Our Story – Isaiah 42:1-9

This is the last Sunday for the season of Advent 2025. As a fitting way to wrap up this series of messages drawn from the prophecies of Isaiah, I have chosen one of the four texts that have come to be called the Servant Songs.

Isaiah’s prophetic words paint for us a picture of the character and personality of the one who will be the Saviour, the Messiah.  He will be greater than anyone ever born and yet that greatness will not corrupt him. He will defend the poor, uplift the weak and preserve life at all costs. His coming will bring joy for it will bring peace to the soul, peace to the heart and mind; it will bring hope for today and for tomorrow and for eternity and that joy, peace and hope will be made real and kept real by the love that he will show.

It is hard to count the number of times that the word love appears in the Scriptures – both the actual word and phrases which describe it. But even when the word does not appear, so many events recorded in the Scriptures remind us that love is the overarching essence of God – an essence that we see embodied in the person of Jesus.  It is this essence of God that we as believers are to seek as the essence of our beings.  In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul reminds us that while faith, hope, and love abide, the greatest of these is love. But we are to have more than the willingness to embrace the essence of God to love, we are to exude that essence in what we think, do, and speak.   Remember the hymn “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.” That is really what Christ taught the disciples in word and action. It was that basic command that was to be their guiding principle: “Love one another as I have loved you. In this way they will know that you are my disciples.”

And while the command to love comes from the Master, it is spoken as one who is the servant. Jesus came to teach us what it truly means to love one another, what it means to care for one another, what it means to forgive one another and what it means to be merciful to one another. He revealed to us the deep love of God and God’s desire that we never again experience a time when we would be separated from that love because eternal life with God is not about living forever; it is about experiencing the joy, peace and hope that comes from knowing that God has promised that this life will not be the end of our relationship with God but that he will resurrect us with a new body and a new spirit so that we may never lose that sense of his presence.

And so, we learn from Isaiah that the coming Messiah will be known as the Servant of God. Isaiah tells us that this person will receive the Spirit of God and embody a wisdom and a strength that will allow for true justice to be practiced. This Servant of God will practice a justice that will ensure equal and fair treatment of all people, freedom from slavery and oppression of every form.  And this justice will not be accomplished by means of war or destruction of life but by supporting even the weakest of all members so that even the faintest among the people will feel strengthened and supported.  Where a life has been bruised, the Servant will not break it but support it; where a life burns dimly because it has lost most of its hope and purpose, the Servant will gently fan it back into a steady glow.  And the Servant will not be discouraged by any failures but continue to seek to bring justice.  The Servant will never abandon the mission.

When we read the record of the baptism of Jesus by John, we learn that John clearly understood that this was the One of whom Isaiah had spoken.  And so, it happens that the words of the prophet are echoed in the Gospel record with the opening of the heavens and the Spirit of God descending like a dove - a sign of peace and hope - and the voice from heaven declaring: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

It is significant that John hesitated to baptize Jesus for he believed that he had greater need of Jesus than Jesus had of him.  But Jesus understood that in this instance, John needed to fulfil his role as the Baptizer so that Jesus could begin to fulfil his role as the Messiah, the Servant of God. John’s mission was to prepare all people to receive the peace, justice and life that would come through the servanthood of Jesus.  It was a visible preparation – a sign to the people that Jesus came not as one superior to them but one like them – called from among the people to be that Servant of God spoken of by the prophet Isaiah.  Being the Servant would take everything that Jesus had emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. But his commitment would never waver and even in the depths of his personal suffering in body, mind, and spirit, he would persevere for his body, and his blood would be the sacrifice needed to conquer sin and death.

We owe our future with God to a person who sacrificed everything to perfectly fulfil the will of God.  And so, we are encouraged to have faith not only in God but in the One who came as the Messiah, the Servant of God; the One who allowed God to speak through him, to act through him and to whom he ultimately surrendered his spirit. Remember that when Jesus died, it was into the hands of God, not the hands of people that he committed his spirit.

In today’s world, the role of the Christian believer really has not changed. We are still called to follow the life and example of Jesus. We are still called to find joy in life, to seek peace, to be a people of hope. But above all that, we are still to be a people whose very essence is the essence of God – love - and through that love to bring justice where we are able; to not break the reed or to snuff out the dimly burning wick of other’s lives. We are still called to listen to God, to allow God to speak through us, to act through us and to ultimately surrender our spirits to God.

We are called to be servants of the living God, to be agents of change for God, to reveal the path of God and to actively spread God’s light, hope, peace, joy, righteousness, justice, and love in the world.  This is our story!

AMEN