Isaiah 42:1-4

The Qualified One

Isa 42:1-4

Here is a man with a great qualification. Can we add to these qualifications? Is there any omission of power, honour, supreme spiritual quality? Is this man equally strong at every point? Or is he like ourselves characterised by some strong points and humiliated by some points of weakness? Is he strong throughout? And is it mere strength, which people may admire, but cannot love? Or is it a condescending strength? Is it marked by tenderness and sympathy, by pity and by love? The qualification is certainly large "my servant;" some say, "my son" yet a servant. Jesus Christ thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet he made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant. He is described as the servant of God, and of men. He himself said, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." He is not a man of clear and weighty judgment who sees nothing of honour even in the word "servant." Ill times have befallen us if we attach to that word nothing but the idea of humiliation, lowness, valueless-ness. That word must be restored to its right place in human intercourse. If any man proudly rise and say he is not servant, there is a retort, not of human invention, which might overwhelm any who are not swallowed up of self-conceit and self-idolatry. We do not know what it is to rule until we know what it is to serve. Let no one, therefore, be affrighted from this text as from a Messianic prophecy because the word "servant" finds a place here where the word "son" would seem to be more in harmony with the descent, the prerogative, and the majesty of Christ And supper being ended, he rose, and girded himself with a towel, and washed the disciples' feet, and said, Do the same with one another. Thus did he dignify service; thus did he prepare the servant for becoming the friend: henceforth I call you not "servants," but "friends." Yet the higher title could not have been conferred had not the lower ministry been fulfilled with faithfulness. That is the point to be observed. "He that is faithful, in few things, shall be made ruler over many things." "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Thus we must go, and by no fancy way of our own, escaping humiliation, and toil, and difficulty, and self-immolation, and tremendous danger, but passing through the whole process patiently, lovingly, loyally, and with the eternal hopefulness which belongs to trust and rectitude. Even if the words in their first signification apply to Cyrus or to some other historical character, they find their fullest realisation in the Son of God. There is no reason why intermediate meanings should be withheld; let them be broadly acknowledged, and let all human rewards be assigned that they may be enjoyed by those who are entitled to them; but all these recognitions of passing merit, of transient greatness, need not prevent our fixing our eyes upon him in whom all prophecy culminates, and by whom all prophecy is glorified.

"Whom I uphold," others say, "on whom I lean;" such contradictions may we find without any real contrariety of meaning. The sayings of Jesus Christ are full of such contradiction; but we live progressively until we are able ourselves to reconcile them, and say with exulting thankfulness, Now we know what the Lord meant when he said such and such words. Once he said, "I and my Father are one," and once he said "My Father is greater than I:" the grammar puzzled us, we thought we had discovered a discrepancy; but we see how both statements may be true. God may uphold his servant, and God may lean upon his servant; thus accommodating himself to the uses of the narrowest human language. "Mine elect," my own choice, the very man I want; not a man who has come by chance, or through a series of uncalculated events, but one who bears the stamp of eternity; the companion of my soul in ages which lie beyond all human reckoning. "In whom my soul delighteth." In what does the soul of the musician delight? In harmony, in perfectness of co-operation and action, in sweet rhythms. In what does the soul of the artist rejoice? In proportion, in colour, in significance, in infinite suggestions that are not patent to the common gaze. In what does the soul of the teacher delight? In intellectual progress, in mental virility, in the outleading of the mind, in the expansion of mental capacity; not so much in the storing of information as in the quickening of the mind, a quickening amounting to a species of inspiration, certainly to a definite hunger and thirst for the larger truth nay, for wisdom herself in all her completeness and beauty. By these analogies we may come to some apprehension of what is meant by the soul of God delighting in his servant, because the servant fulfils all God's purpose, is equal to the whole human occasion, is qualified with every instrument, faculty, power needful for the execution of a beneficent design. "I have put my spirit upon him:" I have crowned him; if he be represented by a pillar, square, massive, lofty, faultless in perpendicular, he is crowned with the spirit; or, I have put my spirit within him; so that within and without he is fully furnished; he says nothing of his own invention "The words that I have heard speak I unto you." Said Christ in effect I have lain upon the bosom of the Father and heard the beating of his heart; I have understood the meaning of his breathing; I have come to reveal him, to tell you what he told me, to make known unto you the very thought and purpose of God.

