Bible Study: Man of sorrows

Major Darren Shaw explores how strength can be found in weakness

ISAIAH 53

IF you could have any superpower, what would it be, and why? This question has no doubt been asked thousands of times during job interviews. (For the record, my choice would be teleportation.) I wonder if anyone has answered ‘sorrow’.

In Isaiah 53 we find a prophetic poem about a ‘man of sorrows’ (v3 New Living Translation) – a suffering servant whose superpowers are anguish and affliction. He is so familiar with grief and pain that he takes on the collective suffering of his people, becoming the very embodiment of their guilt and woundedness.

The suffering servant is an unexpected kind of hero. Disfigured and vulnerable, with no obvious appeal, what could possibly qualify him to bear the weight of a nation’s affliction? The ‘arm of the Lord’ (v1) – God’s power – is being revealed in someone who shows all the signs of being weak and downtrodden. Surely, in times of trouble, people need a superman, not a ‘sorrow man’! People need someone who is too powerful to have ever been troubled by suffering – someone who is invulnerable, not someone who seems to be the very definition of vulnerability.

QUESTIONS

How might vulnerability be a strength rather than a weakness?

What is this man of sorrow’s secret identity?

To many Christians, the obvious answer to the latter is Jesus. The Early Church certainly thought this but many commentators point out that this wouldn’t have been the author’s original intent. In the context of their contemporary culture, Isaiah’s prophecy would have meant something else to his audience.

QUESTIONS

How might Isaiah’s first audience, and subsequent generations, have interpreted the man of sorrows and his significance?

What light might Isaiah 49 shine on this?

Just as the intervening generations would have, Jesus’ disciples had a certain idea what Isaiah was talking about. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, however, they reread and re-embraced the Scriptures to form a new understanding of what the text meant in light of recent events. Jesus explained it to some disciples on the road to Emmaus (see Luke 24:25–27).

Isaiah 53 became a core part of Church teaching (see Acts 8:30–33; 1 Peter 2:22). Jesus was the ultimate sorrow man. He took on everyone’s brokenness and transformed it into wholeness. ‘Peace’ in verse 5 of our study passage is the Hebrew word shalom – a sense of wholeness and well-being.

QUESTION

What do verses 4 and 5 tell you about why bearing the suffering of others can be powerful?

The centuries that passed between Isaiah and Jesus brought much tribulation to God’s people. They suffered exile, persecution, desecration and destruction at the hands of powerful oppressors. Time and time again, their cultural and religious identity was under threat, not to mention their lives and livelihoods.

QUESTIONS

Can you see how the plight of God’s people could be reflected in verses 6 to 9?

What might some of these phrases mean if they were referring to a nation instead of an individual?

If we see only Jesus in Isaiah’s words, we never entertain the thought that God has had many suffering servants over the years. How many people suffered on behalf of others during the difficult times of exile and beyond? How many heroes of the faith poured themselves out on behalf of others in order to bring about restoration? How many still do?

Jesus is the ultimate sin-beating, death-shattering, life-winning, wholeness-bringing sorrow man, but his predecessors and his followers have also laid themselves low for the cause of God’s Kingdom.

In her song ‘Out Is Through’, Alanis Morissette wrote ‘The only way out is through’. Why a sorrow man and not a superman? Perhaps it’s because we can’t solve the problem of suffering by fighting it, or denying it, or finding ways around it. Perhaps going through it is the only way to reach what’s on the other side.

QUESTIONS

What insights do verses 10 to 12 give into what might be found on the other side of suffering?

How does this compare with Romans 5:3–5, Philippians 2:8–11 and 1 Peter 5:9–11?

In a suffering and broken world, what do these verses say to us?

I wonder what role Christians can play in helping others navigate the road marked with suffering. Is there a case to be made for being ‘sorrow men and women’, acquainted with grief or familiar with pain, ready to bear each other’s burdens? (See Romans 12:15; Galatians 6:2.) Or should we sweep all signs of anguish under the denial-andsmile carpet?

Jesus is fully divine. He is also fully human. As the ultimate ‘sorrow man’, Jesus was not superhuman but truly human – limited, frail, vulnerable and glorious. He showed us that the way to bring wholeness is to embrace brokenness. He proved that there is strength in weakness. I might change my mind about which superpower I’d choose.

MAJOR SHAW IS CORPS OFFICER, MALTBY AND DINNINGTON

Through the week with 'Salvationist'

- a devotional thought for each day by Major Freda Benneyworth

SUNDAY

Hear the shout! The King is coming!/ See the Christ comes riding by;/ Lift your palms in joyous welcome,/ Wave them joyfully on high./ See he comes in peace and glory,/ With his rightful claim as King;/ Raise your voices to acclaim him,/ Let your own ‘Hosanna!’ ring.

(SASB 140)

MONDAY

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain… But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that broughtus peace was on him, and by his woundswe are healed.

(Isaiah 53:3, 5)

TUESDAY

Man of sorrows! what a name/ For the Son of God, who came/ Ruined sinners to reclaim;/ Hallelujah! What a Saviour!/ Bearing shame and scoffing rude,/ In my place condemned he stood,/ Sealed my pardon with his blood;/Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

(SASB 183)

WEDNESDAY

‘You will all fall away,’ Jesus told them… Peter declared, ‘Even if all fall away, I will not.’ ‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘today – yes, tonight – before the cock crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.’ But Peter insisted emphatically, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.’ And all the others said the same.

(Mark 14:27, 29–31)

THURSDAY

There in the garden of tears,/ My heavy load he chose to bear;/ His heart with sorrow was torn,/ ‘Yet not my will but yours,’ he said./ This is our God, the Servant King,/ He calls us now to follow him,/ To bring our lives as a daily offering/ Of worship to the Servant King.

(SASB 165)

FRIDAY

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon… Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last. The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, ‘Surely this was a righteous man.’

(Luke 23:44, 46 and 47)

SATURDAY

On the mount of crucifixion/ Fountains opened deep and wide;/ Through the floodgates of God’s mercy/ Flowed a vast and gracious tide./ Grace and love, like mighty rivers,/ Poured incessant from above,/ And Heaven’s peace and perfect justice/ Kissed a guilty world in love.

(SASB 169)