Proper 10: The Heritage of the Suffering Servant
Introduction
Good morning friends. Today we read a beautiful passage from the book of Isaiah which I’d like to unpack for us today. You’ve probably heard parts of it quoted in the New Testament, but I want to see it in its context. The passage raises questions we often ask, like “Is working this hard and not seeing any outcome really God’s will?” Or “Why do I feel so spiritually dry and the Lord feels so far away?” The passage is all about the goodness of life promised by God sitting juxtaposed with the reality of the muck we’re in at the moment. I want to invite the kids up for our kids sermon.
1) Kid’s sermon
How many of you have heard that song “I’ve got peace like a river”? Can you sing it with me? [sing] Have you ever thought about what that means? Why are rivers peaceful?
On the one hand, it is a peaceful thing for us to sit next to something beautiful we cannot control. If we are talking about our passage though, rivers do much more than just create beauty. They provide what is necessary to make things grow. Can anything grow in this dirt? Why not? [Hold up dry dirt and let a child pour water into it.] How about now? What will happen if the dirt gets too dry again? What would happen if we continued to consistently water it? There is so much about God and rivers in the Bible. In our Psalm passage we heard the phrase “the river of God is full of water, to provide the people with grain”. They counted on healthy rivers and streams for life. Our passage in Isaiah 55 today starts with this verse: “Look! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” We need God’s wisdom for our lives like the thirsty ground needs water.
Over time if we try to do things on our own, our hearts can grow hard, but God has planted the seeds of the kingdom of God, of new creation, in our hearts. When we come and seek Jesus, ask him for help, ask him to know his love for us, it is like pouring water on the dry soil of our hearts. God makes good things grow. We are invited to come to the one who says “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Would you please pray with me? “Dear God...thank you...for sending Jesus...who died for us...and rose again from the dead...we come to you Lord...because we need you...when things are good...and when things are hard...thank you for loving us. Amen.” Thank you for listening. Go ahead and head back to your seats.
2) vv 1-5 Wisdom for the heritage of the suffering servant
Before jumping into Isaiah 55, let me give a bit of intro. The book of Isaiah from chapters 1 through 35 are inviting the people of Judah to come back to covenant faithfulness to God through cycles of oracles of judgment and salvation. Chapters 36-39 are narrative and tell the story of King Hezekiah’s run-ins with king Sennacherib of Assyria. While Assyria does’t take the southern kingdom, by chapter 39, King Hezekiah does something foolish. He welcomes the Babylonian envoys of king Merodach-baladan, the king of Babylon and shows them all the treasures of Judah. This set us up to anticipate the exile where Babylon would come and conquer the southern kingdom of Judah, destroy the temple, take all their riches, and relocate most of their people across the Tigris and Euphrates, into Babylon.
In chapter 40 we encounter Judah already in exile, people who have been ripped away from everything they know, who long for the good things God said he would do. Chapters 40-55, sometimes called deutero-Isaiah, traces the story of God’s deliverance from exile and healing from their years of unfaithfulness.
In this section there are four songs that are called Servant Songs and they mention how God would restore his people through his servant. This servant would bring justice to the nations and would be a light for the nations.[1] Then in a surprising twist, the servant would endure all kinds of suffering while trusting in the Lord, and he would suffer for the people to bring them healing.[2] If you’re reading or hearing this text before Jesus, it is a unclear about whom this servant language is referring. God promises redemption to those who join in the heritage of this servant.[3] This brings us to chapter 55 where those who are part of the heritage of the suffering servant are invited to God’s renewal and restoration.
God has promised a new and everlasting covenant with the those who join the heritage of the suffering servant. The servant has made redemption possible and those who will join him will find life. Judah had wandered, like a lost hiker who veers off to the right for a long time into they do full circle, Judah had become lost and some may have wondered if they were to far gone to be found.
