A Very Different King
Isaiah 53
"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey."
(Zechariah 9:9)
The poet Shelley saw a statue of Rameses the Great, Pharaoh of Egypt, and read on the pedestal: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
The oriental world expected this kind of arrogance from a king. But our King is different. Jesus emptied Himself, "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7), and was born a helpless baby. He lived in a remote part of the Roman Empire, was not the leader of a mass movement, and concentrated His life on twelve ordinary men.
Rather than exercise His divine power, He allowed Himself to suffer crucifixion, His most kingly triumph over all evil. In His resurrection, He showed Himself only to believers. Coming to us today, He speaks with "a still, small voice." Yet there are millions - and more to come - who put their trust in Him.
But what of Ozymandias? Shelley continues: "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away".
INSIGHT
Most of the king's subjects will, like him, be living lives of relative obscurity. Is it not an honor to live like our King?
READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
Ezekiel 43-44
Proverbs 2
Philemon
Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message?
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
3 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows[a] that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
7 He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
8 Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.[b]
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.[c]
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
9 He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.
10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.
12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
Footnotes:
a. Isaiah 53:4 Or Yet it was our sicknesses he carried; / it was our diseases.
b. Isaiah 53:8 Greek version reads He was humiliated and received no justice. Compare Acts 8:33.
c. Isaiah 53:8 Or As for his contemporaries, / who cared that his life was cut short in midstream? Greek version reads Who can speak of his descendants? / For his life was taken from the earth. Compare Acts 8:33.
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