Jesus is everywhere in the Old Testament. He is in the story of Isaac, the son offered as a sacrifice. He is Joseph, betrayed by his brothers. He is David, the unlikely king. Or Solomon the wise, Moses the deliverer, Esther the savior, or Job the innocent sufferer. As Paul told the Corinthians, in Christ, the veil is removed and we see Jesus every time we read Moses.
But that’s especially true in Isaiah. In the New Testament’s favorite prophet, we see Jesus as the promised King, the suffering Servant, and the Healer of the world. The first and last of those references – Jesus as King and Healer – are to be expected. That’s how we know him. That’s how we want him to be. It is probably not an accident, then, that Isaiah’s core message is about a Servant who suffers. That’s a surprising and subversive image to assign someone we think of as The Hero.
Isaiah knew that when he prophesied, I think, because he sets us up for it. In chapter 52, he speaks about how God is going to rescue his people; “the Lord will lay bare his holy arm.” God is going to roll up his sleeves and all the earth will see his salvation. Toward the end of chapter 52, he says that earthly kings will be left speechless by what God is going to do, that they will see something not just new, but something unimaginable.
And then we read this:
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. (53:1 – 3)
A servant of God will come weak as a tender sprig, tentative as a root in the desert. He will come in weakness and will bear none of the conventions of the hero, ancient or modern. He will not be handsome or possessed of a magnetic personality. He will be neither so majestic as to inspire awe nor so humble as to warrant pity. There will be absolutely nothing in his appearance or bearing that will solicit our attraction or admiration. Our heroes are always handsome or cocky or impervious. Not this one. He is homely and humble and at home with suffering and pain.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” Heroes always suffer. Helen Keller bore multiple disabilities. Nelson Mandela braved injustice. Rosa Parks suffered indignity. Even our mythical heroes suffer. Bruce Wayne eternally broods over the murder of his parents. The X Men endure as outsiders. Captain America agonizes over his anachronistic existence. But in their suffering they win our sympathy or earn our loyalty or inspire our courage.
That’s because, typically, they suffer for us. They fight the overpowering enemy or the oppressive regime or the overwhelming odds. They rescue the powerless or protect the weak or punish the guilty. And in their fight against injustice and evil, they suffer deep, deep wounds, and we love them for it. We love them because they suffer for us. But the homely hero of Isaiah 53, suffers not for us, but because of us.
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. (53:4 – 6)
Finally, in chapter 53, there comes a whisper of promise for The Hero, a tiny hint of hope. It comes in two ways. God, Isaiah tells us, has been in control from the beginning.
It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer.
The cross was not a victory for chaos – it was the plan of providence. Jesus’ death was not a defeat – it was a predetermined act of divine defiance. We catch an innuendo of assurance, too, because the words the prophet uses begin to sound sweeter.
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. (53:10 – 11)
Now we hear about the promise of offspring and prolonged days. We see the light of life and begin to anticipate satisfaction. There is knowledge and righteousness. And there is justice, not for just a few, but for many. Maybe even for you and me. The prophet says that the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
In his hand. His hands. Most heroes brandish a weapon of some kind – a sword (Zorro), a gun (John Wayne), or palm-mounted, Arc-Reactor-powered repulsor rays (Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man). This Hero picked up a whip once, not to defend himself, but his Father’s house. When the battle reached its climax, the only thing in his hands were nails.
Now that’s a hero. That’s The Hero.