It was a journey of some two thousand kilometers—from Jerusalem all the way back to what is modern-day Sudan. The lone traveler had come to worship at the Temple. And I can only imagine that it was for him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
As his horse plodded along, he occupied his time by reading from a scroll he had no doubt acquired during the course of his stay in Jerusalem—the writings of the prophet Isaiah.
Now you have to realize that in those days no one read silently. Believe it or not, that practice wasn’t to come about for another thousand years. So it was that Philip, a Jesus-follower, who happened to be traveling along the same road, could hear every word that the Ethiopian was reading.
Curious, he asked the traveller, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” To which came the reply, “How can I without someone to explain it to me?” With that he invited Philip to climb up and sit with him in the chariot. And here is what he was reading:
Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his descendants?
For his life was taken away from the earth.
“So who was the prophet talking about?” the traveler asked. “Himself or someone else?” And this was all Philip needed to begin to tell him about Jesus.
The passage, of course, was the remarkable fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, from which we have read this evening. It had been written centuries before, but it gives a vivid description of what was to take place at Calvary, as Jesus, the Lamb of God, hung dying on the cross.
Jesus’ crucifixion and the events that led up to it had come as a terrifying shock to the disciples. Even Peter, for all his bravado beforehand, had crumbled when things began to fall apart. And two days later the disciples could be found cowering in a room with its door locked and barred for fear that what had happened to Jesus might happen to them.
Yet it was not as though Jesus had not warned them about what was going to take place. The gospels record three separate occasions on which Jesus plainly told the disciples that he would be betrayed, rejected by the religious authorities and condemned to death. But they were not able to take in his warnings.
In fact, on the eve of his crucifixion, as the disciples were bickering over which of them was the greatest, Jesus quoted directly from this very passage. “For I tell you,” he said to them, “that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfilment.” (Luke 22:37)
Yet it was only after the resurrection that with Jesus’ help they began to be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Luke tells us in his gospel that it was then that Jesus took time with the disciples to open their minds to understand the Scriptures—that all that was written in the Law and the Prophets that would find its fulfilment in him (Luke 24:44-46). And as they began to look through the Scriptures, there it was again and again. Everything began to become clear in a way that it never had been before.
So it was that Jesus enabled the disciples to read the Scriptures in a whole new way. And so it was that on the Day of Pentecost Peter could proclaim to the crowd that had gathered, “Jesus of Nazareth … was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to a cross” (Acts 2:23). And there is no doubt in my mind that one of the passages from the Old Testament that was central in the thoughts of Peter and his fellow disciples was the one we have read this evening.
The events of the cross didn’t just “happen”. They were not a triumph of evil over good, not even for a split second. They were all a part of God’s plan from the beginning of time. And our passage from Isaiah this evening, the passage that the Ethiopian servant was reading on his long homeward journey, opens to us the mind of our gracious and merciful heavenly Father.
The words form the fourth of what are called the “servant songs” of Isaiah. Each one points ahead to the day when God would send his servant, in whom he delights and upon whom his Spirit rests, to bring glory to him and to be a light to the nations. Together they form a progression, reaching their climax in the final song—the passage we have read from this evening.
From the opening verse Isaiah recognizes that God’s plans for us are beyond our understanding. “Who could have believed what we have heard?” he asks. And indeed who would believe that the battered and bloody figure, limp and helpless and hanging from a cross, was the divine Son of God?
Isaiah said he would be despised and rejected. So it was that those who passed by as Jesus hung there laughed at him and mocked him with the taunt, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (Matthew 27:39-40)
Yet Isaiah knew that the punishment that the servant would bear was not because of anything he had done, but for you and for me. “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities… The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” “He bore the sin of many,” Isaiah tells us, “and makes intercession for the transgressors.” And so it is that we hear Jesus pray, “Father, forgive them…”
It is a dark and gruesome picture. Yet through it all Isaiah also sees a glimmer of light. “The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand,” he tells us. “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous…”
And so beyond the gloom of Good Friday we already are given a glimpse of the joy of that first Easter morning—and indeed of the eternal joy of heaven. We have a foreshadowing of that day when all creation will proclaim, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12)
When Philip left him and the Ethiopian servant went on to resume his southward journey, he was a changed man. He now knew the suffering servant as his Saviour and Lord. My prayer is that the same may be true for you on this Good Friday—that you may look to the cross of Jesus and find in him the one who was pierced for your sins and who was punished to bring you peace.
