The True Meaning of Obedience
Isaiah 53:1-12[1]
One of the greatest challenges we may face in
this life is undeserved suffering. It’s not hard to find plenty of examples.
Especially with all the pain and suffering in this world inflicted by violence!
In fact, if we pay close enough attention, we might be overwhelmed by the sheer
numbers of people who live with suffering that they didn’t do a thing to
deserve. This can call into question our faith in God’s grace and mercy and
love at its very core. We see that innocent people who put their faith in God
the most are often the ones who suffer the most, and it’s a hard pill to
swallow. And unfortunately, many good people lose their faith in a loving God
because it’s all so overwhelming.
Our lesson from Isaiah is perhaps one of the best-known
descriptions of undeserved suffering in the Bible. It’s one of several “Servant
Songs” in Isaiah, where the prophet proclaims the role of the “Servant of the
Lord” in carrying out God’s purposes. The “Servant” is the one who will set
things right for those who have been oppressed (Isa. 42:1-4). The “Servant”
will bring “light” to restore Israel, but also to grant the “nations” salvation
as well (Isa. 49:1-6). In this chapter, the “Servant” takes the sufferings of
“the many” on himself to fulfill God’s purpose to bless us all with salvation.
The “Servant of the Lord” in this passage willingly
offers himself to endure undeserved mistreatment for the sake of others. As the
Scripture puts it, “He was painfully abused, but he did not complain. He was
silent like a lamb being led to the butcher, as quiet as a sheep having its
wool cut off” (Isa 53:7, CEV). Unfortunately, for all his pain and
suffering, he was despised by the very people for whom he was suffering. Again,
the Scripture puts it this way, “He was hated and rejected; his life was filled
with sorrow and terrible suffering. No one wanted to look at him. We despised
him and said, ‘He is a nobody!’” (Isa 53:3, CEV).
As I’ve mentioned many times, in those days
anyone who suffered was thought to have done something to deserve it. The idea
was that if you obey God, you’ll be “blessed.” But if you’re suffering in any
way, you must have done something wrong. But our lesson from Isaiah shows us
that sometimes people suffer unjustly, like the “Servant of the Lord.” And all
too often when they do so, those who benefit from their suffering may misjudge
them. Isaiah puts it this way: “He suffered and endured great pain for us, but
we thought his suffering was punishment from God” (Isa 53:4, CEV). And
it also says, “Others thought he was a sinner, but he suffered for our sins and
asked God to forgive us” (Isa 53:12, CEV). All too often, those who
suffer for the sake of others are judged harshly for it!
One of the challenges this passage presents is
the idea that somehow an “angry God” made Jesus suffer in this way to satisfy a
need to punish us for our sins. But the image of God as a punishing God is a
scary one in a world where there’s so much abuse and violence. If God is angry
and punishing, perhaps he’s not much different from someone who’s violent and
abusive. Simply put, I don’t think that’s the point of Isaiah 53. I think the
point is that God’s “Servant” is called to suffer on behalf of others because
that’s what God does. God suffers for us! The God who never quits loving us is
a God who suffers for us and with us.
That’s what our Study Catechism says: “In Jesus Christ God suffers with us,
knowing all our sorrows. In raising him from the dead, God gives new hope to
the world. Our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is himself God’s promise
that suffering will come to an end, that death shall be no more, and that all
things will be made new.”[2] The idea is that it’s precisely through his
suffering on the cross that Jesus accomplished all of this. And it was all what
God desired for us all.
What we see when we look at Jesus on that
cross is God’s love poured out for us, taking on all the pain and suffering of
the world. God takes that suffering on himself precisely because it’s the only
way to truly set things right in a world of violence and injustice. And the
reason for it was that we might find God right in the middle of it all, using
the undeserved suffering of the one who served him best to create new life.
It’s one of the great mysteries of our faith. We see in Jesus a “suffering servant”
who is willing to fulfill God’s love for us even when it leads him to a
humiliating death on a cross.
I think that puts the undeserved suffering in
our world in a whole different light. Our Scripture lesson speaks of the
“Servant’s” willingness to suffer for others what he didn’t deserve. It says it
this way in the Contemporary English Version: “By suffering, the servant
will learn the true meaning of obeying the LORD” (Isa 53:11, CEV). The
prophet Isaiah tells us that the experience of the “Servant of the Lord” who
suffered for the benefit of others without deserving it was “the true meaning
of obeying the LORD”! Instead of expecting obedience to lead us to God’s
“blessing,” in the example of Jesus, we see “the true meaning of obedience”:
the willingness to fulfill God’s purpose even and especially when it leads to undeserved
suffering.
That can turn our whole approach faith
upside-down. I’ve never been in the military, and I’ve never been in combat. I
have a son who was in combat in Iraq. I had a friend in college who had been in
combat in Vietnam. What I know from talking to my friend and talking to my son
is that those who have gone to war were giving their lives for their friends.
They were “suffering,” they were making at times great sacrifices for the sake
of their friends. There are all kinds of political interpretations of the wars we
get into as a country, but when it comes right down to it, soldiers in combat are
fighting for the lives of their friends. I think that’s a great illustration of
this very idea of the undeserved suffering that some take on themselves for the
sake of others.
Most of us practice our faith for the reward
we’ll get from it. But Jesus calls us all to take up our cross and follow him.
I think that means that if we’re truly going to obey God, we may very well find
ourselves undergoing undeserved suffering of our own for the sake of others.
Instead of expecting to be rewarded for our efforts to obey God, Jesus’ example
points us in a very different direction. His example shows us that the “true
meaning of obedience” is to carry out God’s purposes in this world, no matter
what it may cost us. That may not be what we want to hear. It’s a tall order
for us to fulfill. But it seems to me that when we read this passage from the prophet
Isaiah through the lens of Jesus’ death on the cross, we can rest assured that
if our obedience to God leads us to undeserved suffering for the sake of others,
we can do so in the assurance that we’re taking part in God’s work of renewing
and restoring and redeeming this world and all of us in it. It doesn’t make it any
easier. But our Scripture lesson reminds us that when we do suffer in this way,
there’s a meaning and a purpose to it. There’s something greater that we’re
giving our lives for. Our lesson for today suggests that’s the true meaning of obedience.
Not obeying for the sake of a reward, but obeying for the sake of fulfilling
God’s purpose for all people in this world.
[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/2/2026 for Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Cf. “The Study Catechism,” 1998, q. 14.
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