Getting Myself Ready for Easter

In  preparation for Easter I have been reading through Isaiah 52:13-Isaiah 53:12 daily for the past several weeks. Lest you think this is typical of me, it is not. Life’s details take over my thoughts. I lose track of the days. And suddenly it is The Day Before Easter, or Before Christmas, or…

This year the Lord impressed on my heart to read this passage as if I’ve never read it before. I have done that many times. And it is powerful!

This passage is a prophecy about Jesus. It’s written about 700 years before Christ was born. It tells of what he will suffer, how he will be treated, and what will be accomplished.

Prepare Yourself for Easter

I invite you to join me for a 5-Day Devotional. We’ll read a section a day for five days this week (Monday-Friday). We will be using the New Living Translation. The section of the day will be in bold italics. Please read the short section as if you have never read it before. Read it several times. Allow it to sink into your mind and heart. Think about how it must have been for Jesus to experience what is recorded. Why was it happening? What does it mean for us today?

I will comment about the section at the end of the entire passage. Finally I’ll suggest a question for you to ponder.

The post will end with a hymn or video appropriate for the section.

One more thing. Let’s approach this week’s readings with prayer. Ask God to open your eyes and your heart. What does he have for you in the reading. Maybe you don’t have much experience with prayer. That’s OK. God made you. He loves you. He wants to show himself to you. He’ll be glad to hear your prayer.

I am hopeful that Easter will have a deeper meaning for us all after we spend time in Isaiah.

Isaiah 52:13-53:12, NLT

The Lord’s Suffering Servant

52:13 See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted. 14 But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man. 15 And he will startle many nations.Kings will stand speechless in his presence.For they will see what they had not been told; they will understand what they had not heard about.

53 :1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,  nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 

4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away.No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream.But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.

10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. 11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. 12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

Comments

Isaiah’s prophecy begins with promising Jesus’ success. He would also be “highly exalted.” In Philippians 2:6-11 we read that Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.” Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, welcoming him back to Heaven to be with his Father. And every person everywhere will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. But immediately after prophesying Jesus’ success and exaltation we read that he will be disfigured, almost unrecognizable as a human. Willingly laying down his life is what allowed Jesus to be exalted.

Questions to Ponder

What made Jesus willing to humble himself even to the point of dying on a cross? How are you affected by Isaiah’s description of the disfigured Jesus?

Video

See you tomorrow,
Ginger