Was It Not Necessary?

 

“And He said to them, ‘O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?’” (Luke 24:25 – 26).

 

I awoke this morning pondering Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12, The Suffering Servant. Who can fathom the depths of this passage? Who can comprehend its heights?

 

This passage is about so much more than physical suffering, as real and hideous as that was. It is also about so much more than saying, “Look at this predictive passage of the Messiah, see how it was fulfilled in Jesus.” In fact, looking at this passage primarily as a predictive passage, as “evidence” that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, hinders us from seeing Jesus the Christ and His sufferings and glory in this passage.

 

If we first “see” the passage, a measure of its depths and heights; if we first enter into the passage and allow the passage, by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit, to enter into us – then we can say, “See how this is fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth! See how this is fulfilled in Him and in us today!” But to primarily read it in terms of events happening within time and space, and not see what is unfolding (and continuing to unfold) within those events, well…we are not likely to see Jesus Christ within the midst of the candlesticks with this primarily evidentiary approach.

 

When Jesus says, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44), He is referring to so much more than a string of “Messianic” passages, He is referring to the entire (what we term) Old Testament – He is referring not only to predictive events in time and space, He is referring to the cosmic and eternal substance behind those events, and to which those events carry us, and to the continued unfolding of those events.

 

So now I ask you, what do you see and sense when you ponder Isaiah 52 and 53? What are its mysteries? Its joys? Its sorrows?

 

How are you living in this passage today?

 

How is the Suffering Servant of this passage living within you?