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A Servant is Born
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Most Jewish synagogues don't allow the 53rd chapter of Isaiah to be read. But this precious chapter is quoted extensively in the New Testament.
- Isaiah's servant song reveals that God planned to send his saving servant long before Jesus' birth.
- God's powerful arm appears in an unexpected form: the only begotten Son grows like a tender shoot from the apparently dead royal line of David.
- Jesus enters an obscure town and poor family without outward beauty, palace, wealth, or charisma that would naturally attract people.
- The unremarkable appearance of Jesus displays God's wisdom: salvation comes by God's chosen way rather than human expectations of impressive power.
- The servant is despised, rejected, sorrowful, and acquainted with grief, fully sharing human weakness and anguish while remaining without sin.
- As true man he bears his people's griefs, sorrows, transgressions, and iniquities; as true God he stills storms, feeds crowds, raises the dead, and saves.
- The servant dies as an offering for sin, is buried with the rich, rises, justifies many, and reigns as the God-man who brings his people to glory.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 promises a servant whose exaltation comes through astonishing humiliation. The Christmas sermon concentrates on Isaiah 53:1-3: God's arm is revealed in a tender shoot from dry ground, without outward splendor, despised and acquainted with grief. Jesus fulfills this pattern. He comes through David's fallen line, in poverty and obscurity, and shares the infirmities of true humanity without sin. Yet he is God with us. He bears his people's guilt as an offering, rises from death, justifies many, and reigns. God's saving wisdom is greater than human expectations.
Biblical Themes
- God's eternal saving plan
- The promised servant and Davidic branch
- The incarnation
- Christ's humiliation and rejection
- The sympathetic God-man
- Substitutionary suffering
- Resurrection and justification
- God's wisdom overturning human expectations
Scripture Connections
- Isaiah 11:1-5 — A shoot comes from Jesse's cut-down stump, and the Spirit-endowed branch judges righteously.
- 2 Samuel 7:12-16 — God promises David a son whose kingdom and throne will be established forever.
- Isaiah 52:13-53:12 — The servant is marred, rejected, bears grief and guilt, dies, is buried with the rich, justifies many, and is exalted.
- Luke 2:1-24 — Jesus is born in Bethlehem amid humble circumstances, and his family gives the offering permitted for the poor.
- John 1:10-14 — The eternal Word becomes flesh and dwells among his own, though his own do not receive him.
- Acts 8:26-35 — Philip begins from Isaiah 53 and announces the good news about Jesus to the Ethiopian official.
- Hebrews 2:14-18 — The Son shares flesh and blood, suffers temptation, defeats death, and becomes a merciful high priest.
- 1 Peter 2:21-25 — Peter applies Isaiah's servant language to Christ bearing sins in his body on the tree.
Practical Applications
- Read the entire servant song, not only the familiar Christmas narrative, and trace Christ's humiliation through exaltation.
- Reject the assumption that visible beauty, charisma, wealth, or institutional power marks God's saving work.
- Bring rejection, physical pain, temptation, and grief to Jesus, who truly knows human sorrow without sin.
- Rest justification on the servant's obedience and sin-bearing work rather than personal worth or outward impressiveness.
- Thank God that his wisdom fulfilled promises through David's apparently dead line and Bethlehem's humble setting.
- Look toward Christ's return knowing that the rejected servant is the risen King who will gather his people.
Historical Context
This Christmas Day sermon reads Isaiah's servant song as a centuries-old promise fulfilled in Jesus. It contrasts the long-ended Davidic throne and Bethlehem's obscurity with expected royal display. The sermon also notes how often the New Testament uses Isaiah 53 to explain Christ's identity, suffering, saving work, and mission to the nations.
Westminster Standards
Westminster Confession of Faith 8.2
The Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity, being very and eternall God, of one Substance, and equall with the Father; did, when the fullnesse of time was come, take upon Him mans nature, with all the Essentiall properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet, without sin: being conceived by the Power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that, two whole, perfect, and distinct Natures, the Godhead and the Manhood, were inseparably joyned together in one Person, without Conversion, Composition, or Confusion. Which person, is very God, and very Man, yet one Christ, the only Mediatour between God and Man.
