Like a Sheep in the Night

Scripture — Isaiah 53:4-12 (NRSV)

Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
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.
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.

Devotion

Even though I’m a little early for this, liturgically speaking, I can’t hear these verses from Isaiah without thinking of George Frederick Handel and his marvelous oratorio Messiah. Messiah is often performed at Christmastime, since Part I of the oratorio tells of the prophesied coming of Christ and of his birth, but it is also equally appropriate at Easter, since Parts II and III speak of his Crucifixion and glorious Resurrection (Part II) and of his ultimate Second Coming (Part III). But here it is in the middle of October, neither Christmas nor Easter, and I am humming Messiah.

This passage, the Old Testament reading for our upcoming Sunday, is from a larger description, beginning in Isaiah 52:13 and going all the way through chapter 53, of someone often described by commentators as the “suffering servant.” Like all Biblical prophecies, it had relevance in Isaiah’s own day and immediate situation. But like many Biblical prophecies, especially some of the famous ones in Isaiah, it has been applied by Christians to what Jesus did and how he suffered for our sake.

I grew up in a Christian home and a musical home where Messiah was part of my childhood listening, but I really grew to know and love it when I was in college. Our college choir performed the entire oratorio—not just the Christmas portions—every December, and opened rehearsals to anyone in the community who wanted to attend. The rehearsals were on Monday nights from 7-8:30 p.m. all during the fall.

I can tell you that singing the choral parts of Messiah for an hour and a half every week for thirteen weeks or so for four years will embed them in your brain so deep that they will never come out. In some ways, it was the accompaniment to all of my college Octobers. I remember so many evenings after rehearsal was over, walking the long, long path to my dorm (our campus was spread out on the bluffs of the Mississippi River), with the stars twinkling in the sky and glinting off the surface of the slough that ran through campus, lights coming on, leaves turning from green to gold, Isaiah’s prediction of a suffering Messiah ringing in my head. All we like sheep have gone astray, Isaiah reminded me; but the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

In the grand sweep of human sufferings, my college sufferings were small ones. But this music and this passage walked with me through all of them anyway, telling me of a Christ who was with me in my pain.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Servant at Work (Isaiah 40ff.).