Guest speaker: Pastor Dawn Mixon, Long Island, NY

Isaiah 53:1-6 

Who has believed our message?

To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,

like a root in dry ground.

There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,

nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected—

a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.

We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.

He was despised, and we did not care.

4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;

it was our sorrows[a] that weighed him down.

And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,

a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,

crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so we could be whole.

He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.

We have left God’s paths to follow our own.

Yet the Lord laid on him

the sins of us all.