“Revealed-Servant”
Life Group Lesson Isaiah 53:1-12
April 5, 2020

OPEN: Where did you see or hear about a true act of servanthood this past week?

Isaiah 53:1-12 (NRSV}

Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
11Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to  death, and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

DIG: Read Isaiah 53:1-12

• Where else do we find “servant songs” in the book of Isaiah?
• What possible reference is there in verse 2-in terms of other passages in Isaiah?
• How is the appearance of the servant described?
• If all we knew ofthe servant was in verses 7-9, what would we have assumed must have happened to him?
• Verses 7, 10, and 12 use sacrificial imagery to speak of the servant. How does that make his death more than a mere martyr’s death?
• Where in the New Testament do we find references to Isaiah 53?

REFLECT 

• How would you describe where you are today?
  • Blue
  • Resigned
  • Surprisingly okay
  • Worried
  • Bored
  • Frustrated
  • Home-school (Need I say more?)
  • Hopeful
• Verse 3 refers to the servant as a “man of suffering” or “man of sorrows.” What does that mean to you?
• How are you experiencing sorrow right now?
• Based solely on Isaiah 53, how would you answer the question, why did Jesus have to die?
• When has there been a time in your life that you have gone astray? (verse 6)

PRAYER TIME:

Lord, many of us have heard these words read at the Lord Supper table for years. But on this day, they mean even more to us. Thank you for giving us a man  of  sorrows  who  “was wounded for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities.” In the name of the suffering servant we pray, Amen.