Today we’ll continue with some of your favorites (or the passages you have questions about).  Email (andy@stm-umc.org) or message me with any passages you’d like added or that you have a question about!

Today we are looking at Isaiah 53: 1-12: 

1 Who has believed what we have heard?
    And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 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.
3 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.
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities
    and carried our diseases,
yet we accounted him stricken,
    struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But 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.
6 All 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.
7 He 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.
8 By 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.
9 They 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 affliction.
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.
11     Out of his anguish he shall see;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
    The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
    and he shall bear their iniquities.
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.

There is a saying that I love so much, all of scripture points to Jesus. We see that statement in its most true form today in this passage.  This passage is sometimes called the “Suffering Servant” song or passage, and it is one of the most beautiful parts of scripture, in my opinion. 

Isaiah wrote this passage hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, but when we read this passage, we that all of it points to Christ. It all points to Jesus. All of us.  We find Jesus all throughout the Old Testament. We see Him in the burning bush, in the Passover Lamb, in the fiery furnace. We see Him all over.  

To me, this passage is one of the keys in all of the Bible in understanding what it was that Jesus did for us on the cross.  He carried our sins, all our sins, all the brokenness and failure of humanity, all of it. 

The cross, He carried every last bit of our sin, and through His sacrifice, it made us whole.  Like a lamb led to the slaughter, He went to the cross for our sins. And through His sacrifice, we are forgiven, we are made whole, we are redeemed, we are restored. 

All through the work of Jesus, we are made whole. 

All of this was prophesied by Isaiah long before the birth of Jesus. We are reminded that Jesus was the plan the entire time. Through His work, His power, His life, His all, we are forgiven.  

And all the Bible points to that. From Genesis to Revelation, it all points to Jesus. Praise God for Holy Scripture, and praise God for the work of Jesus! 

If you’d like to get each day’s daily scripture reading sent to your phone along with this reading guide, text @39110 to 81010 to sign up!

If you’d like to get each day’s daily scripture reading sent to your phone along with this reading guide, text @39110 to 81010 to sign up!