Americans have a strange, conflicted relationship to our bodies that you see played out throughout every year, starting with this coming week. Every year starts with high expectations for the “new you”. We ask for that new exercise bike for Christmas, subscribe to that new diet plan, and get serious about our health. And then, February comes with its long cold nights and chocolate candies for Valentines day, and our goals are tested. March and April are no better, with spring break and Easter. By May, that beach body we were chasing has run away and left us. So, at some point towards the end of summer, we start to think, “you know, I think I like food more than I like exercising, so I’m gonna stick with that!” So, we enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas without thinking one bit about our diet, and now we are back where we started. Americans talk a great deal about health, but then we disregard it. We abuse alcohol and sugar as if it will have no effect on us, and then, when the doctor gives us our blood work, we want to know what he’s going to do to fix it.
Americans are beset by a philosophy known as Neo-Platonism, which is the view that the body and the soul are unrelated, besides the fact that the body is a skin that the soul puts on for a time. The Neo-Platonist thinks that the body is a useless thing to be used and abused and then shed at death. You hear Neo-Platonism in the identity ideology that is so rampant today – “I was born in the wrong skin, I’m really not this gender. I want to change my body to match my soul.” You hear it in our literature, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet dreamed of “shuffling off this mortal coil.” You even hear it in our depictions of Heaven as a bodiless existence beyond the clouds.
But, the Bible speaks very differently about the body and this world. Now, certainly, this world has been cursed by the fall. One of the important curses of Genesis 3 is that even the ground itself has been corrupted by the fall of Adam so that it no longer produces abundance. As Paul says in Romans 8:22, “the whole creation groans” for redemption. It is also certainly true that our own bodies have been cursed by the fall. God not only curses the ground in Genesis 3, but he curses man and woman as well. Woman will suffer pain in childbearing, man will toil to eke out a living from the ground, and both man and woman will die and return to dust. So, suffering is a natural part of this fallen world. No wonder we want to “shuffle off this mortal coil” and fly away to some ephemeral heaven in the clouds. But, while suffering is the way of this fallen world, it is not the way it should be. God created this world out of the abundance of his goodness, and he blessed it and called it good. He created mankind to bear his image and blessed them and called them very good. We are made of this earth, and we are made for this earth, to subdue it and rule it. The earth and our own bodies are not the problem – the curses of sin and suffering are the problem.
As Christians, we believe that Jesus came to identify with us in our suffering. This is why this ancient creed confesses that we believe Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” I want to suggest that this line speaks of far more than just one day in the life of Jesus. Rather, I think this line directs us to think of the whole of Jesus’ life as one of suffering. As we studied a couple of weeks ago, Jesus entered this world in the frailty of humanity. He experienced pain and hunger and thirst and fatigue. He knew the sorrows of lost loved ones, strained friendships, and the rejection of men. But, this life of suffering was not incidental or accidental. Jesus chose to live under the burdens of this cursed world so that he might redeem it. This act of the willful suffering of Jesus is what theologians call his “active obedience”. Jesus actively obeyed God, even in the suffering of his humanity, so that he might redeem us, body and soul, from the curse of this world. To understand the depths of this willful suffering, let’s read Isaiah 53:1-9 together. There are three types of suffering that I want you to notice from this passage: the sufferings of ignobility, identity, and indignation.
First, in verses 1-3 we see the suffering of ignobility. Isaiah begins his prophecy of this suffering servant by telling us of two ways that he will be rejected. He starts by saying that he will “have no form or majesty” and “no beauty that we should desire him.” As we saw last week, Jesus was born in the lowliest of places to the lowest of people. He didn’t have name recognition, family history, nobility, or wealth. His ministry started among the outcasts of Galilee and grew to include those who had been rejected by the nobility of his day. At the peak of his ministry, he might have had 120 followers, made up of fishermen, prostitutes, lepers, and tax collectors.
In verse 3, Isaiah also foretells that he will be “despised and rejected by men”. We certainly see this in the life of Jesus. From his birth, men despised and rejected him. King Herod tried to kill him in a frenzy of mass infanticide. The Sadducees tried to trap him with their assumed contradictions of the law. The Pharisees wanted to prove that they had a superior understanding of the law compared to this upstart Rabbi. The Herodians were wary of the potential threat he posed to their rule. From all of these groups, he was judged for the impropriety of his birth, the insignificance of his hometown, and his lack of scholarly pedigree. As John 1:10-11 says, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”
Second, in verses 4-6 we see the suffering of identity. Isaiah sees that this suffering servant will identify with us in two ways. In verse 4 he says that the Messiah will carry our griefs and sorrows. Oh, how beautiful is the compassion of our Lord Jesus! Where others would pass by with no offer of comfort, Jesus would stoop and heal the crippled man. Where others would shun in disgust, Jesus would reach out and touch the leper. Where others would pick up rocks in judgment, Jesus would forgive the woman caught in adultery. Jesus looked our grief and sorrow in the face, and he bore it with us. But, he hasn’t just borne with us in our sufferings, but he brought healing and restoration for it through his life, death, and resurrection.
In verses 5-6 we also see that the servant will identify with us in the judgment of our sin. Jesus, in his death on the cross, substituted himself for us, taking our place, absorbing our judgment. Jesus suffered the judgment of sins that he never committed for a people who despised him by men who had no authority over him. And, he chose to do it all so that the Lord might lay on him the iniquity of us all.
Finally, in verses 7-9 we see the suffering of indignation. I want to focus mainly on two words in verse 8. It says, “By oppression and judgment he was taken away.” Jesus, the very Son of God, who is the image of the Father and the very imprint of his nature, with 10,000 angels at the ready to defend his honor, stood before Pontius Pilate, and said hardly a word. As he told Pilate in the midst of his threats, “You would have no authority had it not been granted to you from above.” He took beatings from men whose lives he sustained by his own will. He carried on his back a tree, though he was the very tree of life. Jesus took all of this indignation so that he might save us.
As we end this morning, there is a beautiful song by the band, CityAlight, which captures the painful poetry of the suffering of Jesus. The name of the song is “Jerusalem”:
See Him in Jerusalem / Walking where the crowds are / Once these streets had sung to Him
Now they cry for murder. / Such a frail and lonely man / Holding up the heavy cross
See Him walking in Jerusalem / On the road to save us.
See him there upon the hill / Hear the scorn and laughter / Silent as a lamb he waits
Praying to the father. / See the king who made the sun / And the moon and shining stars
Let the soldiers hold and nail him down / So that he could save them.
See him there upon the cross / Now no longer breathing
Dust that formed the watching crowds / Takes the blood of Jesus / Feel the earth is shaking now
See the veil is split in two / And he stood before the wrath of God
Shielding sinners with his blood
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