Before we go to our sermon text today, let me mention a couple of things.

• Finances. If you’ve been at Bethany much, you know we try not to spend too much time talking in worship about finances. But since you received several updates as the end of 2007 approached, I thought you would want to know: final figures are still being worked up, but it’s clear that we have covered expenses for 2007 and will end the year with a surplus, not a deficit.
  
  That’s wonderful! For the 9th year in a row since I’ve been here, there was an amazing rush of generous giving in the last two weeks of December. I’m really greatful to be in this community that is so diligent to support the ministries that God has called us to. So thank you for that.
  
  
• Next week we will begin a sermon series on the Gospel of Mark I’m calling “Following Jesus.” Most scholars think Mark was the first of the gospels to be written, and so was nearest to the actual time of Christ. Mark is concise, and full of action. We’ll be sitting with it for much of 2008, and so will have a chance to follow Jesus from start to finish.
  
  Compared to the other gospels, Mark will also focus us a bit more on who Jesus was and what he did, not just what he said. It’s a very rich text, and we’ll try to have the following week’s text in the bulletin each week so that you can read ahead. For next week, I’d encourage you to read Mark 1:1-13.

So. Today. Don’t turn there yet, but for this one day we’re going to peek into the Old Testament book Isaiah. In Isaiah, there are 4 passages, often referred as the “Servant Songs,” found in Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 52-53. They come at a point in the book of Isaiah where message seems to be filtering through that the special role and mission of God’s people, Israel…is being recast.

Instead of the nation of Israel, who has failed over and over and over again to act like God’s people, the mission now seems to be focused onto one figure, one person: God’s Servant. A Messiah. The book of Isaiah, in fact, is sometimes referred to as “The Fifth Gospel,” because of how clearly and frequently it points to the Messiah.

As we read this morning the first 9 verses of chapter 42, I want you to listen for two things. The first 4 verses are things that God says about this servant and the next 5 verses are things that God says to this servant.

Read Isaiah 42:1-9.

It’s 1941, and the Nazis are occupying much of Europe, including Belgium. Allied planes, mostly British at this point, fly over the Low Countries frequently on bombing missions and are shot down regularly, with pilots bailing out by parachute and landing in the fields of Belgium. When they get to the ground, it is imperative that they disappear before Nazi soldiers find them.

Jack Newton was a 21-year-old pilot when this happened to him. Fortunately, he was taken in by some Belgian people, hidden and then secretly passed through safe houses of the Belgian resistance. He heard about an escape line called “the Comet” that was evacuating trapped Allied soldiers, in this case from Belgium into occupied France and then into neutral Spain, a journey of 600 miles of trains, border crossings and a trek over the mountains.

It was very dangerous, but Newton and 2 companions were told the leader of this Comet line would be personally escorting them and was on their way to meet them. “Must be quite a guy,” one of the men said. “I’ll bet he’s got some stories to tell.”

You can imagine their surprise when a young woman of 24 who looked 18 and weighed about 100 pounds strolled into the room in a flowered dress and white ankle socks. She introduced herself as “Dedee.” After she had made arrangements to begin their journey the next day and left, one of the men said, in disbelief: “Our lives…depend on a schoolgirl.” The next day they followed her into a swift-moving river and swam to the other side to start their escape.

“Andree De Jongh” helped hundreds and hundreds of trapped allied soldiers like Jack Newton return to safety, to wives and families. But when she showed up with the very first group after such an ardous journey at the British consulate in Spain, the British officials didn’t believe her story.

She personally escorted 118 people to freedom in Spain. Eventually she was caught by the Germans in 1943 and interrogated 20 times. Finally, in order to save a number of other people, she confessed that she was the mastermind behind the Comet line, and had set up the entire network. The German soldiers scoffed at her confession. “Don’t be ridiculous,” they told her. By the time the Gestapo was ready to take her seriously, she had melted into one of the concentration camps and they couldn’t identify her. She just died this last fall.

The trapped soldiers, the British consulate, the Germans all made the same mistake. Dedee was not the leader they were expecting. Something new was happening and they couldn’t see it.

“What will this servant, this Messiah be like?” is the question that Isaiah 42 seems to answer first. I suspect it is not at all what people had in mind for their Messiah, their divinely appointed leader. Now, this is the politicking season, with seemingly dozens of people striving to be the president of the U.S. Or the President of Kenya. Or the leader of many other places.

I’m already tired of the campaign rhetoric, personally. But this morning as we look at the way God describes His Servant in Isaiah 42, I invite you to set the characteristics of the leaders or potential leaders in our world right now beside these of the Servant.

I think it will become quickly apparent that in his Servant, God is doing a new thing. Here is what God says:

- “Here…is my chosen, in whom my soul delights,” God begins. Notice how similar this actually sounds to the voice of God that breaks out at a baptism in the Jordan River about 30 AD: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

- My servant will have my spirit upon him.

- He will focus on justice, on setting things right.

- He will reach out to the nations, far reaches (coastlands). The Servant is not provincial, but universal.

- He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street (that is, he doesn’t bring justice by yelling, by outshouting other voices, or by advertising himself. There is a character of humility).

- He will not break a bruised reed, nor quench a dimly burning wick.

