//Isaiah 53(MSG)
Who believes what we've heard and
seen?
Who would have
thought God’s saving power would look like this?
The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in
a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause
us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who
suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on
him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our
disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was
punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and
tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his
bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our
own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.
He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say
a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep
being sheared,
he took it all in
silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone
really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for
the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a
grave with a rich man,
Even though he’d never hurt a soul
or said one word
that wasn't true.
Still, it’s what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with
pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he’d see
life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God’s plan will
deeply prosper through him.
Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he’ll see that
it’s worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many
“righteous ones,”
as he himself
carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly—
the best of
everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he
embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the
cause of all the black sheep.
the final post of the i·den·ti·ty challenge, part four, will be posted shortly.
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