Jesus is Lord-Isaiah 53
Isaiah 53:1-12, “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of the parched ground. He was no stately form or majesty; that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our grief’s He himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken; smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray; each one has turned to his own way; but the Lord caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers; so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgressions of My people to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death. Because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. But, the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself a grief offering. He will see His offspring; He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hands. As a result of the anguish of His soul; He will see it, and be satisfied. By His knowledge, the Righteous One, My Servant will justify the many; as He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will a lot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors.”
This is a fairly common passage of Scripture at Easter-time that speaks of the suffering Savior from God. To be honest I’m not sure how the Jewish people, or anyone for that matter, could not see Jesus glaring at them through these verses. It’s really obvious that Isaiah was prophesying about the Son of God.
But, I wanted to take a kind of different look at these verses because you know how you notice something different every time you read God’s Word. Well something popped up at me today as I read this that I had never paid any attention to, and I wanted to share that with you; and hopefully give you a more concrete knowledge that Isaiah is referring to Jesus.
We see in verse 3 that Isaiah says, “like one from whom men hide their face.” This is usually spoken of like this person’s face was disfigured or grotesque, and considering the surrounding verses that is a fair understanding; but as I was re-reading this another understanding came to my mind. I considered the possibility that Isaiah was saying that men try to hide their face from Him because His luminance is so bright that men cannot behold it, and my mind went to Matthew 17 where Jesus took Peter, James and John on the mountain, and He was transfigured before them. The Bible says, “…His face shone like the sun…” (Matthew 17:2) The sun is too bright to look at unless you shade your eye’s (cover your face); the brilliance of Jesus is so great that we cannot look at it unless we hide our face.
Also, the brilliance of the Son discloses every blemish and imperfection in our lives, so we in ourselves are forced to hide from Him until we become a reflector and shine His brightness to the rest of the world.
Verse 9 says, “His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death…”
When Jesus was crucified it was assumed that He would be buried in a field that the Romans kept as a communal graveyard for others who had violated Roman laws. However, Joseph of Arimathea was a secret follower of Jesus, and being a rich man he went to Pilate and requested the body of Jesus to bury in his own tomb in order to honor his newfound Savior.(Matthew 27:57-60)
These are only a very few of the indications from the Old Testament that shine their light brightly on the person of Jesus as being the Savior from God.
Yes, You Can Ministry 
Steve, I love too that in Christ’s sufferings, Christ also broke the curse found in Genesis 3:17-19:
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
I always thought the crown of thorns placed on Christ when he suffered was an odd thing to do. Until you look at the scripture in Genesis. Cursed is the ground, through painful toil, it will produce THORNS for you, by the sweat of your BROW, return to the ground.
The crown of thorns pressed into Christ’s brow was a symbolic breaking of the curse over mankind of painful toil and death. Christ became the curse, so we wouldn’t be cursed anymore. He suffered so we could have life. What a good God!