Connection to the sermon: The sermon emphasizes that Jesus is neither a remote superman nor merely ordinary: he truly shares common human infirmity and grief without sin while remaining eternal God, one Christ able to mediate and save.
Westminster Larger Catechism 70
Justification is an act of Gods free grace unto sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight, not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by Faith alone.
Connection to the sermon: Isaiah says the righteous servant will justify many by bearing their iniquities. The sermon directs that saving result away from human attractiveness or work to Christ's obedience and sin-bearing satisfaction.
Westminster Shorter Catechism 21
The onely Redeemer of Gods elect is the Lord Jesus Christ; who being the eternall son of God, became man, and so, was and continueth to be God and man, in two distinct Natures, and one Person, for ever.
Connection to the sermon: The child born in obscurity is the only Redeemer: the eternal Son truly became man and remains the God-man who bears sin, rises, reigns, and brings his people to God.
- Why does Isaiah present God's mighty saving arm as a tender plant from dry ground?
- What human expectations of beauty, wealth, charisma, or power does Christ's coming overturn?
- Why did the Savior need to become fully human and share ordinary weakness, sorrow, and grief?
- How do Isaiah 53's first three verses prepare for the servant bearing sin in the verses that follow?
- Where am I tempted to despise God's work because it does not arrive in an impressive form?
- How can Christ's acquaintance with grief comfort someone who feels rejected, bereaved, or physically afflicted?
- What makes this ordinary-looking servant an extraordinary and sufficient Savior?
- Servant of the Lord
- Isaiah's promised figure who suffers, bears sin, justifies many, and is finally exalted, fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
- Incarnation
- The eternal Son of God taking a complete human nature while remaining truly God.
- God-man
- Jesus Christ as one person in two distinct natures, fully divine and fully human.
- Humiliation
- Christ's lowly birth, ordinary appearance, rejection, suffering, and death undertaken for his people.
- Substitution
- The sinless servant bearing the griefs, transgressions, and iniquities that belonged to his people.
- Justification
- God's gracious pardon and acceptance of sinners through Christ's obedience and satisfaction received by faith.
Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Isaiah chapter 53. We're actually going to start, if you're using your P-Bibles, that's on page 652. The sermon is going to be specifically from verses 1 through 3, but we need to read the whole context of this, and so we're going to start actually at Isaiah chapter 52, verse 13. Isaiah 52, verse 13.
Brothers and sisters, this is God's Word. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him. For what had not been told them, they shall see. And what they had not heard, they shall consider. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness. And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him.
Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him. And by his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep goes before its shearers is silent. So he opened not his mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people, he was stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief.
When he make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall devoid the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors and he bore the sin of many and he made intercession for the transgressors.
Prayer for Illumination
Let's pray. Oh, Father, we thank you so much for your Word. And we pray, Father, now that your Holy Spirit might teach us, that you might instruct us, that we might know who you are and the great gift that you have given to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Sermon
Isaiah 53 is a forbidden chapter in many synagogues. In many synagogues, this chapter is not allowed to be read. If you go to Israel today, many people, many Jewish ethnic people, if you take the book of Isaiah and you read these words through them, they will be utterly unfamiliar. There is a man named Richard Gantz, who lived up in Canada. Many of you know of this man or know this man, Jewish man by birth.
And as he was talking to someone about Jesus Christ, they opened up their Bible and they read Isaiah chapter 53. And he said, no, no, no, I don't want any of that New Testament stuff. And they said, this is from the book of Isaiah. This man realized that this was speaking of Jesus Christ. This portion of Isaiah 53 is quoted time and time and time again in the New Testament.
It's quoted by Matthew. It's quoted by Mark. It's quoted by Luke. It's quoted by John. It's quoted in Acts. It's quoted in 1 Corinthians, and in Romans, and in Hebrews, and in 1 Peter, and in Revelation. Why is this so central to the Christian revelation? Because it teaches us. that 680 years before Jesus was born, God had a plan. And He was going to send His servant into the world. And so this morning I would like to look at specifically verses 1 through 3 of Isaiah 53 and marvel at God's wisdom and what He has done in sending His servant. Look with me at verse 1. Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? God, in His good timing, would send forth His Messiah, Jesus Christ, to be the display of His power. His right hand going out to accomplish salvation for the nations. His strong right arm would be seen in sending His monogamous, His only begotten Son. This is how the gospel would just go out.
