Second Sunday after Epiphany: Old Testament, Isaiah 49:1-7                         

Isaiah 49:1-7

There’s something quite uncomfortable about seeing our Savior as our Servant. He washes feet. He coddles little ones on His lap. He waits on tables. He does it all. But the servant role of Israel’s Messiah, our Messiah, is infinitely more. In Isaiah, sometimes referred to as “the Fifth Evangelist,” we hear a call and response to service.

Isaiah 49:6 is a  delightful word from the Lord. Here is what Isaiah reports, “he (God) says: ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’” In God’s mission for His Servant-Messiah (who is God), there is fullness of joy because the extent of it is FULL. Full in the sense that it is for all. No one is excluded. No national boundaries. Nothing to keep the reach of redemption from anyone.

God’s Servant-Messiah serves us all. Willingly. Mercifully. Completely. And I’m learning that I must let Him be what His God, and our God, calls Him to be.