Our first reading is perhaps the most beloved and best known of the prophet Isaiah’s so-called “servant songs.” Perhaps the most debated question about them concerns the identity of the “servant.” Does the servant represent the nation of Israel, or perhaps one of her kings or prophets, or does the song point ahead in time to Jesus? Our answer to that question is an unequivocal “yes.” The servant origially may have indicated one of Israel’s kings or prophets, most likely a future king or prophet, though I believe the servant was really meant to be Israel herself, the nation and its people with its own peculiar and sorrowful history; and without even for a moment denying that more-or-less “original” context, the church also has rightly noted a particularly poignant and penetrating description of and hymn to Christ. The servant song thus binds together inseperably Christ the world’s Redeemer with his people Israel, who collectively, in the words of Isaiah, will be a light to the nations. In one of Isaiah’s earlier servant songs the Lord proclaims, about Israel, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Is. 49:6b). Jesus is God’s suffering servant Israel personified, a light to the nation and their hope of salvation.

Israel was given a mission to be the mediator and arbiter of the world’s ultimate redemption, a mission that was, is and will be fulfilled in the suffering and sacrifice of the world’s crucified Redeemer. That Jesus is that suffering servant and the world’s Redeemer does not for one minute mitigate, but rather it glorifies, Israel’s role as a servant and light to the nations, in order that the Lord’s salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Isaiah’s servant song, therefore, looks ahead to history’s conclusion, and in particular to the ultimate vindication of Israel’s long history of suffering and sacrifice that will be a blessing for all the nations—a history and a blessing that Jesus the Galilean exemplifies and personifies. This Jesus is Israel’s final king, whose triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey preceded and foreshadowed his elevation to his throne that was a cruel and ugly cross; but it was precisely in this way and from that cross that Jesus rules triumphantly over all. This suffering but victorious king was also Israel’s final high priest, who as the writer of Hebrews describes for us today is the one “who learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” And he is this kingly priest, who like the shadowy figure of Melchisideck before him was both priest and king, embodies all of Israel’s prophets. But whereas the prophets’ claims were rejected and they were humilited, villified and killed for their efforts, the words and claims of Jesus finally will succeed. This Jesus, who embodies Israel’s kings and priests and prophets, proves by his resurrection from the dead that Israel’s God-given mission, and thus the Lord’s Word, finally will be victorious over all. In Jesus Israel is God’s light to the nations to bring salvation to the end of the earth.

As Karl Barth once observed about this servant song, a song that looks ahead to history’s end and conclusion: “it is now the nations themselves who acknowledge that they have at last understood the meaning of the existence of Israel among them—its historical role as a meditator and the message which it has addressed to them…The historical background and outlook of the song is a time and situation of the last and deepest and most hopeless abasement of the people of the covenant, or of its (kingly? or prophetic?) representative. But according to this song, in the last days the nations will recognise and acknowledge that his mission and the universally valid word and universally effective work of God, is present even in this utter hiddenness of the historical form of His witness.”

We take the short view; God always takes the long view. We want quick and easy answers; God asks us deep, penetrating questions. That Israel is conquered, that Christ is crucified, that Christ’s church is rejected, is a part of the mysterious way in which the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus Christ is working in the world to accomplish the world’s redemption. That Christ, and his people Israel, and his body the church, suffer and sacrifice, that they are rejected and scorned, that they die at the hands of those who hate them, is a part, a very strange part indeed, of its mission and of the hidden work of God in the world, the ultimate end of which, if God’s word is true, is life, blessing, peace, and salvation for all.

Within the community this translates into a life and a structure and an internal authority mechanism that is rooted in sacrifice and is lived out in humility. After posing to the disciples James and John the question of whether they will be able to drink the cup of suffering that Jesus will drink or to be baptized with the baptism of death with which Jesus will be baptized, Jesus then goes on to describe what life is to be like within the community of faith, which again is grounded in Jesus’ own teaching, example, and life: “whoevever wishes,” he said, “to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Do we in fact exemplify this pattern of humble service and deference to Christ, his word and will for us, and to the needs and hurts of others? Not always very well. The national church sometimes seems to be dominated by the same kind of interest group politics that plagues our national decision-making processes, which looks for tactical successes that often conflict with the church’s integrity, and where power sometimes trumps service and mission. Closer to home we can be so concerned about the needs of those far away, about the plight of the poor somewhere “out there,” that we ignore the needs of those next door; or we may be so concerned about our own needs or the needs of our immediate circle or family that we never feel our neighbors’ pain.

And how do we serve the gospel itself? Have we become so enamoured of our own opinions, ideas, passions and prejudices that we are willing to adulterate the clear command and promise of Christ to fit those preconceived notions, or do we simply ignore and shun as unreasonable the clear command and promise of God that stand as perpetual challenges to the world we have created in our image and likeness, a world we have made to suit ourselves, even though in the end it is precisely that world that will be consumed by the purging fire of God’s righteous judgment? Living in obedience to the word and command of God that in the light of the gospel’s promise by definition grants new life, always places us at odds with the values and goals and desires of the old world that, because of Christ’s victory over death, is passing away. The choice between what we want anyway and what God intends to bring pass for us and in spite of us, is always a choice between death and life.

So the question remains: Are we willing to sign on as servants of The Servant? If we are, then we must emulate his obedience that led him to his cross. Such obedience means sacrifice, rejection, and difficult choices for us, because the world will not like nor will it understand our proclmation of a coming new world, nor will it fathom our protest against persisting in a way of life that can only fall under God’s judgment, a way of life to which the world stubbornly and tenaciously clings. But if to our chagrin God breaks through our self-righteousness and business-as-usual patterns, it is so that we might be brought into a new world, a new understanding of ourselves, and a new life that will be formed and defined by the sacrificial love and mercy of Christ that brings light and life to a dying world that, to its own judgment and eternal sadness, prefers to sit in darkness. It is to shatter that darkness that the God of Israel, through the cross of Christ, stakes his claim, once and for all, to redeem a sinful humanity and a fallen creation.

-Amen-