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Sermon - The Coming of the Messiah - 20th January 2008
St Alban’s 7:00am, 8.00 am & 10:00am
Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-14, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42
The people of Israel had difficulty in discovering and understanding whom the Messiah was and how he was to appear. Last week and this week the first reading is from that part of Isaiah that is referred to as the Servant Songs. These Songs have been understood to be about God’s Messiah.
There are a three such songs, one each in chapters 42, 49 and 52 which continues into 53. It has been suggested that there maybe a fourth song that is to be found elsewhere in chapter 61. The poems are easily distinguished as a separate strand within Second Isaiah because the song about the Servant is out of context with the surrounding text. Second Isaiah is chapters 40-55. Third Isaiah is chapters 56-66. The three sections of Isaiah are easily distinguishable as being from different authors and deal with different subject matter such as different times and conditions. The authors would more than likely would have been a disciple of the original Isaiah. The Songs have as a keynote the word servant, an identity who God points to and designates as God’s servant.
Clear and concise as these readings are, their interpretation is very difficult. On three matters we are left in the dark. Who is the servant given a role by God? What is the nature of the task? In what context is the role to be acted out? In last weeks reading we saw that the servant was to bring forth justice to the nations. He will faithfully bring forth justice. And, he will establish justice in the earth. In the context of the reading the servant could be a man of no particular presence in Israel. It could be Israel, the nation itself. Or, most likely to my way of thinking it could have been Cyrus the Great, King of Persia. Cyrus helped restore the people of Israel in their homeland after living in captivity in Babylon. The Bible records that a remnant of the Jewish population returned to the Promised Land from Babylon, following an edict from Cyrus to rebuild the temple. As a result of Cyrus' policies, the Jews honored him as a dignified and righteous king. He is the only Gentile to be designated as a messiah, a divinely appointed king, in Isaiah 45:1-6.
As Christians of course we see in the Servant a very clear reference to Jesus. However the Jews of his time and his followers also misunderstood how the Suffering Servant was to carry out his role as God’s Messiah.
Was the writer referring to someone in their midst? Was he referring to one who was yet to come, a king of the Davidic line (The Lord's Anointed)? However, the promise of a future king would hardly create hope in the minds of his hearers. Although Pss. 2 and 72 speak of a worldwide dominion, there is no suggestion of worldwide salvation effected through suffering.
Yet it appears that he could be speaking of a real person. Here is one who is called by God, given a message, equipped for his task and sustained when rejected by those he must serve. Finally his self-abandonment to the divine purpose brings him to suffering unto death that he willingly accepts as the means by which God reconciles sinful humanity.
The nations are restored to God through the self-offering of the Servant; God vindicates his faithful servant and by his self-identification with the sinful he becomes the channel whereby the royal and priestly blessing comes upon them.
In the Bible sometimes a person is not necessarily an individual. He can be a community. Frequently a social group is spoken of in individual terms. Isaiah describes the nation as a severely wounded individual. Similarly Israel is described as the Lord’s servant, therefore, the hearers themselves could be the Servant. How can blind and deaf Israel also be receptive, or the despondent be courageous, or the sinful be the sinless sufferer and intercessor? We may understand the prophet as speaking to his people, knowing their failure, rebelliousness and unworthiness, for which they have suffered. They have not been abandoned by God, but in fact have been 'ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven' and so reborn to take up what was from the beginning their ancient role.
We are still left with the difficulty in which the Servant is first identified with Israel and then described as having a mission to restore Israel which is then transcended to become a mission to the nations, 'to earth's farthest bounds'. If the Servant is Israel, how can Israel have a mission to Israel?
The people however by the time of Jesus were still waiting for the promised messiah to bring in the Kingdom. Their idea of the how the Kingdom could be restored had developed into three forms. First there were the Pharisees and the Sadducees who sought to cooperate with the Roman occupiers. They thought that somehow they would gain independence and restore the kingdom. Then there were the Essenes who thought that by separating themselves from the Gentiles and living in isolation in the dessert they would become the pure nation of Israel. Then there were the Zealots who were attracted to violent uprising. They wished to bring the kingdom by force. So when Jesus came preaching that the kingdom could not come by such agendas the people were confused as they were about the Suffering Servant centuries before. And, so today as our Gospel reading we have John’s version of Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of his ministry and the call of the first of his disciples. “What are you looking for?” They were not sure.
Jesus told his listeners to give up their agendas about the way they thought that the kingdom would come. He was opposed to armed rebellion as he saw it as deeply disloyal to God and to God’s purpose for Israel to be the light of the world. Jesus was offering an utterly risky way of being Israel. His kingdom required its citizens to turn the other check, going the second mile and to lose their life to find it. Along with this invitation was a radical welcome. Wherever Jesus went there seemed to be a celebration, in people’s homes and in the open air. The tradition of festive meals was and still is an established feature of Jesus view of the Kingdom. The reason why some of his contemporaries found this so offensive was not that he was associating with disreputable people but because he was doing this as a prophet of the kingdom, making these meals and their free-for-all welcome a central feature of his program. The meals spoke powerfully about Jesus vision for the Kingdom. Jesus welcome symbolized God’s radical acceptance and forgiveness.
The key thing about the coming of the Kingdom that Jesus announced was that it created a new world, a new context and he challenged his hearers to become the new people that this demanded. His agenda was a new way of life, a way of forgiveness and prayer, a way of jubilee that they and us could practice right where they and we are, not just in some religious context. The guiding principle was set out in the Sermon on the Mount. This was how the Servant would do God’s bidding.
All we are and do as Christians is based upon the one-off unique achievement of Jesus. Because he inaugurated the Kingdom we can live in it. And as he brought the story of God and the cosmos to its climax that we can now continue that work today. What Jesus was to Israel, we as the Church must now be for the world. We must look for the Church to do for this world through the concept of what would Jesus do if he was here in our midst today. If we are to shape the world then we must reflect the Suffering Servant’s radical hospitality, both here in this church and in the world outside.1
1 This sermon used the resources of “The Challenge of Jesus”, N T Wright, SPCK, London. 2000, http://en.wikipedia.org/ and “Isaiah 40-66”, Claus Westermann, SCM Press, London 1969