Last Sunday I introduced the passage set for the day from the Book of Isaiah by giving you something of an introduction to the book’s two parts and its main themes. Briefly for the benefit of those who were not here [You can by the way read that sermon, as well as the Christmas talks at the various services, on the church website at the address on the notice sheet] the Book of Isaiah is presented in two parts: the first is very much about denouncing the sins of rebellious Israel, God’s chosen people, who have not kept their part in their covenant agreement with God whilst the second, written many years later by a very elderly Isaiah reflecting on a changed people exhibiting new lives and lifestyles in accordance with God’s Commandments and also prophesying the wonderful works of God which are to come, is a message of comfort and salvation.
But the principle is clear; God is not a ‘soft touch’. Until there is remorse and repentance for error and rebellion there can be no comfort, no restoration, no reconciliation, no peace with God. And that of course is true in every age and in every country: all the while we believe or at least live as though God is irrelevant or not concerned about our lives and our lifestyles, we delude ourselves – just as did those Israelites to whom Isaiah first spoke.
That is not to say that our Creator is a kill-joy – as anyone with an ounce of integrity and genuine love who is willing to take more than a cursory look at the Ten Commandments and their purpose ought to be able to see – but he is deeply concerned about the way we lead our lives because he is concerned about our relationship with him and with our fellow human beings. This is why Jesus, in his teaching, reminds us of the vital importance of the two Great Commandments: they are not suggestions; they are not advice; they are commandments because if we do not keep them then we hurt both ourselves and others.
And this whole covenant idea of the relationship between God and his people, this uncomfortable judicial aspect to the relationship, is there because God is Holy. God’s holiness is the deeper theme that runs throughout the Book of Isaiah. To understand what we mean by God’s holiness we need to realise how profoundly and perfectly God is concerned for integrity and justice; not just in all our doing but in all our being. Why?
Well, because what we do is affected profoundly by what we are - and not just the other way round, as many social scientists would have us believe. The difference between the man or woman of God and those who create their own moral code is that the former aspire not to what they consider to be right or, as is more often the case, enough morality to get by on, but to what God calls them to be as his children. It is very easy really to choose ‘lowest common denominator morality’ – you know the brand I mean - that which satisfies our friends or the world because, in reality, it is so often little more than tolerance of the intolerable and a desire to be seen by others in a favourable light. It is what Isaiah saw as our natural disposition as fallen creatures tempted by the world and more concerned about the world and about what the world thinks of us than about God and about what God thinks of us. The two Great Commandments, on the other hand, take us away from concerns about ourselves and about how others see us, focusing us on those things that bring not stress and slavery but freedom. It is just as Jesus said; ‘You cannot serve two masters’. We have to make a choice. But our Heavenly Father is and always has been all the while helping us to make the right choice. We just need to open our eyes to the fact!
The Israelites very largely turned their backs on the instruments of God’s help - Moses and the Prophets; but Isaiah saw ahead, he prophesied, that in God’s wonderful plan of salvation there would come One – the One we also read about in our Gospel reading this morning – who would embody perfectly everything that the Israelites were supposed to be and had been called to be - but were not. And it would be through this One that not only repentant Israelites but God-fearing people everywhere could be reconciled to God.
The comfort and message of salvation of the second part of the book then centres on the mysterious figure of the Servant in the passages in those book called ‘The Servant Songs’. In chapter 42 the Servant is said to be given ‘as a covenant to the people’; that is, the Servant taking to himself the role that previously had been just an agreed document.
Now here in chapter 49 and the first 6 verses, we find the Servant himself speaking. Let’s see what he has to say and what we may learn from it about a faithful response on our part to God’s offer of reconciliation with him.
The first thing to note v1 is that he does not confine his words to the Israelites but to the world at large. Just as in the first four verses of last week’s reading Ch 42 v 1-4, the Servant has been commissioned to make the truth about God known everywhere. There is a whole world out there waiting, needing – whether they realise it or want it or not – to hear the truth about God. And if we say we belong to Christ, then we are called to share that truth with others.
The second thing to notice as we ask ourselves, ’Well, who exactly is he?’ is that the description of him not only does not fit neatly into any human categories of description, it goes far beyond them. V2 We see that his weapon is his words. Yes, just as it was for all God’s prophets – but then we learn that he has been hidden away for a special time and v3 is the one who will ‘glorify God’, and he will do this by restoring both faithful Israelites v5 as well as God-fearing people everywhere.v6. St. John, who wrote our Gospel reading this morning, makes this ‘glorifying of God’ a key theme in his account of the purpose of Jesus’ ministry.
What we actually have here from the beginning of verse 1 to the end of verse 7 is a chronological movement from before the beginning of the world to the final judgement of the world; and this Servant figure is there throughout.
The purpose of the incarnation, of God choosing to be born as a man and embodying and representing perfect humanity, perfect faithfulness and obedience, is that he may offer himself as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. This he does in order to satisfy the just requirements of his holy love. With God we cannot ask for love without holiness; just as we cannot ask for holiness without justice; and justice requires that God does not turn a blind eye to sin and selfishness. He is not a ‘soft touch’.
And so God, in perfect harmony with his character, lays on him, Jesus, the true Servant, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, as Isaiah puts it, ’the iniquity of us all.’ What was due to us he takes upon himself to take away the burden and barrier of sin that prevents reconciliation and peace with God.
Now we may think it a mysterious, even a bizarre way of going about things; but God is love and acts in love. He created us in love in order that we might respond freely to his love. His heartfelt desire is that you and I become more perfectly human, more like Jesus. The choice is ours; he died for you and for me. If we refuse his love, he died for us in vain: equally so, if we refuse his love, it is we who live and die in vain.
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