Today: Very remarkable things about Jesus, that we may well not have seen before!
Like we’ve said: in Isaiah’s second half, God gives His prophet 27 chapters to equip Israel with what they need to live through the dark time ahead, and come out the other side. And in every generation, and every continent, he’s used these towering prophecies to strengthen those going through desperately hard times: people like us! But at the heart of these chapters, the heart of God’s encouragement for us, we find a figure emerging called the Servant of the Lord, who God sends to restore our broken world… We know and worship His new testament name: so what new things do these chapters show us about Him? And how shall we turn them into worship?
The section most revealing about the Servant begins with the last verse of ch48. Israel has been wonderfully rescued from Babylon, but out of the blue comes a jarring note: `”There is no peace”, says the Lord, “for the wicked”` – and Israel stood revealed earlier in ch48 as still in that category. So what is to be done? How can peace come to the wicked? Only the Servant can solve that problem, and ch53 about the cross will show us how. But first chs49 and 50 have lots to tell us about the Servant who will meet their – and our – desperate need. 49:1 shows us Someone speaking with great authority, and not just to Israel: `Hear this, you distant nations!` Indeed, God says of him (v6) `It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob… I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth!` V1 also reveals how his coming was prophesied – `Before I was born the LORD called me`; and how from his very birth he was special, trained by God: `from my mother’s womb [the Lord] has spoken my name` (`He who formed me in the womb to be His servant`, v5). `He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of His hand he hid me; He made me into a polished arrow` (v2).
And then comes another focus for worship: we learn the remarkable way, the methods, by which the Servant restores everything. It won’t be by military force, unlike Cyrus who God used directly to rescue Israel from Babylon. The Servant does things differently (and when God uses us for transformation and justice in our day, we probably will too!); this is the theme of the main passage earlier about him, in ch42: `…My chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out… ` Matthew notes in Matthew 12 just how these verses characterized Christ – not, of course, denying at all how Christ could be forcefully prophetic when appropriate. But this is the sermon on the mount way of removing evil from the world to which we too are called, even the way of the cross: absorbing it out of the world, forgiving, not retaliating. It’s true that one day, as Isaiah 42 goes on to make clear, the Lord’s action will briefly take on a very different mode to abolish evil and complete the restoration of a broken world (42:14-16). But meanwhile we see what he does, here and in the gospels; and we worship, and pray for the strength to handle things wisely the same way ourselves…
Then what also wonderfully marks the Servant is his obedient faith: `He will not falter or be discouraged`, God says delightedly about him (42:4), and 49:4 gives a great example (and here we start to catch things about Jesus that even the gospels don’t make clear): `But I said, “I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all.”` (Is this during the despair – `My God, my God, why have You forsaken me` – of the cross? Or does this recall Christ weeping over his beloved city at his ministry’s end, seeing its rejection of all he had done and knowing this could only end in bloody catastrophe?) `“Yet”` – here comes the Servant’s faith, a powerful example for us to dwell on too – “what is due to me is in the LORD’s hand; and my reward is with my God!”` (v4). (Lord, I worship You joyfully for this faith, and pray that you grow it in me!)
There is indeed a glorious future ahead of the Servant – `Kings will see you and rise up, princes will see and bow down` (v7). And in v8 God reveals something else: `I will make you a covenant for the people, to restore the land.` The Servant doesn’t just teach the covenant, we notice, he is the covenant; just as we often say, other world religious teachers claimed to show the Way, but Jesus (John 14:6) Himself is the Way! Or, let’s say, we enter into this glorious covenant of God, not by following mere ideas but by actually coming into Christ (`in Christ`, that phrase Paul so often uses to describe our situation as believers); because He is the covenant! But… all this goodness will be won at huge cost to the Servant: he `was despised and abhorred by the nation`, says v7, in words looking forward briefly to the terrible verses of ch52 and 53: ` Many… were appalled at him — his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being… Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised…` (Lord, I do worship you!)
Then, after a further joyous interlude about the goodness God is going to bring (49:13-21 are particularly moving, and speak to us too!), chapter 50 deepens this revelation of the Servant, with a remarkable verse about Christ’s own spirituality. Again we encounter things about Jesus incarnate that may not have struck us before: `The Sovereign Lord… He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed… to know the word that sustains the weary` (v4). Jesus’ training by his Father took place as he walked through the life we live, `made like us in every way` and `tempted in every way just like we are` (Heb 2 and 4); and as Hebrews 4 says it is exactly because of this that he can meet our need, knowing indeed `the word that sustains the weary`. George Muller wrote, `It is the delight of our Lord Jesus Christ to refresh us spiritually. If at any time we are cast down, what we should do is remind the Lord that he has been given “an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary”… Open your heart to the precious Jesus, as your friend. I have done it for many a long year, and it is just this which upholds me, which makes me a happy man. I tell Him everything, I entreat Him to speak to me a word in season, that the weariness may pass away, and that I may be refreshed spiritually. And I find Him ever ready to help!`
But Christ the incarnate Servant’s training was not just about hearing from his Father. The gospels surely surface again in the background to 50:5-6: `I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away. I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.` Again the triumph, and fuel for worship, and example for us, is God’s incarnate Servant’s faith-full obedience, drawing consciously on his Father’s strength: `Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame…`
But then why is this horror, and all the despising, mocking and spitting, necessary? Would it not have been enough for the Servant’s hidden power to reach out and `bring back those of Israel` (49:6) from their slavery in Babylon? No, because there is a second deliverance they (and we) need, from the sin that blocks any real relationship with God such as He covets (43:24). The close of ch48 had raised this issue explicitly: even when God delivers his people from Babylon, still there can be no true peace for the wicked. Or put it another way: however can God come alongside Israel to be their Saviour despite their appalling sins, and yet still be the Holy One (49:7, 47:4, cf Rom 3:26)? Somehow, the previous chapters have sung, God has solved this problem: `Sing for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done this… He has redeemed Jacob` (44:23), and in some way this means all Israel can be `found righteous` (45:25): `Listen to me, you who far from righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near!` (46:12). However can that be? Again the Servant emerges as worthy of worship, the astonishing solution to all our need. Ch53 about the cross will explain it – and show us the terrible price the Servant paid. `Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth` (45:22); in Isaiah the gospel has been declared, indeed, `from the distant past` (45:21)!
But ch53 is such an astonishing, uplifting exposition of the cross –perhaps the clearest in the Bible?! – that it deserves a week to itself… Meanwhile, however, let’s go back through these chapters worshipping our Christ the Lord’s Servant so joyously depicted here; and these words are God’s promise to us as we do so: `Who among you fears the LORD, and obeys the word of his Servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD, and rely on their God!` (50:10)
