SONG 8: Isaiah 53:4-6
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
In the text of this song, we discover the great love of the Servant for us. How much as the Servant of God loved us? The Servant of God has loved us so much, that the Servant, like an empath, has taken on all of our hurt, all of our sorrow, all of our brokenness as human beings, and in taking on all of that cuts us down, shares in that pain in solidarity with all of us. In the Servant, we all come to know we do not suffer alone. We do not suffer in vain. The overwhelming love of the Servant assures us of this. This is the message that Servant bears to us from God. God does not abandon us even when at the times we feel the most unloved and the most abandoned.
As I composed this music, I envisioned it as the last love song of the Servant sung to us before the death of the Servant. As such, there is no violence, there is no horror of that which the Servant has absorbed from humanity. Rather, what is expressed here is the great love the Servant has for us, a love so great, that the Servant participates in our pain. There is a bittersweet quality to this song as we all come to know how greatly we have been loved and ARE loved.
