The Advent of Jesus Foretold – Isaiah 42:1-9

This is the last Sunday for the season of Advent 2022. 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 been identified as a description and prediction of the one who will come as the Messiah, the Saviour.  They are called the Servant Songs. The words of these texts mirror what we have come to know of the person Jesus.

Throughout this time of Advent we have been invited to focus on four words which reflect the deepest desires and passions of this life: joy, peace, hope and love.

His 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 that we see embodied in the person of Jesus.  It is this essence of God that we as believers are to seek to make the essence of our beings.

Paul goes so far as to say in 1 Corinthians 13 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 say.   A hymn we love to sing that has been so popular is “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.” That is really what Christ taught the disciples in word and action and 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 not to be the king nor to be hailed as the Saviour. He came to teach us what it truly means to love one another, to care for one another, to forgive one another and to be merciful to one another. And through that, he revealed to us the deep love of God for us and God’s desire that we never again experience a time when we would be separated from that love. Eternal life with God is not about living forever. It is about experiencing the joy, peace and hope in knowing that God has promised to not allow this life to be the end of our relationship but that he will resurrect us with a new body and a new spirit capable of never losing that sense of his loving presence.

Following up on what we learned before about the coming Messiah, who will be known as the Servant of God, Isaiah tells us that this person will receive the Spirit of God that will grant to this person wisdom and strength to allow for true justice to be practiced. The Messiah will practice a justice that will mean 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 whom Isaiah had spoken.  And so, it happens that the words of the prophet are echoed in the opening of the heavens and the Spirit of God descending like a dove, as 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)

John hesitated to baptize Jesus for he knew that he had greater need of Jesus than he could imagine Jesus had of him.  But Jesus understood that for him to fulfil the role of the Servant, he must first allow John to fulfil his role. John came to prepare all people to receive the peace, justice and life that would come through the servanthood of Jesus.  As such Jesus knew that for his mission to be fulfilled, he – like everyone else – would need to be baptised.  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 never wavered and even in the depths of his personal suffering in body, mind, and spirit, he persevered for the sake of those who had come to faith in his mission and for the sake of those who would come to faith in the future.

We owe our future with God to a person who sacrificed everything to perfectly fulfil the will of God in that time and who has never stopped giving of himself.  And so we are encouraged to have faith not only in God but in the One who listened to God, 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 called to find joy in life, to seek peace, to be a people of hope. But above all that, we are 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 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.

AMEN