Sermon Tone Analysis

God’s Servant Messiah (Isa.

42).

Isaiah 42:1–7 is the first of four “Servant Songs” in Isaiah, referring to God’s Servant, the Messiah.

The others are 49:1–6; 50:1–11; and 52:13–53:12.

Contrast “Behold, they [the idols] are all vanity” (41:29) with “Behold My Servant” (42:1).

Matthew 12:14–21 applies these words to the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.

He could have destroyed His enemies (the reed and flax), but He was patient and merciful.

The Father delights in His Son, (Matt.

3:17; 17:5).

During this advent season, we are going to take a close look at Isaiah 42 and also how it corresponds to “O Holy Night”.

You should have received a green or red flyer, if you did not, they are available.

I have printed on this flyer the text of Isaiah 42:1-9, along with the English translation of the song, and also a literal translation.

What you will find in the literal translation is that the English words don’t rhyme or go together as well.

But by examining them, you can see as close as we are able, what the original song in its original language, French, meant.

Of course, in its native language, it has a beautiful poetic quality to it.

So I will give a little of the history of the song to you now, and you will have to keep coming back through the advent season to get the rest of the story.

So how did this song get started?

Well, originally it was to be a Christmas poem.

A priest in France in 1847, as he was looking forward to his Christmas Eve mass, asked for help from the village wine commissioner to write a poem about Christmas.

The interesting thing is that the wine commissioner was not even a believer.

Whatever his reasons, he agreed to help the priest and write the poem, and he wrote it in the back of a dusty carriage.

Considering the Christmas story as written in Luke, and also drawing from his own remembrance of his catechism, the poet, Placide Cappeau, penned the words to his poem.

He was very satisfied with his work, but he thought that it should be set to music, so he enlisted the talent of a composer, Adophe Charles Adams.

Who was Adams?

He was a Jewish man, who did not consider Jesus to be the Messiah, and he certainly did not celebrate Christmas.

So the priest had a new song for Christmas Eve.

It was called “Cantique de Noel”, which means Christmas Hymn, or Christmas Song.

It became instantly popular, and found its way into many other churches.

However, some years later, when the Catholic church found out that the man who wrote it, Cappeau, not only was not a believer, but had aligned himself with the socialists, and not only that, but the melody was written by a non-believing Jew, they banned the song from use in Catholic Churches.

However, that did not make the song go away, as many had already learned it and kept singing it, even if they could not at church.

The story of this powerful song does not end there, but, as I said, you will have to come back in the next few Sundays to get the rest of this story.

Also, as we continue, we will begin to see why this song especially connects with Isaiah 42.

What is amazing is that for having been written by a non-believer, this song, especially the original in French, has some very strong theology in it.

If you look at the literal translation, you will see words you don’t hear in any church songs today, like “Original sin” “the wrath of his father”.

In the second part of the song, it says “O mighty ones of today, proud of your grandeur, it is to your pride that God preaches”.

And in verse three, the beautiful truth that our God is the one who will finally put an end to injustice, and set free prisoners and slaves.

Who is the one who would do this?

The servant that is spoken of in Isaiah 42.

How do we know this refers to Jesus? well, we let scripture interpret scripture.

In the gospels, we know that anytime Jesus got the attention of the people, it angered the religious leaders, and they hated him.

They wanted to kill him.

There are many examples of this.

But one is when Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath: Let’s look at it:

So we know that the servant Isaiah is referring to in verse 1 is Jesus.

Matthew confirms that this prophecy was fulfilled through Jesus.

He is God’s servant, whom God upholds, and in whom his soul delights.

Again we are reminded of something we find in Matt3.17, at the Baptism of Jesus:

And he will be a person of justice: Is2.2-4

Jesus was the fulfillment of this prophecy, and will be the final fulfillment as well.

We see this at the very end of the New Testament, in Revelation.

Jesus will execute final and perfect justice.

Now this is in contrast to what ends Isaiah 41:29

He’s talking of the futility of idols, and the folly of those who serve them and worship them.

Unlike them, the Lord’s Servant, Jesus is one in whom God delights.

And in verse 4 we see that he will not rest until he has established justice in the earth.

God will make his love known to us.

He will give his glory to no other, nor his praise to our carved idols (v.

8).

He will love us until we finally get it.

He stakes his honor on that.

Therefore, we are not confined to our abominations and prisons.

God saves us not by telling us to lose ourselves in some vaguely defined cosmic All but by taking upon himself at his cross all the wrongs we’ve done and by giving back to us our truest selves that we lost so long ago.

That is how God proves that he really is God.

We should believe this.

In verse 9 God says, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.”

What is he saying?

God is proving himself here by prophecies.

He gives us a verifiable short-term prediction by foretelling the coming of Cyrus.

That happened, as a public event in our human history.

This gives God instant credibility.

But he does that to get us believing his long-term prediction of worldwide perfection through Christ.

God is saying, “If I kept my word about Cyrus, and I did, and you know I did, then you can believe that I’ll keep my word about my servant.

In fact, I launched his mission 2,000 years ago.

It’s already underway.

So dump your idols and trust me.

I want you to be a part of my new world.”

This is exciting.

This calls for music!

So the Servant of the Lord is Jesus, whom God delights in, and who will bring forth justice to the nations.

We just studied together the common cry we all have for justice.

In the past week or so, 2 very high profile cases went to jury and came back with a verdict.

Perhaps you think one or both were decided poorly.

Whatever our opinions of the matter, we do know that human justice often does fall short.

Certainly no outcome for any criminal trial ever comes out with perfection.

BUt the justice that Jesus will bring will be perfect.

He will bring forth justice to the nations.

Another defining characteristic of Jesus is humility, which the prophet predicts:

Powerful leaders like Napoleon have marveled at the impact Jesus had on the world.

Many leaders are always seeking the spotlight, in love with the sound of their own voice.

It was said of one politician that the most dangerous place to be was between him and a microphone.

Today that would be a TV camera.

It’s no wonder that so many politicians and celebrities are narcissists.

That is why they seek out the spotlight in the first place, and then they get so addicted to the praise of others, they do whatever they can to get even more attention.

Sadly, sometimes they even do embarrassing or demeaning things just to get attention.

How many young ladies and young men have debased themselves simply to get the part in a movie, or to get the attention of someone they think could help their career.

You could say that our whole society is currently teetering on the bring because of narcissism.

It is a dangerous thing.

Checking back on your facebook or other pages over and over to see if there are any new comments or likes on that photo you posted.

In fact, many people post photos, not so that they would be a blessing to others as much as they are looking for hits.

I heard Francis Chan say once that ours is the most narcissistic society in history.

Everyone has their very own web page on Facebook or elsewhere where they can post all the details of their life, and what keeps them coming back?

The dopamine hit they get from the acceptance they feel when they get a like.

The problem is that dopamine is dopamine.