[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 of Jesus reading from the scriptures the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue. Please be seated. We get a lot of Isaiah tonight, actually. 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, looking at Jesus in a different light each week. This week, we look at Jesus in the light of acts of service.
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. Isaiah wrote 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 their worship of idols, would be invaded by the nations of Assyria and Babylonia. They would be conquered, 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.
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. 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 to see light once again, 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 the 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 One, 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 cheap prophecy; this was very, very expensive.
The prophet Isaiah also wrote about what particular acts of service this anointed deliverer was going to do in what’s known today as chapters 52 and 53 in Isaiah’s writings. He wrote what we now call 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 happened to Jesus in his suffering, in his crucifixion, in his death.
Jesus’ suffering and 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; it’s 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. An older, much more experienced waiter is teaching him, and he tells him 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 forgive us so that we could arise and shine in that forgiveness of our sins. So as God’s people, 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.
As we read in the second letter to the Corinthians tonight, 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, 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.
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.
Even though they don’t appreciate it or 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 serve, but it is to us and it is to God. We don’t serve for our salvation, 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 all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.