But who would believe it? Who would pick up Isaiah chapter 53 and wonder, who is this talking about? This is the chapter that the Ethiopian eunuch opened up and asked Philip, explain this to me. And the nations begun to believe. Here in the book, as is foretold, is Jesus Christ. The power of God revealed, but it happens, this revelation of God happens in a surprising way. Look with me in verse 2. For he shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.
Jesus was going to come from an obscure house. from a failing culture. Jesus was going to come from a line that the dynasty had been dead for centuries, and yet somehow God was going to keep His promise from 2 Samuel 7, that David would have a son to sit upon the throne forever. But that tree had been cut down. David's line had been ended. There was no king upon the throne after the Babylonian exile. There was an Edomite on the throne. His name was Herod. And yet God says from this stump is going to rise a branch. It's going to come from what you thought was dead. could bring the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
From the root out of a dry ground. I've got to tell you, I just spent a few weeks out in the Southwest, where there is dry ground. And do you know what mainly grows on the hills in Arizona? Shrubs. You don't expect giant oak trees or sequoias to grow out of the rocks of the dry ground. And yet God was going to bring up a root from the dry ground that would bring life to the whole world, to all the nations. See, God doesn't do things the way that we expect Him to. Right? We expect God to bring someone in a way in which all the fanfare would happen. Right? We expect the angels. We expect the nativity story that we hear.
But what we don't understand is what Isaiah was telling us is that was an absolute miracle. Because you see, Jesus didn't come outwardly impressive. The Magi didn't come to Jesus because somehow they heard there was a beautiful baby in Bethlehem. And so they wanted to come and see this most remarkable child. No, God had to send a sign in the heavens for them to come and see an utterly unremarkable child lying in a trough. He didn't bring them a soul.
He didn't bring the one that was head and shoulders above the rest, that everybody would look at and say, wow, we want him to be our king. They didn't bring him. God didn't bring Jesus like his forefather David, who would be ruddy and attractive and people would want him to be king. No, he had no comeliness that we should desire him. Well, not even like his ancestor Absalom. with flowing hair who could stand at the city gates and woo people by his appearance and his charisma. Not so with Christ. No. Jesus would come.
He would not be surrounded by the regalia of a palace. He would come and he would not be born in a place in the capital city, but no, in a forgotten little hamlet, Bethlehem. David even didn't stay there. He moved to Jerusalem. But it wouldn't be in the capital Jerusalem.
It wouldn't be in the palaces. It wouldn't be surrounded by nobility. He wouldn't be numbered with the rich. He wouldn't be born amongst the powerful or with the noble. But to people so poor that when they came to the temple, they could only bring a bird. So poor that they were put outside. For He grew up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness when we see Him. There is no beauty that we should desire Him. There's a reason why our confession talks about how we don't make images of Christ because Jesus looked like every other Middle Eastern dude in the world. Go to Jerusalem right now and just pick out any random Jewish guy. Maybe Jesus looked like that.
He didn't look like Fabio. He didn't have long flowing hair. When people saw him, they didn't see the radiance like there was a sunshine, a constant spotlight behind him and he had no frizz in his hair or something. No. He walked around like every average person and there was no comeliness that people might look at him and be attracted to him.
Why? Because God was going to save His people His way. This is why Jesus could get into a crowd and get out of a crowd. Because he just looked like every other person who was in the crowd. And yet this one, who looked just like his countrymen, could still the storm. Could walk upon the water. could take a loaf of bread and bless it and break it and feed 5,000 men because He would be God in the flesh, Emmanuel. God was doing a great work, but He was not going to do it according to men's expectations. He was going to do it according to His own way.
And what do you do? What do you do when you see an average guy who is utterly unremarkable? Do you stare at them? No. Look with me at verse 3. He is despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid our face as it were, and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him.
