The Silent Servant, Part 2

It’s Isaiah 53, and I may have to start apologizing for the fact that we are prolonging this so much. But if you only knew how much there was for me to say that I do not say because time constrains me. I have lived this chapter now for months, leading up to the series and in the midst of the series. And there are so many trails that come out of this; there are so many things that originate in Isaiah 53 that become trails and tracks that one could follow almost endlessly. I have said to you that this is a bottomless chapter, that I can’t find the depth, I can’t find the breadth, I can’t find the height of it.

I was reading one book this week on Isaiah 53 in which the writer said, “Words collapse under the weight of this chapter.” And I understand that, that there just aren’t words to hold it up; it’s too vast, too massive to be carried by vocabulary. This is a chapter that, in a sense, you get to the point where you feel the weight of it without being able to articulate it. And, of course, that’s always the preacher’s problem and most particularly my problem since I am limited in my ability to express myself, and I find myself to some degree frustrated and at the same time trying to relieve that frustration by going back over it and enriching things that we’ve already talked about just so I don’t leave anything unsaid that should be said. . . .

http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/90-442