Isaiah 42: 1—10 Sermon notes
Christmas is over and for many it is a time of recovery from the pressures of celebration, from the trials of family, from the financial expense of the 'Retail spirit of Christmas'.
Instead of being tall upstanding oak trees, deeply rooted in the words of scripture, perhaps we feel this morning more like bruised reeds.
Instead of torches, burning with the fire of the spirit, perhaps we feel like small candles about to be snuffed out. Instead of the righteous, standing quietly, humbly, and sinless, before the King of heaven, perhaps we feel wronged, oppressed, tainted by evil, and crushed.
That’s okay. We are allowed to feel like that.
Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.”
This is the servant that Isaiah is talking about in the passage that is before us today. And in a bit we will return to these feelings.
The Boy Jesus
The Nativity is over, the baby is born, the shepherds have given their sacrifice, and the Wise men have visited and left their gifts.
Now what? Or for those indulging in the 'Retail spirit of Christmas', int the sales – So What?
What has happened to Jesus in the years between his birth and age thirty? What some call the lost years. There have been all sorts of suggestions.
In the middle ages there appeared several ‘Childhood gospels’, attempts to imagine what a child growing up with the awesome power of miracles would be like – they tend to have a high ‘body count’ - a lot of killing and resurrecting.
But Jesus was both fully human and fully God, he performed miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit. And scripture tells us the Spirit did not descend upon Him until he started his ministry, when he was baptised by John the Baptist in his thirties. So forget about a precocious kid with immense powers, killing by accident and resurrecting. Other people imagine he went travelling to gain wisdom: to Rome, to India, Persia, Britain, or Tibet, even America, or Japan – all these places have traditions that Jesus came to learn from their traditions and religions.
There are a few things we do know know for certain about the early life of Jesus, from the Gospels:
1. At twelve he was sufficiently immersed in the scriptures to be able to debate their meaning with priests and experts in the law. And considered this to be his Father’s business.
2. He followed in the family business and became a carpenter. Presumably providing for the family after Joseph died.
3. He was well respected within his community.
Basically, the young Jesus did what every other child does: develope His God given character, gaine knowledge of who he is (in His case through scripture), gain wisdom, and learn how to live and deal with other people.
Israel had tried being ruled by Judges, prophets, kings, and priests. Jesus was all these things: Judge, prophet, king and priest, so it is no accident that he starts his ministry at 30, which is the age an Israelite could become a priest.
Illustration: Have you ever met one of those annoying people who, when something happens, says, "I knew that was going to happen", or when someone phones, says, "I was just thinking about them." What is so annoying about them is that you can never verify what they were thinking, because they never tell you in advance.
Well God is not like that. God tells us in advance what He is going to do. The prophets aren’t magically predicting an uncertain future, they are being used by God to speak out his promises, anticipating what he is going to do, so when these events happen we know they are God’s works, not random events.
Context of Isaiah 42: 1 - 10
First, let’s take a brief look at the context of the passage before use this morning. Isaiah is prophesying in the 8th Century BC, The Golden Age of King David and King Solomon is long gone. Israel divided into two kingdoms, but the northern kingdom is already gone swallowed by Assyrian empire. Isaiah predicts the destruction of the second kingdom by Babylonian empire which has swallowed up Assyria. Isaiah’s prophesies anticipate a hope that a remnant will remain and Israel will rise again.
The Babylonians have a policy of forced repatriation or ethnic cleansing so the elite of Israel are taken into exile.
Israel remain in exile for 70 years and after Babylon is swallowed up by the Persian empire, a small number are allowed to return to rebuild Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, as Isaiah said they would.
From then, until modern times, the land of Israel mostly remains a conquered land: under the Persians, the Greeks (Alexander the great), the Egyptian, Romans, Byzantines, Islamic Caliphates, the crusaders, the Ottomans, the British & the Palestinians (whom one could argue, from genetics, are the Israelites who have abandoned God).
Isaiah prophesied more than just the re-building of Israel, he anticipate the coming of God’s Messiah, with detailed accounts of what this messiah will be like and what will happen to him. These are called the Songs of the Suffering Servant and can be found in Isaiah 42:1-17, 49:1-6, 50:4-9, and 52:13-53:12. But more of that later.
The prophesies of Isaiah are split into three sections:
1. Warning what will happen if Israel does not turn away from idols and foreign gods.
2. Giving comfort to those in exile.
3. Showing the future glory of God.
Our passage this morning falls within this middle section of Isaiah.