These are not descriptions we use much. But a bruised or battered reed is too weak as a support for a building, or a table, or much of anything. Once it’s bent, it’s useless. And a wick that smolders is almost out, it’s too far gone to be much good. It’s tired. This Servant, then, will minister to the useless and the tired. The poor and the weak will not be crushed, or taken advantage of.

- And finally, the Servant will stick it out, endure in order to accomplish God’s purposes of justice.

The delight of God. God’s Spirit upon him. Focused on justice. Gaze fastened on all the world. Not loud or flashy or self-promoting. Ministering to those others call useless and tired. Sticking to the task, no matter what the cost.

The servant, the Messiah is something different than what was expected. Something new is going on.

And what is the mission God gives to the Servant?

• to be a covenant to the people.
• to be a light to the nations.
• an eye-opener to the blind.
• a liberator for those in prison.
• a light-bringer to those in darkness.

The agreement, the covenant that God had made in calling Israel had been broken many, many times by the people. But rather than destroy it, God chooses to renew it and actually expand it in the servant. Through the witness of God’s people, not just Israel but the nations will know God. Outsiders will become insiders.

This is far more, far bigger than was expected. God is up to something. Opening hearts and minds, abolishing darkness, freeing those trapped. Something new is going on.

It’s something far more ambitious than any politician I’ve heard or any leader I’ve read about, far more comprehensive, far more global, far more personal.

So, who? Who is this servant, this Messiah? Many people have asked the question down through the years. One was a man from Ethiopia in the first century. He was a government official, and he had been visiting Jerusalem. As he returned home in a chariot, he was reading one of the other “servant songs” from this part of Isaiah, the part that describes the suffering of the servant to come.

As he reads, he is joined by a man, Philip, an early follower of Jesus and the Ethiopian man asks Philip this exact question: Who is this servant, who is it talking about? Is it Isaiah himself? Or someone else? And Philip, we’re told in Acts chapter 8, begins to tell him the story of the good news of Jesus.

Jesus was not the Messiah people expected. But he certainly fits the description.

The delight of God. God’s Spirit upon him. Focused on justice. Gaze fastened on all the world. Not loud or flashy or self-promoting. Values those others call useless and tired. Enduring for justice. And such a ministry. Listen again:

• a covenant to the people
• a light to the nations
• an eye-opener to the blind
• a liberator for those trapped
• a light-bringer to those in darkness.

This amazing ministry is far beyond what we have ever seen or could ever expect in a leader. Jesus. Servant. Messiah. He was not what people expected, and he didn’t do things the way most wanted him to. Jesus was the beginning of God setting things right.

Now here’s the truly amazing thing to me. This ministry…is to be ours. Yours and mine. We are invited by Christ into the light-bringing, eye-opening, prison-freeing ministry into all the world. We are not Jesus, but we are invited to share in Jesus’ ministry, this new thing God started.

It’s a brand new year. A fresh start, a new chapter has turned over, and I wonder what it will hold for you and me? God is doing a new thing, in us and around us. We live in extraordinary times, and we who are pretty ordinary, have chances each day to participate in extraordinary things, big and small, things of the Kingdom of God. We have a chance to point people to Jesus Christ, whose compassion and forgiveness can bring healing, and a reason for living.

We’ve received many phone calls and emails from friends and ministry partners in Kenya this week. All of the unrest there has turned people against one another, increased tribal sensitivities, opened old wounds, made people suspicious and fearful. Even far away from Nairobi, up on Lake Victoria in Mbita where we have many friends, bands of roving vigilantes have destroyed property, injured, threatened people who were of the wrong party, the wrong tribe.

We received one email that our friends Ezekiel and Lillian, a wonderful couple there, had opened their home to hide and protect people at risk until authorities could take them into safe custody. In doing so they themselves took huge risks, as those who wanted to do violence threatened people who harbored their targets. Ezekiel and Lillian did so anyway. Brought people from fearful outsiders to protected insiders.

Why? I suspect they would shrug and say “it was the right thing to do.” But when I read it I thought, what a testimony to their community. To friends and enemies. God’s doing something new. It’s bigger than politics, bigger than tribalism. It’s the beginning of setting things right. It’s the ministry of Christ. We get to participate.

Now you probably think, “Great story, Dan. But that’s a long ways away, it’s way more dramatic than my life.” Well, there’s a janitor at a company in Seattle, a man who ended up here from Sierra Leone. He carries emotional huge scars from atrocities he lived through in his home country. Because a co-worker simply took the time to ask his story, a door has been opened for God to perhaps bring people and healing into his life. Just because someone asked. Just because they said “I care.” Just because they took the time to listen.

There are people all around you in your life and mine, people trapped and walking in darkness of many kinds. People with whom God wants to do new things, and invites you and I to participate. Will we be able, will we be willing to think in different ways, to see places God is pointing us?

It’s a new year. A fresh start. I love this time of year! Now, as I thought of all this last week, there was a question that I felt God put on my heart. I’m pretty sure it was God, because I tried pretty hard to get rid of it, but it kept coming back. So here it is:

What will we look back on a year from now? In December of 2008, what will we look back on and say about this year? Will we say. “We worked hard on getting more comfortable?” Or…will we invest in ways, big and small in this ministry of Jesus: light in darkness, sight to the blind, healing to the nations, the good news lived out.

“Behold,” God says, “the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.”

Amen.