Encountering the Word
See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals—so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate. Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should 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 he was despised, and we held him of no account. [Full text: Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12]
Contemplating the Word
This is the final day in our program. The journey of Lent comes to a conclusion and we enter into the silence of the tomb. The joy of Easter Sunday is just around the corner, but we are not there yet.
I remember the first time I encountered this reading from the prophet Isaiah. Its relevance to Jesus seemed so obvious, even though it had been written centuries before. I have since learned that Isaiah was a prophet, not a fortune-teller. He didn’t have Jesus explicitly in mind. What he understood was God’s preference to reside in, and work through, the abandoned and the rejected: ‘whatever you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to me’.
God’s ways are not our ways. Those who see themselves as calling the shots when it comes to God’s plan are, invariably, sadly mistaken. Isaiah recognises this and sees in “the suffering servant” (either a person of his acquaintance or himself) the presence of God – suffering in and with that person.
That this account would one day be applied to Jesus should not be surprising to us. There is a remarkable consistency in the way that God works. His ways are not our ways. In fact, he avoids our ways, because utilising them would give us the mistaken impression that we are in charge. In Jesus we see that God defies human logic.
Being the Word
As we contemplate the suffering and crucified Christ on this day, it can be salutary to acknowledge that, as we live our vocation as baptised sons and daughters of God, the cross is never far away. In your journey towards the fullness of the life God is offering you, you will experience both death and resurrection a number of times and in a number of ways.
In your death (metaphorical and physical) God provides you with the opportunity to locate a central reality in your life: that you are not God, God is. The question is, do you resist what God is teaching you? To find out, answer these quick questions for yourself: who owns your time, who owns your energy, and who owns your heart? If, like me, you find yourself thinking that you own your time, energy and heart, then be aware that you and I are still on the journey into healing and into life. There is more to come.
It would be nice to think that God can save us from the struggle inherent in the human condition: that suffering and death might no longer be part of our lives. But that is not what we are offered in Christ. Instead, this is the reality that Jesus came to show us; that in him every aspect of human experience, the good as well as the bad, can find meaning and be caught up into the eternal life that the Father offers us through the Son and in the Spirit.
During this week, we’re reminded that we stand at the foot of the cross and are caught up into the eternal life of the Blessed Trinity. There the Son pours out his life in love of the Father, and in so doing breathes on us the Spirit, allowing us to participate in the resurrected life that the Son experiences.
