Midweek Advent Sermon on Isaiah 42 2020
Midweek Advent Sermon
3 December A+D 2020
Isaiah 42:1 “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
2 He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,
Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.
3 A bruised reed He will not break,
And smoking flax He will not quench;
He will bring forth justice for truth.
4 He will not fail nor be discouraged,
Till He has established justice in the earth;
And the coastlands shall wait for His law.”
5 Thus says God the Lord,
Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it,
Who gives breath to the people on it,
And spirit to those who walk on it:
6 “I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness,
And will hold Your hand;
I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
As a light to the Gentiles,
7 To open blind eyes,
To bring out prisoners from the prison,
Those who sit in darkness from the prison house.
8 I am the Lord, that is My name;
And My glory I will not give to another,
Nor My praise to carved images.
9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,
And new things I declare;
Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
At the bottom of pride is the desire for others to serve us and worship us. That is what the devil wants. He wanted Jesus to worship him. When he lied and said we would be like God, knowing good and evil, he made us his servants when we obeyed him. But service to sin is slavery. It is always selfish and never proceeds from real, authentic love.
Pride has no place in service to God. Paul asks about our justification through faith in Christ, “Where is boasting? It is excluded.” Therefore the service that God desires is a service rendered entirely to Him, and yet God does not require this service his out of sinful pride, since He is holy and good, and there is no darkness in Him. That is why the devil wants to keep us in pride. When we are proud we view God as proud too, and He is hidden from our eyes. But that is why God sent a Servant to this earth whom He upheld.
Look at the Servant that Isaiah describes. First, it is God who upholds Him. His servant relies entirely on God’s strength. This is a description of Jesus. He relied entirely on the will of God. This is true because He is the only begotten Son of God, and so received in eternity all that He is from the Father. And this is also true because He took our place. He became a man, made of a woman, made under the Law. God upholds Him.
And God has chosen Him. Chosen Him for what? To be your Savior. That is why God chose Him. Jesus says to the Father in John 17, “You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” And John calls Him in Revelation “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” We did not choose Him for us. God did. Again our pride is excluded, and we can hardly accuse God of pride when He chose His Son to be His Servant to serve us, as Jesus says, “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to give His life as a ransom for many.”
Another thing about God’s Servant. The Father’s soul delights in Him. This is what John says, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” He is in the bosom of the Father. This means that He knows what the Father desires, and the Father chose Him to save you. This is why the Evangelists point us to Jesus’ baptism to find what kind of Servant God chose. What did the Father say from heaven when Jesus was baptized? “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” In whom I delight. And this is when the Holy Spirit comes upon Him as a dove, just as Isaiah prophesies, “I have put My Spirit on Him.” People have tried to make this servant into an Israelite King or Israel itself or the Church or Cyrus, and in so doing they ignore the Servant in whom God delights. Do you know why? Because they are too proud to care why God delights in Him! Why does God delight in Him?
There are two main reasons the Father delights in His Servant Jesus which cannot be separated from each other and are practically only one reason. First, because Jesus loves the Father and does His will. Second, because Jesus loves you, and that is God’s will. God loves you. That is why He delights in His Servant. There is no pride here. There is sincere love.
And love does what is right. That’s what it means when Isaiah says, “He will bring forth justice to the nations.” Justice is what is right. This Man will do what is right. He will do it not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles. He will bring judgment that is true and good. He won’t be a hypocrite, who says he is something, but is really something else. He won’t flatter people to get what he wants or take bribes or pervert justice. He won’t be tempted by riches or pleasures or power or worldly glory. He will bring forth justice to us Gentiles.
Now this should give us pause to think. For God to bring judgment and justice to us would mean that we have to give an account for what we have done. Have we done what is right? What have we done that is wrong? We should want what is right, but we have desired what is wrong. What kind of judgment will God’s servant bring?
Remember who He is. This Servant whom God has chosen is not sinful David, who performed justice, but also injustice. This Servant is the Lord God Himself, who knows and tests and tries our hearts, our thoughts, and everything we are. This Servant is true Man, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, not born with our original sin and corruption, but holy and good. The Gentiles argue about justice all the time. Who’s right, who’s wrong? But this Servant whom God upholds will bring real justice, the justice that knows every wrong and rights it, and knows every good deed and defends it against evil.
How is this good news for sinners like us, who deserve to be judged for our sins? Because the justice that God’s servant brings is for those who know and feel their sins and want to be freed from them. Listen again to Isaiah describe this Servant,
He will not cry out or raise His voice,
Nor make it to be heard in the street.
A bruised reed He will not break,
And a dimly burning wick He will not quench;
He will faithfully bring forth justice.
The manner in which Jesus brings forth justice is not loud and proud, but meek and humble. He brings forth justice in such a way that he doesn’t snap a reed that is bruised and bent over. He judges in such a way that He does not snuff out a barely burning wick.