This is a problem we are all prone to. Like Judah, we need this invitational reminder to come and find what we need in Jesus, who is the ultimate heritage of the suffering servant. God’s posture is kind and invitational, eager to show mercy to those who return. It is not one of waiting to see where we will fall in order to say “look where you are at now...I told you so.” There are hundreds of micro-decisions we make in a day and we need this invitation. I want to encourage us to ask this question right now: “How do I seek the Lord’s wisdom in my...[you fill in the blank]?” Reflect as you consider a typical day, times of vacation coming up, anxieties that sit below the surface about big things in the near future. As we consider the week ahead, what meetings we will have and the people we will encounter, where do you need the Lord’s wisdom? If we can make a habit of asking that question, we will keep the ground soft and wet for the seeds of the kingdom to grow because we are seeking Jesus.
3) vv 6-13 Invitation to trust the Lord for what we don’t yet understand
In verses 6-13, those who follow the suffering servant are invited to seek the Lord whose thoughts and ways are not our own. We are invited to entrust ourselves to the one whose ways are mysterious as we put away evil, and return to the God who shows mercy. In the context of deutero-Isaiah, this meant trusting that the exile was not permanent, that God’s plan was not done, and that someone they couldn’t see would suffer for them and deliver them. The prophet says, “Seek the LORD while he can still be found; call for him while he is still near.” The Lord hasn’t left. The encouragement is that it’s not too late, but also don’t wait. Everyone has stuff to work through that impacts their relationship with God and relationship with others. If you don’t start processing those things in your 20s, you will in your 30s. If you haven’t done the work in your 30s, you’ll probably have to do even more work in your 40s because now there’s an extra decade of baggage and the load just gets heavier and heavier. Often the times we are most disoriented is where the Lord is most at work as he brings us into a place of reorientation.[4]
Sometimes doing the hard work of figuring out the real problem can be scary because it takes us to unknown places. Whether it’s a staff meeting, hearing confession, or spiritual direction, I’m always struck by the fact that the problem as presented is often not the real problem. Someone might say “I spend to much time on this social media app.” If that’s the real problem, then the solution is just simple behavior modification. A better questions might be, “When do I look at this app, and what happened prior to going on it?” “What did the content of this app provide for me?” “Does that same longing and desire show up any place else? And I wonder why I have this desire in the first place?” This could be used for overworking, over-exercising, avoidant behaviors, or overreactions. Once we have asked better questions, then come to the God who is near and waiting for us, this will be a much more profound opportunity for healing as we learn the Lord’s will for us and our good desires misapplied.
Our places of instability and disorientation might just be the soil of new creation. This passage reminds us that God’s ways and thoughts are not ours. In fact, they are about as different as heaven and earth. The good news is that in Jesus, heaven breaks in to renew the earth. And so it is that in the vulnerable places of faithfully opening ourselves up to God’s healing as we obey him, the promise is that He will restore and renew what has been broken and torn down by sin and shame. This is precisely what it means for the writer to say that God’s word shall not return empty. Isn’t it interesting to have this promise bookend this part of Isaiah both in chapters 40 and 55.
Conclusion:
In the experience of feeling uprooted, untethered, and away from home and familiarity, God is present to refine, renew, and restore. God hadn’t finished his story with his people, but it certainly took unanticipated turns from their perspective. These moments of disorientation were the very seasons that God used to dislodge His people from her brokenness, idols they trusted in, sinful desires for autonomy, and their false hopes that their neighbors would keep them safe through political alliances. More importantly, he took these image-bearers and highlighted where cracks had occurred so that as they come to him, he can restore what was broken.
This new-creation work comes through Jesus, who is the suffering servant in whom the new covenant begins and in whom the people of God are restored. For those who claim allegiance to the heritage of Jesus as the suffering servant, and seek him as their savior, his word will not return void. Today’s passage is an encouragement to trust him, to depend on his wisdom in the face of what is unknown, and to ask better questions of ourselves so we can call to him for healing. Dependence, good questions, and vulnerability soften the soil of our hearts to the kingdom work that the Holy Spirit is doing in and among God’s people.
Let us pray:
O Almighty God, you pour out on all who desire it the spirit of grace and of supplication: Deliver us, when we draw near to you, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[1] Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6.
[2] Isaiah 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12.
[3] Isaiah 54:17.
[4] Cf. This comes from the orientation — disorientation — reorientation from Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on the Psalms.
