ScripturePartyScriptureParty › Lesson Helps › Week 41, 2026
Isaiah 50–57: He Hath Borne Our Griefs, and Carried Our Sorrows
Experience the most powerful prophecy of Christ's Atonement in the Old Testament and His infinite invitation to come and be healed
Play this lesson as a family game
This week's lesson is ready to play as a live group game — 30 questions across 12 game types, built from these exact chapters. Everyone plays from their phone; the game shows on your TV. Free for up to 5 players, no account needed.
▶ Host this week's gameJoin with a codeFamily discussion questions
Use these around the dinner table, in Sunday School, or for companionship study — each comes from this week's chapters.
- How does knowing that Jesus has already 'carried' your specific sorrow change the way you bring your struggles to Him in prayer?
- Why do you think it was important that Jesus experienced our grief personally rather than just forgiving us from a distance?
- When has someone being simply present with you during a hard time meant more than any advice they could have given?
- How does knowing that Jesus has personally experienced your specific type of pain change the way you pray during hard times?
- What's the difference between someone who says 'I understand' and someone who has actually been through what you're going through?
- If you could have been there when Isaiah received this vision, what would have surprised you most about the Messiah he described?
- How does knowing the Savior chose to suffer willingly — not by force — affect the way you think about His love for you?
- What does it mean to you personally that Christ was 'wounded for YOUR transgressions'? How does that change the way you think about repentance?
Sample questions from this week's game
You're going through a painful experience and a friend says, 'If God loved you, He wouldn't let you suffer.' You think of Isaiah 53, where the Savior Himself suffered for us. What do you do?
Isaiah 53:3-4
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Explain that God doesn't remove suffering — He enters into it with us, just like the Savior bore our griefs and carried our sorrows — Isaiah 53 reveals a Messiah who doesn't stand above human suffering — He wades into the middle of it. Alma 7:11-12 in the Book of Mormon expands on this: Christ suffered 'pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind' so that 'he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people.' God's answer to suffering isn't an explanation — it's a Person who has already been there.
A prophet sees a vision of someone who would come centuries later. This person would be rejected by everyone, despised and abandoned. He would be 'a man of sorrows' — not a triumphant king, but someone intimately familiar with grief and pain. People would look away from him, thinking he was being punished by God. But the truth was staggering: every wound he carried was for someone else's sins. Every bruise, every stripe — all of it was voluntary, taken upon himself so that others could be healed.
Isaiah 53:3-5
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Isaiah's prophecy of the Suffering Servant — Jesus Christ (Isaiah 53) — Isaiah 53 is considered the greatest messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. Written approximately 700 years before Christ, it describes His rejection, suffering, silence before accusers, death, and burial with stunning accuracy. The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 was reading this very passage when Philip helped him understand it was about Jesus. It has led countless people to faith in Christ across the centuries.
Read the lesson
This week covers Isaiah 53:3-5, 54:10, 55:1, 55:8-9. Read the chapters at churchofjesuschrist.org.