Isaiah 50:4-9a Commentary

As we enter into Holy Week, the Lectionary offers us two paths, a choose-your-own-adventure of sorts. We can preach the palms or the passion.  However, I note that, outside the psalms, there is only one Hebrew Scripture text and that belongs to the passion.

Woke

Although Lent is a season of fasting, in many ways it is a sensory feast. It begins with the imposition of ashes: oil, ash and the sign of the cross pressed into your forehead.  The rumble of hunger, the restlessness of boredom or the pang of loneliness when a meal or a coping mechanism is removed.  Music in a minor key reverberating in your body.  And now we are on the precipice of Holy Week.  The palms waving, the cacophony of children shouting “hosanna!” The meal and foot washing on Maundy Thursday, the deepening darkness of Good Friday, often with a deep percussive wail as the Christ candle is carried out and the room descends into complete darkness.  Baptisms and restless sitting in the pews for the longest service of the year on Holy Saturday. The spell is then broken by pastels and chocolates, “Hallelujahs” and bright gold and white paraments draped over the altar.  There is an urgency to Lent and to Holy Week.  A call to pay attention to sin, injustice unreconciled relationships and sorrow.

Isaiah 50 begins with what one Bible entitles “Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s Obedience.” The sin part seems to reach its pinnacle with verse 3, “I clothe the heavens with darkness and make sackcloth its covering.” From this darkness, the prophet speaks of waking up — twice in verse 4.  In fact, the Hebrew intends to amplify this word by ending one poetic phrase with it and beginning the next phrase with it. “In the morning he wakens, wakes my ear in the morning.” Back-to-back usage of the word serves the same purpose as underline, italics and bold in present day communication.  Here our ears may catch a snippet of Lamentations 3, most popularly expressed in the hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” — “Morning by morning new mercies I see.”

This text speaks to the way that God awakens us and attunes our ear to God’s instruction. According to the study notes in the CEB Study Bible, “The servant’s alert ear contrasts with the willful deafness criticized in Isaiah 42:20; 48:8…attending to God’s instruction prepares the speaker to stand strong.”  Fully awake, alive and listening, the speaker chronicles the abuse he sustains in his body, the deep derision he hears from his accusers.  He is not blind to it, he is not in shock, his body is not numb.  He feels it all, cares deeply … and trusts. Trusts that “because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced.” And again, almost as a taunt to those who taunt him, “It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who will condemn me?”

This is, in one sense, the posture we are being called to maintain, especially in this bright, dark commemoration of Jesus Christ’s suffering and death.  But, in an even more powerful way, this reminds us all the ways Jesus chose to be awake to our suffering and death.

Man of Sorrows

Robert Alter, a Jewish scholar of the text, observes “There is a long tradition of Christian interpretation that refers this entire verse (6) to Christ.” In fact, there is much in this verse and the whole Lectionary selection that offer the Christian interpreter a preview of coming events.

As the prophet writes, “I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away,” we go with the Gospel writers to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus did not flee. He entered into the anticipation of his own suffering and called out to God for reprieve but, instead, he found resolve.  He did not turn away from his arrest, his accusers, his unjust trial and punishment.

The prophet writes, “I have offered my back to those who beat me…I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” We turn to the Gospel writers who detail Jesus’ crown of thorns, flogging, being jeered at and spat upon.

The prophet writes, “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.” And I wonder if the preacher of the book of Hebrews held this image in mind while crafting this description of Jesus death, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow wear and lose heart.”

[Note: In addition to these weekly sermon commentaries on the CEP website, we also have a resource page for Lent and Easter with more preaching and worship ideas as well as sample sermons on the Year C Lectionary texts.]

Illustration:

As we enter into Holy Week, the most somber and sober week of the Christian calendar, we enter in hoping to see what even the darkness has to offer.  We don’t want to rush to the “Hallelujahs” too quickly. Celebrating Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and, especially, Easter Vigil, time slows down and, even more improbably, becomes heavy.  Here Jesus calls us to pay attention, to stay awake, to “watch and pray.”

Poet Rod Jellema captures the gift of Holy Week solemnity with his poem “Praying for Darkness in a Year of Glare.” Reformed Worship used it to create a litany for Lent and it might be a welcome addition to your morning prayer, toward the end of the service or even during one of your midweek worship services.