day five: Christ, the Servant

Readings: Isaiah 53, John 10:17-18, Philippians 2:1-11

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Sometime in eternity past, outside the dimension we know as time and before the foundations of the world, God the Father wrote a story.

He created characters—angels, including the one who would betray God and fall from heaven with a third of the others; then, within a certain dimension limited by time and space, He made man and woman, who would bear His image and walk with Him as friends in the Garden.

Then He wrote in conflict. The fallen angel would bring his death upon the humans, too. Their bond with the Author would be broken and the Garden of life would be closed to them.

And He fashioned, too, a plan for redemption—giving the heroic role of Savior to His own Son, though the cost would be astronomical.

The plan of salvation originated with the Father and was designed to be carried out by the Son, by the power of the Spirit (see Ephesians 1). Though the Christ is the hero of the story, He had to come first as a servant—the Servant of the Most High God, willingly submitted to the authority of the Father, ready to shoulder the heaviest of demands, even if it crushed Him.

Isaiah writes,

But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief.

Isaiah 53:10a

The Christ was not a victim of His time. He didn’t come as a King who was accidentally killed under God’s nose. No, He came as a Servant-Conqueror, fully prepared to lay Himself down for the will, no, the delight of the Father—for the story of redemption, for the restoration of life to those who were dead.