The Servant of God
Pastor Mathew Magera – 1/8/17 – Sermon 204
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus redefines what baptism is all about. I mean,
come on, would you expect any less from him? Never before had baptism been like
what Jesus made it and never again would it change to be anything different
since. In his Baptism by John in the Jordan, Jesus confirms for us that in him
sin was being put to death and that as we follow him in his command to be
baptized and to baptize one another we too share in that new life founded in
God's grace. After all this waiting, God's servant had finally come. The heavens
had opened up and all three members of the Holy Trinity were present that day
at the side of an insignificant little creek, brown and muddy in the presence
of those who were seeking grace. In his baptism, Jesus was revealed to us.
As I have said, the season of Epiphany is about Jesus
being revealed to us in different ways but it is not always with human eyes
that we can see him revealed but through eyes of faith. Baptism is an excellent
example of Jesus revealed to us through eyes of faith. Baptism carries its
meaning for us only through faith. Baptism carries its meaning for us only if
we believe in the Holy Spirit’s power to transform us on the inside. All our
human eyes can see is water being poured on our heads, the sign of the cross
being given and the Word of God being read. Just watching it with our human
eyes carries no significance, we see it, we take pictures, we clap, we sing
Borning Cry and it’s over. Baptism from our human eyes carries no significance.
It is instead how that baptism is lived out by the one who receives it and those
who witness it. Only by faith can we do this. Only by faith can we live out our
baptism each and every day. But, the question we probably have is, “how do we
do this?”
Considering this question, I want to look at Isaiah
42, our Old Testament reading this morning. Before it was read, I asked you to
picture in your mind who Isaiah was describing in our reading from Isaiah 42
earlier. How many of you thought of Jesus? It seems pretty straight forward,
doesn't it? Pretty legitimate? It doesn’t take a special person to look at what
Isaiah describes here and attribute it to Jesus. What if I were to tell you it
wasn’t Jesus that Isaiah was referring to? What if I were to tell you that the
image you have conjured up with your human eyes in your human mind was not
Jesus? Before you call me a heretic, I want to spend some time going through
this passage so that we might be able to see this servant that Isaiah describes
and who it might look like, not through our human eyes, but through eyes of faith.
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my
chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him, and he will
bring justice to the nations." – Isaiah 42:1
Isaiah 42 starts for us a section of Isaiah referred
to as the servant songs. There are four servant songs in Isaiah and they all
point to this servant of the Lord and they define specifically the person, the
human qualities of this servant of the Lord. Within these servant songs, Isaiah
gives us enough information to visualize this servant of the Lord but not
enough to identify who it is. The people Isaiah is speaking to would be
likewise unsure of the servant’s identity. Was Isaiah referring to himself? Was
he referring to the coming Messiah, and if so, who was it? Was he referring to
Israel as a whole? The identity is missing. But, you say, wait just a minute,
Pastor. What about the fact that Isaiah’s language almost mirrors the Baptism
story of Jesus? What about, “Here is my son with whom I am well pleased” What
about the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove? What about the
Son of God bringing justice into an unjust world?
The church today easily looks at this and without a
doubt believes this is referring to Jesus. Do these words shape who Jesus was? Yes.
Does Jesus shape what these words define? Yes. It's fairly easy to confirm
Jesus' identity here without any reason to believe it can be anyone else and
yes, I believe it does point to Jesus also. But, and yes, there is always a
but. Is the identity of the servant of the Lord really that finite?
This is where our eyes of faith come in. At this point
we have worked so hard to identify the "who is this?" in the passage
but by doing so have missed the "what is it this servant does?" But,
in all honesty, we’re not ready to read any further through this to even hear
the tasks of this servant. Since we have already, in our minds, associated this
servant of the Lord with Jesus, that thought defines what this justice and the
subsequent work of the servant is to be. While this is great that we can put
Jesus in this role and give a resounding shout of praise, it also limits its
power. Sometimes being Christian and having such a strong Christ focus blinds
us to the salvific work of the Old Testament. I’m not saying it is a bad thing
to be so strongly Christ centered, but that it does create some stress in
interpreting the message in the Old Testament in the ways the original audience
might have heard it.
You see, for the people to whom Isaiah is speaking,
they are probably less likely concerned about who the person is. It could be
anyone, Jesus, Isaiah, Frosty the Snowman, it really didn't matter to Israel at
this point. They were concerned about the justice. They were concerned about
the work this servant of God would accomplish for them. They wanted their
transformation from being in exile to returning to their homes to be in
progress. It epitomizes the entire history of these people too. They wanted out
of bondage from slavery in Egypt, they wanted out of the wilderness, now they
want out of exile. They wouldn’t care who does it as long as they are saved.
