A Sword in Shadow

Propers: Second Sunday after the Epiphany, A.D. 2017 A

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Isaiah is having a rough time. Not that his was ever going to be an easy job. He is a prophet, called by God to speak truth to power, to hold up timeless and transcendent ideals before a people who, quite frankly, couldn’t care less. Nor is he one of those pampered court prophets, government functionaries whose proclamations kept them in mutton and wine. No, Isaiah is a prophet in Exile, spokesperson for a God whose Temple has been destroyed, whose Holy Land has been conquered, and whose people are now scattered to the winds.

Not that they couldn’t see this coming, mind you. Isaiah’s predecessor, the original Isaiah, warned the kings of Israel time and again that their wicked ways would result in the downfall of God’s people: as the northern half of the kingdom had been carried away by the Assyrians some generations earlier, so now the southern half would be undone by Babylon. There was still hope, mind you, for God had great plans for Israel’s future, plans to make the children of Abraham a blessing for the entire world! If they would but stay the course, God would see them through!

But the kings and the people and especially the wealthy upper classes refused to listen. They turned from God’s justice, oppressed the poor, took advantage of the needy. And so, having divorced themselves from God, they were led away by the nose, out from their country and their posh villas, to settle in alien lands by Babylonian rivers.

Now God calls Isaiah to “comfort, O comfort My people,” to keep the promises of God fresh before their eyes, to keep them steadfast in the faith of their fathers, ever remembering God’s covenant of mercy and His glorious plans for Israel’s destiny. But the people are tired, defeated, strangers in a strange land. All seems lost to them. Their relationship with God was predicated on a priesthood undone, a toppled throne, a Holy Land in ruins. God has abandoned them, or they have abandoned God—six of one, half dozen of the other. All is lost. The promise is forgotten. And so the people, by the Babylonian waters, sat down in grief and wept.

Thus Isaiah, too, despairs. It’s hopeless. No one wants to hear the prophet’s promises, promises of a lost and forgotten God, a lost and forgotten hope. “I have labored in vain,” Isaiah groans. “I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” I have thrown my life away on this divinity, and for what? There is no faith left on earth!

But now the Voice of the Lord comes to Him again, and God declares without apology, “You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” I called you before you were born, named you while still in your mother’s womb. You are a sharp sword in the shadow of My hand, a polished arrow hidden in My quiver. And now God doubles down: “It is too light a thing that you should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach the end of the earth! Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you!”

Isaiah thinks he has failed in his mission to the scattered desert tribes of a fallen petty kingdom. But no, says God, you are My secret weapon, and I designate you to call out My promise to all the peoples of the earth! And suddenly new songs begin to pour out from Isaiah’s mouth, astonishing songs of mystery and paradox and promise, flowing from his tongue out upon the prophetic parchment. And they are songs that sing with many voices: the voice of the prophet, yes, but also the voice of God’s people, and beyond that a third voice, a voice of promise for some great miracle, a Messiah breaking upon the horizon.

These are the songs of the Suffering Servant found in the Book of Isaiah: a veiled figure, at once both baffling and yet captivating. The Spirit of God sings through Isaiah the tale of God’s Suffering Servant, wounded for the transgressions of others, striped for the iniquities of His people. He is God’s Chosen One, yet is rejected by the nations, mocked and stripped and tormented, murdered unjustly and cast down to the dead. Yet somehow, bizarrely, the Servant rises again, glorified and exalted, held up as the Savior of the world, God’s revelation to the gentiles. And He shall bear our sins, and make us righteous, and call the entire world to the ecstasies of everlasting life!

And yes, it is the voice of the prophet. And yes, it is the voice of the people. But the songs of the Suffering Servant stretch beyond this to an unexpected promise, a New Covenant, a coming Messiah who shall bring the promise of Israel to fruition and call home to God not only the scattered children of Abraham but all the wayward children of Adam from the far corners of the earth! Christ is coming, sings Isaiah! Christ is coming and Light is coming and Life is coming and you cannot imagine all the glories that God has in store for the whole of humankind!

And Isaiah is whole again. And Isaiah is alive again. And Isaiah is raised again. For now He can see that to which his entire prophetic career has pointed. We look back now upon the prophet Isaiah, and shake our heads with amazement that he ever could have thought he’d wrought his labors in vain. He is, after all, the greatest of the prophets, revered in Judaism and Christianity alike for thousands of years. He is the clearest voice of the Old Testament pointing to Jesus Christ, to the extent that his book to this day is often called the Fifth Gospel.

We see Isaiah’s story echoed in John the Baptist this morning, when John, already a famous prophet in his own right, reveals the entire thrust of his ministry when he openly declares of Jesus, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” That’s John’s job: he is the herald, the forerunner of the Messiah. He is pointing, ever pointing, beyond himself to God made flesh in Jesus Christ.

As Christians we confess the priesthood of all believers. All of us who are baptized, all of us who have drowned in our sins and been raised up in the Holy Spirit, are called to be priests of God. That doesn’t mean that we’re all called to professional ministry or liturgical leadership. But we are all anointed by the same prophetic Spirit who inhabited Isaiah and John the Baptist, who honed them into swords hidden in the shadow of God’s hand, polished arrows secreted away in the divine quiver.

We are God’s secret weapons, God’s hidden weapons. And sometimes the hiddenness of our calling fools even ourselves. We fear that we have labored in vain, that it’s all been for nothing and vanity. Nonsense, declares the Lord. “I will give you as a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth!” The Light is none other than Jesus Christ. And it is our calling, the calling of each and every one of us here, to point to Jesus as Light of the World, Lamb of God, Suffering Servant who saves the nations.

Not that it’s as easy as all that. The rule is the same today as it was in Isaiah’s time: no Cross, no Call. Hang around with Jesus, and you will suffer. Neither Isaiah nor John the Baptist came to happy ends in this world. But they set their faith on far greater things to come.

Let us remember this, brothers and sisters, in our darkest days: that we are not forgotten; the promises are not void; we have not labored in vain. If only we knew of all the plans that God has for us, plans to bless each and every one of us, that in turn we might be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth! The promises given through the prophets have come to fruition in our own time: Christ is Risen, the firstfruits of the Resurrection, and we know that someday soon the harvest shall come in full!

For now we wait in Exile, strangers in a strange land. But we have seen His glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son. And He has put a new song in our mouths, that we ourselves have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.