The Servant of God and the Newness--Second Essay

I pause long on these words in v. 3 because the Biblical language is so highly-compressed and so suggestive in its meaning that we simply ought not to plow through it at 500 words a minute. If, on the one hand, we are likened to the crushed or oppressed reed, we are here compared to a wick which is "guttering"--making a "gutter" with the wax and about ready to go out because the candle has melted. That is us, friends. We may appear strong, hale and hearty, but if we know ourselves well, we know that there are lots of forces at work within and without that make us terribly vulnerable to extinguishment. We are like the candle, about ready to be snuffed out. Or, if we don't feel that at the present, at least many of those with whom we work and for whom we have responsibility may feel that. But the Servant won't crush; the servant won't extinguish.

There is something so utterly attractive about the gentleness of this servant. He knows us and serves us in our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He isn't the one who comes in to give us a blast of the divine power or a show of mighty strength. He is more like the quiet and sensitive physician who carefully sets a broken bone than one who is going to raise up the banner in the battlefield. He recognizes and accommodates human weakness.

IV. The Perseverance of the Servant--v. 4

Lest we think that the Servant is gentle and quiet because he himself is weak, the next verse points out another attractive characteristic--he perseveres. I love the first four words (in Hebrew) of v. 4:

"He will not falter, and he will not be crushed.."

The two verbs used of the Servant in v. 4 have just been used by the writer in v. 3, but in inverted order. In v. 3 we had the "crushed reed" and the "smoldering wick;" here we have the truth that the Servant will not "smolder out" nor will he "be crushed." The very conditions that characterize and often defeat us will not do the same for the Servant of God. He won't grow faint, as the light of the candle gradually grows faint and then flickers out. Maybe it is because he has learned the great secret of Is. 40:27-31--that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. Rather than one's strength faltering and finally giving out, the Servant of God seems to get stronger as he goes along. He won't falter or palter (equivocate). And, he won't be crushed. Though he will be subject to all the same forces that seem to dominate our lives, the Servant of God won't be crushed by them. That is why he can help those who are crushed. He creates a space, a protective and protected environment so that the crushing forces are kept at bay. With his gentle hands he holds us, straightening out the folded over or weak parts of the reed, and makes us strong again.

The Servant of God just won't give up. In the words of the famed US College Basketball Coach Jim Valvano he "never give(s) up." The same forces that tend to beat us down won't extinguish him. Well, for how long?

V. The Triumph of the Servant--v. 4

The Servant will keep at it until he triumphs. Three times in four verses we get a glimpse into what this triumph might hold: in v. 1 it is said to be "justice" which goes out to the people. In v. 3 we have "in truth he will bring forth justice," and then in v. 4 the text says "until he has established justice in the earth..." Justice is the theme that is repeated over and over. But we are incorrect if we narrow the concept of justice to what we might call correct legal decision-making. Many of my friends in the States are judges, men and women who have dedicated their lives to learning and practicing the law. What they are doing is incredibly important, I think, in maintaining a society as free and as prosperous as ours. Indeed, in the Ancient Near East the paramount duty of kings was to establish judicial order in their realms. But the concept of justice, which will be the fruit of the Servant's action, is much broader than that. Not only will he establish it in the world, and not simply in a nation, but it will be some kind of life-giving order that functions in accordance with the design of its Lord. It will, no doubt, incorporate some of our human longings for justice in the legal sphere, but it will go much further than that.

It will be such a transformative work that the coastlands, the island, the people far off (v. 4) wait for his instruction. The word "instruction" here is torah. The Servant is bringing a sort of new Torah to the world, a message and method that enables justice to go forth in all places.

Conclusion

When Jesus heard the voice from heaven telling him that it was "well pleased" with him, he must not only have thought about the role of the Servant in general that would be pleasing to God but especially the details of this passage. You can spend a lifetime trying to put into effect the eight words of the first two clauses of v. 3. Maybe that is what Jesus did. He perservered and triumphed, to be sure. But his modus vivendi, the thing that moved him and shaped him as he lived each day, was the ministry to the vulnerable ones--the caring for those who knew they were broken reeds and wicks just about to be exinguished. That is the Servant that we can hold forth to the world today. In a time of international bluster, of times of unrest and a threat to the security even of democratic regimes, we need to preach with conviction, and gentleness, the life of the Servant from Is. 42. There is no message more urgent for our world today.

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