Good morning. It's nice to be back with you after being gone last week, speaking at our Alpha retreat. We had just a great weekend, with our talks focused on the Holy Spirit. But I miss worshipping here when I'm gone! I hate having to just listen to the tape Tuesday morning!

I came back to one of my very favorite things, the NCAA college basketball tournament. I absolutely love it! At the Baumgartner house, we do a kind of family pool, where everyone fills out a copy of the brackets and then we keep track of them as the tournament unfolds. At the end, the winner gets treated to a fine meal…down at Dick's.

But who would have guessed what has happened? I was doing fabulous, then boom, Gonzaga and Stanford both go down. Oh well. It's almost baseball season.

This morning we continue in our study of Isaiah. These last few weeks, we have looked specifically at the “Servant Song” passages in chapters 42 and 49. Each time we have looked, we have noticed the strong and somewhat mysterious figure just called “God's servant,” who seems to emerge more and more in this part of Isaiah. And we've talked about the possible identities suggested for this “Servant.” Some have suggested that it is

• a personification of the people Israel
• a specific historical figure (king, etc.) from this time in Israel
• a foreshadowing of God's Messiah,
• or some combination of these

In chapter 42 we saw the Servant as one who would bring justice to the nations (set things right) In chapter 49, the Servant was the one who would gather people back to God. Now in chapter 52-53 this week and next, we have our longest and most detailed picture of God's Servant.

Who would have ever guessed? I find myself saying that quite a bit, the older I get.

Who would have ever guessed…I'd end up back in Seattle ? Growing up on Queen Anne, moving to the East Coast and the Midwest, a six-year circle, who would have guessed?

Who would have ever guessed…that I'd travel around the world? I come from a family that felt like driving to Bellevue was traveling! I was never on an airplane until after college. Who would have guessed that in the last two years I would end up standing in the middle of Africa and in Inner Mongolia ?

Who would have ever guessed…that some of the friends I thought I would have for life would fall away? Who would have guessed that some people I thought I would just never hit it off with would end up being some of the most important ones in my life, and that God would use in building my faith in Christ. Life is just pretty surprising sometimes, isn't it? Who would have ever guessed?

In today's passage, “The Servant” of God is pretty unsurprising at first. God's voice says:

"He shall prosper, he shall be exalted, he shall be lifted up, he shall be very high."

That would seem to fit someone whom God Himself would call “My Servant.” It doesn't last long, though. Very quickly, the servant goes from high exaltation to deep disgrace and trouble. It is God's voice that speaks first. In verses 13-15 many people will be astonished at God's servant…so marred was his appearance, he barely even looked human anymore. And he would shock nations and rulers. Because of the servant, they would see and learn things they never would have guessed, new things. It will be surprising.

Then beginning in chapter 53, another voice takes over, more of a human voice. But the message is the same, who would believe this kind of stuff?

God's servant grows up like a young shoot, an impoverished plant. There's nothing about this Servant that has is particularly attractive, nothing about his appearance that draws people.

Do you ever make the mistake that I so often do of assuming things about people by the way they look? If somebody looks like they have it together, I assume they do. If someone is 65 years old, distinguished with white hair, I just assume they've learned from life and have some real wisdom. Not necessarily. By the same token, I run into people who are very nondescript looking that I wouldn't think had much going. They do. You'd think I'd learn. It seems to be something God wants us to learn.

The Bible is filled with God using unlikely, surprising people. From the people of Israel, a tiny nondescript group who seem to possess very little in the way of faith, wisdom, loyalty or anything else. God picks Jacob, the trickster, the deceiver who is always working the angles. And Moses, the reluctant leader who begs God to find someone else to talk to people since he's not very good at it. Or Peter the fisherman whom Jesus mentors, but for much of the New Testament he looks like he's never going to “get it.”

This Servant in Isaiah. There's nothing about him that would attract a person. In fact, it goes deeper: He is despised and rejected, “a man of suffering,” acquainted with infirmity, a man people actually hide their faces from…despised, and people held him of no account. Who would have guessed that God would have chosen to do such powerful work through such an unlikely candidate?

Does God ever speak into your life through an unlikely person? I was reminded this week of a little book from15 years ago that told the story of the friendship between two men, Mike and Norman. Mike was a Christian, and he and his family purchased a house in a neighborhood in their small town. The first day they were in, Mike went outside and discovered that they lived right across street from “Norman.” Mike's first thought was, “Oh no! God, that's weird Norman over there! How could you have me buy a house across the street from Norman?”

Norman, you see, was “the odd, creepy guy every town seems to have…” Mike had known of him since he'd been a kid in school. Norman was old, dirty and smelly. His house was the only one in the neighborhood falling apart. He could barely communicate, and seemed to have severe developmental problems.

