This weekend I am sharing very briefly on Isaiah 42 at a church service. They are making me write out exactly what I am saying, so I thought it'd be fun to publish it here beforehand to see what you thought of it:
The following is from the 42nd chapter of the book of Isaiah:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight.
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets…
I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles.”
We live in a world of noise.
And holidays can be the worst.
At large Christmas parties, you can typically find me hiding in the corner.
It’s just too loud. There’s too much action going on.
And the only way to be heard is to be loudest.
It’s similar to the way our world works.
To be heard in our world you need to be loud or powerful.
And although they didn’t have the noise of cell phones, cars, pagers, e-mail, YouTube, landlines, iPods, airplanes, car stereos, home stereos, television and instant messenger, the people of the ancient world were still busy.
There was still the noise of neighbors, workers, travelers, and animals.
There was still a lot to do and little time to do it in.
And just like us, the only way to be heard over the noise was to be loud, or to have power.
But in this season, as Isaiah reminds us, we worship a God who does not use noise, nor power, at least not in the way we understand power. And yet he changes the world.
He is referred to as a servant who does not cry out or raise his voice… This is Jesus.
In a backwoods town, in a forgotten Roman territory, a powerless baby is born to poor, common peasants.
Surely the God of the universe would incarnate himself as the next Caesar!
Surely he would show up with heavenly music cranked so everybody notices!
But he doesn’t.
The birth of Jesus is quiet and everyday. It is momentous for a few people, but unnoticed by most.
And this is how Jesus’ ministry works as well. It is subtle, disguised as the commonplace, and easily missed by those looking for something loud and powerful.
After all, what did people see in Jesus as an adult? A man who preached in the countryside to peasants. A poor, homeless man. A man who was neither a zealot nor loyal to Rome. A man who performed outrageous miracles and then said, “Don’t tell anybody about this.” A man who died at the hands of the powerful.
In the meantime, Rome continues to take over the world; Caesar conquers and kills, progressively dominating the world, all the while claiming to be God.
In Isaiah’s time, it was Babylon.
It seems there is always another loud, powerful person or group of people in the world. They make all the noise. They have all the strength.
But on Christmas we remember a quiet, powerless infant and recognize that he really is “a light for the Gentiles.”
After all, Rome is no more. Babylon is long forgotten.
But the Jesus movement is spreading like wild fire.
It’s spreading through South America and Africa so fast that most scholars believe these areas will soon be the new centers of Christianity!
In New Zealand and Australia, people are rediscovering what it looks like to live for and worship God!
Meanwhile the bamboo curtain continues to rise from China, revealing a church that is not afraid of the powerful rulers who can take their lives, but never their hope, and we see a church that thrives under persecution!
In the Middle East, in a world torn apart, Christians continue to meet and pray and love their neighbors, despite the fact that most have no voice or power!
In North America and Europe, people are asking tough questions and reremembering this man named Jesus and the life he has called us to! The church is going through a rebirth right here in our own country!
The Gospel of Jesus Christ has reached and continues to move forward even right here in Whatcom County changing lives, families, institutions and power structures.
Not bad for something that begins with a quiet, powerless infant in a forgotten town, in the middle of nowhere, with nobody parents.
Of course, it actually begins with a prophet, speaking hope to an exiled people.
And of course we really know that it begins with God, whose creative love found yet another way to express itself; in the form of a child.
Peace,
Matt
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
You are right about how the mass views "power". I wonder how many of us today would miss the birth of a king born under similar circumstances. We strive for power because we are afraid to be weak yet Christ himself allowed himself to be completely dependant on flawed humans.
Post a Comment