A face like flint

Exeter Temple Message notes: Palm Sunday 29^th March 2015
Bible Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9  

The Servant Songs of Isaiah are poems or songs that speak about the coming Messiah and particularly refer to him as a Suffering Servant. Isaiah 50 particularly with the disgrace, mocking and humiliation of the Messiah.  This Servant Song foretells a Saviour who does not save face but faced unspeakable suffering head on. 

 “There were many who were appalled at him. His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness.”  Isaiah 52:14

 1. An instructed tongue 

“The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.”  v 4
In view here is the teaching, preaching and speaking ministry of the Messiah.  This aspect to his work was foretold long before in  “I will raise up for them a prophet like you Moses from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account” Deuteronomy 18:17-19 
Jesus was a master at having just the right word for the given moment, even as a boy in the temple instructing the religious teachers. The crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority and not as the teachers of the law.”  

Yet it wasn’t just in dazzling teaching and in intellectual spats with the religious elite where Jesus used words well.  His words of comfort and healing were also always appropriate and life giving. It is tempting to think that Jesus was simply gifted in this way, a clever man who had the ability to read people well. But in addition to this there is the intimate knowledge of the mind of God through personal relationship. Jesus spoke with authority about God because he knew him. In Isaiah the Messia

“He wakens me morning by morning wakens my ear to list like one being taught.” (v4) 

Jesus helped countless hurting people through the power of his words and at the end of his life one of things that his enemies sought to do was to discredit the things he had said. 

Along with the beatings, the soldiers demanded that he prophesy. When he was on the cross passers-by threw his own words back at him, “You who are going to destroy the temple in three days, come down from the cross.” “Let God rescue him now, if he wants him for he said “I am the Son of God”

Jesus didn’t waste words on them, or use words to plead his case or beg for mercy.  Before his accusers he didn’t utter a word. 

On the cross, his words truly gave hope to the weary as he assured the desperate dying thief on the cross besides his, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  How amazing is it to remember when we have fallen yet again and we are weary with our failures to remember Jesus’ words from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

2. Open ears  4b-5

 “The Lord has opened my ears and I have not been rebellious. I have not drawn back”

Many of God’s servants have at first refused the task that God was calling them into including Moses, Jeremiah and Jonah.
Jesus models perfect obedience. He said yes to the mission revealed to him, knowing that his obedience would result in his suffering. He said yes to his saying the message the Lord placed in his heart and mind, knowing that the majority would reject his teachings.
We need to a people who say “yes Lord”. To be a servant of the Lord means to be obedient to the Lord. It means saying what God tells us to say. It means doing what he tells us to do.

 

3. A Face like flint v 6-7

 “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.”

This reveals the clear prophecy of the Lord through Isaiah concerning the suffering of Jesus.

a) Back

Our back and shoulders are capable of carrying a great load. The load we can carry is probably why we refer to bearing stress and duty as “carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.”

Imagine doing that when your back has already been beaten and injured.  Peter wrote this of Jesus, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”  (1 Peter 2:24)

 

b) Beards

In first century Jewish culture, men took pride in their long beards. It was a symbol of their manhood. And when we read of people tearing out the beard of the Messiah, the prophet is referring to an attempt to tear away his dignity and his manhood. And not only that, it hurts.

 c) Spitting 

Is there anything more humiliating and Is there anything more disrespectful than someone spitting at you?

 

In response to this we see the determination of the servant.

"I have set my face like flint! I know I will not be put to shame!"   (v7)

 “As the time approached for him to be taking up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” Luke 9:51

 

Jesus set His face like flint to do the will of God. That's what we must learn.

In Luke 13, Jesus had been preaching powerful messages in all the towns and villages. And in verse 31, the Pharisees tried to intimidate him by saying, "You’d better get out of here! Herod wants to kill you!" Jesus’ reply  was “I must keep going and tomorrow and the next day for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!”

So often we are drawn away from obedience because we fall into reactionary emotions that draw us away from obedience to God when people press our buttons.   We become swayed by others or the devil, or even your own desires and reasoning.

We have the capacity to rise above reaction and consciously choose God and learn His ways.
What kind of Christian will we be?  Will we be people who have made up their minds to be faithful no matter what? 

 “And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshipped. Revelation 5:14  

Eugene Peterson says that Amen is a very emphatic Hebrew word. When Gentile Christians tried to translate it into Greek the nearest word they could find was one that meant, “that which is not false” or “would that it would be so.”  It turned Amen into a wistful “I wish”   They soon abandoned the idea and soon everybody just used the word Amen.  What does it mean then?

 “For no matter how many promises God has made they are Yes in Christ. And so through him the “Amen “is spoken by us to the glory of God.”            2 Corinthians 1:20

Do you remember the man from Del Monte?  What did he like to do?  He liked to say YES.  Well Paul is saying that God too, likes to say yes.  It’s as if Jesus says to the Father, Can I fulfil your promises and the Father says, “Yes, Yes!” 

Jesus’ action of setting his face like flint was an Amen to the call of God, trusting him that as verse 7 says, “Because the sovereign Lord helps me I will not be disgraced.”

We need to be careful how we use the word Amen. Hopefully it will ever be on our lips because it reflects an inner assent to all that God has promised us and calls us to be.

God Bless

Carol