The Soft-Natured Defender of Justice

This morning, I'm happy to start a four part series as we head into Christmas that I'm very looking forward to sharing and preaching on and reflecting with you guys on. We'll be looking at the book of Isaiah, but not the whole book because there's a lot of chapters in Isaiah, just four individual passages in the book, which are known as the songs of the servant. The songs of the servant, and you may have heard of this before, are prophecies from Isaiah about the Messiah. Now we know that these poems were written many, many years before Jesus Christ, spoke about a mysterious figure only identified as the servant. That is how he is spoken of by God.

My servant. And over the next four weeks, we'll be looking at Isaiah chapter 42, 49, 50, and 53. And we'll reflect on the different facets of this servant of God that comes through in these chapters. And we get different angles, different facets about who this figure is. Now we'll also see very much in the four weeks that the New Testament writers, the likes of Paul and the apostle Peter, they discovered that these little jigsaw pieces that we get from Isaiah, these bits of prophetic poetry point towards one person whom they identify as Jesus Christ.

In fact, Jesus himself pointed several times, as we'll see this morning, several times to these passages in Isaiah as testimony to who he was, who he claimed to be. Now if you've ever been to the Middle East or specifically to Israel or modern day Jordan, you would have seen wonderful works of mosaic art. This is actually from Egypt, from an old Coptic church that was bombed in the bombings several years ago. And mosaic art is these coloured bits of rock that are stuck together to form a cohesive picture of something, and that is an old picture of Jesus supposedly. In a similar way, we get exquisite insights, but just bits and pieces into the nature and the character of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, from these passages that we'll be looking at in Isaiah.

In the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we get lots of detail of what Jesus did and what Jesus taught. But what I love about Isaiah, these servant songs, is we get the nature. We get the character. We get the personality of Jesus coming through, and it's beautiful. It is magnificent to behold.

So without further ado, let's have a look at Isaiah chapter 42. The first of the servant songs. And we read from verse one through to verse nine. Isaiah 42, verse one. Behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.

I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice.

He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his law. Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you.

I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord. That is my name. My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.

Before they spring forth, I tell you of them. So far our reading. The time that Isaiah wrote this passage is worth us reflecting on and thinking about a little bit. Isaiah wrote this to a people in exile, to God's people, Israel, as they sat in Babylon. The Jews had been taken, we know, prisoners of Babylon.

The city of Jerusalem had been almost completely levelled. The temple, the dwelling place of God where the people of God came to meet with Him was destroyed. It was completely ransacked. And there is this massive theological as well as political crisis going on for Israel. They had no home.

God, having His temple destroyed, had apparently left them. Their king was humiliated, taken into captivity as well alongside all the others. And not only that, but God then kept sending these annoying people like Isaiah and Ezekiel along to say the reason for this was because of their sin, was because of their unfaithfulness to God. We see, if we read the first half of Isaiah, this is what he is pointing out the whole time. Isaiah tells God's people that they were arrogant and greedy, selfish, and ignored the needs of the poor and the oppressed.

Isaiah says that they made idols out of wood and stone and other bits of inanimate objects. They worshipped created things instead of the Creator. And then we come to chapter 40, and God starts directing God's people into a new future. God starts speaking of a hope, a hope of restoration, a hope of salvation. God says He will raise up people to bring Israel from captivity into the promised land again.

God mentions by name, in fact, the great Persian leader, Cyrus. God even calls Cyrus His servant, a man who did not know God, a man who did not believe God, is going to be used by God to save and restore Israel. But we come to chapter 42, and we see that Isaiah also begins to reveal in these chapters that there is a far deeper dimension that God is wanting to restore as well. God is not simply concerned about the political and geographical restoration for Israel. A physical relocation from Babylon to Jerusalem is not the real issue.

The real problem that underlies the people's exile in Babylon is not political. It is personal. It is not geographical. It is sinful. And in the midst of all this, we come to these opening verses in chapter 42 where God says in verse one, behold, my servant whom I delight in.

Behold. Strong word. To say, cast your attention on this. Focus on this. You've seen it all. You are weighed down by all of this, but now zoom in on this.

My servant. And God begins to show us a few things, a few mosaic pieces that get glued into the ground, coloured stones that we start putting together to get a picture of a saviour for God's people. And the first thing we see here is that this servant has a special and beautiful relationship with God. Verse one says that this is a servant who has been chosen by God Himself. God says he is my chosen.

This servant God is pleased with, in whom His soul delights. Now remember again the context of the previous chapters, everyone has been failing God. And the saviour that will rescue Israel physically doesn't even believe in God. Everyone has failed God, but God says this person won't. Therefore, God says he is pleasing to the Lord.

