Epiphany 1 B
Isaiah 42:1-7
Justice for the Nations
01/12/03
The images seem so stark in contrast don’t they? Last week our chancel was decorated in color and light, green trees and a Christmas stable. This week it’s back to its original design. It’s beautiful still, but bare in contrast, not nearly so festive. It’s a bit of a let down if I might be so blunt.
It’s the kind of let down that comes over us when we wake up from our intoxications of Holiday joy and are met the realities of life, realities like a heap of rags curled up in a corner on a crowded downtown street. It moves – a living testimony to the emotional handicaps and troubles that have thrown some into the abyss of despair. A woman disappears from her home on Christmas Eve, the world stands threatened again with the possibility of a nuclear standoff with North Korea, terrorism abounds, war with Iraq seems imminent, a strange religious cult experiments with human life. How close is all of this to God’s design for creation? What families should have to endure such loss? What country should have to live in such fear? What individual should be treated like a lab rat for experimentation? These are the bitter realities we live with today, realities that beckon to be changed. They are realities that cry out for justice.
We want these people dealt with in a timely fashion. We want the terrorist dead. We want the criminals behind bars. We want these out of control doctors put out of commission. We want the troubled cared for and the abusive perpetrators unable to reach their victims. We want those who have more money to take care of us who have less. We want justice!
But what is just? If I have described the common human understanding of what that term (and I think I have), our concept of what is “just” is really quite limited. It’s limited in the method of administration. Justice is administered with a stern reprimand or punishment. It’s also clear that humanly speaking we like to limit justice in its scope. Canadian singer and songwriter Bruce Cockburn got it write when he sang, “Everyone wants justice done on somebody else.” When we speak of justice, we’re usually talking about that guy over there.
God view of justice is much wider. Our text today brings the comforting news that He too is concerned with the prevalence of injustice in our world today.
We hear in the text that “justice will be brought (that is hailed and proclaimed)… until He succeeds in establishing justice on the earth.” God wants justice too!
The words between these two phrases I just quoted from the text, though, shed light on what this means. Justice is for the nations. God’s concerned, not just with terror in The Middle East, but with the fear we bring to our families when our actions weaken our families and threaten to dissolve them altogether. He’s concerned about the fear we bring to our children when we lose our tempers. He’s concerned about the worry and hurts we perpetrate on our neighbors with our unkind words and thoughtless actions. God’s concerned. He’s concerned, not just with the disregard for life that many in the scientific community are showing; but with the lack of concern we show towards the sick and dying. From the 31st chapter of Proverbs we read that it is God’s concern that we “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” He’s concerned that no one get involved in speaking out for the unborn, for the outcast, for the downtrodden and those who are down on their luck. He’s concerned, not just about the proliferation of terrorism and nuclear bombs. He’s concerned about the proliferation of sin that has raised walls of hostility between us our neighbors, between all of us and our God. Justice, then, is not just a matter for the other guy. It’s a matter that concerns us all.
How good it is then to hear that “a bruised reed he will not break.” This phrase indicates a life hanging by a single thread, which is exactly where we stand before God on our own, life unraveling before our very eyes, hanging over the abyss of hell that we deserve, except that God does the unexpected. There, when there’s no hope, when there’s no future, when that final break is about to occur; God doesn’t break the reed. He doesn’t cut the line. Grace is proclaimed. A new start is given.
That’s what God’s brand of justice is all about. In His infinite love He doesn’t set out to give us what we deserve. Instead, by faith in His promises, He would seek to make things right by giving us what we need.
Look at what the servant does when He comes. When Jesus came he didn’t make sure that everyone got what they deserved. No, He took that judgment on himself. He took upon himself, that which he didn’t deserve so that everything would be made right between us and God. Yes, and that what is right might be done through us. Justice established. Wrong made right; God’s way.
That’s what Baptism is all about. In His baptism, this servant ministry became Jesus’ mission and calling; confirmed by the voice of our heavenly Father and His who said, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” And strengthened by the Holy Spirit, Jesus set his sights on Jerusalem, on His suffering, on his sacrificial death and His resurrection wherein this life-saving, life-changing work would be made complete; a work that comes to us in our own.
Our baptisms bestow on us all the blessings of God’s justice that was meted out on His Son. Listen to the word of our Lord through St. Paul to the Romans. “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[1] that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” By baptism we’ve been granted the forgiveness of the cross, the hope of the resurrection to new life. What was rightfully our Lord’s has been gifted to us, His righteousness, the justice He won and would work in us; together with the mission and ministry of bringing that justice to the world.
To this same Paul, our Lord Jesus himself said, “‘I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” Christ’s mission of bringing forth justice is now our mission of too.
You may ask: “How can I do it? How can I make a difference? The tasks are too big. The challenges are too great.” Yet allow me to show you how this might take place.
I had my son’s 7th grade reading book at home this past week and I read a story written by Clifton Davis. You might know Clifton from the TV show entitled Amen. Clifton found success starring as the Reverend on the sitcom from the 1980’s.
It wasn’t success, however, that Clifton was encountering in earlier years. It was racism. He went to a predominantly white school where all of his classmates were white. Not a problem. But it became a problem one day when his school visited Washington D.C. Part of this trip that had cost him a lot of time and effort in order to gain the adequate funds, was a trip to an amusement park. All of them were excited; Clifton especially so. Trouble was, the amusement park at the time had a racial code – no Negroes aloud. As gently as possible, his teachers tried to explain that he would have to stay behind while his classmates went without him. Clifton was devastated. His friends, however, were appalled. One by one they decided to stay behind with Clifton, when they heard that he couldn’t go. They weren’t going any place Clifton couldn’t go, fun or no fun, money lost or money saved, they weren’t going.
As it turned out, all the boys were provided tickets to see the Washington Senators at their first major league baseball game, a treat they have remembered for the rest of their lives. But most the most important thing is that those little hands and feet acted to right a wrong, to stand against an evil, to hold up what is just and true.
No matter how small or insignificant or unimportant we may sometimes feel, we can make a difference. We can make a difference for good, for what is right, for what is true with Christ who is able to bring justice in the smallest of actions, in the littlest of His people, in the most unnoticed of means. With a cross and his sacrificial blood he would right our wrongs, he would forgive our sins. With simple things like water and His Word He would pour out His Spirit. He would bring us into a “right” relationship of faith with Him. With bread and wine He would fill us with His strength, empower us with His love. He would give us new resolve, and help us to be the “right” kind of people, the ones He wants us to be. With acts of kindness, words of invitation; by our gracious intervention and our willingness to get involved; by taking a stand and sharing the truth and joy of Christ’s forgiving, eternal life-giving love; By all these things Christ’s mission of bringing forth justice carries on. It carries on through us by Him.
Isaiah writes that “a smoldering wick, He will not snuff out.” I’m guessing today that this is how you might feel – like a kerosene lamp whose oil has run dry, leaving the wick to smolder and smoke, glowing just a bit, but throwing off no light. You’ve seen such lamps. Let them go and the wick will be ruined. But add new kerosene to the lantern, trim the wick and it will burn brightly again. That’s what our Lord is doing today. That’s what He lives on high to work in us every day by the power of His Spirit in the water and Word of our baptism, in the preaching and teaching of His Word, in the reception of His body and blood. For that Spirit, proclaimed as poured out on Him, would be poured out the same on us at this font – poured out to make us “just” in the sight of God and to bring His brand of “justice” to the nations. Amen!
