Isaiah 49:6 Failure, rejection and shame: the servant songs aren t about Jesus

Transcription

1 1 Isaiah 49:6 Failure, rejection and shame: the servant songs aren t about Jesus Things are not yet right It's a few days before Christmas and all is not right in the world. Heck, all may not be right under your own roof. There are still gifts to buy, your inlaws will be here this afternoon and you aren t happy with the way the house looks, you think your kids will be happy with their gifts but you wonder for how long. Most of us recognize we are doing okay though. Far better than people across the world. This Christmas statistics 1 in 7 people spend their entire life hungry (that s the population of American, Canada and the EU combined). In Peru more than 50% struggle for each meal. In Peru 47% of women have been victims or attempted or completed rape. In Nairobi where we have helped to build a church in the slums, there are 600 rapes a day and each one of them must see a single doctor before they can press charges. One doctor. If you were raped in July, you would have to stand in line behind 149,000 rape victims (that s a 56 mile long line) before you can be seen. There is 0% chance of rapists being convicted in this city. Things are definitely not right, for them, for us, for everyone. My biggest fears Across the world people are afraid of very real things. But I have never been afraid of not having enough food, never been afraid that I would be raped, never been afraid of getting beat up, never been afraid that a landlord would evict me. I am not afraid of spiders or zombies or needles or public speaking. What are my biggest fears? Rejection Failure Shame Where does that fear come from? I was raised with confidence, even cockiness. I didn t fail in very many things and I can t pinpoint an event in my life where I was publicly shamed. I was never even rejected. Of course, I only asked one girl out in my entire life when I was 16, but she said yes. So, why do so many of us look back to that high school experience of trying to call a girl or get the guts to walk up to one.

2 2 Did any of you ever dial six of the seven numbers (yes, there used to only be 7 numbers) and then hang up before the seventh? Or hear the hello on the other end and then hang up? Still praising God there was no star 69 or caller display available at that time. Why do we all fear rejection? [1:04-1:14] Praise God I got a wife, because I could never find another one outside of God s miraculous power. But that fear of failure continues. Things we fail at I don t know about you, but the confidence and sometime cockiness is often just a mask. Deep down, I wonder if I can do it. Can I be a good husband, father, pastor, friend, servant of Jesus? I wonder sometimes if I am failing as a dad. What is going to happen to my children? Am I failing as a husband? I don t bring home flowers often enough and I don t pray with her hardly ever Am I failing as a friend? One friend even here I have called a like a dozen times to get together with and I still can t seem to make it happen. Everything else is always more important. I seem to be failing my neighbors. One moved in a few months ago and I still haven t met them. A few weeks at a time go by without me talking to any of the others. I am a huge failure as a pastor. We had 141 people who called this their church home when I got here. 91 of those people don t attend here anymore for one reason or another. Half of them are still in town. And I have grown the church to a whopping 139 people that call this home. I have failed as a servant of Jesus for sure because as I fail my church, my neighbors, my town, my friends, my wife and my children, then I fail Jesus. I guess there really shouldn t be anything to fear anymore. When you are smack dab in the middle of failure, you don t have to fear it anymore. Probably none of you have anxiety about whether the church fails or not (some more so than others), but I am guessing that many of you fear failure. You fear the shame of not accomplishing what you thought you should, or what others thought or think you should. You wonder if you are failing your spouse or your kids or your neighbors. At the very least you often feel like you fail God. You don t have your devotions enough, you don t witness enough, you don t give enough, you don t act selflessly enough. And when you fail, you feel rejected. Maybe God thinks worse of you right now. And that shame rises and you think, like some people who have left our church, it s easier not to think about God. If I don t try to please him, then I never have to fail and wow, amazingly enough, some of the pressure is lifted.

3 3 1. The world is not right 2. One of the things wrong in the world is fear of failure, rejection and shame 3. Isaiah had this same problem: He saw that things had not gone right, and that the servant of God had not lived up to his calling. I want you to see this passage in Isaiah 49. I want you to see this prophecy, as many people understand it, and I want you to see the trajectory of the redemptive movement that climaxes in Jesus rejection, failure and shame and then watch the story continue to include your story, and your rejection, failure and shame. Remember the last two weeks that I have tried, somewhat academically, to show you the truth about prophecy. That the predictions you hear about from most pastors that somehow prove Christianity to be true, really shouldn t be understood exactly in that way. We looked at the virgin birth from Isaiah 7:14 and I told you it wasn t really a virgin birth at all. We looked at the equating of Jesus with God and the Father from Isaiah 9:6 and I showed you that wasn t it at all. This week I want you to see the servant from the servant song and I want you to see that it s not really Jesus. How many servant songs are there? There are four servant songs in Isaiah (maybe 5 depending on how you understand them), all of which are filled with huge textual and hermeneutical problems. Who is the servant? No one seems to agree on who the servant is, or whether the servant is even an individual at all. When they do think it s an individual it varies between Darius, Cyrus, Zerubabel or even Isaiah the prophet. I will have to touch on this stuff, but I promised myself since the last two sermons were highly academic, I would spend far less time exegeting for you, and far more time bringing this home. But still, we have to look at the text. It s in Isaiah 49 and it is the third of Duhm s servant songs. Let me just narrow us down to verse 6 for a moment. "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." (Isa 49:6 NIV) Seems clear enough. Pastor, why did you just go through all those choices of who the servant is, when it quite clearly Jesus? This is another one of those clear cases for Christians, that Jesus is predicted at least 500 years before he is born to Mary. A light to the gentiles and salvation to the

