Day 27 - Friday, December 29
Title:  THE SERVANT UNDETERRED
Scripture: Isaiah 50:1b–11 (NKJV)
“Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce, whom I have put away? or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you? For your iniquities you have sold yourselves, and for your transgressions your mother has been put away. Why, when I came, was there no man? Why, when I called, was there none to answer? Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Indeed with My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness; their fish stink because there is no water, and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.” “The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God has opened My ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away. I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. He is near who justifies Me; Who will contend with Me? Let us stand together. Who is My adversary? Let him come near Me. Surely the Lord God will help Me; who is he who will condemn Me? Indeed they will all grow old like a garment; the moth will eat them up. Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God. Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with sparks: walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled—this you shall have from My hand: You shall lie down in torment.”

Poetry & Poet:
“2047 Grace Street”
by Christian Wiman

But the world is more often refuge
than evidence, comfort and covert
for the flinching will, rather than the sharp
particulate instants through which God's being burns
into ours. I say God and mean more 
than the bright abyss that opens in that word.
I say world and mean less
than the abstract oblivion of atoms
out of which every intact thing emerges,
into which every intact thing finally goes.
I do not know how to come closer to God
except by standing where a world is ending
for one man. It is still dark,
and for an hour I have listened
to the breathing of the woman I love beyond
my ability to love. Praise to the pain
scalding us toward each other, the grief
beyond which, please God, she will live
and thrive. And praise to the light that is not
yet, the dawn in which one bird believes,
crying not as if there had been no night
but as if there were no night in which it had not been.

THE SERVANT UNDETERRED

The word gargoyle usually conjures up images of monsters, chimeras, fantastical creatures with long necks whose primary purpose is to serve as a waterspout to drain rainwater from ancient buildings. There are others that have frightening visages, crafted to scare away evil spirits that might want to haunt or terrorize the inhabitants.          

But the image we are given of the gargoyle of Arundel Cathedral does neither of those things. There is no evidence of a drain for water, nor is the carved face frightening in any way. It is the face of a man, resolute and unmoving, postured dispassionately before the threat of evil like a Gandalf before the Balrog, claiming “You shall not pass!”    

The servant revealed in Isaiah 50 is resolute, postured before the inevitability of evil and suffering, even when such suffering is a result of the unfaithfulness of the people of God. The kind of unfaithfulness that the servant appears to be addressing is not necessarily limited to idolatry or capitulation to the religious practices of their pagan neighbors or Gentile oppressors. It is unfaithfulness generated by fear, the fear that the Lord is not able to save. The Lord speaks through the servant, reminding them of the Lord’s power:

“Why, when I called, was there none to answer? Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?”    

The servant is resolute, standing firm against the fear that the Lord has no power to redeem his people, that their only hope is to “walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled.” The servant claims that such fear shall not pass.           

When Jesus was born, the people—his kin and fellow Israelites—had plenty to fear. They feared the Romans, their current occupiers and oppressors. They feared losing their traditions and distinctiveness as Jews. They feared the corruption of their ancient faith by compromise and collusion with their Gentile overseers. So, the religious leaders demanded strict adherence to the Jewish Law. The Zealots promoted violence against Rome. The Essenes retreated to the desert. People had all kinds of ways of kindling their own fires.           

But Jesus—in whom the fullness of God dwelt—would embody not only the resolute nature of the servant described by Isaiah; he would also embody the very intentions and desires of God. Even when they struck him and plucked out his beard and spit in his face, he would stand confident in the power of his heavenly Father to redeem his people. Such redemption would not come as they expected, as a fire kindled by their own hands, as legalism or violence or retreat. It would come by trust in the God who had demonstrated his faithfulness in the past, trust in the power of God’s love and in his call to them to be his own people for the sake and blessing of the world. It would come by trust in the way of Jesus.           

We do, at times, kindle our own fires because we forget that the Lord is always faithful, that his arm might be too short to save us, that he lacks power to deliver us. But in Jesus we see the face of the One who is resolute in trust. And we are called to follow him.

Prayer
Lord, we confess that we have sometimes put more trust in the sparks of our own fires than we have in you. We often learn too late that these sparks serve only to sear our flesh and blind our eyes. Grant us, by your Holy Spirit, the strength to stand resolute in trust; the compassion to be expansive in grace; and the power to love as you have loved us.
Amen.

Michael McNichols, D.Min.
Pastor and Author

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