Who is this man?

 Who is this man? The Jewish chief priests and elders accuse him of crimes their people say deserve his death, yet he doesn't open his mouth. They say he is claiming to be the King of the Jews, staging a rebellion, yet he just stands there, silent. He listens to the crowd calling out for his crucifixion, be he doesn't defend himself. What kind of man does that?

Who is this man, that he just walks like a lamb to slaughter? He is mocked and beaten, spit on and with thorns pressed into his brow--and yet he doesn't resist, doesn't protest, doesn't respond to those mocking him as King. He is offered wine to dull his pain, but he refuses. What kind of man can take such pain?

Who is this man, who even when hung on a cross doesn't curse his executioners? Even now as he dies they mock him, yet his only response? "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing." He hangs on a cross, yet he promises the criminal beside him that he will be in paradise today. What kind of man makes such a promise of a future in the face of death?

Who is this man, that even the sky goes dark as his life slips away? He hangs on a cross, yet his concern is for others. Through the excruciating pain of even drawing a breath, he calls on his follower to care for his mother when he's gone. Who cares for others more than himself, even as he dies?

Who is this man, who at his death cries out to the heavens and the very earth shakes? Surely He was the Son of God!

"Indeed, who would ever believe it?
    Who would possibly accept what we’ve been told?
    Who has witnessed the awesome power and plan of the Eternal in action?
Out of emptiness he came, like a tender shoot from rock-hard ground.
He didn’t look like anything or anyone of consequence—
    he had no physical beauty to attract our attention.
So he was despised and forsaken by men,
    this man of suffering, grief’s patient friend.
As if he was a person to avoid, we looked the other way;
    he was despised, forsaken, and we took no notice of him.
Yet it was our suffering he carried,
    our pain and distress, our sick-to-the-soul-ness.
We just figured that God had rejected him,
    that God was the reason he hurt so badly.
But he was hurt because of us; he suffered so.
    Our wrongdoing wounded and crushed him.
He endured the breaking that made us whole.
    The injuries he suffered became our healing.
We all have wandered off, like shepherdless sheep,
    scattered by our aimless striving and endless pursuits;
The Eternal One laid on him, this silent sufferer,
    the sins of us all.
And in the face of such oppression and suffering—silence.
    Not a word of protest, not a finger raised to stop it.
Like a sheep to a shearing, like a lamb to be slaughtered,
    he went—oh so quietly, oh so willingly.
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away.
    From this generation, who was there to complain?
Who was there to cry “Foul”?
    He was, after all, cut off from the land of the living,
Smacked and struck, not on his account,
    because of how my people (my people!)
Disregarded the lines between right and wrong.
    They snuffed out his life.
And when he was dead, he was buried with the disgraced
    in borrowed space (among the rich),
Even though he did no wrong by word or deed.
Yet the Eternal One planned to crush him all along,
    to bring him to grief, this innocent servant of God.
When he puts his life in sin’s dark place, in the pit of wrongdoing,
    this servant of God will see his children and have his days prolonged.
For in His servant’s hand, the Eternal’s deepest desire will come to pass and flourish.
As a result of the trials and troubles that wrack his soul,
    God’s servant will see light and be content
Because He knows, really understands, what it’s about; as God says,
    'My just servant will justify countless others by taking on their punishment and bearing it away.
Because he exposed his very self—
    laid bare his soul to the vicious grasping of death—
And was counted among the worst, I will count him among the best.
    I will allot this one, My servant, a share in all that is of any value,
Because he took on himself the sin of many
    and acted on behalf of those who broke My law.'"
(Isaiah 53)