* * *
What
is life? If you were asked to choose one word to describe human
life, what word would that be? My first choice might be the word
'precious'. What could be more valuable than life itself?
... For a person of faith, the word could be 'gift'. Life comes
from the Creator of all things; we can't earn it, create it, nor keep it
one moment apart from God. As God's pure gift, life is certainly
'sacred', another appropriate word. Hopefully, if things are
right with us, yet another word to describe life would be
'fascinating'. If we begin to think of our life as boring or
dreary, we know something is dreadfully wrong.
One word that should never be applied to the best
life is the word 'easy'. Life is hard! Ever hit the beach at
vacation time, kicking back with absolutely nothing to do? This
always sounds so good, but after a little while it becomes unbearably
boring, at least for me.
Life gives us a chance to dream big, and then pursue
our goals with energy and passion. Even if we do not achieve all
that for which we hope, the very struggle to make our dreams come true
is far better than to never have tried at all. As a college
student I came to know that I loved the wild country. It occurred
to me that a career as a forest ranger might be a wonderful thing.
Looking into that, I found that too many other people had the same
thought. "I'd never get a job" I decided. I didn't even
try. Years later I discovered there was such a thing as a
"wilderness ranger" where a person would go out alone with a heavy pack
and patrol wilderness areas for days on end. That could have been
wonderful! But I'll never know. I didn't even try! I
know now that I would have regretted trying and failing a lot less than
not even giving it a try. Of course, God came up with a wonderful,
and even less likely way for me to spend my working life. God
can, and often does, redeem our failings.
How do we choose the life we will live? Ego is
at the heart of most people's choices. What will be best for
me? What would I like? Others may choose because of
love. A less common possibility would be faithfulness; How could I
best serve God?
Now you would think that the more obedient we are to
God's call for us, the easier life would be! Wrong! The
bible, and the history of faith, is filled with examples of people who
faithfully, doggedly followed God's will for their lives, and
experienced great suffering, and even death as a result.
Take a look at the portrayal of God's servant in our
lesson from Isaiah this morning. We see that this servant not only
received his own share of suffering, but "was wounded for our
transgressions, crushed for our iniquities ... the Lord ... laid on him
the [consequences of the] iniquity of us all" Not only did he
suffer on behalf of others, he was put to death, "cut off from the land
of the living ... his grave with the wicked ...".
Perhaps worst of all, scripture declares: "it
was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain ..." Don't get the
wrong idea here; God is no monster. It was sadly, not
sadistically, necessary that the servant should suffer, for through that
suffering "The righteous one, [God's] servant, [would] make many
righteous."
Why was this necessary? The third chapter of
the book of Genesis describes how we all went astray in the childhood
moments of our race. We see through the record of God's
interaction with fallen humanity that nothing less than the grievous
death of Jesus Christ could ever make things right again. God
tried wiping out the evildoers with the great flood, but evil came right
back as soon as Noah and his family hit dry land. God tried a
loving covenant with Abraham, Sarah and their offspring, but sin led
them to enslavement in Egypt. God tried a dramatic rescue through
Moses, followed by forty years of careful instruction in the desert as
to the meaning of being God's people. God tried giving us the
commandments. We ignored them, broke them, even twisted them to do
evil.
And so, along the way, God foretold the atonement
that would come through a most unlikely messiah, in four "servant
passages" embedded in the book of Isaiah. And, in the fullness of
time, these strong hints became reality in Jesus.
If this understanding of reality is actually true
... and I believe with all my heart that it is ... what are the
implications? Are we to celebrate Jesus as our vicarious suffering
servant, giving thanks that because of what he has done, we don't have
to suffer? Or, are we to say this version of truth makes no
sense! How can the suffering of anyone, even the messiah, make
any difference for us?
Or, are we to see our highest and best calling as
that of a servant, faithful to Jesus?
Parenting gives us a wonderful earthly example of
this sort of servanthood. Babies are virtually helpless.
Their needs are fairly simple, but they are nearly constant, and often
inconvenient, to say the least. As kids grow older, their needs
grow more complex, even if they don't wake us up in the middle of the
night quite so much. At our best we are to serve them with love
and understanding, so that our servanthood ultimately equips them and
sets them free to be healthy, functioning adults.
So it is with all real servanthood. It must be
defined by the true needs of those we serve, not just our own opinion
about what they need. We can do tremendous harm by insisting on
serving others in ways that are not actually helpful to them, or even
hurtful.
Another caution: Too often people of faith
feel more called to suffering than to servanthood. We've all known
self-made martyrs, who live to do for others, subtly or loudly
complaining the whole time. Real martyrdom is sometimes a
consequence of servanthood, not the goal.
Don't miss the good news in all this. The
Isaiah passage says of the servant, who had been put to death, "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 ..."
Though the way of the world has been proven faulty
generation after generation, the paradoxical path of servanthood, chosen
by our Lord, and by those who faithfully follow him, will ultimately
bring about the new life of the kingdom of God, for which we all deeply
yearn. What a great blessing is ours to have the chance to be
part of the process of salvation, begun with Abraham and Sarah,
prophesied in Isaiah, accomplished in Jesus, and continuing through
whatever time is left until our Lord returns. Amen.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **