The Divine Servant
THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
Isaiah 61:1; St. Matthew 2:19
The world into Christ was born was not much different from our own. People struggled for the necessities of life; families faced similar challenges of maintaining the domestic life; they experienced the same challenges in raising children and protecting the sanctity of marriage just as we do. They were subservient to tyrannical rulers and government taxation beyond their means, subject to natural disasters, droughts, famine, and the like, enduring sickness and bodily ailments. Burdened souls and hearts broken by friend and foe alike, tears shed over sinful choices and from loss and grief. You see, there are core aspects of the human experience shared by all, which transcend time and geography.
Christ was born into a world enveloped in spiritual darkness, shackled to sin, and under the weight of death. Things haven't changed much. We, too, live in a day of darkness. Yes, the dawning of a new day has begun; its effulgence radiates throughout the earth. And yet, the darkness lingers; men walk in the shadows.
In this world of shadows and light, we Christians long for the Lord of Light to return and finally put an end to all this worldly suffering and hold to account every evil and wicked doer: we long for justice! We yearn for the perfect to come and finish the good work he began within our souls as well, to make us perfect as He is perfect: "Lord Jesus come!" But until he does, what we need is more and more light, to be refreshed by the vision of the Lord Jesus Christ and renewed in Him through the contemplation of Holy Scripture. To behold the face Jesus, the Divine Servant mysteriously spoken of in Isaiah's prophecy.
In the 4th chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, Jesus has returned to his hometown of Nazareth and as was his custom, has entered the synagogue on the sabbath. "And when He stood up to read, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it was written (and said),
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bound, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord" (Lk 4:16-18; Isa 61:1-3). And in addressing those before him, Jesus referred these prophetic words to himself in saying: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Lk 4:21).
On Christmas day, God in Christ showed up in the flesh to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven and all its eternal rewards. We often keep our eyes on the future benefits we shall one day enjoy when we are raised and perfected in beatitude and bliss: the eternal life with God. And yes, we should continually remember the eternal salvation we have mercifully received through Jesus being born in a manger! But in Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven had drawn near, bringing gifts and blessings in the here and now; for the blessings of Christ's saving death are not all future, but ours presently.
And that is because Jesus, who is the Divine Servant, constantly ministers to us, in the here and now; each blessing a foretaste of what we will fully enjoy when he returns to bring us unto himself. He cares for us now, in the throes of life, because he is the Divine Servant heralding Good News to the poor, binding broken hearts, delivering captives, making the blind to see, obtaining liberty for prisoners, and proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord! Jesus, the Divine Servant has ushered the Kingdom of God and we have been caught up in it!
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor." Apart from the riches of Christ, every single one of us is merely a pauper, "for," in the words of St. Paul, "you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9). In Christ, we have become rich: present tense, not filling our earthly coffers to overflowing. Rather, it is by putting Himself on an equality with us by becoming a man that Jesus has enriched us with all the treasures that dwell in Him.
Beloved, these riches are the reconciliation, justification, illumination, sanctification, peace, joy, the certainty of eternal life, and after that this life itself: the whole sum of spiritual and heavenly blessings which Christ has obtained for believers by His humiliation even to the death of the cross. And though we await a future attaining of the fullness of these blessings, we enjoy them now: peace with God; illumination by the Holy Spirit to understand and do His will; peace with Him and one another; no longer fearing death because we have a sure and incorruptible hope of eternal life beyond the grave. Again, contemplate the generosity of God who,
"being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." The Divine promise of a future blessing acquired through a past action, whose benefit we already possess and enjoy. We, my friends, are rich indeed.
"He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted." Jesus, the Divine Servant, spoken of in Isaiah, is the preacher of Good News and the Great Physician. There is a sense in which we understand a broken heart metaphorically describing times of intense emotional stress or pain associated with deep sorrow or great loss- like poor Orpheus. His heart breaks in two when Eurydice, his love, encounters death through a snake bite. But our malady isn't merely emotional- it is ontological; it is a sickness of being. The "brokenhearted" are weakened, crushed, or destroyed in spirit by sin and the weight of a guilty conscience. The Divine Servant became as we are to relieve and comfort the burdened and distressed, those "heavy laden" by the guilt of their sins and the wrath they justly deserve. And yet, the Father sends his Servant to bind our wounds, to heal our broken hearts, damaged by sin.
