Seeing Isaiah 53 the Way Jesus Did — An Advent Reflection
I think we find Jesus everywhere in the Old Testament—but not because we’re forcing him into the text. We find him there because the way Jesus lived perfectly revealed what God has been doing the entire time in Scripture. His life didn’t introduce a new storyline; it embodied the one God has been telling from the beginning.
Jesus lived in a way that put flesh and blood to God’s eternal purposes. His life was a visible, lived expression of what Scripture had been shaping God’s people toward all along. In that sense, Jesus doesn’t stand outside the story—he steps fully into it and brings it to completion.
“Jesus lived his life in a way that portrayed what Scripture and what God has been doing for all of eternity.” -Brent Billings from Bema Discipleship
Isaiah chapter 53 is a clear example. Jesus doesn’t merely fulfill it in a narrow or technical sense; he lives it. His entire life was shaped by suffering on behalf of others so that others might receive healing from their sin sickness. And yes, now, when we read Isaiah 53, we can’t help but see Jesus, but that doesn’t mean we should overwrite the text or ignore its original meaning.
Isaiah, as the author and God’s mouthpiece, had an intent. God was communicating something real and specific through him to a real people in a particular moment in history. The original audience, exile Judahites in Babylon, heard Isaiah 53 in the context of exile, loss, and calling. They would have understood it as a summons to live as God’s servant people—faithfully bearing suffering in love for the sake of others so that God’s healing might flow through them. Isaiah 53 first heard by exiles in Babylon, was not as a crystal-clear messianic prediction, but as a calling to understand suffering, faithfulness, and hope in the midst of exile—one Jesus later embodied perfectly.
Jesus doesn’t erase that meaning; he completes it. Isaiah 53 isn’t just a prediction waiting to be checked off centuries later. Jesus points back to it and, in effect, says, This is what you were always called to. Let me show you what it looks like. And then he lived it—in his life, his death, and his resurrection.
This is where the tension matters for us. Isaiah 53 isn’t simply about something Jesus did instead of us. How often have we read it and thought, Thank God Jesus did that so I don’t have to? That’s the opposite of the point. The Book of Hebrews* in the New Testament helps us see this clearly: Jesus is not only the one who saves us; he is the one who shows us the way. He shows us how to suffer faithfully, how to endure in love, how to give ourselves for the healing of others.
Hebrews teaches that Jesus fulfills Isaiah 53 not only by suffering for us, but by suffering before us—perfecting faithful obedience through suffering and inviting us to follow him in that same servant-shaped way of life.
So as we read Scripture, specifically the Prophets and more specifically Isaiah, we don’t read Jesus over Isaiah chapter 53, flattening it into a one-dimensional prophecy. And we don’t leave Jesus out of it either. We read Isaiah 53 through Jesus. He honors the text by embodying its original meaning and fulfills it by living the servant’s calling perfectly—then inviting us to follow him in that same cruciform way of life.
Let’s remember, Jesus doesn’t overwrite Isaiah 53 or merely fulfill it for us—he embodies it before us, completing its original meaning and inviting us to live the servant-shaped life of faithful, self-giving love for the healing of the world.
When we see Isaiah 53 through the life of Jesus, the only faithful response left to us is Isaiah’s own—“Here I am. Send me (Isaiah 6:8).”—to step into the servant-shaped life God has always been forming his people to live.
For some of us, we’ve already said, “Here I am. Send me.” But if we’re honest, what we often mean is, “Here I am—send me where it’s safe, affirming, and comfortable.” We want the calling without the cost, obedience without disruption, and mission without risk. Yet Isaiah’s “send me” came in the presence of God’s holiness, not the promise of ease. And Jesus’ invitation to follow him was never framed around comfort, control, or safety—it was framed around trust, surrender, and love that’s willing to endure pain for the sake of others.
“If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” -Jesus (Matthew 16:24)
To say “Here I am” while resisting discomfort, conflict, or threat isn’t faithfulness—it’s self-preservation dressed up as perceived obedience. The servant-shaped life Jesus embodies in Isaiah 53 doesn’t ask whether the path is easy, but whether if we’re willing to be faithful. And the good news is this: Jesus doesn’t shame us for our hesitation—he meets us there, then calls us deeper.
When ‘Here I am, send me’ still demands comfort, control, and safety, what we’re offering isn’t surrender at all—because the way of Jesus has always been to take up the cross and follow him, even when love risks loss or pain or conflict or hardships for the sake of others. So we move from a servant-shaped life to a cross-shaped life—all following in the footsteps of the One we bow the knee as King.
With all this now known, Isaiah 53 is no longer something to explain—it’s a path to walk because the Servant has shown us the way. Jesus lived this life all the way to the cross—so now the question is simple and unavoidable: will we follow him there, or keep calling comfort obedience?
*Hebrews 2:10–11, Hebrews 2:17–18, Hebrews 5:8–9, Hebrews 12:2–3, Hebrews 13:12–13
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