ISAIAH - Weeks 8&9
Here’s what happened.
Last week, the topic for the blog coincided with the topic for my talk on Sunday.
I kept stealing bits from each for the other and I was getting all muddled, so I focussed on preparing for the sermon.
For a more detailed examination of the role of the Suffering Servant and how that can be interpreted in the New Testament context and beyond, let me recommend (if it’s not immodest) that you listen to that talk, which you can find here.
In it, I talk about how seeing Israel as the Suffering Servant speaks to this idea of ’Redemptive Suffering’, a process by which the trials and struggles we face are part of the journey to hope. This is reflected in Paul’s writing in Romans 5, but something of the sentiment is also seen in more common adages like ‘what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’.
Then, I spoke on the potential for Jesus to have been portrayed as the Suffering Servant in a metaphorical way, in order to fulfil the purposes of the gospel writer. It is this idea that I want to explain in more depth in this post.
My conclusion, however, was that we see not only the gospel writers making this comparison, but also Jesus seems to make the connection between himself and the Suffering Servant, notably in Luke 4. In the sermon, I treated this at face value, but there are some questions to be asked of such a passage too. We’ll consider those here as well.
What are the ‘gospels’ and what are they not?
For the most part, it is understood that the gospels are examples of ‘Ancient Biographies’.
Now, I’m confident that most of us have read, or at least come across, the biographies and autobiographies of our day. These are often chronological accounts of people’s lives, with detailed accounts of events, with quotes and sometimes even evidence of what happened. These texts serve to tell the story of someone’s life.
Ancient biographies, however, did not expect to do this.
They sought to portray someone’s character, telling stories which focus on representing their core thoughts, values and essence. We have loads of examples of ancient biographies from around the same time as our gospel accounts, especially those of Roman leaders. What we ought to expect from an ancient biography, then, is different to our expectations of those contemporary to us.
Part of that style incorporates using the stories about someone to create a narrative focus or theme for a particular purpose. These biographies weren’t being written to make money or get on the Times best seller list. They were a way of making a point.
This is something that we have considered in the past as we’ve studied the gospels at Resound. When working through John’s gospel recently, we talked about the rise of the Gnostic communities, and how they thought, among other things, that Jesus was not human but purely God, and that there was some secret knowledge needed to gain salvation. We can see John counter this with clear messaging about Jesus being ‘the word made flesh’ and declarations such as Jesus saying ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’. We don’t get that quote in our other gospels, but John is using this to highlight that these claims of secret knowledge are false and Jesus has revealed the way to God.
Furthermore, when we’ve spoken about Matthew, we’ve considered the likelihood that it was written for a Jewish audience. We see comparisons made between Jesus and Moses, and more relevant for this reflection, a focus on the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies.
These connections are mostly not drawn by the other gospels, at least not as clearly as this. Matthew is trying to make a connection between the story of Jesus and the story of Israel.
By emphasizing continuity between Jesus and the story of Israel, Matthew seems to be trying to show that the life, mission and identity of Jesus bring God’s redemptive plan to its climax.
For instance, Matthew uses prophecy fulfillment formulas (“This took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet…”) to demonstrate how events in Jesus' life fulfil these Old Testament promises to Israel. One reading of this is that Jesus is the true Israelite who completes Israel's mission.
The use of the suffering servant imagery forms another part of this message.
There aren’t lots of actual quotes which directly make this connection, it becomes more of a theme, but Matthew says:
“This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” – Matthew 8:17
Given who Matthew seems to have been written for, it makes sense that there are all of these allusions and citations from the Hebrew Bible.
Each of our gospel writers offer different perspectives on the relationships between Jesus and the Hebrew Bible, ancient prophecies and the role of a Messiah.
Luke and Jesus in Nazareth
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” -Luke 4:16-21 (NRSV)
This is the passage where we move from the writers talking about Jesus to Jesus appearing to join the dots himself. Personally, I felt as though this was more compelling then the descriptive fulfilments described in Matthew. If Jesus claims to be the fulfilment of the prophecy, we are then invited to assess this claim against the evidence and see what the result is.
As it happens, I think, overall, that viewing Jesus as the ultimate fulfilment does make sense. The texts point us to this, tradition has upheld it and reason suggests that it is a fair conclusion to reach.
There is a challenge to this interpretation of Luke 4.
In Biblical Studies, there is an understanding that not all of the events laid out in the gospels were historical. Some serve other purposes (as described earlier in this reflection). The questions are then which are more likely to be authentic, which are less likely and how can we know? The same questions are applied to the words and teachings of Jesus.
These recordings of Jesus’ words form the foundation of Christianity, so it is quite important to know if he actually said what we think he did!
Some of the criteria for thinking a particular saying or set of teachings was more likely to be ’authentic’ are:
- Appearing in more than one independent source
- Things that were not typical Jewish teachings of the time (as these are less likely to have been invented)
- Sayings that made sense in the context of the time
- Sayings that were coherent with other parts of his teachings
When we consider Luke 4, it does not appear in other gospels or accounts, so it is only in one source. This could, then, lead us to think of it as a construct of the author. For Luke, it could be an opportunity early in the gospel to make a statement about who Jesus is, the importance of salvation and the themes found in Isaiah like social justice, which we see reflected in the rest of the gospel.
On the other hand, Jesus was known to have travelled through Galilee teaching in synagogues, and it is likely that he would have read from the Hebrew Scriptures. The use of Isaiah fits with Jesus' known message of proclaiming the Kingdom of God and bringing good news to the poor. Also, the rejection of Jesus by the people of Nazareth following his declaration could be seen as something that early Christians might not have invented.
Ultimately, we have to treat the sayings of Jesus with an awareness that it isn’t always as simple as saying ‘Jesus said…’. Even those who have been at the forefront of this field of study acknowledge that it’s a case of what is more or less likely, and that we can’t know for definite.