‘Take comfort that God has not abandoned you. He will rescue you, and perform a new work to redeem you and the whole earth (these words are as true today as they were back then)’.
The Songs of the Suffering Servant give us a unique view into the character of Jesus, what he felt, and what he knew he had to do. They give us information that helps us anticipate the nature, calling, and deeds of God's Suffering Servant.
Isaiah 42: 1 - 10
The passage before us this morning, Isaiah 42: 1 – 10, deals with the character of Jesus. Verse 2 and 3 begin with the unique manner of the Servant’s ministry that will bring justice to the nations. “He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the street.”(3)
“A bruised reed He will not break, And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice.”
Unlike the foreign conquerors, God’s Servant wouldn’t come shouting His decrees in the streets, nor would He crush the oppressed or discourage the disheartened. The servant has been given royal power by the divine King. Yet He will exercise that power in such a way as to not damage the hurting or the disenfranchised - not even a broken reed that appears useless or a wick so uncared for it could no longer produce clear light, or those so oppressed they feel crushed.
God’s answer to the oppression of the world is not more oppression. His answer to arrogance is not more arrogance. Rather in quietness, humility, and simplicity, by the Spirit of God, He will take the evil of the world and return grace.
Though He is meek we learn in verse 4 that He is not weak. “He will not be disheartened or crushed, until He has established justice in the earth."
This servant will faithfully administer God’s justice, eventually to the ends of the earth. He will not merely offer justice, He will put it into place and bring it about. Though the task will be impossibly difficult He will not turn away from it, because that is His character.
There has always been disagreement over whether Isaiah is referring to the Nation of Israel as the Suffering Servant or whether the servant is an individual, in either case the servant is thought of as the Messiah. There was disagreement at the time of Jesus and there is disagreement today: Christians identify Jesus as the Messiah and Jews are still waiting for the Nation of Israel to be led by a new, heavenly, king.
Jesus certainly identified himself with the Suffering Servant. He quotes from Isaiah several times and claims the prophecies for himself.
In the synagogue at Nazareth he reads from the book of Isaiah 61: 1-2, which mirrors Isaiah 42: 1 -7.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Here he is identifying himself as the Suffering Servant, the Messiah. The effect on the synagogue in Nazareth is electrifying. These people know their Scriptures. They fully understood the implications of what Jesus is claiming, and as a result they try to kill him for blasphemy The evidence Jesus offers to support his claim is that he is fulfilling the messianic promises to heal, to deliver, and to set the captives free. No one before, or since, has even come close to fulfilling the promises of the songs of the Suffering Servant like Jesus.
The early Christian also identified Jesus as the Suffering Servant who will redeem God’s people from their sins. In Matthew 12: 17 Matthew writes, “ This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah, and Matthew then quotes directly from Isaiah 42: 1 – 4.
In fact, it could be said, that to a large extent, the theology of Christ’s death being a redemption for sins, is based on the concept of the Suffering Servant. Some atheists claim that the Apostle Paul invented Christianity, but there was never any need for the early Christians to invent anything: Through Isaiah, God proclaimed what he would do, and then he did it. All the first Christians had to do was merely to recognise Jesus as the Suffering Servant and accept that God had done what he said he would do.
Sing a new song to the Lord….
In v10. because God is going to do a new thing, through his servant, the Israelites are encouraged to sing a new song – not because new songs are better than old, but because a new work of God requires them to change their attitude. Instead of lamenting their situation in captivity or giving up on Him and turning towards the gods of their captors, God is giving them hope to anticipate a new covenant, hope to anticipate a future beyond captivity, and this hope requires celebrating. The new thing of God, the work of the servant, turned out to be Jesus. He came in the unassuming form of an infant who grew into a meek and humble Saviour.
If we feel like a bruised reed or a flickering candle, or feel persecuted or crushed, we too can have new hope. If we lay our burdens at Christ’s feet, at the foot of the cross on which God’s servant suffered, and turn anew to Him, we can anticipate that God, through His spirit, will work a new thing in our lives.
Even though our situations many not change, God can change the way we look at things. Ask how, within our situation, we can serve Him, how we can honour Him, how we can glorify Him. And within our lives, in our hearts, we too can sing a new song to the Lord.
New Year is a good time to look back and to look forward.
What will you lay to rest, to what will you look forward?
What will you lay before Christ? What gift is God offering you?
How is God leading you already? What is God wanting to do in your life, that you may not have acknowledged?
What new song will you sing to the Lord this year? Or what old song will you sing afresh?
