The One We Didn’t Expect
Phase 3 - Grace as the Means
God’s victory comes through unexpected suffering
Passage: Isaiah 52:13–15
“See, my servant will prosper; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.” Isaiah 52:13
Keywords: Servant, Exaltation, Suffering, Astonishment, Revelation
Reflection
“See… My servant…” Look. Pay attention. Don’t miss this. God is intentionally drawing our eyes to Someone.
“My servant will prosper… He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.” This sounds like victory. Strength. Triumph. Everything that we would expect from the God of the universe.
But then, “Many were appalled at Him…” The picture shifts. Not strength or admiration, but disfigurement, suffering. Something so severe that people would turn their faces away.
This is not what we would have chosen. This is not how we would have written the story. But that’s the point.
We expect power to look like dominance. We expect victory to look like control. But God reveals His power completely differently.
Through a Servant. Through suffering and what looks like weakness.
And yet, “Just as many were appalled at Him, so He will sprinkle many nations.”
This same One who shocks us, is the One who cleanses. The same One who is rejected, is the One who restores.
And kings, those with power, authority, and control, “will shut their mouths because of Him.” They will have nothing to say.
Because what they are seeing, they have never seen before. “What they were not told, they will see…”
This is revelation. God is showing the world something completely unexpected. Salvation will not come through force. It will come through sacrifice.
Victory will not come by avoiding suffering, it will come through it.
And yet, this was written 700 years before Jesus was born.
Seven hundred years.
And the description is so clear.
A Servant. Exalted, yet marred.
Rejected, yet restoring many.
The arm of the Lord, revealed.
And still, it was missed. Israel was waiting, expecting and looking for a leader who would rise up, take control, overthrow Rome, and restore their position.
Power, authority, dominance. That’s what they were watching for.
But when God moved, they didn’t recognize Him, because He didn’t arrive the way they expected.
He came in humility. He came in suffering. He came as a Servant. And they missed Him. Not because there was no revelation, but because it didn’t fit with their expectation.
And if we’re honest, is this true of us too?
We read this now with clarity. We see it. We understand it. And we wonder, how did they miss it? But how often do we do the same?
God is working. He is moving and revealing.
But what if it doesn’t look like what we thought it would. Do we overlook it, or resist it. Or miss it entirely.
Do we expect Him to solve things one way, and He works another. We expect strength to look a certain way, and He shows up in something that feels like weakness.
We expect clarity, and He asks for trust. And in those moments, we can miss what He is doing right in front of us. And not because He is absent, but because we are looking for something else.
Pause for a moment.
Where might God be working in your life, in a way you didn’t expect?
Prayer
Father God,
Help me to see what You are showing me. Not what I expect or what I would choose, but what is true.
Thank You that Your ways are higher than mine, even when I don’t understand them.
Jesus, thank You that You did not come in the way we expected, but you came in the way we needed. Thank You that You were willing to suffer, to be rejected, and misunderstood, that we could be made whole and clean.
Open my eyes to see You more clearly. And give me a heart that trusts You, even when Your way looks different to mine.
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.