For Israel, they want God's servant to come but if this person doesn't do
justice, it's not acceptable. It's the exact opposite for us. We want justice
to be done but if it is not done by Jesus, it's not acceptable. Israel would
have an easier time understanding God's servant to be more than one person than
we would. And I’m not trying to say that the servant of the Lord requires an
additional Messiah on top of Jesus, but we need faith to open to us the
opportunity for this concept to come through. This doesn't mean that there is
more than one Messiah but they didn’t have Jesus yet to focus on so the options
were far vaster than we think. But, even after Jesus, I think we can still use
this lens to interpret this passage for us today.
No we are not living in exile like Israel was at the
time Isaiah wrote these words, but we can use their situation, their reference
point to help us see something new, namely, how the work of this servant invites
more than just Jesus into the mission field.
He will not shout or cry out, or raise
his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break, and a
smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth
justice; he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth. In
his teaching the islands will put their hope.”
–
Isaiah 42:2-4
These verses describe for us what this servant of God
will do. This is what Israel was concerned about most, how justice would be done.
So, Isaiah describes for them the battlefield. This is the battlefield where
evil is taken away and good is restored. But, what kind of a battlefield is
this anyway? In the height of an intense battle, would there not be shouting or
voices raised? Fighting, shooting, bombing. Wars are violent, but this servant,
Isaiah says, doesn't fight that way. The servant of the Lord battles evil
quietly through faith, through the work of the common person. It’s grand yet at
the same time simplistic, anti-climactic at best. The work of the servant of
the Lord is something even the most introverted and limited person could
achieve. The work of this servant is quiet work.
Thinking of Jesus’ baptism, aside from the presence of
the Holy Trinity, the event itself was rather quiet. Out in nature, by the
water, away from the hustle and bustle, God's servant was named by God the
Father and surrounded by the Holy Spirit. God's battle against sin began quietly
at the riverside. But, wouldn’t we think this battle would start with some kind
of battle cry, an announcement of war, anything so that people would know the
coming end to evil and wickedness? Yet, it begins by a muddy creek off the
beaten path.
In churches everywhere, baptism is done or remembered
and new servants of God are formed, quietly in the presence of God and faithful
gathered, while the rest of the world sleeps in or complains about the coming
Monday, in the quietest moment of a Sunday morning sin is rejected and grace is
received and the servants of God are sent out and we are ready to be called
into service. And even in Isaiah, God gives that calling.
“I, the Lord, have called you in
righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you to be
a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles, to open
eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those
who sit in darkness.” – Isaiah 42:6-7
Baptism is a calling into service and demands our
attention. I read a story this week of two parents who were in church one
Sunday with their three year old daughter. There was a baptism that day and for
this little girl it was the first baptism she could actually comprehend in her
young mind. She turned to her parents after the baptism and asked, "Why
did Pastor Bob push that guy in the water?" They tried to explain what was
going on but the little girl didn't quite understand. Later that night, they
tried again. They talked about sin and how when people believe in Jesus they
get baptized as a way to wash away all the bad things they've done and to begin
being a good person. They said water symbolized Jesus washing away their sin
and when they come out clean they try to be good. The little girl gave a look
that she was really starting to think about this and began to walk away. The
parents sighed from relief but then the little girl turned back and asked,
"Why didn't Pastor Bob just give him a spanking instead?"
Just as we may think of a bare hand, or a wooden spoon
or a belt or a stick or switch as a wakeup call when we have been bad, Baptism
is our spiritual wake up call. When we remember our baptism our attention is
shifted onto that calling. As we come forth from the water, we no longer live a
life of sin and God calls to us in righteousness. God takes hold of our hands
by pulling us out of that old life and into the new. He makes us into a servant
of God and call us, a lowly person in western Michigan to be a light, to
reflect that light of Christ that we just celebrated a few weeks ago. He calls
us to open the eyes of the blind, to show others what God's love looks like, to
free people from the prisons of sin that we are in and to show people who are
in the deepest darkest places in life and offering a hope that appears to us in
the stillness and the quietness of our broken hearts. We, the sinner, have
become righteous by faith in Jesus.
So, though we may have initially looked at Isaiah 42
with our human eyes seeing only Jesus, through faith we can see that the
qualities of this servant of God live within us as well because of Jesus.
Through faith we become God's servant and Christ's calling becomes our calling
and baptism is where that calling takes place. We can read Isaiah 42 and say,
hey, that’s Jesus and because we can say that, we can also look at Isaiah 42
and say, hey, that’s me.
Jesus clearly redefines what baptism is all about. In
his Baptism by John in the Jordan, Jesus confirms for us that in him sin has
been put to death and that as we follow him in his command to be baptized and
to baptize one another we too share in that new life founded in God's grace. Because
of him, we can say that after all this waiting, God's servant had come. The
heavens had opened up and all three members of the Holy Trinity were present
that day at the baptismal font in that one church somewhere in the presence of
those hungering for grace. Jesus was revealed to us In our baptism. It is as if
this celebration takes place all over again. The heavens open up, God the
Father declares us forgiven, God the Son is the one in whom we place our trust
and God the Holy Spirit, within us, begins a new life as called and sent
servants of the Lord. To God be the glory now and always. Amen.