Last week, we began a short series looking at some passages found in Isaiah, which focus on an individual who is never named but is simply ‘the servant of the Lord.’ These passages, found in chapters 42, 49, 50 and 52-53, are collectively known as the servant songs. Last week we looked at chapter 42 – tonight we are going to look at both Isaiah 49 and 50.

Read Isaiah 49:1-7 followed by Fanfare ‘Listen to me – Hear this!’

For those who were here last week you might be experiencing a sense of déjà vu as we heard God’s fanfare moment boldly declaring and introducing his servant. Tonight our passage opens with another of God’s Fanfare moments directed not just to Israel, but also to the whole world. In verse 1 we read Listen to me, you islands, hear this, you distant nations. God wants to make sure that the whole world sits up and takes notice – in other words, there’s no chance of ignoring God when He makes this kind of announcement. God is at work – and He wants you to know about it!

So in the context of tonight’s passage, what is it that God is announcing to the world? Well, we learn a little more about this servant, what He’s going to do; and the reaction of people to Him.

To begin with, it is clear from Isaiah 49 that God’s calling always comes with His equipping. In other words, He doesn’t leave him to get on with the job in his own strength, but equips him for the task ahead. As he says in verse 2: He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.

So God equips – in this case He equips His servant with words that are powerful and that affect people in the same way as a sword would do. Yes, it’s true that actions do matter for this servant, as we saw in Isaiah 42 (remember we talked about the servant not breaking bruised reeds or snuffing out smouldering wicks), but equally so are his words. All of us should know from our own experience that words are powerful, and that which is often said in the school playground ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ is just not true. In contrast, when it comes to the servant’s words, his words are different in that they will challenge and convict and will always be truthful, and they will never damage or wound.

Now, as we discovered last week, Jesus is the only one who is able to fulfil every part of the servant’s role – whether that is as described in Isaiah 42, or as it is described here. So, taking the idea of words as a sharpened sword, in what ways were Jesus’ words like this?

If we turn to Matthew 23, we find ourselves with plenty of examples where we might describe Jesus’ words as a sharpened sword. In this passage, it is as though Jesus has lost patience with the Pharisees and is pronouncing judgement on them, whilst warning his disciples and the crowds following Him not to be like them. Listen to some of his cutting remarks:

v2 – Do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
v13 – You hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, not will you let those enter who are trying to.
v15 – in relation to making converts he says you make them twice as much a son of hell as you are.
v16 – Woe to you, blind guides
v27/28 – You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean
v33 – You snakes! You brood of vipers!

Imagine if these things were said of you? How would you feel? I think we can safely say that when Jesus needed to, He used words like a sharpened sword just as it says in Isaiah 49 about God’s servant.

But this is not all that Isaiah 49 tells us about the servant, because we are also told in verse 6 that the servant will not only restore Israel, but He will also be a light to the Gentiles. As verse 6 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.

Today, it’s easy for us to miss just how shocking such a statement would have been to those who first heard this prophecy. It was great that God was going to send His servant to Israel and do amazing things through him, but the fact that the servant would also minister to the Gentiles was earth shattering in the extreme. God’s plan of salvation truly is for the whole world, even those we think it ought to exclude.

So far tonight then, we have learned that the servant is equipped, and his ministry is inclusive (in the sense that it is to the whole world) which sounds wonderful and one would think that everyone would embrace the servant, but that is not the case. For the first time in the account of the servant, we learn that the servant will face opposition. As we read in verse 4, the servant says:

I have laboured to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing. Yet, what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.

Despite the opposition, the servant’s trust in God does not waver. He knows that God will vindicate Him, and the servant needs that assurance because the opposition will intensify. Listen now to the words of the third servant song from Isaiah 50:4-11.

Isaiah 50:4-11 read

If we thought the opposition to the servant was fairly mild in Isaiah 49, Isaiah 50 shockingly describes how intense and how physical the opposition becomes. As we heard (v6), his back is beaten; his beard is pulled out; and he is mocked and spat at. But once again, and even more amazingly perhaps, the servant’s confidence remains in God. As the servant proclaims in verse 7-9: Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced…I know I will not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near…It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.

As we read this, it would be difficult not to realise that the only one who has been able to fulfil such a horrendous attack and yet remain confident in God is the Lord Jesus. Listen to Matthew’s description of some of the events leading up to the crucifixion - Matthew 27:26-31.

Pilate had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in from of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spat on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

In a few moments time we will come to communion when we will remember that Christ died for us. What we also need to remember is that the crucifixion was the culmination of a horrendous physical assault on Christ. The Son of God – ‘the’ servant was beaten, abused and mocked, and He endured it all for us. As we come to communion, let’s remember everything Jesus went through to bring salvation to the whole world, Jew and Gentile as was promised in Isaiah 49, and let us give thanks.