Read chapter in full: biblegateway.com/passage/?version=ESV&search=Isaiah+053
Chapter 53 (ESV)
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
REFLECTION:
- Read the passage aloud slowly, knowing that this “suffering servant” passage is a prophecy about Jesus. If possible, read the whole chapter as well.
- Read this passage. See the servant of God, so battered and disfigured he hardly seems human anymore. Live with him as he is despised and rejected by men. Watch him take up our iniquities and be pierced for our transgressions. See the blood flow as his life is crushed from him, as from a sin offering. And realize that he chose this fate, that by his wounds we might be healed.
- Silence – Read/Listen – Meditate – Pray – Contemplate
- Respond to God about the words that touched you most. Talk also to God about how Jesus can make you righteous.
- Move through your day with this idea: Jesus “died without a thought for his own welfare”. If he died that way, how much more must he have lived that way? Try living that selflessly a few minutes at a time.
PRAYER:
Stay with God for a little longer. Continue to converse with God and listen to what He wants to tell you. Then write down any thought and/or prayer in your spiritual journal.
HYMN:
Worthy Is The Lamb – youtu.be/eMsihDoX3uM
