“1 “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. 2 He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. 3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; 4 he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope.”
5 This is what God the Lord says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: 6 “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, 7 to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
8 “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. 9 See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”
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During high school I worked in a grocery store in a town called Zeeland. From what she says, my wife sometimes went with her mom to get groceries from that store. It is fun to think that I might have carried out my wife’s groceries before I knew her.
It’s fun to think about run ins with someone you know before you knew them. It’s fun to think about run ins with someone you love before you loved them. Couples do that—“you were at that dance at the event center in 2015, too? Wait, who were you with?” Good friends do that—“I saw him in concert in Sioux Falls too. Wait, you didn’t spill your pop on the person sitting in front of you, did you?”
It’s delightful to think about run-ins with someone you love before you loved them. That’s the idea behind this year’s Advent series. We are going to see Jesus before we met Jesus. We are going to see Jesus in the prophecies of Isaiah.
Isaiah has been called the fifth gospel because it contains so many specifics about the coming Christ. There are four lengthy descriptions of the Christ called the servant songs. You will see Jesus all over these verses because he is that servant. I hope that this time together in Isaiah does for you what thinking about running into my wife before I knew her does for me. I hope it gives you joy in loving someone before you loved them. In this first glimpse, we see that this coming Christ is the perfect servant who connects the world to God. That’s the claim of this sermon on this first servant song—the coming Christ is the perfect servant. He connects the world to God.
We will study this in two points. First: the servant himself. Second: the servant’s mission. First, in verses 1-4, we see the servant himself—what is he like? Second, in verses 5-9, we see the servant’s mission.
First: the servant himself. God loves this servant. He thinks he is the most remarkable person you will ever hope to meet. That’s the delight is behind the language of verse 1, “Here is my servant.” More literally that says, “behold, my servant,” or, “check out my servant.” “Check out my servant. He’s the best. You are going to love this guy.” That’s verse 1, “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.”
We see this delight in the Father’s eye when Jesus comes. God lit up the sky at his birth with the star of Bethlehem which we studied a couple years ago. He spoke words of affirmation at his baptism, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Jesus doubtlessly returned to those words, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased,” to remember that what his Father thought about him was what really mattered. The Pharisees didn’t decide who he was, what he was worth, or the value of what he was doing. His disciples didn’t decide who he was, what he was worth, or the value of what he was doing. His Father made those decisions and His word over Jesus was Isaiah 42:1, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.”
We disciples of Jesus become more like our master as we too learn to listen to the Father’s words about who we are, what we are worth, and the value of what we are doing. Just as Jesus found these words in Scripture—here in Isaiah—so we find the Father’s words in Scripture. Read your Bible, pray every day and you grow, grow, grow.
Jesus is this servant in whom God delights and he would fulfill an exceedingly important task. This title of servant used here for Jesus was also used for Moses. It was used for David. By calling this coming Christ, simply “the servant,” Isaiah was telling the people to expect something great from this man. That greatness had to do with what came before in this prophecy in Isaiah. What came before was emptiness. God was lamenting that the world was empty of wisdom. The best that the world could offer was the same lies and hollow promises that we see today. “See, they are all false! Their deeds amount to nothing; their images are but wind and confusion.” That could be said about the end of 2021. The best that we humans in this nation can muster right now is partisan strife, retail therapy, and momentary escapes into entertainment. God looks at what precious souls are trying to build their lives on in this land and says, “See, they are all false! Their politics, their consumerism, and their amusements can’t fix them. What they hope in is just wind and confusion.”
This servant would be different. Rather than, “See, they are all false!” we have, “See, my servant.” God was saying that His coming Christ could profit people in a way nothing else could. “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,” as the Christmas carol puts it. Every Christmas season we are surprised that yet again Jesus is the only hope that this world will ever have.
Even though all that is true about the glory of the servant, the servant wouldn’t be a self-promoter. He wouldn’t be pushy about himself; verse 2, “He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.” Most of our public figures are always thinking about optics. Their entrances are dramatic. Rock songs pump up the audience for their advent—their arrival. By contrast, this servant slipped into this world at night and spent the first three decades of his life as a total unknown. In our pride, we sometimes think it is below us to pay our dues on the way up. God, who needed to pay no dues, had no problem being a total unknown for decades. He is so unlike us.
God in the flesh also had no problem being surrounding himself with unknowns. He had no problem using places and people that everyone else considered useless. That’s verse 3, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” A bruised reed was useless. It couldn’t carry a note. A smoldering wick is useless. That candle is done. Jesus can still use a bruised reed to make music. He can still use a smoldering wick to light up a room, or even to light up the world. That’s what you see in his choice of disciples in the gospels. That’s what you see in his choice of disciples today. When Hudson Taylor reflected on his life’s work, he said, ‘it seemed to me that God looked over the whole world to find a man who was weak enough to do His work and when He at least found me, He said, “he is weak enough—he’ll do.”’
Now it’s not just that Jesus can use bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. He loves to use them because they don’t claim the glory. The fact is that he doesn’t use any other types. He doesn’t use unbruised reeds. He doesn’t use wicks with their own life still in them. He refuses to do so because he knows how quick we are to claim the glory and how very deadly that would be to us. So, if this morning you think you are too broken for God to use, you might be just about ready to be used.
We are broken reeds. We are smoldering wicks. Jesus is different; verse 4, “he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth.” Jesus would accomplish everything he set out to accomplish. He wasn’t broken or smoldering. He wouldn’t falter and he wouldn’t be discouraged. We can’t see the play on words here but the Hebrew for “falter” sounds just like the Hebrew for “smoldering” and the Hebrew for “discouraged,” sounds just like the Hebrew for “bruised.”
