I ask that you turn with me this morning for our scripture reading to Isaiah 52. Isaiah 52, we begin reading at verse 13 and read through the 53rd chapter. It's no secret, especially when we see the commercial opportunities out there that we're in another particular season. In a sense, a church season. Of course, the world, like I said, commercializes it and changes it around to Easter bunnies and so forth. But we are in that season of the year where we consider the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ leading to the celebration of His resurrection. And it's for that reason that I would like to consider Isaiah 53 for the next couple of sermons, the Lord willing. the verses 13 through 15 of chapter 52 really belong with Isaiah 53. And there we find that contrast between the exaltation of Christ as well as the suffering of Christ and in some respects a summary, if you will, of what is about to come in chapter 53. But therefore, I would like to consider with you today, this morning, and next week, the Lord willing, and the following Sunday, night the suffering servant and his rejection, his redemption, his resignation, and his reward as we find them in chapter 53. This morning we consider his rejection as we consider together the first three verses of chapter 53. We begin our reading now at verse 13 of chapter 52 as we give our attention to the reading of the Word of God. See, my servant will act wisely. He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as 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. So will he sprinkle many nations and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told they will see and what they have not heard they will understand. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to His own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days. And the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Once again, the text, the first three verses. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the familiar words of 2 Corinthians 5, verse 7 remind us that we walk by faith and not by sight. Our faith is not to be governed by that which we can see with the naked eye because we all know that things are not always as they seem. The Lord reminded Samuel of that at the home of Jesse, David's father. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. And as we consider the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are reminded in a very vivid way in Isaiah chapter 53 of how man is deceived by appearance and outward things. With regard to the earthly life and work of Jesus, what Israel saw and what Israel expected were two completely different things. Congregation, indeed, we serve a risen Savior. And therefore, may it be to our advantage and to our growth and to our maturity in the faith as we consider what He endured to become our Savior. And may it be that as we consider the depth of Christ's suffering, the Lord willing, as we travel through this chapter, that we grow in the knowledge and assurance of what a great salvation is ours by the grace of God. So I preached to you this morning of the suffering servant, his rejection. We notice, first of all, the announcement of unbelief. Secondly, the ordinary identification. And finally, the disappointing reception. Now, here we are. We sit here today some 2,000 years after Christ walked this earth. We read Scripture those 2,000 years later. Isaiah lived and preached some 700 years before Jesus came. But this particular prophecy in Isaiah 53 is the message of the cross of Jesus. And it reads as if it had already taken place. So it's being projected way ahead and even then looking back at the suffering of our Lord. As well, it seems to be a confession on Israel's part of her ignorance and rejection of the true coming of the Messiah and His work. So we notice, first of all, again, the announcement of unbelief. Verse 1 says, Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? That message, congregation, is the gospel message of the cross of Jesus. Again, it's clear that that's what Isaiah 53 is pointing to. We know that the suffering of our Lord is hinted at, pointed forward to many times throughout the Old Testament. The sacrifice is all pointed to that. But even in the Psalms, we read about it. We have hints here and there. But here it is so vivid in Isaiah 53. And the New Testament supports this as it applies this chapter to Christ in a number of different New Testament passages. And that message, congregation, is that Jesus Christ died to save sinners. That's what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1, verse 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And His coming included that Christ should suffer humiliation and shame all the days of His earthly life. That He would be treated with contempt and hatred and suffer a death that was cursed of God. Paul says in Galatians 3.13, he quotes from Deuteronomy 21, verse 23, when he says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Jesus Christ bore the eternal wrath and punishment of God that was against us, which we should have suffered. And He did it so that those who would believe on Him by grace through faith would have life, that we would have it abundantly, that we would have it eternally. And in summary form, in a nutshell, if I can say it that way, that's the message of the Gospel. But how is it received? The text begins, Who has believed our message? Who has believed it? And the implication, I trust, is clear. Very few believe it. Jesus Christ and the Gospel message has been and is largely rejected. The Gospel of salvation offers so very much, but so few understand it, so few grasp it. And then the text adds, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Now, we know that the arm of the Lord is referring, It's talking about the power and the strength of God. Isaiah also makes that clear in a number of places. For example, in Isaiah 52, verse 10, we read, The Lord has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Israel witnessed the power of God many times. For example, in her release from Egyptian captivity, the parting of the Red Sea, on Mount Sinai, on Mount Carmel with the fire that came down from heaven. And we could go on and on and give many, many examples from Scripture. But she also witnessed the power of God in Jesus Christ. Especially with His miracles of healing the sick and raising the dead, casting out demons and feeding the