Gloria Dei Lutheran Church | Urbandale, Iowa

Lenten Service: Suffering Servant

Pastor Meyer’s Sermon

Lenten Service, February 27, 2008

“Surely, He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows that we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted.”

Have you ever wondered what the word “smitten” means? Every time Lent comes around, we hear the word “smitten.” We even have a hymn, “Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted.” But I’ve always wondered, “What does the word ‘smitten’ mean, to smite?” And so I dug into the word a little bit and I found out that it’s an agricultural word. It’s a farm word. In fact, it refers to corn. It refers to barley. It refers to wheat. It means to take something in your hands, an instrument, and to grind, to pulverize, to grind into flour.

It’s interesting that when Isaiah talks about this servant of the Lord, this person who is close to God, but not only is He a suffering servant, not only is He shocking to us and shocking things happen to Him and not only is He known as a man of sorrows but He’s also a smitten servant. In other words, Isaiah is saying that what happens to corn is the same thing that happens to the servant of the Lord.

“Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi,’ and kissed Him. Then some stood up and gave false accusations and testimonies against Jesus. The chief priests and teachers of the law were standing there vehemently accusing Him. They stripped Him and they put a scarlet robe on Him. And they twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head. They put a staff in His right hand and they put Him in a purple robe and they stood in front of Him and they mocked Him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews.’ They spit on Him and they hit Him in the face and struck Him over and over again. ‘Prophesy to us, Christ. Who hit you?’ they said and many other insulting things to Him. And they shouted, ‘Crucify Him. Crucify Him.’”

It was May of 1986. Things were going well for me. I just went to my first prom. I just graduated from high school. I had just gotten a job for the summer. I knew I could make some money. I signed up for classes in the fall at the local college. And then I got a call. My brother went to get the ringing phone but I told him, “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll get it.” And I went over and I picked up the phone. It was my mom. She said, “How are you doing?” And I knew by the way she said it, there was something wrong. Like when you know someone for so long, you can tell by the sound of their voice something’s not right. And I said, “Things are okay with me. I’m having a good day. How are you doing?” And she said, “I’m not doing very well. In fact, your father and I aren’t doing very well. I’ve just moved into a condo up by the airport. Your father and I have tried to work it out but it doesn’t look like we can work it out. I want you to come and visit me and I want you to remember that I always love you, but I’m not coming home.” I got off the phone and my brother asked what’s wrong and I couldn’t even answer him. I went into my room and I cried. At that moment, I felt like a piece of corn being smitten, being grounded, being pulverized, crushed.

I’m sure there have been times when you’ve felt that way, too. Whether it’s when we’re at work and it seems like we have two or three bosses we are dealing with and it’s just hard for us to be able to make one happy. And while we do that, the other gets mad. We just don’t know what to do. Or maybe it’s the family saying, “We really want you to be home this week,” but you know it’s going to be a tough week. Maybe it’s friends of yours at school who want you to do some things that you know are wrong. But yet they’re your friends and you want to stay friends with them but you’re just not sure what to do. You feel like that piece of corn. You feel like you can be crushed by the pressure.

Or maybe you’re waiting for Friday because, on Friday, you’ll get the test results from the doctor. And you’re not so sure exactly what it’s going to be but you are scared. Or maybe you’ve already gotten the test results and they weren’t favorable. And you feel the pressure of what to do now.

Isaiah tells us a little bit about why this servant was smitten for us. He says here, “But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our inequities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds, we are healed.” Jesus came to be the smitten servant so that in times when you feel like that piece of corn, when you feel like you’re being crushed, when you feel smitten, too, we know that we’ll never completely be crushed. We know we’ll never be wiped out. We know we’ll never be smitten because when Jesus was smitten on the cross, we no longer have our citizenship in hell. We have our citizenship in heaven.

And we can say the words of Paul with great confidence, “We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” Amen.