Being Part of the Picture

Neil Hunt

Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

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Looking at how the servant song points us towards Jesus, and understanding his part in the plan. Also looking at using the NT to give insight to the OT.

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Are you seeing in the negative?

There are those of us who are old enough to remember when photographs were taken by cameras and not phones. And even more than that the pictures weren’t digital, you wouldn’t see them for weeks, as you had to send off the film to be developed. When the pictures came back, they were always accompanied by the negatives, the little enigmatic brown strips of developed film. I always enjoyed the game of holding the negative up to the light and trying to guess which picture the negative was of. Some time it was not at all easy, for whilst the negative contains all the information that you need to get a clear and beautiful picture to the naked eye it just looks obscure and wrong.

There is an element to which our passage from Isaiah is a little like a negative, it does contain a complete picture, all the information we need to understand it. However, it is more than a little obscure. Isaiah in general is prophesying about Israel’s return from exile, and specifically, how God has a plan. This plan involves God raising up a servant, much like in previous generations he had raised up Judges, and Prophets. This servant would be God’s agent to end Israel’s exile. The book though is multi-layered speaking at both the socio-political level and the spiritual. In the early parts of the book, Cyrus the Great[i] (circa 559-529 BC) is named as person that God would use to bring the Jews back from exile in Babylon: (the only non-Jew in the bible to called an ‘anointed one’). We move on to the part of the book where our reading found and there is now no mention of Cyrus the Great, but there is still talk of God’s Servant. What then does exile mean? The Jews would no longer be physically exiled in Babylon but yet, there was still work to be done by God’s Servant.

Do you hear from a distance?

How do you like to hear from people? Are you a phone call person or dread picking it up in case you are stuck chatting for an hour? Do you prefer a letter to an email? I’ve had the experience of receiving an email whilst at work from a person that I can see across the office is sitting at their desk. I’m there wondering do they think that it has more authority because they have put it in writing rather than talking to me?? What would make you listen? “Listen to me” starts with a command to all the nation, to the furthest reaches of the world to listen. The language is personal, listen “to me” and unusually blunt. The formula, ‘Listen to me’, is one that only Isaiah uses. It is used 7 times in the book (, ; ; ; , ; ): 6 of those times it is put in the mouth of God. Here is Ch. 49, it is said with the same authority but is spoken by one born of a woman. A servant called by name whilst he was still in the womb.

So, the Servant who would complete the task of ending the exile would be someone who would speak with unusual authority as if from God but be born of women. Someone who (v. 5) would first need to gather Israel back to God, but would also (v. 6) be a ‘light to the nations’ that God’s ‘salvation may reach to the end of the earth ‘. Is the picture clearing? Is the story from so long ago starting to be heard today?

Are lost even with the map?

Have you ever been taught how to read a map? I’m a big fan of maps. Here is the UK we have fabulous maps thanks to the Ordnance Survey. Maps of which other countries could only dream. A particular joy of mine is that you can get old OS maps dating back to the 1800’s online. So, you can look at an area and see how it has changed and developed on the decades. The beauty of the British OS map is the amount of information that is packed into each square due to the exquisitely developed symbology. I learnt how to read an OS map in the Scouts and it still something that we’ve had to teach the boys as they’ve grown up through the cubs and scouts. Can you imagine being a Jew some 2 and something thousand years ago? I suggest that sometime trying to read the OT without the benefit of the NT is like trying to read a map without having the key to the symbols.

Do we take for granted knowing what Jesus did for us? God needed to raise up a servant to bring an end to the exile of his people Israel. Here the Servants name is Israel (v. 3) but it can’t mean the nation of Israel. What can it mean that Israel (v. 3) gathers in Israel (v. 5)? It was meant to be Israel - the nation - God’s people were the ones who supposed to reveal him to the other nations of the Earth, but they had failed. They were in exile precisely because they did not remain faithful to the one, true God.

But it could be Jesus. God Incarnate or Immanuel, born of a woman to be God with us. Jesus whose death on the cross made it look like his mission had failed. One who could say with the Servant, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity[i]”.

I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Do you know what you are doing?

God has always had a plan. From Genesis to Revelation, it is the unfolding of the plan of the One good and true God. God’s plan encompasses the whole of history, there were many hundreds of years between Isaiah’s prophecy and Jesus. And Jesus wasn’t the end of the plan just the start of phase 2. Paul and Barnabas recognised this when they preached in Antioch and quoted from this passage (). They were preaching on the Sabbath in the Synagogue expecting to tell Jews about their Messiah; and yet many Gentiles became believers. The Servant has a mission to restore Israel and make God known to all the end of the earth. But we must be careful that we don’t have an old-fashioned idea of what mission means. There is no hint here that if Jesus was to fulfil this mission, he would have to travel the world to bring God’s salvation. Indeed, he never left his small provincial nation on the edge of the Roman Empire. As John Goldingay says in his commentary on Isaiah,

The sun does not go anywhere when it sends out light, and neither does Yahweh’s servant. If prophet ministers and Yahweh acts, the world will see and respond. And it has.

Goldingay, J. (2012). Isaiah. (W. W. Gasque, R. L. Hubbard Jr., & R. K. Johnston, Eds.) (p. 283). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

For this day, God’s salvation is being celebrated in nations that Jesus has never visited. And when read this book from thousands of years ago, and see picture through the negative, and hear the call of the one who speaks as God but is also born of a woman then... We can know that if we minister and God acts, people here will be brought from exile too faith in God.

Possible Questions:

When Jesus meets the Disciples on the road to Emmaus, Luke writes, “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.[i]” Where in the OT do you normally start to think about Jesus?

‘The NT explains WHAT the plan is, the OT explains WHY the plan is needed’, Agree or Disagree?

If you have a concordance, look up how the NT uses the symbology in this passage, e.g. sharp swords, lights to the nation. Does it add to your understanding of Isaiah? (Not every use will, sometimes symbols have multiple meanings.)

Paul and Barnabas () saw themselves taking on the Servants role as Light to the Nations. Are we the Light to Basingstoke?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[1] Goldingay, J. (2012). Isaiah. (W. W. Gasque, R. L. Hubbard Jr., & R. K. Johnston, Eds.) (p. 283). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.