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GOOD SHEPHERD LUTHERAN CHURCH Gaithersburg, Maryland

The Book of the “Isaiah – The Song of the Suffering Servant” The Fifth of Six Sessions Twenty Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – November 15, 2020

I. Let’s Think Further about Hebrew Prophecies We talked in our last session about the role of the Hebrew and our hearing their concerns in their time as well as looking for the truth for us in our time and community. But, there are three arenas in which we should study the prophets. In the first and most immediate sense, their words were likely addressed to the people and issues of their . Be it their profound knowledge and dedication to the word of or their observations of political developments, the first and obvious application of their words would have been among their contemporaries. This seems obvious as we read the Book of in the New Testament. It was written, we believe, to a Church under fearful persecution. Still, there are some who search the pages of the book for a clue to ’ coming in our time. Well maybe, but it would have Isaiah been of little help to the victims of the Roman persecution A on Ceiling of Sistime Chapel to know that was going to intervene 2,000 years later! by One must believe that it was a book of encouragement for those 1st century Christians as well. When we study it, we must also look for the hope in their time too! The first application of Hebrew prophecy is likely to be immediate. “If you repent of your evil, then Yahweh will repent of the judgement He has planned for you.” A Second focus of prophecy may be, from the start, for a later time. We can recall from our last session that Isaiah instructed King that he should resist the Assyrian siege of because God would deliver the city.1 Then, however, he followed that event with another prophecy for King Hezekiah: “The days are coming when all of your goods shall be carried away and your own sons shall be eunuchs serving the king in .” Hezekiah would live and rule for almost two decades, and they would be peaceful years. But King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, decades after the death of Hezekiah, would

1. God did deliver the city by the sword of an , apparently that very . By morning, 185,000 Assyian soldiers were found dead!

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 5 Rev.4 Pdf Page 1 besiege the city of Jerusalem in 598 BCE and again in 586 BCE, looting the treasury, destroying ’s Temple, and carrying away all that was valuable, including 10's of thousands of captives, . . . and the sons of Hezekiah would serve as eunuchs in Bsabylon. Sometimes prophecies are fulfilled long after they were first spoken. Even so, Biblical scholars today tend to emphasize that prophecy more often than not had an immediate application. This suggests that scholars and students of the Reading the Scriptures should begin by searching for meanings contemporary with the time of the prophets themselves.

II. Prophecy in the Holy Scriptures To Christians the is “the inspired Word of God.” Martin Luther liked to say “ is the cradle which holds the Christ Child.” The Bible, beginning with the Pentateuch in the Old Testament, has inspired Jewish people before us and now Christians together into this very day. It is for us the Word of God, a record of God speaking to us for thousands of years. Therefore, wether we claim both the Old and the New Testaments, or just the Old Testament, we hold on to what is for us ‘The Word of God.” Jesus taught from the Old Testament, and the New Testament Church searched the Scriptures of that day to find some way to “Know and preach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and sheer foolishness to the Gentiles.”2 Where did they search for this truth? It was the Old Testament and the Prophets! All of this brings us to a third use of ancient Hebrew prophecy. The Prophets are an integral part of the New Testament faith as well. We believe that the Holy Spirit works through the Scriptures in every age. Even ours! The point is that Yahweh has not changed. Our God yet hungers for righteousness and justice in this world. and and Isaiah, reaching back almost 2,800 years, still speak truth and direction to us in our time. The of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “God is the same, yesterday, now, and forever.”3 To serious students of Scripture, these words are indelibly inscribed upon our hearts. (And if not, they should be!”4) Imagine the surprise for the likes of the Apostles, and especially Paul, when they read . It must have jumped from the Hebrew scroll. It tells about the terrible price justice demands for our rebellion and the harm we have done and continue to do to one

2. I Corinthians 1:23.

3.. Hebrews 13:8.

4. Christians who accept less in themselves and in our leaders should be ashamed!

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 5 Rev.4 Pdf Page 2 another. Did Isaiah know he was speaking about Christ? Did Isaiah really understand the cost of sin? The answer to the first question is “probably not.” The answer to the second is “Absolutely!” He, like so many of the prophets before and after him, knew the righteousness of God and the utter destruction which disregard of God’s justice brings. Evil in this world is not funny. It is deadly. Just look around! The point is, no more and no less, that God speaks authoritatively and powerfully to us in the Scriptures.

