Day 34, Mon, 19th Mar.: Isaiah 50.4-9a

With Love to the World's commentator for the next 2 weeks, leading up to Easter Sunday, is Rev Dr Robert McFarlane. Rob named the 4 so-called "servant songs" in Isaiah as 42.1-4; 49.1-6, today's passage and 52.13-53.4. You may be most familiar with the "suffering servant" in the last passage. Christians often identify this figure with the Messiah, Jesus, and sure, there is a lot in it that reminds me of the suffering servant Jesus Christ. But Rob wisely reminds his readers that Isaiah's readers, in the difficult period after the end of the Babylonian Exile, would have seen things rather differently from us today. And after all, they were the original readers.

For Jews, Rob continued, the servant is their corporate identity. the people of Israel, who had seen themselves as the people of God, had become the suffering servant of God.

The danger for Christians is that we simply see Jesus as ticking boxes, fulfilling messianic prophecies, leaving each of these great passages with nothing more to say. But they do have more to say! What are we as Christians called to do?

Am I, too, called to be a teacher? (v.4) Yes!

Am I too called to have a listening ear? (v.5) Yes!

Should I practise non-violent resistance in a time of great violence? (v.6) I believe so. Jesus certainly did.

Shall I also set my face like flint? (v.7) Yes. Sometimes that is necessary

Does God vindicate me and save me from shame? (v.8-9a) Yes.

This gets serious, you know. It's as far from 'gentle Jesus, meek and mild" as it is possible to imagine. I have just scanned and shared 2 articles from Facebook. The first is of a US helicopter pilot  stationed in Vietnam who discovered that his countrymen were slaughtering hundreds of helpless civilians at My Lai. He stopped the massacre by landing his helicopter and threatening to shoot any of his own countrymen who shot a Vietnamese. For that he was ostracised in the US for decades.

The other article is about the fact that over the past year the world's billionaires have earned (ie. received in pay) enough to end deep poverty in the world seven times over.

It is God's world that is suffering. Sure enough, Christ, the Suffering Servant, suffered for it. Yes, these 4 texts are prophetic. But we, his servants are also called to enter into the suffering of the world, and in that way to complete His sufferings, as Paul radically put it.

There's a Lenten message for you!


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