Again, this isn't merely a surgery performed at first, when we trusted in Christ and were Baptized into the forgiveness of sins, but medicine to bind our hearts today, tomorrow, and tomorrow. Therefore today he says, "come, come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you." Confession is a grace. The sacrament of reconciliation is a grace all given to bind the heart as you live out your salvation imperfectly in this world. As a physician "bind's up" a wounded arm, so Jesus bandages a broken heart. Beloved, take courage, brokenhearted people—those spiritually ruined—are in the right condition to be met and saved by God, for remember the words of Psalmist who says, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit" (34:18).
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Like Israel in Babylon, we sinners were in exile as well; captive to the tyranny of death, we were enslaved to sin and bound to the strong man, Satan, who lorded over us and ripped us away from God. But the Divine Servant has come in the flesh. As the writer of Hebrews tells us Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he [Jesus] likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery" (Heb 2:14-15).
Christ has bound the strongman and in him is liberty! No longer enslaved to sin, no longer ruled by the prince of the air, but enslaved to Christ. Now, in Him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are at liberty to choose the good; we don't have to sin; but rather, the will, the mind, the heart having been renewed in Him, being slaves to righteousness, can offer their very lives as a pleasing and acceptable sacrifice to the Lord. Beloved, Christ has smashed the prison gates of our captivity to sin. Now, every single day is a jubilee year of the Lord for those set free by the Divine Servant of the Lord.
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD." And what is the acceptable year of the Lord but Christ's proclamation of the joyful tidings of His own advent, that the time of the Lord even the Son of God had arrived? The acceptable year was that time in which God in Christ mercifully turned towards and accepted sinners who, by enduring the agony of the cross, made them acceptable to the Father.
It was an acceptable year when He graciously received us into his family, having washed away sin by holy baptism, and made partakers of His divine nature by the communion of the Holy Ghost. And today is an acceptable year when the glory of Christ shall be manifested through the ineffable miracle of his salvation made effectual to us through word and sacrament. So with St. Paul, we rejoice, "Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation." Friends, what riches or grace the Divine Servant bestows upon yes, a year of acceptance but just a day of vengeance! How merciful is our God, who not only accepts the unacceptable, who restrains his vengeance but comforts the mournful?
Because the Divine Servant is bringing beauty from ashes. When Isaiah writes of the Servant "to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning," he uses Hebrew language that doesn't easily translate into English. The Hebrew word for beauty refers to a headdress, a turban, or tiara. The imagery is powerful: God is declaring that he will wipe away the ashes upon our heads and replace them with a beautiful headdress. In other words, God makes a sorrowful visage into a crown of beauty, anointing our disfigured brows with joy.
When? Most certainly and completely when He returns and vanquishes every enemy and ushers in the new Jerusalem, that heavenly city of the saints, when God, the Father, Son, and Spirit dwell again with men. For then, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away" (Rev. 21:4). And in a real sense, this is already done by the Lamb who was slain and overcame the world.
But we don't live in the 'then.' We live in the 'now' awaiting the consummation of all things. We live in shadows until the day we take up residence in the eternal city which will not need the sun's illumination, for the glory of God supplies its light, and its lamp will be the victorious Lamb, the Son of God. But today, we live in the shadows, and therein lie many dangers.
Suffering and mourning are inevitable, but God has come to us, is with us, has given us the spirit, the Comforter, counselor, and indwelling friend. The truth is, though we lose loved ones, lose our jobs, suffer great loss, we are never alone; Christ does not abandon or leave us as orphans amidst the trials and tribulations of this life but walks through every adversity with us: he is with us and in us through thick and thin.
Imprisoned in isolation and abandoned by his friends, St. Paul attested to Timothy, "At my first defense, no one stood with me, but everyone deserted me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me" (2 Tim 4:16-17). And by his Divine presence, Jesus anointed Paul's sorrow with oil of joy.
I believe this verse offers hope as a beautiful reminder that God is with us in times of sorrow, and his presence in the storms of life is our sure hope of making it through the calamity of sorrow. For we find shelter in him, safe passage in the Ark of the Lord as the waters swell and rage, because:
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we shall not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof" (Ps 46:1-2).
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Friends, to be clothed in Christ is to be given a garment of praise for the spirit heaviness, a spirit in our time that is alive and well. He who by the healing waters of regeneration has made us acceptable has also released us from prison and bound our wound by giving us a new heart, a heart inclined to worship and thanksgiving for the Divine Servant who has made us rich by his poverty.
A worshipful and grateful heart pulls the memory of every former act of Divine mercy and goodness into the present- the worshipful heart is filled with the remembrance of grace! Grace upon grace upon grace! Jesus Christ: Preacher to the poor, Physician to the wounded, Heralder of God's Acceptance, and Restorer of Joy. Jesus Christ, the Divine Servant of Isaiah 61, the heavenly gift of Christmas given to men: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Amen+
