Jesus and the Suffering Servant
In English, the word ‘love’ is a much-abused term. For example, someone might say, “I love apple pies,” or “They made love in the bedroom last night.” Therefore, it is important to have some idea of what Jesus meant when he used the term. From what we know of Jesus from the gospels, when he said to love your neighbour, the noun ‘love’ means a self-giving concern for others. It is not a selfish love like a mother clinging to her children, and the ‘concern’ here is more than just worry or compassion; it involves doing something about the person’s situation. It also involves feeling or emotion, which is integral to the life of a human being. When God’s love is the subject, it is understood as self-giving in creation and concern for everyone and everything in it.
Some non-believers say that to talk of God’s love, and even of God, is nonsense when they see and experience the suffering in the world: the diseases, earthquakes, etc., as well as the effects of the evil potential in human nature. This, of course, is also a great obstacle for Christians to overcome. Simple explanations do not calm the anger that some feel, and all Christians can do is point to Jesus on the cross because the Crucifixion is at the heart of the Christian faith, and it is there that they find meaning.
Why did Jesus suffer and die on the cross? Motivated by love, he was determined to do something about the plight of human beings, and he took on the role of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, believing that it would save ‘many’. Some scholars, however, have argued that Isaiah 53 does not mean that the Servant’s suffering was borne for the sake of others. But Jesus was not a scholar of the Hebrew scriptures. It was his interpretation that mattered, and he must have been convinced that Isaiah 53 referred to him and his mission because the gospels are united in portraying him taking on the role of the Suffering Servant. In Mark 8:31 and parallels, Jesus teaches that the Son of Man (meaning himself) must suffer and be killed.
Sceptics will say that after Jesus’s crucifixion, his followers searched the scriptures to explain what happened and promoted the idea that it was God’s plan, as foretold in scripture. But, such a plan can certainly be seen in the scriptures, especially in Isaiah 40-55, and Jesus must have known about the Servant of God. Luke has Jesus declaring to the people that he was the person about whom Isaiah had written. (Luke 4:16-21) If Jesus did not see himself in that role, he was just a helpless man, ignorant of the Jewish scriptures, who did not expect to be executed and was perhaps sacrificed like an animal to appease a wrathful god if such a cruel deity existed. The skeptics would be right, and Christianity would be a deception. Actually, it boils down to a matter of trust, not only in Jesus but in his followers.
The Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 was probably someone writing about the situation he was in at the time. According to R.N. Whybray (The New Century Bible Commentary: Isaiah 40-66, p.171), ‘the supposed references to the Servant’s vicarious suffering and death and resurrection are illusory, due partly to a misunderstanding of the language of a particular kind of religious poetry and partly to the determination of Christian interpreters to find here a prefiguration of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ.’ But it does not matter what the scholars think it means, or what anyone else thinks it means because it’s what Jesus thought that matters and there is no doubt that the early Church (the gospel writers, Paul, the writer of 1 Peter, etc.) believed that Jesus saw himself in the role of the Suffering Servant.
Some scholars have argued that the idea that Jesus was the Suffering Servant began with Paul. But, if an early date, e.g., 52 A.D., is accepted for Mark’s gospel, as it should be, then Paul and Mark are writing at about the same time and saying the same thing. Although neither had been with Jesus, they had both spent time with Peter. The early Church was united in its belief that Jesus took on the role of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.
If one agrees that Jesus took on that role, one must look closely at his motivation. Apparently, he saw it as the divinely ordained path for him to follow. That path meant rejection, pain, and suffering, but he chose to follow it (He was not forced or sacrificed) because at its end, ‘many’ would be with God in the Kingdom of God. Although the Holy Spirit was in him, it was Jesus, the human being, who had to tread this path. He would give himself out of concern for his fellow human beings, which is what the love of Christ means.
What does all of this mean for his followers? By fulfilling the role of the Suffering Servant (Luke 18:31), Jesus is showing the strength and persistence of his love. Although it was his human love pushing through all the pain and suffering on the cross, he believed that God was with him and would embrace him at the end, and those who followed him and tried to love like him would be the ‘many’ in the Kingdom of God here and now. He would bring in the Kingdom of God and sit at the right hand of God. (Mark 16:19) So powerful is the love of Christ that, like Lazarus being brought out of his tomb, anyone who trusts in Jesus will be pulled through death to another existence.
It is important for Christians to understand that when dealing with Jesus and what he did, they must think existentially. They must be aware of the mystery that is the phenomenon of the individuality of consciousness. When they can say, “There is only God and me,” they will have the necessary existential awareness to say with St Paul, “Christ loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
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