multitudes. Yes, it's true that throughout history, some have believed. Some have believed. God has always preserved for Himself a remnant by His grace. Yet most rejected Him. Jesus Christ was miserably rejected, as the text makes clear, and both John and Paul support Isaiah's prophecy. For example, in John 10, verses 37 and 38, we read, But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, and then John quotes the first verse of chapter 53 here. And in Romans 10, Paul has been speaking about Israel's rejection of the Gospel, and he goes on to say in verse 16, But they have not all obeyed the Gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed, I report. Why the rejection? Why the unbelief? Because the arm of the Lord, that is, now, the power of the Holy Spirit of God, had not been revealed to them. You see, the power of God is revealed in believing. Yet, one cannot believe apart from God's power through the Holy Spirit. All by itself, the Gospel message is a stumbling block to the Jews. It's nothing more than foolishness to the Gentiles. But those who are born again by the irresistible grace of God and those who through the power of the Holy Spirit are filled with the Gospel message, they find that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Indeed, beloved, the Gospel of Christ's salvation is a faithful saying. And it's worthy of full acceptance, even as Eric has testified this morning. Yet so few believe. At the end of a couple of parables, Jesus said, For many are called, but few are chosen. The text then goes on to explain this rejection and unbelief based on Christ's ordinary identification. Those in whom the Holy Spirit of God does not live, do not walk by faith, instead they walk by sight, and they have a mistaken view of the Savior. Verse 2 says, He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. You see, Jesus Christ did not fit Israel's expectations of the Messiah. You see, He would be the Son of David. He would be royalty. Splendor and majesty would surround Him and He would indeed put all His enemies under His feet. And of course, that could only mean the Romans. As Psalm 2 says, God would set His King on His holy hill of Zion. The nations would be His inheritance and He would possess the ends of the earth. And His enemies? Why? He would break them with a rod of iron. He would dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel. What a ruler He would be for His people here. You see, the Messiah would be like no one they had ever seen before. He would appear with all kinds of pomp and circumstance, and who would be able to resist Him? Well, the truth is, the Messiah would indeed be like no one they had ever seen before. And the reaction to Him would be, we hope we never see anyone like Him again. When Jesus came, everything about Him was exactly opposite of what Israel expected. They should have known better. Isaiah said the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. He said a child would be born, a son would be given, which demonstrated Christ's humble beginning. This king wasn't born in a palace. He was laid in a manger. And Zechariah 9, verse 9 reported the coming of this king when it says, Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and having salvation lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. A donkey is not a victor's animal. All of the things prophesied about the Messiah pointed to His humility, which really verse 2 describes. Now a tender shoot is what we would call a sucker on a tree or on a plant. I'm no expert in horticulture, but one of those suckers draws its nourishment from the stem and the plant, and often these things grow unnoticed, they're really unwanted, they're cut off, they're thrown away because they're useless, and all they really do is rob the rest of the tree of necessary nutrients. Christ is described here as a tender shoot, not as a great tree. Outwardly, there was no evidence of greatness and strength in Him. He grew up unnoticed in the sight of men, but the eyes of God were always upon him. And as well, he grew up in the midst of the most unlikely of situations like a root out of dry ground. The spiritual situation surrounding the time of our Lord's coming was in bad shape. The people were spiritually dry and parched and they were in great need of the water of life. And we know that a root doesn't have much chance of survival in the dry ground of the desert where there's no moisture. And as we consider the crucifixion and death of our Lord, outwardly, physically, it looked like His kingdom had no chance of survival because His crucifixion looked like His defeat. And as well, He was from Nazareth of all places. And what good comes out of Nazareth as Nathanael said. Our Lord had an ordinary identification. His life was lowly and unattractive. Nothing special. His father was just a poor carpenter. But not only were the circumstances and the situations surrounding his life ordinary, his physical form was also ordinary. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. You see, in a sense, the Messiah, a ruler, a victor, was expected to have some uncommon beauty in His face and in His person that would be charming and attractive and that would draw others to Himself like a magnet. We know that all great leaders have charisma and you just want to be around them. But there was nothing extraordinary about Christ. His physical appearance, we could say, was not unusual. He appeared to be just a plain guy. He didn't have attractive looks that when one looked at Him, you just couldn't keep your eyes off of that beauty. I'm sure that we've all seen people that were just stunning and had beauty that you just couldn't take your eyes off of. I'm not talking about a lustful beauty, but a radiant beauty that just shone forth. But Christ didn't have that. There was nothing about His physical appearance that would make people say, wow, I want to know Him. I want to watch Him. I want to be around Him. His ordinary identification just didn't fit with the Messiah's royalty that Israel expected. And beloved, it's clear from His ordinariness, from the humility of His being and His life, that Jesus Christ truly emptied Himself, as Paul says, in coming into this world. And that His divine glory, That which radiates was veiled by the flesh. And His holy, heavenly surrounding was replaced by a sin-sick world where men work by the sweat of their brow and the poor struggle for life and sin saturates everything. As a man, Jesus Christ struggled in every way as we do, yet He was sinless. And for that reason, beloved, many do not and will not believe the Gospel message because one who suffered and experienced such humility doesn't fit the character of such a great salvation. It doesn't make sense. Our Savior had no splendor or human attractiveness that would delight the human eye, yet to believers, those empowered by the Holy Spirit with the new life of faith, He is the fairest Lord Jesus. Psalm 45 speaks of the glories of the Messiah. And verse 2 says, You are fairer than the sons of man. Yet not only was Israel not attracted to Him, on the other hand, we could say, she was repulsed by Him. Verse 3 speaks of the suffering servant's disappointing reception. