to suppose that a god, one of the immortals, should die.” 

 

The mangled body of a crucified man is still today a massive stumbling block for many. Some laugh. Others feel uncomfortable talking about it. Most people in the UK ignore it as irrelevant. 

 

Ending

 

But when Jesus died, he took upon himself the full weight of every ugly sin, of the world’s shame and fallenness, of generations and generations of ingrained wickedness and the curse it casts on every man, woman and child and he drank the cup of God’s justified wrath against sin until it was dry.

 

And because he did, he set in motion a cycle of grace to bring blessing on our cursed world. 

 

As I come towards the end, I invite you to marvel with me at how Christ becoming a curse for us, releases a tidal wave of blessing. I began by talking about a newborn little girl called Grace with her cursed start to life. Found barely alive, remember, thrown away down a toilet by her mother and left profoundly deaf. 

 

When Grace was 6 months old, a visiting pastor to her orphanage asked if he could pray over her. No one objected, I mean why would you? So he put oil on her ears to anoint her in the name of the Lord. And he prayed for her healing. For the next three days, if anything, it seemed to get worse. Grace screamed, non stop, every minute she was awake. Nobody knew what to do. 

 

It was only when someone accidentally slammed a door and Grace suddenly jolted that they realized her tears and screams were because she had been healed and could now hear everything was going on, which she found frightening because she wasn’t used to it.       

This is Grace today, telling her story on YouTube. Grace has matured into a fun-loving, intelligent and articulate young lady. She finished school with excellent grades and was awarded a university scholarship. She is now 31 and she is full of faith. She knows that God has big plans for her life. 

 

The power of her story has impacted many, many people, and she is playing a massive part in Burundi’s healing and transformation. This is what our God does; he takes rejected, afflicted, blighted, cursed humanity, left to die in filth and he restores, heals and beautifies it by becoming himself rejected, afflicted, blighted and cursed.

 

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

 

May the Lord sever the ties of curses and open up heaven's door to release his blessing as we respond to his word now…     

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 30 March 2025.