Jesus doesn’t burn out. He doesn’t break. He didn’t break in situations two hundred thousand times worse than the situations that break us. He didn’t burn out in the midst of opposition four million times worse than opposition that we ever face for the truth. No wonder God loves this guy. He’s the best. It’s wonderful to see this man we love so much show up in the Bible before we loved him. It’s wonderful to catch a glimpse of him before we meet him.
So what would he do? That’s our second point: the servant’s mission. Isaiah’s camera has been zoomed in tight on Jesus for quite a while now. In this second section, he zooms so far back that you can see the entire world; verse 5, “This is what God the Lord says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it.”
The question behind these verses is, as one commentator put it, “is God the God of all or just the God of a few?” This prophecy was first written for Israel in season in which they felt useless. They were in exile in Babylon for their sin—that would leave any of us feeling like a bruised reed and a smoldering wick. They had just been told that this servant could still use them.
Now they were told that the servant could use the whole world. The servant could use the Babylonians who they hated. The servant could use those bruised reeds and smoldering wicks too; verse 6, “I, the Lord, have called you [meaning the servant] 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.”
This coming Christ wouldn’t just take an interest in the Jews. He would take an interest in everyone. Jesus would take an interest in the occupying Roman forces. God isn’t just a God of the few. He is a God of the many. Now that message almost got Jesus killed. His equal opportunity interest in the Gentiles almost got him killed in his hometown. He pointed out that interestingly enough Elijah didn’t take care of any Jewish widows during a famine. He took care of a Sidonian widow. He pointed out that we never read about Elisha healing any lepers in Israel, but we do read about him healing that foreigner Naaman, that general who had decimated Israel. When Jesus’ hometown heard that lesson about God’s equal love for the Gentiles, they tried to kill Jesus. There is always the temptation for the few to want God to be the God of the few.
Think about it in terms of romance. Imagine a beautiful young lady who is friendly to everyone. Let’s call her Cindy. Cindy jokes with everyone. She compliments everyone. Her smile lights up when she sees anyone. There is a young man who likes Cindy. Let’s call him Ben. Cindy jokes with Ben too. Cindy compliments Ben too. Cindy’s smile also lights up whenever she sees Ben. Ben loves Cindy’s attention, but he comes to hate the fact that Cindy jokes with other men just like she does with him. He doesn’t know what to do with Cindy’s compliments because Cindy compliments everyone. Ben no longer likes seeing Cindy’s smile because that same gorgeous smile shines on other men. Cindy’s kindness to everyone tells Ben that he isn’t uniquely special to her. That’s almost the entirety of the story of the Jews toward the Gentiles in the New Testament. The Jews want God all to themselves. They wanted to be uniquely special to Him.
That temptation lurks in us too. We all want to think that we are somehow uniquely special to God. We delight to think of ourselves as God’s beloved, but we don’t know what to do with the fact that people who we don’t like are just as loved by God. This uninhibited love of God makes us wonder if anything truly is special about us. If He delights in that guy with everything he’s done, why am I trying so hard? What was the point of avoiding that sin if God loves him just as much as he loves me? That’s the story of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. It’s a story about the few wanting God to be the God of the few. That’s in us. We are all sick—desperately sick. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Paul put it, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That’s uninhibited love.
It’s not for the few. It’s for the many. That’s always been God’s plan. That’s part of what the coming Christ is about; verse 6, “I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles.”
We are going to see this on display during the Lord’s Supper. Jesus was quite aware of these words from Isaiah 42 when he first celebrated the supper and said, “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus wanted his disciples to know that this blood was poured out for many. It wasn’t just poured out for them. It was poured out for the many. Be happy to be part of the many. Don’t try to limit God’s love to the few which just happens to include you.
Christ has come and offered hope to the whole world. Nothing else has ever come within a thousand miles of offering what this servant would offer. That’s why God thinks he’s the greatest, “He’s my chosen one in whom I delight.” He offers hope in hopeless situations. Money can’t offer that. Hard work can’t offer that. Being liked can’t offer that. Nothing has ever offered anything like what this servant of God in Isaiah has offered. That’s why Christ continues to be the only hope of the world. That’s why nothing comes within a thousand miles of Christmas, and nothing ever will.
God said that it would be this way hundreds of years before Jesus was born. That’s verse 8, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”
God gave us prophecies of Jesus well before Jesus was born so that we would see that nothing that happens on the fly. It was God’s plan to take on flesh as a seeming nobody in the middle of nowhere. It was God’s plan to use nobodies like us who could legitimately do nothing so that we would never get the glory because we certainly don’t need it. It was always God’s plan not to be the God of the few but the God of the many. That still is His plan. God gave us glimpses of this God-man who we love before we loved him so we could see his love in a new way and love him anew.
Let’s close with that. Imagine a young lady home from college poking around the storage room. She finds a photo album she’s never seen. It’s a photo album of her own life. There’s a picture of the doctor who delivered her, holding her, sitting with her parents. Then, interestingly enough there’s a picture of that same doctor at her first birthday party. Then he’s there again in a picture with her grandpa who died before she turned five. Then he’s there again when she had surgery. Apparently, he’s the guy who donated the kidney she needed when she was thirteen. That’s the story of Jesus in the life of everyone who comes to know him. He’s there to be seen and all it requires is a willingness to see. That’s what Advent has always been about—the willingness to see Jesus. Amen.