In Matthew’s account, Jesus tells John the Baptist that it’s good for John to baptize Jesus, in order to “fulfill all righteousness.”  Jesus, who had no sin and did no sin, is the only person ever who was not in need of what was being offered through baptism.  Jesus always leads, and teaches, by example.  He shows us the way.  Jesus is forgiveness.  He voluntarily chooses to identify with sinners, to take our sadly mixed lives upon himself, for himself, and lift them to God.  It matters that Jesus chose to be baptized.  He took our burdens, our sorrows and griefs, upon himself.  He took our anger, jealousy, and spite upon himself.  Once for all.  He was the only one ever who could do that, because He was God among us, with us, Immanuel.  Jesus means to be arm in arm with us.  May it cause us ever greater wonder that Jesus chose, freely, to take it all upon himself.

Long before, God had told Isaiah who then told the people about God’s plan and His promise.  “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations” (42:1).  Mark those words: Servant, chosen, Spirit.  “[M]y servant, whom I uphold”: to uphold is to strengthen.  “I will put my Spirit on him”: the Spirit—one might say God’s own life.  God’s life strengthens.  Apart from me, you can do nothing, Jesus told his followers (Jn 15:5).  Apart from the Spirit, we can do nothing.  The Spirit is the want in our want to for God.

God says His work is a work of justice.  God isn’t talking about geopolitics, the UN or the World Court.  God’s servant will bring God’s justice to all peoples: salvation of the justified, just punishment of sin, the complete exoneration of God, whom people angrily renounce and reject for all manner of sadnesses and sorrows in this life.  God is good—really?  God isn’t really into punishment, but He is very much into justice, and truth.  In the Spirit of the Servant, we go out to tell everyone, especially those who will listen, that the promise is for them, too.  Let your lives speak, yes, and don’t forget to use words.

Jesus opens the way, shows us the way.  He is the way.

God’s justice.  That doesn’t mean everyone gets the same.  God’s justice is righteousness.  Here in church, we’re familiar with the term, but what does it mean?  Righteousness is life on God’s terms.  People don’t just naturally have that; no one is born with it.  It must be given, else we remain lost, hurt and hurtful.  The Servant, and the servants of the Servant, bring God’s righteousness to everyone—life on God’s terms.  We are to live, love, and serve that others may see, even begin to feel, life on God’s terms.  There is a way of life which is the way to Life: righteousness in, through, and with Christ.  People are meant to see the true character of God in our lives, our choices, our words, our actions.  What a responsibility!  We don’t do this under our own power.  We can’t.  God does it in us through His power.  That’s blessing!

Through Isaiah, we hear that this Spirit-soaked Servant “will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets” (42:2).  Aren’t we to be shouting from the rooftops, lift our banner high in the sky to let the whole world know?  I’d be happy even with a few yard signs.  Presbyterian pastor Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase offers some help: The Servant “won’t call attention to what he does with loud speeches or gaudy parades.”  Hey—look at me!  Hype.  Now, Jesus is certainly trying to call everyone’s attention to something, but he isn’t doing it “with loud speeches or gaudy parades.”  That’s the sort of thing we’d expect from those seeking power, political office, celebrities trying to broker fame into influence.  That’s campaign stuff, and we’re seasoned enough by now to know that what gets promised out on the campaign trail and what gets delivered after election day are not quite the same thing.  But Jesus urges us to choose him; he promises to deliver us.

Jesus does amazing works of power, for sure.  More often, though, he’s teaching.  He wants belief because of his teaching rather than good feelings because of his entertainment value.  He wants us to understand who is talking, rather than get bogged down in debates about the mechanics of how Jesus does what he does.  Not how he does what he does but why: he is with us; he is for us.  He has come to take you and me somewhere.  We go with him through the water; he draws us through: cleansed, freed, reborn.  Where there was no way, God makes a way.  This is power.  This is love.

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (42:3).  Rev. Peterson again offers a helpful paraphrase: “He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt[,] and he won’t disregard the small and insignificant.”  The broken and the small ones matter to Jesus!  The usual practice is to brush aside those who don’t matter, to us.  It’s sad to see.  Jesus came for the bruised and the hurt ones, the weak ones.  Am I strong?  I’m not strong.  Oh, I want to be.  Jesus came to stop for the one, to stop for you, for me, because God’s love looks like something.  God’s love in us and through us also looks like something.  No one comes to the Lord in strength.  No one comes to the Lord bright and shiny.  He came to call the deaf, to show his Father in heaven to the blind, to heal the sick and give life to the dead.  That was me.  I hope maybe you recognize yourself somewhere, someway, in there, too.

He did not come to condemn anyone but to reveal the truth, demonstrate it for all to see.  He did not come to destroy anyone but to break the deforming, disfiguring power of sin: lies, self-serving, self-destroying lies.  He lifts us up, gets his arm around us and begins to carry us along with him: this is what God’s justice, God’s righteousness, looks like—the holy goodness of God.  Jesus stopped for you; he stopped for me.  He went into the water, the old, deep waters of chaos and creation, of overwhelming death and erupting rebirth for you and for me; he made a way; he gave us the way: that’s God’s justice and His love.  With God, the two are inseparable.

Isaiah tells us that the one who will come, who will be for us always, “will not falter or be discouraged” (42:4).  We falter.  We get discouraged.  Thank God it isn’t all of us all at once! The grace is just in this: it isn’t all of us all at once.  When one of us falters, the rest gather ‘round to help as we are able.  When one of us is discouraged, the rest come near to help as we are able.  You know, sometimes words don’t provide much help, but presence helps, a hug helps, a prayer helps; it helps to know that we’re not alone, forgotten, abandoned in our times of discouragement.  When we gather, we share Christ, and Christ is at work.  He is making all things right, all things new.  It’s happening even now.  Won’t you feel it with me?

Through Isaiah, we hear God speaking to His Anointed, the Christ: “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.  I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness” (42:6-7).  Mark these words: Secure, strengthened, solid.  God makes His Christ the solid rock, so that we might stand, in him, with him.  How firm a foundation.  We hear God saying He will make His Anointed one, His Christ, to demonstrate God’s righteousness, “to be a covenant.”  Okay.  But wait.  A covenant?—a solemn promise, a pact, sworn by all that’s sacred.  Yes, all of that.  But there’s more, isn’t there?  A covenant is more, involves more, requires more: blood.  No blood, no covenant.  Through Isaiah, centuries before, God says that His Anointed, His Christ, our Lamb, will be sacrificed, and so God will establish His covenant with us through Christ our Lamb.  We are his blood brothers and sisters.  By his lifeblood, we live.

The covenant is for life, for restoration to fullest life, life on God’s terms.  The blind miss out on so much of life.  All that prisoners might be able to recall is the life they have lost, to their sorrow and grief.  God speaks of the prisoners sitting in darkness, the darkness of blindness.  Those listening to Jesus as he speaks of blind people challenge him—are you saying, Jesus, that we are blind?  We aren’t blind!  No one believes they are blind, until they see that they don’t see, can’t see, need light, until they begin to see the darkness.  People are good!  People have good hearts!  Yes, we want to believe it and make our case before God and one another that it’s true.  Probe a little deeper, past the Me we want others to see.  No heart is an especially pretty place, but God can still make His dwelling there; Jesus assures us that He wants to.

The covenant is God giving us the strongest, clearest assurance that He wants to live in our hearts, be the life in our hearts, so that we can know His life, His light, His love, His joy.  The joy of the Lord is our strength.

To the God of all grace, who calls you to share God’s eternal glory in union with Christ, be the power forever!