In 1960, there was an election. An election between two people. And many political theorists believe that in 1960 one thing changed the election. See, before that time, every election that had taken place, when there was a debate between people, they would stand on stage and they would debate. And then debates would be typed out and would be scented, and people's ideas would come across. And then later, when the radio was invented, these debates would continue, but you could tune in and hear the people's voices, but that was it. But in 1960, there stood a young, charismatic John F. Kennedy, right next to a sweating, pale, struggling-with-the-spotlights Richard Nixon. And people looked at that and television changed the election.
As they saw a man and they turned their face from him because he looked just like a sweating man. Jesus was despised. When people saw Jesus, He did not have the charismatic presence that somehow people would think, oh, this man must be the Messiah. But think how many people looked upon Jesus and despised Him.
The Herodians conspired to kill Him. The Pharisees couldn't stand Him. The Sadducees hated what He did to the temple. They even said He has a devil. He had no comeliness that we should desire Him, no beauty that we should desire Him, but He is despised and rejected.
Many of us want to think about the nativity story, and we want to think about the angels who come and announce Jesus' birth to the shepherds, and the shepherds who come, and they bow before Jesus, and we think of these things, and these things are wonderful and true, but they didn't come there because of Jesus' person, but because of what God was doing in His only begotten Son.
He was rejected by people time and time again. His own family thought he was stark raving mad. His mother and his brothers and his sisters thought that he needed to be pulled out of the house. His disciples deserted him. He was despised and rejected.
He was a man of sorrows. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Jesus knew rejection. Jesus knew the sting of death. He knew what it was like to weep at one of his closest friends death. The Hebrew here gives us the idea that Jesus was well acquainted with physical and mental anguish and pain. See, many of us imagine Jesus and we imagine the one who somehow transcends and supersedes everything. But the picture we get in Isaiah 53, He didn't transcend it. No, He lived it.
Why did Jesus have to come and be an ordinary, natural person? He had to be just like you. Just like me. In every way. Because this is how He would save us. We don't need a superman. We needed an ordinary man. We needed a fully human Jesus Christ. We needed a Jesus who knew what it was like to emotionally be rejected and have people turn their face from Him so that we might know that God never turns His face from us. See, because He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but look at verse 4. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted by Him. He was wounded for what?
Our transgressions. Be careful, Christian. Be careful at this time of year. I do not want to steal from you your joy of who Jesus is, but I want you to know that God loves you so much that He sent His one and only Son in the flesh. to bear your sins, to bear your sorrows, to be acquainted with your grief. He knows what it's like for your lungs to hurt because His lungs were pierced. He knows what it's like for you who are grieving in death and sorrow because He grieved for death and sorrow. He knows what it's like to be tempted in every way.
And He took Our iniquity upon that cross, even though we are the sheep who have gone astray, the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. Why did God send Jesus, an ordinary man? Because ordinary people needed an extraordinary Savior. But see, he didn't stay there. Jesus was pierced for our transgressions, as this tells us. He bore our griefs, as this tells us. He was marred beyond recognition, as this text tells us. But what else does this text tell us? He was laid like a common thief. But he was buried with the rich. Joseph of Arimathea gave him his garden tomb. But God raised him from the dead upon that third day.
What do you expect when you go to heaven? What do you expect when you open your eyes on the other side of glory? Who are you expecting to see when you wake up in eternity? When the clouds part and the angels rejoice and the trumpet sounds and our Lord returns again.
What is the mental image that you have of your king? Is he so lofty that you can't come to him? Or do you know that he's like you? Do you know that in Him dwells all the fullness of both humanity and deity? And that God sent His Son for you. That you might live with Him forever. This is why it is God with us. He is the One. People didn't expect it from Him. There's no way this guy can walk on water, feed 5,000, raise a little girl from the dead. Oh, yes, he can.
Closing Prayer
Because he's God with us. Let's pray. Oh, Father, we confess to you that your ways are higher than our ways and your thoughts greater than our thoughts. Lord, we thank you that you sent your son to die for us. Lord, we thank you that you do not do things the way that we would expect, but you do them according to your wisdom. Father, we thank you for giving us an offering for sin. And we thank you for giving us a king who will divide the spoil with the strong. Lord, we thank You for sending us our Savior, Jesus Christ, the God-Man, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.
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