Isn't that a wonderful expression, for God to have His soul delight? How does that work? But His inner parts, His deepest, deepest parts, delight in this servant. Therefore, God says he is pleasing and he is loved and accepted by God, and that God's very spirit will dwell on him. That God will put His spirit in him.

This means that he will be like the kings of the past, led and guided and equipped for God's purpose, God's mission for this man. But you know what? These verses are cemented in the New Testament, isn't it? It's exactly those mosaic pieces that we see sort of lock into place. Let's have a look quickly, if you have your Bibles, to Luke chapter three.

And we'll just skip there quickly. Luke chapter three, we're going to read verses 21 and 22. In the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke, it says, now when all the people were being baptised and when Jesus also had been baptised and was praying, the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved son.

With you I am well pleased. Can anyone see some similarities? Can anyone see maybe, yeah, a few of those mosaic pieces coming and shining? Six hundred years later, six hundred years after Isaiah wrote these words, at the age of 30, Jesus comes onto the scene. He begins His ministry right here in Luke chapter three.

And at this moment, while coming out of the water, the Bible says the spirit of God descends on Him. And while this was happening? A voice from heaven that the crowd could hear says, you are my son whom I love. With you I am well pleased. With you my inner parts rejoice.

Jesus' relationship to God the Father, we see, is one of intimacy and delight. God is pleased to send His servant. This is something that's actually very important for us as Christians to really believe and understand because some people hear the message of the gospel, the message of Jesus Christ having come for mankind to die on the cross. And they say, I can't believe in a God who would kill His own son. I can't believe in a God of divine child abuse.

He must have hated His son. But here we see the heart of the Father. My soul delights in Him. With Him I am well pleased. I don't think we can understand how much the heart of God was crushed at that moment on the cross.

If we think of that moment as some cold clinical transaction that took place, just, you know, a debit and a credit transaction taking place, His righteousness for our sin. We missed the heart wrenching grief that the Father felt for the Son in whom He delighted. This wasn't an act of sick abuse. It was an act of heartbreaking tragedy with one eye on the glory that would await after that. This leads us to the next insight.

This is a God who loves His servant, who loves the Son. But then we move on to what this servant would do, the task of this servant. Three times in our passage, the servant is said to establish justice. Verse one, He will bring forth justice to the nations. Verse three, He will faithfully bring forth justice.

And then in the ESV, it's translated here as law, but it's exactly the same word. The coastlands wait for His justice. Wait for His law. Now we can't really grasp the concept of what God is trying to say here, perhaps with our English understandings of what justice is, what we've come to establish justice to be in Australia today. When we think of justice, we think of fairness.

When we think of justice, we think of equality. When we think of justice, we think of rewards for doing good or penalties for doing bad. We think of justice very much in a court setting. But the Bible sees the word as much, much broader. The word expresses the idea of a righteous, healthy, good order.

An order for all things. And in doing mishpat, the Hebrew word for it, it does not so much involve enforcing specific rules, although that is obviously part of it. Rather, it is living a life that is inherently good. This system was not merely a private act of upright living. This is a life giving order which exists when creation operates fully in the way that it was intended to operate.

In other words, this concept of justice embraces everything that has to do with life and love, and presents it in its fullest, healthiest form. This is what God's justice is. And therefore, it is tied inextricably with another big theological word in Hebrew, shalom, which we probably know, right? Peace.

The justice established by God produces peace. The world order that lives under God's justice, the people in it, the creation in it, experience shalom. So justice really is a reference back to the time before the fall of man, to the time when man and woman lived perfectly with creation and with God. And so what God is saying here is that this servant is going to restore this world in that way. We get a glimpse of it, don't we, in verse seven?

We get a glimpse of what this justice looks like. Have a look. The blind are able to see. He opens the eyes of the blind. He brings out the prisoners from the dungeon.

From the prison, those who sit in darkness. And so we get another little bit of coloured stone for our mosaic. In Luke chapter seven, if we want to quickly go there, Luke chapter seven, we find John the Baptist sends his disciples. John is sitting in prison awaiting execution, and he sends his disciples a far way to Jerusalem, or I think it's Galilee at this stage, to see Jesus, and he is wondering who Jesus is in the early stages of Jesus' ministry. He sends his disciples.

Luke, at Luke chapter seven verse 22. Let's start at verse 20. And when the men had come to him, this is to Jesus, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another? Are you the Messiah? In that hour, he had healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits.

And on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. Verse 22, and he answered them, go and tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive their sight. The lame walk. Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear.

The dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Amazing, isn't it? We see just another wonderful accomplishment or fulfilment of this prophecy. This is the justice that Jesus was beginning to restore. But then finally, we come to the third insight.

