On the night of Jesus’ birth he was announced to shepherds in the Judean countryside. A flash of light and an outburst of angelic singing told them what had happened and urged them to go to nearby Bethlehem and see for themselves. That same flash of light alerted distant, non-Judaic, gentile, stargazing magi that an ancient prophecy had been fulfilled, prompting them to set off on a lengthy trek to find the star-announced king. At the other end of Jesus’ earthly life, after his death, resurrection, ascension, and Spirit-gifting, the early church wrestled with Jesus’ call to make disciples through baptizing and teaching everything he had taught and commanded. Was the gospel only for true descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Or did all nations include all nations? The giving of the Spirit didn’t happen to a handful of people in a locked room in the dead of night. It happened in bright midday in a public gathering place where a representation of the world was gathered: Parthians, Medes, Elamites; Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, together with people from Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Cyrene, Rome, Crete, Arabia (Acts 2:9-11).
Even before the gospels were written down, Isaiah was a kind of template for the proclamation of the faith. So many passages from the prophet spoke to the earliest understanding of what had happened in the Christ event. There was the assurance of God’s presence and power. There was the assurance that no matter what happened to the disciples, God would supply their strength. And there were the models for Jesus’ mission to save God’s people – the servant songs. These talked about how he was treated and about him being a light to the nations. Other passages in Isaiah talked about opening blind eyes, freeing captives, binding up the brokenhearted, bringing good news, and declaring God’s favor.
Not only did the early church recall the stories of the healings, exorcisms, and acts of declaring forgiveness which the crowds had seen and heard during Jesus’ ministry, the church saw the images from Isaiah as metaphors for God’s broader and deeper activity in the world through Christ. Good news preaching, brokenheart healing, captive freeing, and prisoner pardoning were metaphors for divine activity in the life of communities as well as individuals. All this was accomplished through the one Isaiah labeled “my servant.”
Who is the servant? The church has long asked that question. Before the time of Christ, the servant was often thought to be the nation Israel. It was said that the prophets called the people to take up their responsibilities as God’s children: don’t shirk your duty, be faithful, be righteous. Following Christ’s life, ministry, and exaltation, the church tended to think of the servant as Jesus. After all, Jesus, when he had read the Isaiah 61 passage in the Nazareth synagogue, declared that the scripture had been fulfilled in their hearing (Luke 4:21).
Our Presbyterian ancestor, John Calvin, identified the servant of Isaiah 42 with Jesus Christ because of the theological implications of the servant’s work. The scriptural imagery of light and darkness, sight and blindness, and captivity and freedom represents both a physical and spiritual restoration. The task of being “a light to the nations” is directly equated with salvation in the second servant song, Isaiah 49:6. The servant can be perceived as mediating God’s promise of restoration to the nations.
Calvin, affirmed the Reformation concept of the priesthood of all believers because he understood that Jesus held a three-fold office of “prophet, priest, and king.” He is priest on our behalf, he is the mediator of grace between God and humanity. Mediation is necessary because of the theological doctrine of total depravity. Sin so consumes humanity that no one is capable of bringing about his or her redemption. Thus Calvin comments in his Isaiah commentary on verse 7,
“under these metaphors he [Isaiah] declares what is the condition of men, till Christ shine upon them as their Redeemer; that is, they are most wretched, empty, and destitute of all blessings, and surrounded and overwhelmed by innumerable distresses, till they are delivered by Christ.”In order to be the servant who breaks the bonds of sin, heals the brokenhearted, liberates captives, pardons prisoners, and declares good news and God’s favor to humanity, Jesus became the life-giving intersection between divine and human.
God created, entered into, and radically transformed the baptismal waters which John the Baptist used. He baptized people who had changed their hearts and lives, who had repented. But he said that the one coming after him would baptize with Holy Spirit and fire. That is a whole different level of cleansing. When John lashed out against the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to his baptism site, calling them children of snakes, he was laying the groundwork for Jesus’ own baptism, which would help the people to understand the reality and the physicality of being human, and what it means to say that God saved us by becoming just like us.
Steven Driver reminds us that our salvation is worked out through both divine and physical elements. In the case of baptism, the physical element is water.
“Matthew echoes Genesis when he describes Jesus’ baptism. Genesis records that, in the beginning, the Spirit hovered over the waters. The Word of God was present from the beginning and created the world. What the Word created was good. In Matthew, the Spirit of God once again hovers over the waters, and once again the Word of God speaks. Genesis describes God bringing order to chaos through his Word. Matthew describes God taming the chaos of our sins through his Word. Genesis describes the abundant possibilities of God’s creative work. Matthew describes the renewal of those possibilities through God's entering into creation in order to redeem it. The parallels are stark, and they clearly link baptism to God’s creative acts.”(1)As we pause to remember and reflect on Christ’s own baptism, we discover that it is a creative act, one of several which constitute our re-creation as redeemed people of God. Following his birth, his baptism and commissioning comes before his ministry, before the world’s confrontation with him, before his execution by the world, before his resurrection, before his exaltation to the position of eternal king, before the blessing of the Spirit.
Baptism is near the beginning of a life of ministry. It is not the end. In his baptism, Jesus’ identity was confirmed through heaven’s opening and the dove coming down to him and the voice from heaven naming him as God’s Son, God’s Beloved, the very one who holds God’s pleasure. This confirmation was not the culmination of his ministry; it was the beginning of the remarkable journey that was to lead him to the cross and beyond. That’s why Calvin said that under Isaiah’s servant song metaphors he declares what is the condition of men, till Christ shine upon them as their Redeemer.
As we come to Christ’s table, we recognize that we are somewhere along the journey that increases Christ’ light on us, within us, and through us to those around us, until Christ shines for the world to see.
Arise, shine, your light has come, is growing, and will illumine the world in all sin is bleached out of it by the Light of the world.
Lord, the light of your love is shining,
in the midst of the darkness, shining;
Jesus, Light of the World, shine upon us;
set us free by the truth you bring us.(2)
(1) Steven Driver, “Matthew 2:13-17, Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) Vol.1, 238.
(2) Graham Kendrick, 1987.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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