We know from the New Testament, and the realizing of Isaiah’s words 700 years later, that this suffering servant would be not only the promised Messiah, but God himself — God’s own Son, come to rescue his people, by receiving in himself the justice they deserved. How can God himself, the happiest being in the universe, not only become man, but “a man of sorrows”?

Man of Sorrows. What a name.

Isaiah penned some of the most memorable lines in all the Bible when he prophesied about God’s coming “suffering servant”:

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)

We know from the New Testament, and the realizing of Isaiah’s words 700 years later, that this suffering servant would be not only the promised Messiah, but God himself — God’s own Son, come to rescue his people, by receiving in himself the justice they deserved. How can God himself, the happiest being in the universe, not only become man, but “a man of sorrows”?

Isaiah’s next words give the answer: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). He bore our griefs. He carried our sorrows. In his mission to save us, he entered not only into our flesh and blood but into our sorrows. And yet, even as prescient and memorable as Isaiah’s prophecy is, nowhere does the New Testament refer to Jesus as “man of sorrows.” Yes, he carried our sorrows, and he even had his own, but he was so much more than a man of sorrows. Fundamentally, he was a man of something much stronger.

Sustained in Sorrow

Jesus could not have borne our griefs and carried our sorrows had he not been buoyed by something deeper and more enduring. Imagine what emotional strength it must have taken to fulfill the words of Isaiah 50:6:

I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
from disgrace and spitting.

Did he ever taste sorrow. He entered into our sin-haunted environment and felt our infirmities, making himself able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15). He spoke a blessing to those who mourn and weep (Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:21). At the tomb of his friend, “he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33). He wept (John 11:35). Then he was “deeply moved again” (John 11:38).

How was he sustained in the sorrows he encountered, not just in the course of normal human life, but in the unique steps he took as the suffering servant?

Deep, Habitual Joy

The surprising testimony of the Gospels is that Jesus was a man of unparalleled and unshakeable joy. “A joyless life would have been a sinful life,” writes Donald Macleod, “Jesus experienced deep, habitual joy” (Person of Christ, 171). While the Gospels focus on the objective, external aspects of his ministry, we do get a few precious peeks.

Not only was the divine Son infinitely happy with his Father before and during the foundation of the world (Proverbs 8:30–31), but the angels announced his human arrival as “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10). He came, writes Warfield, “as a conqueror with the gladness of the imminent victory in his heart.” Hebrews 1:9 takes away any guesswork as to whether Psalm 45:7addresses Jesus: “God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” King David had written about the joy that his great descendant would experience from God: “You make him most blessed forever; you make him glad with the joy of your presence” (Psalm 21:6). Jesus likened himself to a bridegroom (Mark 2:18–20), and his dour opponents accused him of having too much joy (Luke 7:34). He even taught that joy was essential in receiving his kingdom (Matthew 13:44).

We see Jesus’s own joy when he makes himself the shepherd in the parable of the lost sheep. What does he do when he finds his lost sheep? “Truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray” (Matthew 18:13). “When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:5–7).

Jesus even casts himself as the woman in the parable of the lost coin. To what effect? We glimpse his own joy. “When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:9–10).

Delight in His Father

We catch a double glimpse in Luke 10:17–22. First, when the seventy-two return with joy, celebrating that even the demons are subject to them in Jesus’s name, he challenges the source of their exuberance. “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). Rejoice not in ministry fruit that is yours, but in your Father who has made you his. The joy that fed and sustained Jesus himself was not the sermons he gave, the sick he healed, even the dead he raised, but the relationship he had with his Father. The bottom of his joy was not what he did in the world but whose he was.

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