Mike finally figures out God is calling him to a friendship with Norman. One Sunday night after church, Mike takes his family to the local Dairy Queen. There are lots of people he knows there who have also been to church that night, and Norman is there too. He is dirty, with ice cream all over his face, and he is sitting by himself. All those good people in the shop don't know what to do with him, so they just ignore him. Well, Mike feels God prompting him to go talk to Norman, in fact to talk about his faith. Mike feels sheepish. He wonders what his neighbors will think. But God keeps prodding him, so he sneaks over and slides in across from him:

Mike says, “Do you remember who I am?” (they've met one time).

Norman says, “Do you remember who I am?”

Mike says, “I'm your neighbor.”

Norman says, “I'm your neighbor.”

Mike is perturbed. Is this guy going to repeat everything he says? But he decides God asked him to do it, so he'll just get to the point.

Mike: “Do you know who Jesus is?”

Norman : Do you know who Jesus is? (sigh)

Mike: “Did you ever think about asking Jesus to be your Savior and your Lord?”

Mike of course expected Norman to continue repeating every word. But Norman studies him for a long moment, quits eating ice cream, and says,

“I've given it serious consideration.”

Mike was so stunned, he literally didn't know what to do. In fact, he just went back to his family and sat down! (Note: this is not a “how to” story for evangelism!) But it is the start of a journey, and Norman does come to faith. And in many ways, Mike does too.

God's servant is surprising. Not much to look at. Not carefully manicured, not wearing the right suit, doesn't have the right initials after his name, not a good pedigree, and his reputation in the community has been trashed. He's a little bit of an embarrassment. God would speak through this person?

With this passage, it now becomes harder for me to link this Servant of God with a particular historical person from ancient Israel. And at the same time, he really begins to bear very striking resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus seems to have been a surprise to many around him. He “grew up” in most likely a blue collar family and job, maybe even a poor one for his day. He wasn't born into royalty or power or political heritage of any kind. His arrival was mostly trumpeted by poor rural shepherds, his birth a mysterious one that somehow smacked of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and his parents ended up fleeing as illegal immigrants. Who would have guessed?

If God was going to use someone as a Servant, wouldn't he get someone who could write and give a speech, who looked good on TV, who had a chance of getting elected to office? Someone who was or at least could be an influential person.

It didn't happen with Jesus. As Mel Gibson's movie has so vividly focused us lately, on Jesus' way to the cross his appearance will become marred, people will be ashamed to look at him, he will be despised and rejected, a man of suffering, acquainted with infirmity, people held him to be of no account. Who would have thought God would use someone like this?

Jesus said,

“If you want to be great…become a servant…The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.”

If we want to follow after Christ, if we want to imitate Christ, He calls us to be servants as well. Now, most days, I'm up for that. I want to follow. I at least pay lip service to being a servant. But the thing is, I want to define what that looks like. And generally, I'd call it a “ servanthood of moderation.”

• Lord, I'll invest in people I'm uncomfortable with…just don't let it be Norman.
• Lord, I'll give away my time…as long as it doesn't impinge on what I want to do.
• Lord, I'll go out in public with a cross on my forehead. As long as it's just that one Wednesday night a year.
• Lord, I'll share about you with other people, just let me pick the spots.
• And Lord…don't let my neighbors think I'm some kind of fanatic, I want to be liked.

The thing is, Jesus asks us to be His kind of servant. To imitate Him. And what Jesus teaches is a servanthood of no moderation.

Did you notice here in Isaiah how most of the description of the servant of God is built around how other people respond to him? People will be astonished because of the shock of how he looks, startled by the new thing God will do in him, incredulous that God would use someone from such a background, people would not look at him, or be drawn to him. In fact, they would despise him and hold him “of no account.”

But in Jesus' kind of servanthood, how people respond to him does not change his mission. Suffering does not deter him. Rejection will not paralyze him. Being unaccepted by people around him, even disagreed with, even despised…does not make him change his mission. He is still concerned with (Isaiah 42 & 49) setting things right, with bringing people back to God. And whether he is healing someone, or teaching in a crowd or carrying the cross, he pursues that servanthood.

What would it look like for us to follow Christ in a way that isn't based on how other people might react to us? It gets pretty personal pretty quickly doesn't it? I don't know if you noticed, but this Isaiah passage gets personal pretty quickly as well. Three times in the last verse and a half, the voice suddenly changes to we. So we'll have to insert ourselves:

• WE are not drawn to look at the Servant
• WE do not desire him
• WE held him of no account

Two weeks from now we will sit here and wonder how it is that we would find ourselves shouting, “Crucify Him!” But thank God that even that does not stop God's Servant, Jesus Christ, from carrying out his mission. He is the Servant. And he calls us to imitate Him, to be servants. Who would have guessed it?

At the very end of John Bunyan's classic from the 17th century, The Pilgrim's Progress, one of the characters, Mr. Stand-Fast, sums up his life like this:

“I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of,
and wherever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot too.”

As we see the footprints of Jesus, may God give us the eyes to see his surprising work in our lives, and the courage to follow after him. Amen.