Good Morning Friends,
Today’s scripture from Isaiah and Mark really connects with the theme of Servant Leadership. The beauty and glory of it is that Jesus fills the typical image of suffering and serving with new meaning. He shows us that he enjoys dominion because he is a servant, glory because he takes care of the world’s definitions of success and substituting his own, kingship because he is fully prepared to die so others might live. By his passion and death, he takes the lowest place, attains the heights of heaven in service, and bestows this upon all who would believe that God has taken on the burden of our sins. Here we learn that outside of Jesus’ return there can be no reconciliation between a worldly understanding of power and the humble service which must characterize authority for the Christian. According to Jesus’ teaching and example ambition is incompatible with the calling of Christian discipleship. If you want honor, success, fame, and worldly triumphs, you desire something that is irreconcilable with the logic of Christ crucified. Instead, the harmony connects in the mystery between Jesus, the man of sorrows, and our suffering. So, How Can We Grasp The Gift of the Suffering Servant?
Scripture: Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
Isaiah 53:10-11 (NRSV)
Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrew 4:14-16 (NRSV)
So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:42-45 (NRSV)
Message: Isaiah wrote today’s scripture reading 700 years before Christ was born with great precision as to what would happen to Jesus when He came to earth to save mankind. It foretells how God was to take a nothing child known as the son of a carpenter and peasant girl, known as a child, cradled in a manger, known as a man, hung on the cross and transforms this into a relationship that hopefully is known to you as the Savior of the world. This young plant, this sprout from the stump of Jesse and King David was to be rejected even before He was born. There was no room for Him in the Inn, no place for Him to rest His head during his life and yet he suffered and died in this spiritually starved world, so we might be fed, we might find a place prepared for us in a heavenly kingdom. Indeed, the true understanding and magnitude of Jesus’ gift, of God’s gift of great love, comes not in His birth but in the power of believing that His death on the cross was not in vain, that our suffering is not in vain. No greater gift exists. And He gives this unlikely gift to the likes of an Innkeeper at his birth and to the centurion at his death but even to us now. Here this suffering servant Jesus becomes a magnificent gift. How surprising and sublime is this most unlikely gift imaginable. Here this prophecy of the suffering Servant’s humiliation and His submission to the Father’s will should be instrumental in the way we live a life that is more of love than of suffering. Herein is the key to greatness and a great opportunity for us to follow this example of greatness by serving with humility.
And So, we can contemplate God’s act of supreme mercy on the cross but also in acts of compassion discover God’s presence in service. But there is something fearful about falling into the hands of God and His mercy whether it is in extending it in acts of service or in approaching the throne for forgiveness. Both are supposed to be carried out with courage and boldness. There is something miraculous about mercy and the reality that His mercy can show up whenever and wherever it is His will. Clearly, we are not in control. But when we do acts of mercy, we can become an eternal monument to His incredible mercy… a mercy planned from the very beginning. Here is the mystery of mercy being combined with justice, of mercy being linked to compassion, of mercy and the incarnation of Christ being present when we serve as part of his Body. Hopefully we begin to see how the love of God, the motive behind it all, goes beyond sympathy and empathy to action. We experience an action that tells the truth in love. We are shown this love that we have been graphed on to, His love for His agents of the world’s salivation, His inexplicable fidelity to His covenant… the ultimate mystery of God’s grace, gifted by Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit, given to us the Body of believers. The feeling helps us to remember what God has done for us personally but also asks us to remember how this love, this mercy, is connected in a holy history moving forward God’s plan in the world in which we live. He wants us to prepare for just how wonderful and mighty a response He can breathe into our lives. He wants us to be humble and expectant when we cry out for His mercy… mercy that we might not get what we deserve. But there is more, here mercy is the obligation of the covenant promise…the obligation of the stronger to the weaker of the insider to the outsider. It is here that we pray and lay claim to Jesus’ victory over sin…our sin. Here mercy is sacrifice, the sacrifice of the cross. So be surprised by the joy of His severe mercy. Even a little of our love combined with God’s extravagant and perpetual love is as an act of mercy. So, let’s give it our all with the real goal in mind.
Pray God have mercy on us. Pray we be of pure hearts and rich in mercy, gentle, sensitive and courteous with others so that they might know of God’s love and the ransom paid…of the salvation Jesus makes possible. Pray we experience the Father’s mercy in the face of Jesus. Pray we see the face of Jesus in the poor. Pray we realize that the Lord’s message is one of mercy. Pray we trust God and His mercy. Pray we hear Jesus’ words of mercy in a way that aids our sanctification. Pray we help meet the spiritual and material needs of others. Pray we instruct those who do not know. Pray we counsel those who do not yet believe. Pray that only when we have knowledge and tact and love do we admonish other sinners. Pray we learn how to comfort the afflicted. Pray we bear wrongs patiently. Pray we forgive offences. Pray we willingly and faithfully pray for others. Pray we have room in our hearts for Jesus to come and change everything. Pray that all the troubles and trials of this life will pass into nothingness when we see the face of Jesus. Pray we are anointed with His gift. Pray that when the Spirit gets done with us that God will be so big inside of us that the King of Kings and the Lords of Lords…. even the suffering servant will show through. Pray we know the Suffering Savior who becomes the rewarded redeemer… the paradox of the death that brings life.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 