4 4 ends of the earth. This sounds remarkably like Simeon and Anna in the temple as they meet the baby Jesus and say The consolation of Israel and a light to the gentiles. But we want to be intelligent exegetes so let s take a look at the context. Let s see if this is indeed talking about Jesus. Let s just back up to verse 3 3 He said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor." The servant is not Jesus. It's Israel. There it is in black and white. According to this text and you will have to trust me on everything else, but Israel is to display the glory of God. To display his splendor as it says in verse 3. As early as Isaiah 42 (the first of the servant songs) we see clearly that Israel, the servant, is to be a light to the nations. And even then we find that Israel has failed. Israel was in Exile, they had not been delivered and had complained to God that their right (mispat) had been disregarded (Isa 40:27). Even if you are missing the technical stuff right now, perhaps you can see the connection to yourself We fail, all the time. We get rejected and shamed and justice doesn t seem to take place. Our rights are trampled and disregarded. Israel is hurting over this and we often hurt over this. In Isaiah, at that time, God promised that his appointed servant would not grow weary until he had established his mispat (right) on earth (42:4) When we get to chapter 49 we see that the servant has grown weary and righteousness has still not prevailed. 4 But I said, "I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing. The servant has failed. What s more, the identity of the servant as merely Israel seems to become strained. 5 And now the LORD says-- he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength-- It seems that the servant from Isaiah 42 has become more individualized. It's not that he has replaced Israel as the servant, but he becomes the faithful embodiment of the nation Israel who has not performed its chosen role. So this new servant, the prophet, is a representative for Israel. The prophet fails, the nation fails, they have not displayed the splendor of the Lord as expected. <Explanation of Israel as prophet as corporate individual.>

5 5 What is the problem in Isaiah? See, here is the problem. Israel was supposed to be a light to the world. They were supposed to succeed in being the glory of God. They were the remedy for the world. And whoever this individual is was a representative for Israel. A king, a prophet, whoever it was, was the singular manifestation of a corporate body. So they/he needed justice, they needed to stand and shine bright. But the problem is that while Israel was the remedy for the world, Israel itself needed a remedy. They needed someone to be the glory of God to them too. They needed light in darkness too. And here is God s message throughout Isaiah. Despite Israel, I will bring justice to the world. Israel will succeed in their goal even despite their own darkness, their own weakness, their own dysfunction. So what will this glory look like? How will they be a light to the nations? Remember that is what verse 6 speaks of 6 he says: "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." (Isa 49:6 NIV) This representative of Israel needs to do more than restore Israel. He needs to reconcile the nations. He needs to be a light to the Gentiles. Rehash: 1. The servant in the songs is first and foremost the nation of Israel 2. Isaiah the prophet (and others Zerubabbel, Darius, etc) becomes the symbol of Israel and is called to be a light to the light. 3. Isaiah and Israel fail to show the light as they should and therefore do not bring salvation to the ends of the earth. They are failures, rejected, shamed. Failure is not the end of the story But the great thing about the Isaiah story is that this failure, rejection and shame are not the end of the story. Hear this, those of you who fear you have failed this Christmas. Hear this, those who have been rejected and shamed.

6 6 As Brevard Childs says, God confirms that in spite of his momentary failure, his role of establishing right in the earth (42:4) will be sustained. And we see this most beautifully in chapter 53. Chapter 53 says the servant had no beauty, he was despised and rejected, familiar with suffering. It says he took our infirmities when we had gone astray. It says he was oppressed and didn t open his mouth. It says he was killed, crushed by the permission of God. Whoever this servant is, he is someone who took the consequence of the failure on himself. He took the shame and the rejection so that Israel could rise again. So that Israel could shine the light. The failure of Israel, the failure of the prophet or King almost seems to be necessary for Israel to become who they are supposed to become. Almost like, in order to rise, you first have to fall. In order to come back to life, you have to first die. In order to properly bless others, you need to know what it is to be cursed. The one who came rejected and shamed Can I remind you this morning about the one who was born into poverty? The one who had no place to lay his head? The one who was rejected every step of the way? The one who failed to keep even his own disciples going strong? The one who was shamed in an ultimate sense by becoming the curse for us and dying on a cross? Jesus wasn t the servant in a prophecy/fulfilment sense, but the NT authors saw an analogy here with the Psalter s suffering servant and the Isaianic suffering servant. They saw in Jesus the one who was pierced and took our wounds and failed, was rejected and shamed. And on the other side of that rejection and shame, he rose. In case you hear me being all metaphorical as I think many biblical passages are, let me say it clearly. Jesus was a real person, who really died and who really got up from the dead. He knew that on the other side of failure (as we see it), is ultimate success. He knew that he had to go through shame to reach glory. And he did that for us. For those of you who live constantly with a life of inadequacy. For those who feel like they fail family, or they fail God, please remember this. It's these failures that make you who you are. The failures give you a story. It's the failures that make you human and let you relate and make it so you can t take all the glory on yourself. Israel had to fail, so that the true Israel could be seen. Because Israel, like you, can t bless the world without a remedy. Israel needed help and so do you. That s the message of Christmas. You can t measure up. You are a failure. Own it. And then reach out to God and watch what happens. You rise. You come back from the dead.

7 7 It is at night that the astronomers discover new worlds. It is often in the night of failure that men discover the light of a new hope. Friends, I am going to keep it short this morning. I truly wish you a merry Christmas. Please remember Jesus this Christmas. Whenever you blow it and scream at a kid for their grumpiness or their lack of appreciation or when you don t give your spouse the time he needs because you are so stressed about everything, please remember, that grace only comes on the other side of failure and rejection and shame. The healthy don t need a doctor. This Christmas, remember grace. Have a very merry Christmas.