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Beloved Christ's humility was an embarrassment to His people, to those He came to save, especially His beatings, His crown of thorns, His cross. Even as verse 14 says of chapter 52, just as 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. He was despised. that is, not wanted, looked down upon. He was rejected, that is, He was forsaken by His world, by His nation, by His disciples. He was not esteemed, that is, He was not valued highly. He was not considered worthwhile. And He was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Sorrows here has the idea of sickness. And our Lord was completely familiar with the sickness of sin and its misery. And as the Catechism says in Lord's Day 15, He suffered all the time He lived on earth, but especially at the end of His life, He bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race. The burden of sin, not His own, but the sin of the world, was like a burning fever that constantly attacked Him. In this world, He was surrounded by sin and the effects of sin, especially as He related to sinful people. He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us, and therefore, no one could see any value in Him. Instead, He was treated as if He had some sort of a terrible disease. Instead of enjoying the nightlife of Palestine and all the pleasures of this world, which often attracts others and draws a popular crowd, He was a man of sorrows. And instead of being received, men turned their backs on Him. He was one that men could barely look at. How could this one be the Messiah? One who is disfigured by the stripes, by the beatings, by the spit, by the crown of thorns, by the cross, by the grave. How could He be the Messiah? Oftentimes, those who are real popular don't want to be caught socializing with those who could hurt their reputation or bring their reputation down. Well, surely this man could not be Israel's Messiah. So they rejected him. The disappointing reception, you see, is that he was not received at all. Beloved, those who do great things before the sight of men, and those who lead nations and armies, and those who find cures for diseases, and those who find other ways to help the world and to save our planet and you name it. These are exalted in life. These are adored and they're worshipped in a sense. These are the ones the world seeks. But Jesus Christ was put to death on a cross and in the sight of men. There's nothing great about that. That's an embarrassment, something that we should not want to be associated with. Our Lord is the stone the builders rejected. Men turned away from Him and His suffering meant nothing to them when it should have meant the world to them. Christ didn't come to fight a physical enemy, but a spiritual enemy. An enemy whose side each and every one of us is on by nature. And the cross looks like Christ's defeat in the eyes of the world when in reality it is the beauty of victory to the eye of faith. And those who turn away from Jesus and hide their faces from Him will not see the glory of His salvation. Those who refuse to repent of their sins and turn to Christ, one day they will not be able to find Him as He will hide forever His face of grace from them. And if you have not turned to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith, you are being called to seek the Lord while He may be found, to call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man His thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and He will have mercy on Him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. That's our confidence for the sake of Jesus Christ. Beloved, today is still the day of salvation. while it is called today, but when the tomorrow of eternity comes, it will be too late for those who continue to turn away from Christ. But what an awesome blessing for those who turn to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith by grace, by the grace of God. Because with the eye of faith, God's people see the beauty of His majesty and His holiness and His goodness which makes Him the desire of the nations. People of God, is Jesus Christ your desire? Do you see His beauty? Is the beauty of His salvation yours? Do you own it? Let me ask you, what kind of Savior do you desire? Boys, girls, young people? Our greatest need is to be saved from our sin and rescued from eternal hell. To these eyes, the very eyes on our face, Jesus Christ didn't look like much of a Savior, but those who see Him through the eyes of faith see that He provided the greatest salvation possible. He is the King. If you turn away from Him, you turn away from the only way to the Father, the only way to heaven. But if you believe on Him, God has given you graciously the only way to heaven. That way will not fail. That way cannot fail. That's the message of the Gospel. Do you believe it? Amen. Shall we pray? Father, we are reminded indeed that of ourselves, apart from Your gracious hand, we too cannot bear to look upon the Savior, Jesus Christ. We too are embarrassed. We too do not find anything worthwhile in Him. Yet we praise You for the new life You have given to Your people through the power of the Holy Spirit. that You have brought us to faith, that we might believe the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, that we might see in Him through the eye of faith, see Him as that great salvation. Oh, how awesome that is, O Lord! And may that be the joy which guards and guides and protects us and leads us throughout this life. And may we walk forward with that joy leading us every step of the way. Hear our prayer, O Lord, for Jesus' sake. And in His name, Amen.