Suffering Servant?  Buried in the prophesies of Isaiah are numerous descriptions of a Servant, a Servant whom Jews believe to be the nation of Israel and whom Christians believe to be, viewed through New Testament eyes, Jesus.  Although I favor the latter viewpoint, that is not my central point here.  It is rather that however we view a redeemer, that is, a person who liberates, for that is how the Servant is ultimately presented in the Hebrew text, we understand that he or she must be a person who suffers and, significantly, overcome and alleviate others' pain.

     
     And in a fallen and broken world, this, for better or worse, is the essence of that which enables freedom.  To overcome the pain of the world, we must endure the pain of the world.  Otherwise, we've glossed over and ignored the facts before us.
     
     We live, we suffer, we die.  Does this sound depressing?  Of course it does.  But there's another side to the picture.  It is rooted in the fact of transcendence.   Yes, out of transcendence the world came, and out of transcendence morality becomes real, and yes, in transcendence we see, because morality is real, the roots of our pain.  But also out of transcendence we see the meaning that guides us through it.