Tuesday of Holy Week – First Reading
Commentary on Isaiah 49:1-6
Today we read the second Song of the Servant of Yahweh. The prophet again speaks in words that apply very suitably to Jesus. Jesus has been called from all eternity to do this work of salvation. He is a “sharp sword” and a “polished arrow”.
God says,
You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
But Jesus must surely be tempted to say, with Isaiah:
I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity…
Surely it must have looked like that as Jesus hung dying on the cross, his mission a shambles, his enemies victorious and his disciples in total flight. On the cross, Jesus cried out with these heart-rending words:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matt 27:46)
Yet he had been chosen as a servant so that “Jacob”, i.e. Israel, might be brought back to him:
You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
His God is his strength, and his moments of darkness become the moment of glory:
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
As indeed has happened. But who, standing at the foot of the cross on that first Good Friday, could have seen the outcome of this ‘failure’? Yet, that is what we celebrate during this week.
The Servant says:
Listen to me, O coastlands;
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
These are the people of the lands along the Mediterranean and beyond the seas whom we saw mentioned yesterday. The message of the Servant is for them – and hence for all of us – for me.
The Lord called me before I was born;
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
The language is similar to that of the call of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 1:5) and of Paul (Gal 1:15). And, as Christians, we believe this is true of all of us, that:
…he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. (Eph 1:4)
Again the Servant speaks:
He made my mouth like a sharp sword…
he made me a polished arrow…
Later, the Letter to the Hebrews will compare the Word of God to a two-edged sword, which penetrates into the deepest recesses of our hearts, bringing both consolation, wisdom and discomfort for our wrongdoings.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
“Israel” here is generally understood to be descriptive of, not of the nation, but of an individual, representing the best that Israel should be. Perhaps we, too, should be less arrogant when we apply the term ‘Christian’ to ourselves, knowing how far we are from what Jesus is calling us to be.
I said, I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity…
As he hung on the cross, his mission apparently a failure and mocked by those bent on destroying him, these words would seem to fit Jesus so well. It will be in the third and fourth songs that we will begin to see the place of all the pain and suffering in the mission of Jesus.
…yet surely my cause is with the Lord
and my reward with my God.
In spite of apparent failure, the cause of Jesus will be vindicated and his mission a success.
And now the Lord…
who formed me in the womb to be his servant…
And the Servant carried out that call to the very end, and with wondrous results. We, too, have been in the mind of God from eternity and been given a special call. How do I see that call at this time?
…to bring Jacob back to him…
that Israel might be gathered to him…
This verse is a reference to the release from captivity in Babylon and the return to Jerusalem. But there is the wider connotation of bringing God’s people back to union with him. And it will not be just Israel, because a little further on the passage says:
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
The Servant’s mission is the conversion of the whole world to his Way. Along with Genesis 12:1-3 and Exodus 19:5-6, this verse is sometimes called the “great commission of the Old Testament” and is quoted in part by Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13:47. Christ is the light of the world (Luke 2:30-32; John 8:12; 9:5) and Christians reflect his light:
You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.
(Matt 5:14)
Is that the way I see myself? Let me hear Jesus say these words to me as I watch him on the Cross during these days.