The scripture text for this morning's message is found in Isaiah 53. I invite you to follow

along in your Bibles or in one of the Pew Bibles as I read Isaiah 53 verses

versus four through 12.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole and with his stripes we are healed.

All we, like sheep, have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,

so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

And they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When he makes himself an offering

for sin, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He

shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

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