Scripture
Readings: Isaiah 52.13-53.12 and John 18.1-19.42
The Isaiah passage (52:13-53:12) was probably written around 542 B.C.E. It is the primary suffering servant passage in the Bible. In most Bibles these verses are presented in prose as they should be; because in Hebrew, they have a poetic quality—poetry, metaphor, and myth are God’s favored forms of communicating truths. They engage our whole being—our intuition, emotions, memories, hopes, dreams, etc. and they make stories memorable.
Even
as engaging, impactful, relevant, and memorable as the stories were, it still
amazes me that for hundreds of years many of the Hebrew people, through oral
tradition and repetition, memorized entire ‘books or scrolls’ such as Isaiah,
which brings me to the point of my blog.
If we take the humanness or humanity of Jesus seriously, we can believe from an early age that the boy Jesus loved his heavenly Father and wanted to learn as much as he could about Him; and if we believe that Mary and Joseph were serious about their faith, Jesus knew Isaiah like the back of his hand. Somewhere along the way in his spiritual formation, and his faith training, Jesus took these words to heart: for example, 53:5, “But he was wounded because of our sins, crushed because of our iniquities. He bore the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we were healed.” Isaiah’s powerful and very possibly radical imagery helped form Jesus and consequently shaped his ministry. He heard his Father’s voice, his Father’s call.
I
hope your studies and reflection do not stop this weekend. I hope you find those passages that allow you
to hear God’s voice, God’s call; that bring shape and power to your Christian
witness, to your ministry, that bring you closer to experiencing, appreciating,
and actualizing for others—agape love.
Rev. Jay Cole, Associate Minister/Minister of Crossroads Community Services