The servant's attitude to needy people. His relationship to those whom he is sent to. Listen to what God says about His nature in verse two. These beautiful words. He will not cry aloud or lift up His voice.

This servant will not make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench or extinguish. This servant, in coming to restore and bring justice, justice perhaps for the first time, justice experienced perhaps for the first time, tasted perhaps for the first time, it's not done with violence, with loudness, with shrieking voice. He comes gently. He comes with a quiet spirit.

He does simply what he says he will do. He doesn't beat his chest. And these beautiful metaphors, a bruised reed he will not break. A smouldering wick he will not snuff out. You can just imagine those words, can't you? Jesus walking along and he sees this reed and instead of well, I know what I would have done, especially when I was a kid, reed in my hand, you are broken.

Broken off. Little bit of smouldering ashes, stop smouldering. But the image we get is of Jesus coming alongside lifting up, strengthening, supporting this bended, weak, floppy reed. Getting the embers in His hands, cupping around and blowing into them to rekindle the flame. This is the nature and the personality of the servant.

Why would I break off that reed? Because it's a sign of my power. It's a sign of my strength, but for Jesus, His power is in gentleness. The portrait we have of Jesus is one of soft naturedness. And therefore, again, we're not surprised when in the New Testament in Mark 10 verse 45, Jesus says to His disciples, guys, I didn't come to be served by you.

I came to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. Friends, this is how Christ relates to us. We are really damaged goods. The people of Israel to whom God was writing through Isaiah, they were damaged goods politically, geographically. Oh, you can just imagine having gone through war, damaged goods, living in a land of exile.

But then God pierces them more deeply and He shows them their hearts and He says there's a far sinister damage here. They are damaged goods because of sin. But this is the plight he also intimates. He also suggests, doesn't he? He says this is a plight for humanity.

Verse one, He says that this servant will restore justice for all nations. It's not just for Israel. It's not just for the struggling nation of the Jews. This justice will be for all. So God wants to tell us this morning that we are bruised reeds.

And if we reflect, we know that our bruising has happened in all sorts of ways. Sometimes life just generally isn't fair. There isn't justice in this world. There are unspeakable losses that we go through. Some of us have gone through these things recently.

Some of us have experienced loss many, many decades ago, and we never get over them, and we remain bruised. But Jesus promises to come and to lift up these bruised reeds, to strengthen them, to support them, to heal them, and for dimly burning wicks on the cusp of burning out. He comes and He blows His life giving essence to restore. He has both a gentleness that is beyond human language and a healing power that is really all we need. And if we have any sense of spiritual sensitivity, we will realise this, that this is precisely the combination that we need.

We need a God who is able and powerful enough to save us, but we need a Saviour who sees us in our brokenness and loves us, who can embrace me and heal my failures. And so as we head into Christmas, as we start seeing the prophecies of the one who is to come, the one who is to save. As we build with anticipation to the celebration of the Messiah's arrival, remember that Jesus came to bring justice. This is what He came for, to restore this world. And that should make us as Christians and His followers think very differently about pursuing justice, living with kingdom values in our workplace, living with kingdom values in our schools, with our friends that we relate to. These essences of what is good and righteous, what is uplifting and edifying to people, we, as God's people, need to bring into our places of influence.

We should remember that Christ is gentle in His approach, and therefore we should be too. That we should emulate that. And where there is injustice, where there is unfairness, where there is imperfection in what God wants for this world, we resist and we push back and we fight for justice, but we do it with gentleness. We do it with respect. And as Brendan prayed again this morning, there may be a time where we need to do that more vocally.

We're already doing that in some way, but we need to do this with this character of the servant. Gentleness, respect, love. May God bless us in this. May God move our hearts closer to His Son, our soft natured defender of justice. Let's pray.

Oh God, how beautiful these words are. How wonderful to see in such powerful ways what You are like, who You are. And God, we know that these truths, these words are for us. They are related. They impact.

They are relevant to us. We thank you, Lord, that You are a God who has come to heal what is bruised and broken, to come and breathe life into what is dead and dying. And so, Father, we pray that we can sense and we can feel and we can know this power at work in our lives. Give us the sight. Give us the perception. Give us the sensitivity to see Your work in us, to give You the praise that You rightly deserve for that work.

And then, Father, help us to wait patiently for that work to be completed in us. God, sometimes we can be so impatient with ourselves. Thank you that we can see this morning that You are gentle and patient. May that be a strength, may that be a comfort to us, may that just spur us on to love You more and then to live in the justice, the wholeness, the shalom peace that You want for our lives. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.