4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases,
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 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.
6 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.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with affliction.
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.
11 Out of his anguish he shall see; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 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.
Isaiah 53:4–12 (NRSVue)
Too many storms are raging all over the world at the moment. In the United States, Hurricane Helene has left many displaced, isolated, lost, or dead. In Nepal, landslides have buried people and communities underneath, and while many rescue workers are working tirelessly to find people, there are smaller villages with the roads leading to them broken off. Two months ago, Noakhali, Bangladesh dealt with its own flooding from the monsoon rains, and now, houses, cities, and the people within them are no longer the same. But it’s not just on land; it’s on the sea as well. Many folks seek to cross international borders through northern Africa in search of improved human and material resources, asylum from domestic and political violence, and refuge from the effects of climate change. Facing insurmountable barriers to easier migration, too many are compelled to use undependable means of transportation, scammed out of their life savings, and ultimately lost at sea, never to be found or heard from again. Isaiah 53 is particularly pertinent for the various people experiencing displacement from the effects of climate change.
In the book of Isaiah, the prophet documents the afflictions experienced by the people of Judah in the face of imperial subjugating. We hear about their transposition to exile, the loss and reinstitution of identity, along with the prophetic reminder proclaiming their restoration to new life and prosperity. But these are not abstract ideals; the words speak to the desires, hopes, and ingenuity that help to inform survival in times of utter chaos.
In Isaiah 53:4, we encounter an ongoing report involving the Suffering Servant and those speaking on his case, his identity, and the embodied catastrophes he has experienced. Although his sufferings weren’t self-inflicted, the people around him thought he must have been responsible for his afflictions. In verse 5, we learn that the Servant’s wounds were a result of the violation of the trust and the rebellion held in the hearts of the people against the God of Israel. Yet, in verse 6, those around him are finally beginning to understand the ways in which his afflictions were a result of collective and systemic violations. I reflect on how these words also speak to those who are experiencing calamities and displacement at this time, whether brought on by climate change or other marginalization.
Storms are catastrophic in meaning and imagery. The chaotic moments of one’s life are sometimes described as the “storms of life” – they’ll come, stay for a moment, and one could either get swept away or one could find some lifeline to help remain after the storms are gone. Furthermore, storms hold such a central place in the telling of human foundational stories, with many storms understood to cleanse and renew the place of the community before the Divine. Many foundational myths of community formation and development situate “after the storm” as the moment when positive change began to happen for them as a people.
Reading through the book of Isaiah, Michael Thompson notes, “It is as if the question is being posed, ‘Where is God in all this historical process?’ To which the answer comes back: ‘He is active in judging his people for their sins; he is active in forgiving, restoring, re-establishing them; and he is active once again, and always, in judging them for their sins’” (Isaiah 40-66, xxxiii). The children of Israel experienced various stormy episodes as they negotiated their culture, religion, identity, nationhood, and lives through different domestic and international conflicts and imperial invasions.
The prophet Isaiah lived through events narrated in Isaiah as well as in 2 Kings. In 2 Kings 16, we learn that when the king of Northern Israel, Pekah, formed an alliance with Rezin, the king of Syria, against Assyria, they also tried to enlist Ahaz, the king of Judah in their formation. Ahaz refused their alliance, and Judah became a vassal of the Assyrian king. Assyria then invaded Syria and Northern Israel, but Ahaz kept Assyria at bay through a tributary relationship (Isaiah 10). After Ahaz died, his son, Hezekiah became king of the South. Hezekiah tried to rebel against Assyria, but Assyria conquered Judah. However, Hezekiah was able to save Jerusalem by paying tribute to Sennacherib, the new king of the Assyrians. In Isaiah 39, Hezekiah welcomed Babylonian envoys to whom he showed the treasures and resources under his command. Isaiah responds to all of these events by prophesying a future exile (Isaiah 39:5-7). Judah, during the reign of Zedekiah, would later be invaded, exiled, cast out from the presence of God, and held captive by Babylon (2 Kings 24).
The transgressions that cast people out from the presence of God is a theme central to the meaning-making process of many of the prophets within the Hebrew Bible. When faced with the dispersion and displacement of the people of God into the various empires that sought to use Judah as a base for routes to other neighboring nations in and around the Levant, these prophets understood such events as the result of failing as a people before YHWH. The prophets, along with the people, are seeking answers to what it means to be chosen and redeemed by God, but to still find themselves dealing with never-ending disasters and extortions. Many times, the way back to being God’s people, redeemed and restored to the land, along with its prosperities, was imagined to be the proper awareness of these violations of trust, seek forgiveness, and return to the ways that would allow for the propagation of faith, justice, and intentional worship.
However, in contemporary times, interpreting a text or a group’s calamity as being the effect of their wrongdoings may also be making room for incriminating othered identities within that context. By explaining away climate change, its resulting natural disasters, and the displacement from such calamities as Divine responses to the actions of the people affected, we take away the collective agency that should spur us all into ecological actions of restoration and preservation. Isaiah describes the “servant” in the text as to be likened to “a young plant and like a root out of dry ground” (53:2), that is out of place and close to losing its connection to life-giving nourishment. Like many people today, this plant is denied access to community, growth, or social acceptance and mobility. Like those impacted by the misinformation after Helene and Milton, which is derailing necessary efforts for help and restoration, this plant is the one who has to deal with the tangible consequences of reported hearsays (53:4). The one who stays and remains in the margins, regardless of sociopolitical power relations and party politics. The one who is never present, but always represented in reports and assessed in data as experiencing systemic exploitation, destruction, displacement, and whose agency is denied (53:7).
Still, to this one who stands as a representation of those who have been oppressed and displaced, is given hope and faith in the possibilities of the arm and might of God to provide liberation for the people of God. In the reimagination and prophetic report of Isaiah, liberation, restoration, and prosperity would come for the people of God because they had paid for their transgressions through their displacement and sufferings. “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.” (53:11)
Isaiah 53:4-12 can be understood as an act of collective storytelling to imagine life “after the storm.” The passage is a result of the people’s self-reflection on their own past and present. In this collective space, fear-mongering about apocalyptic powerlessness becomes inappropriate. Instead, the space is designed around the call to justice for all who are needing to be found, returned to community, to rebuild, and to be restored to their dignity as humans deserving to be seen and to be heard.
In the Christian tradition, Isaiah 53 as an affirmation of the work of substitutionary atonement which Jesus does for the Christian and the Church, the Servant in the text does not act or endure alone. God is with and working through the Servant to ensure that there is guaranteed liberation, restoration, and thanksgiving (Isaiah 53:10-11). Jesus may be read into this report as confirmation that he offers his body, as the Divine’s suffering servant: strong, willing, and perfect to be a scapegoat for all that may be wrong with our world. However, even in this instance, restoration after the storms of life become possible only with the collective awareness of the varied ways through which God works with and on behalf of God’s people.
As meteorologists and scientists warn the world to anticipate higher intensity in the damage caused by natural disasters due to climate change, I also invite the world to remember its service and responsibility to the earth. Storms and other calamities cannot be resolved through misconceptions about the present or the past. Rather, in our collective storytelling, we have to envision a space of comfort and restoration that is habitable for us and those around us. In commemoration of a different migration, the exodus, Moses spoke to the elders of Israel about a service that should transcend generations. This service is a call to remember the power of God to restore and save. Deliverance and restoration are built on the understanding and acceptance that all lives within the community are connected, and when one suffers, all suffer in ways that are incomprehensible. Instead, intentional service to the Divine, to the earth, and to one another, paves the way forward through the storms (Mark 10:43-4).
