As we continue to work on Psalm 88c, we’ve completed work on our first non-Psalm (in over 20 years) Isaiah 53.
We almost never diverge from the Psalms with our compositions but there was one part of the bible that we could not resist. Isaiah 53, sometimes called ‘the servant song,’ is the perfect accompaniment to the psalms. In its haunting lyrical-oracular style it celebrates the greatest thing that God ever did. It tells of the suffering servant, the man of sorrows, who is none other than Jesus Christ, the very incarnation of the one true God. The prophet sings of the sacrifice of God’s righteous servant in an event so singular that he wonders in the same instance who could believe that such a thing could ever happen. Whereas the psalms often lament the human condition, the song of the suffering servant presents God’s answer to this predicament: God himself takes on our suffering so that we can be clothed in joy. The act of God that Isaiah 53 sings of is what accounts for every turning point in the psalms. It is why, as Psalm 103 declares, “he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” It is the reason why there is any praise and rejoicing in the psalms at all. That’s why we wanted to sing this song and place it beside the saddest of the psalms, Psalm 88. It is the work of the man of sorrows, Jesus Christ, that assures that, as Psalm 126 declares, our sowing in tears will return to us a harvest of joy.
You can find Isaiah 53 as the latest track on our 2021 album – Man of Sorrows.
