This is the third of the major ‘servant songs’. In verse 4 the NRSV translation says ‘the Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher’, though it is equally possible it should be ‘the tongue of a disciple’, in which case the servant speaks the message of comfort learned from God.
Christians have long used the servant songs as a way to interpret the death of Jesus, and it is not unlikely that Jesus himself understood them the same way. The servant in this passage clearly believes that their suffering is willed by God, who will both strengthen and ultimately vindicate them.
When the servant songs were first composed, the servant was Israel (Isaiah 49.3). It is the suffering of the exiled people that is described and understood as redemptive, and the return from captivity that vindicates.
Gospel Luke 23.1-49
When, in Luke, the centurion sees Jesus die he declares not ‘truly this was the Son of God’ but ‘truly this was an innocent/righteous man’ – translations differ on which word to use. A modern equivalent might be ‘truly this was a man of integrity’.
Luke has shown Jesus to have died as he lived, and lived as he taught. On the way to the cross Luke adds the story where he shows concern for the women of Jerusalem; even en route to the gallows he demonstrates love of neighbour. Then Luke describes him forgiving the soldiers who crucify him, even as the nails are tearing his flesh; he who teaches a generous, forgiving God demonstrates that forgiveness. Then Luke adds the story of the repentant thief; even as he dies, Jesus welcomes the outcast into his kingdom. Luke has no cry of dereliction from the cross; it is a different psalm Jesus quotes as he commends his spirit in trust to God. The God who was well pleased with him at his baptism will be well pleased still.
Luke’s theology of the cross is difficult to discern. He doesn’t see it as a ransom, as Mark and Matthew do; he removed the phrase ‘to give his life a ransom for many’. He doesn’t see it as a sacrifice as John does, when John understands him as the ‘lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ and adjusts the chronology so Jesus dies at the moment the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the temple. Scholars often see a strong influence from the Isaiah servant songs, where the redemptive quality of the servant’s suffering is seen in its obedient acceptance. It seems that, for Luke, death is the inevitable consequence of the path Jesus has chosen. That death is totally consistent with his life, his message and his prophetic calling. Soon it will be affirmed in the resurrection – God’s great ‘yes’ to the way of Jesus, as the way to let the kingdom in.
Passion: the final steps
Towards Jerusalem Week 7
The cross speaks to us in many different ways. The fact that each of the gospels offers a different interpretation shows how powerfully it can engage with every time and situation. It has been spoken of as a cosmic battle with death and evil, as a sacrifice for our sins, as a ransom paid to buy us back from our slavery to the devil, as a substitution for the punishment that was rightly ours, and, in recent times, as an identification of God with human suffering. For the first Christians, however, it was an enigma. For many of their Jewish contemporaries, the idea of a crucified Messiah was anathema. So these early believers reached back into the Scriptures, and there they found abundant witness to redemptive suffering in Isaiah. For us, the question may be: what questions does our age and culture address to the cross, and where are the riches in Scripture that will help us answer them?
Q What difference does it make to the interpretation of the story that Luke omits the cry of dereliction from the cross – ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Q When Jesus forgives his murderers, was his attitude different towards those who did know what they did?