This week we’ve been thinking about images inspired by Isaiah 53, with its focus on the suffering servant. Today, I’d like to share a few verses from that chapter:

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. (Isaiah 53: 7-8)

These are powerful words, and when seen through the lens of Jesus (reading Jesus into the words of Isaiah) they become even more powerful and shocking.

As you view this image Agnus Dei (The Lamb of God), by Francisco de Zurbaran (1635-1640), listen to this musical setting of the Agnus Dei text from the communion service by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Take a moment today to think of Jesus as innocent victim of the circumstances of his time – circumstances that he did not seek to escape from.