Tag Archives: Lent

OT Lectionary Jan 12th The Baptism of Christ Is 42:1-9

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OT Lectionary – a weekly series of devotional thoughts on the OT reading for next Sunday.

 

The Sunday after Epiphany is traditionally the time to remember Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan by John. Baptism is one of the most undervalued and misunderstood of the things Jesus left for us: as one brought up in the Baptist Church who only later became an Anglican I have had to do a complete rethink of my theology of baptism. So how can our passage from Isaiah speak to us today?

Chapter 42 is the first of four ‘Servant Songs’ which appear in this section of Isaiah, and just about every theological student has had to write an essay on who exactly the ‘Servant’ was or is. Indeed this was the very question raised by the Ethiopian official in Acts 8. The consensus is that the Servant is the idealised nation of Israel, not weak, beaten down and exiled as she was at the time but renewed, powerful and fulfilling her destiny given by God to be a light to the whole world. The previous chapter of Isaiah talks about this. So this first Servant Song has parallels with the baptism which launched Jesus into public ministry as the one who fulfilled par excellence the role of ‘Servant’.

The passage tells us about the Servant’s ministry, but also about the way that ministry will be carried out, and the basis from which it will be carried out. The first four verses explain the teaching ministry which is about justice and encouragement, and the passage goes on to explain that it will be an international ministry aimed at freedom and illumination for those in darkness.

So what is this freedom fighter’s style? To a nation used to the harsh cries of Babylonian taskmasters (which no doubt echoed in the collective memory with those of Egyptian taskmasters hundreds of years earlier) the prophet explains that the Servant’s ministry will be gentle in style, encouraging in nature and with a bias towards those unable to help themselves. This is not the style of a zealot or rabble-rouser, but rather a leader more interested in winning hearts than battles.

On what basis, then, is this ministry to be carried out? The answer is that it is a divine calling. God, through the prophet, labours his credentials: he is the creator, responsible single-handedly for the world and all its people: he is the God who alone is worthy of all honour, and who, just to prove the point, is the only ‘god’ able to predict the future. So you don’t argue with him, right? Springing from this God is the calling to the Servant, the one whom he has chosen, in whom he delights, and whom he will uphold, giving him his Spirit to empower him.

Jesus at his baptism clearly fulfils this passage, and no doubt had it in his mind. As the Father tears open heaven and declares audibly his love and favour for his Son, Jesus is launched into his public ministry of teaching and salvation for all. But the whole point of this story is that the fulfilment doesn’t end with Jesus: our calling as his church, the ‘Israel of God’, is to be Christ’s body here on earth now, continuing the Servant’s ministry. And just as our calling is the same, so is our style and its basis. Today challenges us to reconsider, and maybe to recommit ourselves to, our own baptism and the calling and ministry to which it signed us up.

OT Lectionary Christmas 2 Isaiah 60:1-6

‘Now what?’

Realistically it may well be that the references to gold, incense, and, to a lesser extent, camels, have led to this passage being set for Epiphany, which no doubt many churches will be celebrating this Sunday. It is easy to see how the visit of the Magi to the young Jesus could be found here. But in its original context this passage is probably addressed to Israel newly returned from exile and asking the question ‘Now what?’

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I’ve spent the Christmas holidays reading David Bosch’s magisterial Transforming Mission, where he traces the paradigm shifts that the church has undergone down the years in its understanding of just what it is supposed to be doing in terms of mission. What became clear to me was that in our changing thinking we have got it wrong far more than we have got it right. This passage is, I believe, a challenge to Israel to think bigger, to rediscover their original calling, and to go for nothing less than world domination!

I’ve never lived in exile, but I guess if you do the one thing which preoccupies you is getting out and getting home. You live, eat, breathe and sleep both hope and disappointment. But if you do finally make it back to where you belong, the question ‘What next?’ must be a huge one. It can’t take long for the novelty to wear off, and the Israel of the time of these final chapters of Isaiah has the feel of a somewhat disillusioned, purposeless and nominal bunch of people. Haggai suggests to us that in the absence of anything more exciting to occupy themselves, people simply turned to DIY and home improvements.

So the prophet brings them what in years to come would be the message of Epiphany, that God is for everyone, and not just ‘PLUs’ (‘people like us’). God chose Israel to be the waiters and waitresses of the eternal banquet to the gentile guests, but so often they had simply been content to sit and eat themselves. This passage calls them to something bigger and better: they must become those to whom all the nations would come, seeking wisdom, seeking light in their darkness, and in turn bringing tribute and praise to their God. When the Magi came to visit the infant Christ this process started as for the first time those outside the Jewish nation brought their worship to Christ.

This is therefore an incredibly challenging passage to a church in a time of marginalisation. It seems crazy to suggest that David Cameron might ring up the Archbishop of Canterbury and say ‘Tell me what to do, O Man of God, about unemployment, or the recession, or crime or people-trafficking’. My guess is that ++Justin would be pretty near the bottom of his speed-dial list. But what a vision! A church alive with the wisdom of God, receiving tribute from those who had finally come to see how much they needed us. A church winning the respect of those who had previously had no time at all for us.

Is that how it should be? Some would claim that the church is at its best when vulnerable, weak and marginalised. After all, a crucified Messiah isn’t much to write home about. But I believe we have at Epiphany a picture of something which may for now be only a dream, but which is in God’s purposes for his people: a victorious church receiving the tributes of the nations.

OT Lectionary Christmas 1 Isaiah 63:7-9

One of the things about the Anglican lectionary with which some people feel really unhappy is the practice of ‘filleting’ or cutting out verses or paragraphs, usually because they are not ‘nice’. The church has an amazing ability to want to make everything lovely, so verses about dashing children’s heads against the rocks aren’t quite the sort of thing we want to read during Evensong. Christmas is a great time for this, being the time of ‘peace on earth, goodwill towards men’ (or, as the text actually says, ‘goodwill to those on whom God’s favour rests’, which is a very different thing.

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Today’s OT reading is a song of praise to God for all his goodness to Israel, for his kindness in choosing them and saving them. He has recognised in them a people who will be faithful to him, and he has been good to them through good times and bad. When things went badly for them, he felt their distress and acted in their favour. He truly is a great God to them. It doesn’t take much to see why this passage in chosen in the aftermath of Christmas, when we celebrate again the kindness of the God who has felt our distress, chosen to step into our world and save us, acted for our salvation, and invited us into relationship with him. But then the compliers of the lectionary, in their wisdom, stop there, rather than going on to verse 10:

Yet they rebelled
    and grieved his Holy Spirit.
So he turned and became their enemy
    and he himself fought against them.

It seems to me that this is one of the central dilemmas of preaching and living the Christian faith: we do try to make it a lot nicer than it actually is. Today in my cathedral (well not mine, just the one I go to) they will be celebrating the martyrdom of Thomas a Becket, martyred in 1170). Yesterday was the celebration of the Holy Innocents, the ‘collateral damage’ children slaughtered by Herod around the time of Jesus’ birth. I have rarely found churches who did anything about this festival: after all it kind of spoils the mood of Christmas a bit, doesn’t it?

But the truth of today’s passage is a truth which runs deeply through the biblical record at all levels: God’s kindness demands a response. The reason there is still not peace on earth or goodwill to all is that human beings have chosen war and cruelty instead. God can be kind to us until he is blue in the face but unless we respond positively to him it will be worth nothing. And perhaps we need to hear that particularly during the time of greatest sentimentality, and resist the temptation to make the good news nicer than it actually is, or God kinder than he actually it.