In the church calendar today is Maundy Thursday, commemorating The Last Supper, the Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. He told them that the bread they ate was his body, which would be broken… and the wine was his blood that would be shed, as a new covenant... As he sat with his disciples, imagine now all that they would be remembering—imagine the collective memory of Israel as we’ve read through Isaiah. Deliverance from Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, the ups and downs of all the kings, the failure of the people, and the faithfulness of God… But now, it’s been a long time since they had seen deliverance. They were under Roman occupation, feeling a lot like slaves and exiles once again. The stories of the Messianic King and of the Suffering Servant were tucked away… remembered, hoped for, but perhaps seeming more like a fool’s dream than a coming reality. And yet here is Jesus, telling them he is about to suffer, claiming essentially that he is the Passover lamb. Do you think they could see it? Would they have remembered his words and actions over the past few years and set them in the context of Isaiah’s Servant King? “Like a lamb led to the slaugher…” “The shoot from the stump of Jesse…” Or today’s passage that Jesus read in the synagogue and proclaimed to be fulfilled its hearing—“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor…”

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1. What connections did you see in the passage to the rest of Isaiah?

2. As we look towards the end of Holy Week, the death and resurrection of Jesus, we cannot ignore the fact that he saw himself fulfilling the role of the Suffering Servant King in Isaiah. How does that change or deepen your understanding of him?

3. The beauty of this passage calls us to see people the way God sees them. It is to the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives that the LORD announces this good news. And they will be the LORD’s planting, the priests and ministers to the nations. How is this passage good news to you? And in what ways is the LORD drawing you into the work and worship of showing the world what he is like?

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