SONG 10: Isaiah 53:10b-12
When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Living a life in loving service to others will entail for us a degree of suffering. There will be those who will reject us and our service to them. Often, in service to others we will find that like empaths, we will take on the suffering of those we serve. A life of service will always carry with it, a degree of sacrifice. There are times when a great deal of our time is consumed by those we serve, providing little time for self-care and little time spent with our families. There are times when our own health, physical, spiritual, and emotional may be adversely affected by our service. And, at the very extreme, we may find our lives threatened and endangered by our service to others.
As we discover in meditating on the four Servant Songs, the life of the Servant of God entails much sacrifice on the part of the Servant, even, in the end, requiring the Servant to die and be buried in disgrace among the worse of humanity. Others behold the Servant and seemingly think that God has abandoned the Servant, as expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 22, in the Book of Job, and especially in the passion accounts of Mark and Matthew. However, as Psalm 23 reminds us, being Servants of God does not mean we will avoid suffering and death. Rather, during the darkest and cruelest moments in life, we do not suffer in isolation. God may seem silent to us in our suffering, but God never abandons us. God is present to us and sustains us in our suffering.
What this part of the fourth Servant Song also reveals is that the death of the Servant is not the end. It is through death that the Servant enters glory at its fullest. The suffering and death of the Servant opens up that path of glory to everyone. As is expressed at the end of Psalm 22, in the story of Job, and in the passion and resurrection accounts of the gospels, the story does not end in misery and death. The story ends in a glorious new life.
So often in our own suffering, while we may find our abilities lessened as a result, the suffering is a catalyst in opening up for us abilities and possibilities we would not otherwise have discovered. Suffering can lead us into living out more fully our lives and positively impact the lives of others.
THE MUSIC
This last song in the Songs of the Servant is a Rhapsody. Like a Fantasia and an Impromptu, Rhapsodies don’t really have a designated form or meter. There is a sense of improvisation in a Rhapsody.
In this last song there are two dominant motifs. The first, the “suffering motif” is in a minor key, at a slow tempo, and is very solemn. The second, the “glory motif” is in a major key, at a very fast tempo, and is more dance like. The first motif represents the suffering of the Servant, and the second motif represents the glory of the Servant. As the text of this last part of the fourth Servant Song points out, it is through the suffering that the Servant is led to glory. So, we will find encased within the fast, “glory motif”, a restatement of the “suffering motif”, albeit at the fast tempo of the “glory motif.” The song ends with a triumphant restatement of the glory motif. For those who find this interesting, this Rhapsody is based upon two elements present in the modern day Polish dance, Mazurka. The slow “suffering motif” is based on the Polish dance, Kujawiak , and the second “glory” motif based on the Polish dance, Oberek.
