[Machine transcription]
Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ.
Amen.
Tonight, looking mostly at the gospel reading tonight of Jesus reading from the scriptures
the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue.
Please be seated.
We get a lot of Isaiah tonight actually.
And part of that is because the ongoing verse that we’ve been using, that Old Testament
reading from Isaiah chapter 60 with the arise shine for your light has come the
series this year has been on the light and looking at Jesus in a different
light each week this week looking at Jesus in the light of acts of service
and again we hear a lot from Isaiah tonight both the Old Testament reading
and the gospel reading where Jesus read in the synagogue from Isaiah which
we now know as chapter 61 in Isaiah that he read from and Isaiah wrote this
these words some 700 years before Jesus read them and Isaiah was writing to the
people of Israel who because of their sinful rejection of God and and their
worship of idols, they would be invaded by the by the nations of Assyria and
Babylonia and they would be conquered and captured and taken into exile. Isaiah
writes to comfort them and to give them hope telling them that one day they
would be set free, reminding them that a deliverer was coming, an anointed one who
would proclaim liberty for them and free them from captivity as prisoners and
release them from the oppression of their captors. Someone was coming who
would open their blinded eyes and let them see light once again. A time when
they would arise and shine because their light had come. As Isaiah had also written
in chapter 60 that we read tonight in the Old Testament lesson. Well for the
Israelites, Isaiah was writing to lighten the darkness of their captivity. For us,
Isaiah has written to tell us that the Deliverer, the Anointed One, has also come
for us, and he has come. The reader of Isaiah’s words, Jesus, is that anointed
one who does this delivering for us. Jesus was reading about himself in
Isaiah’s words and even said, today these words have been fulfilled in your
hearing Jesus was the fulfillment of that prophecy of Isaiah. Jesus is the
deliverer. He is the anointed one and he delivers us through acts of service, acts
of proclaiming good news to us, of proclaiming liberty for us from our
captivity that is our captivity to sin. Isaiah has written to light the darkness
of our sin to free us from its oppression to open our blinded eyes and
see light once again and to declare to and to declare to us a time that we can
rise and shine for our light has come.” Isaiah is writing this for us to tell us
that Deliverer is coming and now He has come. It has been fulfilled in our
hearing. Jesus did all of this through acts of service. Yes, Jesus the Anointed
when proclaimed these things to us, but He also acted on that prophecy. Jesus
proclaimed by acting in service for us and by doing acts of service, acting on
what He said He was going to do, acting on the prophecy, not just saying these
things but doing them and that came at a price this was no no cheap prophecy
this was very very expensive the prophet Isaiah also wrote about what particular
acts of service that this anointed deliverer was going to do in what’s
known today as chapters 52 and 53 in Isaiah’s writings he wrote what’s what
But we now call it the suffering servant section, and it’s most often read on Good Friday because
it’s those acts of the anointed deliverer that happen on Good Friday that Isaiah is
talking about in chapters 52 and 53.
Acts like taking up our infirmities, carrying our sorrow, being stricken,
smitten, afflicted, pierced, crushed, wounded, disfigured, despised, and then
being raised and lifted up on a cross. Isaiah writes that this is what’s going
to happen to that anointed deliverer when he comes and that very accurately
describes what happened with Jesus all of those things I just said they all
happened to Jesus in his suffering in his crucifixion in his death and Jesus
is suffering in death on the cross would be the ultimate act of service to light
our dark world, dying for us to forgive us of our dark sin.
This is the act of service that Jesus has done for us.
And it truly is an amazing thing.
Okay, movie alert.
Okay, guys, here it comes.
One of my favorite movies is called,
Life is Beautiful.
If you’ve ever seen it, extra points for you.
Good, if you haven’t, I highly recommend it.
Foreign film, got to have subtitles.
Sorry about that, Italian-made.
There’s a scene in it where a man is learning really fast
how to become a good waiter
at a very, very fancy restaurant.
And there’s an older, much more experienced waiter
that’s teaching him, and he tells them this.
Serving is an art practiced by the Supreme Being Himself.
God serves man, but is not a servant of man.
I’m going to repeat that.
God serves man, but is not a servant of man.
See, our God freely does acts of service for us.
Not because He’s subordinate to us,
but because He loves us and wants to serve us.
Our God wants to serve us.
It’s interesting, many people want to serve God,
but it seems like they want to serve Him only as His advisor.
Our God wants to serve us,
and that is an amazing thing.
We have a God who acts,
who acts in history,
who was prophesied of and fulfilled that prophecy
and acts in a person.
We have a God who does things.
Who serves.
Who serves us.
This is so unlike
any other so-called God
of other religions.
We have a living, active, serving God
who even acts on our behalf.
He serves us.
and he serves us in human form in his son Jesus sent to serve us in suffering
and in death and in rising again to give that liberty to us poor blind oppressed
people sitting in the darkness of our sin Jesus was sent to serve us and
and forgive us so that we could arise and shine in that forgiveness of our sins.
So as God’s people then, who have been delivered by the acts of service of Jesus, we are servants
of God.
Not advisors, servants, okay?
But we do acts of service.
And as we read in the second letter to the Corinthians tonight, we are to do acts of
service to we are to do acts of service that supply people’s needs but also show
our faith in Jesus who is our servant our acts of service can confess our
faith in Christ and shine his light to others see in whatever your vocation is
whatever wherever you are in your life whatever you’re doing your job your
hobbies, whatever groups you’re connected with, your family, wherever you are in
life, you can do acts of service in Christ’s name. It’s not just the pastor that
does that, all right? Hopefully you understand that. You are servants of God
too. And I know sometimes that isn’t easy. I know sometimes it isn’t easy to serve
God, especially when we’re serving people who don’t always receive our service
well or don’t appreciate it. Although those may seem like dark times when
we’re trying to serve people and they don’t like it, they
don’t receive it well, they don’t appreciate it, it’s still an act of
service to God. It’s just not well received or appreciated, but it’s still
an act of service to God and even though they don’t appreciate it don’t receive
it well we should still continue to shine the light of acts of service
regardless because acts of service are a joy maybe sometimes not to the people we
we serve but it is to us and it is to God we don’t serve for our salvation but
we but we serve because of it and that makes it joyful because God the Supreme
Being serves us we’ve been set free to serve and perhaps the best act of
service we can do is the same that Isaiah and Jesus did in our readings
tonight to proclaim good news of Liberty to those in the captivity in the
blindness in the oppression and darkness of their sins.
Our best act of service can be to tell others
that good news of that anointed deliverer
who is for them, too.
They need to know the light of his acts of service
for them, too.
So, arise and shine, my friends.
Our light has come.
Jesus has come with acts of service to light the way of salvation for us and
to encourage us to do acts of service too so may your acts of service be good
news and bring light to those that you do serve amen now may the peace of God
which goes beyond way on all understanding keep your hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