III. Jesus’ Use of Old Testament Prophecy Did Old Testament prophets have anything to say to the time of Jesus? Well, it is clear that Jesus thought so, and he knew the Hebrew Scriptures well. As a child, he had heard the Pentateuch, the prophets, and the historical books and Psalms read in Hebrew. Many of them appear to have been committed to his memory. During the story of the Temptations of our Lord, following his Baptism by , he was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Three times the devil challenges Jesus, and each time Jesus answers “It is written. . .” lifting up a countering biblical quotation.5 The quotations were from Deuteronomy, the fourth book of the Torah. Torah Scroll Every synagogue in Jesus’ day read from the Torah, the Old Glockengasse Synagogue Law of God, as well as from the Psalms, the Prophets, and the Cologne, Germany historical books. The Gospel according to Saint Luke reports on a Sabbath day when Jesus returned to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. As was the custom, the superintendent of the Synagogue invited Jesus to speak and handed to him the . He chose :1-2a and read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”6 Saint Luke continues the story: And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The

5. The biblical quotations with which Jesus countered the temptations of the devil are Deuteronomy 8:3, Deuteronmy 6:13, and Deuteronomy 616, One can read the full sequence in Saint Luke 4:1-13' Note the last sentence of this sequence and the phrase “until an oportune time.” The devil never completely leaves us!

6. In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus is quoting Isaiah 61:1-2a.

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 5 Rev.4 Pdf Page 3 eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” “Today” is the operative word in Jesus’ “homily.” It is not Isaiah’s “tomorrow,” or even one hundred years after Isaiah. It is in Jesus’ day, approximately 30 CE! With the words of Isaiah, Jesus is defining his mission for Jesus’ moment in history. One more example from a huge inventory of examples, of Jesus’ use of the Old Testament. The Synoptic Gospels are clear that Jesus “staged” His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We remember his sending disciples into Jerusalem with a code phrase to pick up the donkey. He was “setting up” a role proclaimed by the Prophet Zechariah.7 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter ! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”8 Saint Matthew picks up the narrative. After Jesus was seated on the donkey, Saint Matthew reports that the crowd knew the prophecy and understood: “A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of ! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’”9 All of this is to say that Jesus understood the words of the early prophets to be of value and even to be fulfilled in his ministry. He deliberately claimed these instances listed here. John the Baptist did the same when he quotes as the definition and theme of his Hebrew - :9 wilderness preaching. Cutting to the chase, the Old Testament is widely quoted in the New Testament. There are 27 direct quotations in the Gospel of Mark, 54 in the Gospel of Matthew, 24 in Luke, and 14 in John, and these numbers are vastly increased if we count the allusions and

7. Zechariah was a 6th. Century BCE prophet. This quote, Zechariah 9:9, is from the first chapter of what scholars define and “Second Zechariah.’ He is clearly post exilic in his date.

8. Zechariah 9:9.

9. Saint Matthew 21:8-11.

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 5 Rev.4 Pdf Page 4 echoes as well.10 Half of Mark’s Gospel is composed of allusions and citations of scriptures.11 The Gospel of Matthew contains all of the quotations of Mark’s Gospel and introduces 30 more, sometimes in the mouth of Jesus and sometimes as his own commentary on the narrative.12 The writer of the Gospel of Luke makes reference to all but three of the Old Testament books!13 All of this fails to include and mention the use of the Old Testament in the Book of Acts, also believed to have been written by the same hand that produced the Gospel of Luke. Nor have we mentioned the use Saint Paul, a trained Pharisee, who also makes great use of the Old Testament in his several epistles. And, there are still others. Suffice it to say, there was no reluctance, and instead a disciplined practice, to present Jesus Christ as the Messiah often spoken of and predicted in the Old Testament. Nuff said!

IV. The Fourth Servant Poem: Second Isaiah, Chapter 53 “The Suffering Servant” You must be thinking, “Finally! Now we shall read Isaiah’s Fourth Servant Song.” But, before we begin, we need to say again that Isaiah may not have intended to focus on the Messianic hope in this passage. Some have suggested that this “” in Isaiah’s mind may have been the tribes of and Benjamin, the tribes of the Southern Kingdom who were dragged off to Babylon from Jerusalem and its surrounds after the destruction of Jerusalem in 596 and again in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king. For the nearly 40 years they were in exile, they were “clean cut off” from the temple, their religious practice, and even their God. After all, what good was Isaiah a God that could not protect His people? Since the days of the Sinai wanderings and before, Yahweh was their God and He claimed them as His people. That’s who they were. Now they were in Babylon, far from their land, their God, and finally from who they believed they were. Some modern scholars question whether Isaiah 53 is really about Jesus at all. They would offer that the prophets spoke only to their time. Clearly neither our Lord nor the New

10. Theresa Yu Chui Siang Lau, The Gospels in the Old Testsament (2010) in Harding Mark; Nobbs Allana (eds.)The Content and the Setting of the Gospel Traditiond, Erdmans. ISBN 9780802833181.p, 159.

