On 12 January 2020 Ian led worship with Amanda and Jonny.
Tim preached on Isiah 42.
The servant of the Lord is the title of the passage.. Isiah is living in difficult times. Jesus is the fulfilment of the prophesy.
You need to know what was going on at the time. We’re familiar with the journey of the nation of Israel. They stray from God’s covenant and God’s prophets bring them back to God. But then in the 6th century before Christ the Babylonians come and capture Israel and enslave the people. That’s the background to this passage. Most of us have not been forced out of our homes by conflict. Imagine what it feels like, Israel abandoned to the enemy. Was God still God they wondered as they sat and wept by the rivers of Babylon. Stormer describes these as meaning making literature for people under siege.
Sometimes we need such words. We help to live in the midst of chaos. In v13 God is depicted as both a warrior and a women in the labour. This imagery of a suffering servant, a bruised reed, a burning wick. Yet not broken, not extinguished.
In these words the servant comes with a different power not that of the Babylonians. What you see is how people who have been traumatised are called, not to put up walls or engage in nationalism, but to be a light to the nations. Our songs and the psalm Ian read at the start of service are all appropriate.
We sit safe from these issues in our warm church.
It zooms to the wider view. Isiah relocated the purpose of the people not as a defeated beaten broken people but people who share God’s light. God gives breath and spirit to every living person. On the planet. This is the God of the expansive universe.
This bruised reed who will not break is a liberator who will bring justice.
All the way to the edges of the known world is where this Word is to go. God calls them to bring sight to the blind free the prisoners. The passage is full of energy, God is still God. God’s people have not been forgotten.
Isiah shifts Israel from themselves to the wider world.
Who is the servant, ultimately Jesus fulfils this . Unbroken and not dimmed by the cross.
Is God speaking of a community though? We’re meant to hear this as both. The community that Jesus ultimately brings into being following him. Look at the news at the moment, chaos is rampant at the moment.
Leonard Cohen in his song Anthem says
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
The imagery is present in Corinthians in the clay jars.
When we feel helpless and out of control we can see the power that grows out of compassion, to look beyond our problems and do good and share light.
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