Audio of Sermon here
Listen to me,
O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The Lord called me
before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my
mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he
made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, ‘You
are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’ But I said, ‘I have
laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet
surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.’
And now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honoured in the sight of the Lord, and my God has become my strength— he says, ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’
The voice of the servant now speaks aloud, crying out to the
coastlands to hear his voice. This particular song focuses on two parts: the
first focuses on the servant’s calling (49:1, 2) and the second focuses on the
servant’s formation (49:3-4, 5, 6).[1] There are three stages
of the servant’s call: First (v1b-3) the election, call, and equipment of the
servant; Second (v4) his dejection; Third (5-6) his new task.[2]
The servant declares to the nations, ‘God said to me, “I
make you a light to the nations.”’ ‘God called to me to be his servant that he
might perform a work on behalf of his chosen people through me. I, however,
became despondent, and regarded the work as in vain. But then—in spite of
this—God extended the scope of my commission to include the Gentiles, in order
that his salvation might reach to the ends of the earth.’[3]
The speaker is addressing the far away coastlands, those
being other nations, and we know the speaker is the servant from Isaiah 42. The
words addressing the foreign nations are built around three sentences: Listen
to me, you coastlands (v1); and now the Lord says (to me) (v5); I will give you
as a light to the nations (v6). Therefore, exposition of the song has to
remember that everything it says has reference to the nations.[4] The servant speaks to
all nations; he has a word from God and wishes to speak it to them. The second
part of verse one indicates that the Lord called the servant from birth. The
words, “while I was in my mother’s womb he named me” (v1) shows us that before
the servant’s birth, while still being nourished by his mother, God had named
him. God had chosen this servant from the beginning to be God’s servant to all
nations. It is very important for us to recognize God naming, calling choosing
the servant.
In last week’s sermon on the first song, I mentioned that we
should not allow that question to control us, we should allow the identity of
the servant to remain anonymous so we could place ourselves in the role of the
servant. Verse 3 and 5 add a dilemma. Isaiah 49:3 reads, “And he said to me,
‘You are my servant, Israel’.” It can be argued that clearly verse 3 is stating
the servant is Israel herself; but verse 5 claims that servant is going to
bring back Jacob to God. So, how can the
servant be Israel and have a mission to Israel? It is possible Israel was the
servant until she failed and then a prophet became the servant. While others
claim that is God speaking in verse 1-3 and then in verse four the prophet
begins to speak[5]; there is a
predicative force to the sentence: “You are my servant; you are now Israel. There
is a naming that is taking place, something of importance.
God gives this new servant the name Israel, just as God di
for Jacob in Genesis 32:28. You may recall Jacob wrestling with “God”
throughout the night, at daybreak God dislocates Jacob’s hip, yet Jacob still
hangs on, refusing to let go until this stranger blessed him. God then blesses
Jacob with a name change, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for
you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”
The blessing of the name change in our scriptures is an
important blessing that takes place when something monumental happens. Abram
becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah after God establishes his covenant.
Simon becomes Peter after his declaration of Jesus as Messiah, as the Christ.
Saul becomes Paul after his conversion on the road to Damascus. Jacob becomes
Israel after wrestling with God.
The blessing of the name change indicates the individual has
become a new person, a person who will be God’s messenger, the parents of an entire
nation; the namesake for the nation; the confession of which will sustain the
church through the centuries to come. Sometimes, though, the individuals struggle to
fully live into their new names. Paul is still as stubborn, arrogant, and
zealous (for better or worse) as Saul. Peter is still as brash and ignorant as
Simon. Abraham is still Abram when he gives Sarah to the pharaoh to save his
own skin. Sarah is still Sarai when she sends Hagar and Ishamel away. And
Israel is still Jacob when he sends his family over the river of Jabbock to
encounter Essau before he crosses over. He still chooses a favorite wife and a
favorite son. He still tricks and deceives. Jacob struggles to ever fully live
into his name change.
Like their namesake, the nation of Israel struggles to fully
live into their role as God’s chosen people. They are faithless, quick to align
themselves with the powerful and wealthy nations leaning on their support instead
of God’s; deceivers, oppressors of the weak. They prefer to be slaves of Egypt
than to be a people of God. They struggle to live into the commands of the Law
and of the prophets. So, it makes sense that God would name the servant as
Israel because this servant is going to strive with both God and humanity and
will prevail. The servant will be God’s chosen one, and the servant will embody
everything God had hoped pre-exilic Israel embodied when God freed them from
Egypt.
What is important, beyond knowing who the servant is; is
what the servant embodies. The servant embodies God’s justice, God’s mission to
the ends of the earth. The servant is a figure that embodies all that the
nation of Israel should look like and called to be and therefore one who is
truly worthy of the name—“God’s perfect Servant. As such he is far greater than
Jeremiah, or any other Old Testament prophet for that matter. He is the prophet
par excellence.”[6] What matters more than
the identity of the servant is that the servant is to be a light to all
nations. God gives the servant the mission, the purpose to shine for all
nations.
The servant receives two assignments. The first is to,
“raise up the tribes of Jacob” (v6a) and the second is to be a bearer of light
to the nations (v6b). The second servant song’s purpose is to extend God’s
salvation to the ends of the earth; God has given this servant to others as a
beacon to guide them in the ways of the Lord. And what are the ways of the
Lord? Micah writes, “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself
before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a
year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands
of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of
my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and
what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and
to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:1-8).
The servant is to see where God has been at work since
creation, and goes to the people of every nation, of every race, of every
gender, of every social class, to the ends of the earth, to the hungry and
thirsty, to the oppressed, to the poor, to the blind, to the deaf, to the sick,
to the imprisoned, to the widow, to the fatherless, to the lost, to the lonely,
to the forgotten, to the lame, and to the shut-in, and brings them in.
From birth, the servant is called to bring God’s justice to
the nations. The servant is called to be a beacon of light that would lead all
to the one true God. Is that not our call today? Is that not what Christ means
when he says we are to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations?
Are we not called to bring God’s justice to an unjust world? Israel’s light
didn’t come from their power, or the power of Assyria, Egypt, or Babylon. It
came from God. The servant’s ability to endure, to speak with truth all came
from God. We are reminded time and time again, it is through the weak that God’s
light shines to all not the powerful, not the wealthy, but the weak. “Let the
little children come to me,” Jesus says, “for it is to such as these that the
kingdom of heaven belongs.” (Mark 10:14).
Are we not God’s servants today? Have we not been tasked
with the purpose to serve the broken, the beaten, the forgotten, the lost, the
lonely, the poor, the misfit, the outcast, the sinner, the Lazarus at our
gates? “Truly I tell you, just as you did to one of the least of these who are
members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40). Then let us take up
our beacons and let our light shine before all people, for God is with us, God
dwells among us, God’s spirit is upon us and we are his servants. Let us have the courage to say, “Here am I,
Lord. Send me.”
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