11. Richard Valantasis; Douglas K. Bleyle; Dennis C. Haugh, The Gospels and the Christian Life in History and in Practice, Roeman and Little & Littlefield, 2009, p. 14.

12. Streve Moysie, Jesus and the Scripture: Studying the New Testeament Use of the Old Testament, Baker Books, 2011, p. 33. ISBN 9781441237491. .

13. Charles Kimball, Jesus’ Exposition of the Old Testament in Luke’s Gospel, Bloomsbury, 1994, p. 48. ISBN 0780567319081.

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 5 Rev.4 Pdf Page 5 Testament readers thought that to be so. All through the Old Testament the New Testament searched for clues to the Christ event as they knew it. And over and again, they found those clues. Theologically speaking, many theologians have joked that Martin Luther “could find Jesus Christ under every rock in the Old Testament.” Many of us believe that might be nothing of which one should be ashamed! Now, on to our reading of Isaiah 53, the “Fourth Servant Song of Isaiah.”

Isaiah 53 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2For 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. 3He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

4Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;14 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.

10 Yet 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.

14. Isaiah 53:4 – We know this text as “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 5 Rev.4 Pdf Page 6 12.Therefore 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.

VI. In Conclusion In his teaching and preaching years and until his death 75 years ago this year, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said over and again that Jesus Christ had done for us what not any of us could ever do for ourselves. He died for us! “The wages of sin are death” wrote Saint Paul. But he was not finished. He continued: “but the free gift from God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”15 Sin breaks off our closeness and relationship with God. That means our death. It is painful both to the God Dietrich Bonhoeffer whom we betray and to us. Therefore, if we ourselves pay Westminster Abbey the price of absence from God, the very source of our lives, London we die. There is no other choice for us. Jesus Christ is the only one among us who, “begotten of his Father before all worlds” has taken on our flesh and is one with us. He claims our iniquities and pays the price so that we may be forgiven. Bonhoeffer said over and again that Christ is the only one of us able to pay the price of our sin, and He has done it. Or, to quote Saint John, who says it just a bit differently: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever trusts Him, has eternal life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that torough Him, the world might be saved.”16

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah A Historical - Textual Study October 18 “Who Was Isaiah? How Many Isaiah’s Were There? October 25 “The Day Isaiah Went to Church” Some Significant Passages in Isaiah “A Beloved Prophecy and a Vineyard”17 November 8 “Isaiah - Passages before and After the Exile” November 15 “The Prophecy of the Suffering Servant

15. :25.

16. Saint John 3:16-17.

17. Philippians 4:8-9.

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 5 Rev.4 Pdf Page 7 November 22 “Some Hymns Inspired by Isaiah”

COMING SOON! Isaiah’s Vision for the Messiah Beginning on November 29 A Review of Passages Appropriate for our Advent Sundays!

A PROMISE ALREADY IN THE MAKING - (For when this Pandemic breaks!) There is an oft expressed hunger among us to be able to be together in worship and to be able to sing with our wonderful choir and one another. That could be a while yet, and it will probably come to us in “steps.” However, in the meantime, I am already working on a class series on “Hymns We Hunger to Sing Again! Yes, Doris and I are regular worshipers in our online worship, singing with Peter and our outstanding quartet, and with Mr. Pannebaker at the organ. How blessed we are! But Doris and I, two octogenarians, don’t raise much noise as we sing in our Den each Sunday. and on some Wednesdays. Nonetheless, we believe that in God’s grace there will be better days. And, we want to be ready! The class series planned for THAT day will begin with the wonderful hymn based on :1-6, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” But I need your help! Please send me the hymn or hymns you are hungering to sing when we can gather and sing again. My e-mail is: [email protected]. And, there is more wonderful news. Already, since my “announcement”, I am receiving hymns for this promised series. I have a folder started . . .! We shall study the scripture that inspires the hymn, we shall study the hymn stanzas, and we shall sing the hymn. And by the way, I mentioned that powerful hymn from Isaiah 6 last week, but this week I have another: It is the refrain to the hymn “My Life Goes on in Endless Song.” (ELW 763) There are four stanzas and each concludes with these powerful words: “No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that rock I’m clinging! Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?”

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