In other words, Jesus brings forth justice for those who are weak. He comes for poor sinners who know that they are guilty. He doesn’t despise you for your weakness, but comes to join you in it to save you.
And He will not give up on you. He will do what God chose Him to do for you.
He will not fail nor be discouraged,
Till He has established justice in the earth;
And the coastlands shall wait for His law.
He will not fail. This means in the Hebrew that He will not be dimmed. He will shine on you when the wick of your faith has no light. He will not be discouraged. In the Hebrew this means that He will not be bruised or crushed. He will uphold you when you have fallen.
And it is pride that caused our fall. It is our pride behind our every sin and behind any unwillingness on our part to confess our sin and look for help. But still this Jesus doesn’t cry out in the streets to make Himself known. He doesn’t desire earthly glory. He desires God’s glory, which is in giving you peace in your conscience.
So confess your pride as the sin it is. It’s what makes you want others to serve you. It’s what makes you use people without thinking about their good. It’s what makes you want to uphold yourself when even Jesus was upheld not by Himself, but by God. Pride is behind your anger at other people, your disappointment that life isn’t as good as you want it to be. Pride is behind the lust that views people as mere fleshly pleasure. Pride is what foments greed in your heart and dissatisfaction with what God has given you. Pride is behind your unwillingness to forgive those who have done your wrong. Pride trashes your neighbor and excuses you. Pride pushes God away. Pride is the darkness that dims the wick of your heart, that bruises the reed of your soul, so that you are bent down beneath a burden that you heaped up on yourself, and who is there on earth who can serve you well enough to take your guilt away, to remove your sin, to cover your shame, to bring God back to you when you thought you were like Him, but pride made you the opposite of Him? What does pride win at the end of the day but humiliation, as it is written, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled,” and “Pride goes before destruction.”
But pride does not win. Jesus wins. The humble King riding on a donkey wins. The baby born in a manger wins. The Son of Man who came not to be served, but to serve – He wins, because God upholds Him, and He brings justice to you who have committed injustice. He brings light to those in darkness and shows us what God delights in.
He delights in Him who delights in you, so much that He lived entirely for you as He lived for God, and He suffered entirely for you because God loves you. He delights in you too because of His own grace that you find in this Servant whom God upheld for you.
Look to Him for the justice the world can’t give. It is the justice that God’s servant alone accomplished. It was not accomplished with wars of bloodshed and violence – He alone shed His blood and suffered violence to bring this justice to you. It is not a judgment won by making new laws or changing the system so that we can more fairly apportion money and honor to each other. No, that kind of justice snuffs out flickering wicks and breaks bruised reeds. It is a judgment won by His being judged in our place, when God made Him who knew no sin to be your sin, and when He punished all of your pride that makes you fall in Christ’s humility.
He is the mediator, the go-between, the intercessor, God’s covenant and promise to you. He is the light that shows you who God is. Whoever trusts in Him will not walk in darkness. And so you find Him where He went between you and God, where He was your mediator.
When Isaiah says that God’s servant would not be bruised he means He will not give up. Because Isaiah says the same servant was bruised for us.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
This is the justice He brings to you. It isn’t a justice that can be stolen or a right that can be taken away or a freedom that can be lost. It is the humble service of the Servant who did not cry out to gain popularity on the streets, but now He cries out to you, and He looks past your pride and He finds that heart that is weak and tired and the spirit that is bruised, when you can’t lift yourself up to see God, then He shows Himself below you. Do you see your sins, then you must see Jesus who took them all. He tells you to look at Him, who humbled Himself because God delights in Him – what a mystery! But it is the mystery of a love that truly finds you when you are lost and picks you up rejoicing, and washes you clean in the blood of Him who died for you, and brings you home so that you are not alone, but with the Father who sent His servant to overcome your pride and give you in His humility a clean conscience, a right to boast that God is your dear Father because His Servant is your dear Savior and His Holy Spirit comforts you in your baptism with the same words that this Servant heard at His baptism, “You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Where is pride? It is excluded, and yet God’s glory shines on you not to condemn you, but to save you. God does not share His glory with another, and yet the Servant whom He upholds on the cross has all the glory of God hidden beneath the darkness of sin and pride and death. Therefore when your sin and pride have made you stumble and you are afraid and your wick is dimly burning, then behold the Servant whom God upholds and in whom He delights. He is not afraid of the darkness. He is the light who shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. He is your pride and your joy because He helps you when no one else can, and He delights to do so. He serves you, and that is what gives you faith in Him. He strengthens you and lifts up your head to see God not frowning, but smiling at you.
And this is what changes your heart and renews your mind with peace, so that you really can serve God with joy, knowing that He accepts you as He accepts His Servant whom He upheld for you. So He will withhold you through faith in Christ throughout this vale of tears until you boast in the truth that all will see, “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Amen.