But for what end was this qualification originated and established? The answer is in the first verse: "He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." It was a moral purpose; things were to be rectified. It was not that he might sing a new poetry, fascinate the ear of the world with new strains of music, take his seat among the learned and the wise, and propound to them riddles and problems which would perplex them. Christ's coming was distinctive in its purpose and limit. It was a moral issue. He came to set the foundations of things right, in straight courses. He might have come upon a more dazzling mission as viewed from a strictly worldly point. He came to deal with the heart of the world, with the judgment of men, with the inner life, with the very soul of society. Nor was this morality limited in its range by any ethnic lines or purely geographical boundaries. Jesus Christ came to shed light upon the whole earth. Jew and Gentile were terms that were to be abolished in all their narrowest significance, and the term Man was to be established as descriptive of the human race. All accidental separations and differences and collisions were to be done away, and all men, in all time, in all the world, were to recognise that they had a common father in God.

But this qualification, though great, is not the whole qualification which is assigned to the Servant and Son of God. He was not only great in positive power, he was equally great in restraint, in self-control. There is a negative qualification, as well as a qualification that is distinctively positive; and Jesus Christ combined both qualifications. Let us read what he shall not do:

"He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street" ( Isa 42:2 ).

He is not a debater; he does not belong to the society of men who walk up and down in the open square, called the "street," or agora, or the market-place, saying, Who will talk with me today? What shall we debate? My sword is ready, who will fence? He does not belong to the word gladiator; from that school he abstains. There were men who delighted in controversy in the open squares of the city. Such controversy took the place of modern literature, morning journals, and the means of publicity of every kind, open to modern society. Jesus Christ spoke whisperingly to hearts. Men had to incline their ear to hear him. He was no blatant controversialist, making rude noises in the air, but a speaker of music that could only be heard in all its plaintiveness, in all its minor tone of sweetest love, by the listening heart. No public wrestler or gladiator was the Son of God. He did not exclaim, nor lift up, nor make an uproar in the public places of the city. This gives to his occasional exclamation great emphasis and clearness. Who could speak like Jesus Christ, when it suited the occasion that he should make his voice heard? "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." Then his voice was heard afar off. Men who had heard human voices all their lifetime turned to see the speaker who uttered himself in tones so lofty and gracious. The characteristic, however, of the Gospel is that it approaches men; so to say, surrounds them, fascinates them, draws upon itself their attention and their confidence by a wondrous power of quietness: it comes not with blare of trumpet or with throb of drum, but as a still small voice, a speaker that would speak to you alone and hold the heart in sweet intercourse when no third party is present; it was the way of the Cross.

"A bruised reed shall he not break" ( Isa 42:3 ).

Mere power would have broken it. Where there is great self-control there is, however, more than mere strength; it is calculated power, it is adapted energy, it is regulated force; there is nothing rude, violent, overwhelming about it; when it descends it comes with the quietness of light that imponderable, wondrous beam that comes down to fight the night, and smites it with a silent stroke, so that the night is no more seen; all heaven rejoices in gracious brilliance. Political economy breaks bruised reeds. Science of a certain kind says, We must lay down a law of the survival of the fittest, and if the reeds are broken, throw them away. Jesus Christ says: Throw nothing away: let us work for the saving of every life, and see that we work so carefully, with so critical a love and patience that we lose nothing at last, but the son of perdition, the son of waste, the child that must go home to the devil. Let us have no rough-and-ready treatment, however, of human life, but let us examine and separate, and encourage and cheer, and do what we can, for we are bound to save the last atom; then if we cannot save it, we must own what we have lost: Father, I have lost none, but the son of perdition. He did not want to lose any, he did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. If men will not be saved, even the Son of God cannot save them. To force a man into heaven is not to fill him with peace and joy; it is to violate the harmony which he cannot appreciate. "A bruised reed," say some, an instrument called a reed was meant, and there was a rift in it, which spoiled the music. Jesus Christ said, we must repair this; something must be done with this reed; it was meant for music and we must look at it with that end in view. He does not take it, saying, There is a rift in the lute, and the music is impossible; rend it and throw it away. He always looks to see if a man cannot be made somewhat better. He would heal us every one. Say to him, O Bruised Reed, if I may but touch the hem of thy garment, even my life reed shall be healed, and I will take up God's music again, and be glad in God's house. Or "a bruised reed" may mean that wild beasts in rushing through to the water, or from the flood, have crushed the growing plants, so that they are bent, they no more stand upright; but Jesus Christ comes to heal them and to restore them. "And the smoking flux shall he not quench:" he will not put his foot upon it; he will rather take it up and shake it, as he only can shake, bringing a little more air to bear upon it, and still a little more, but so gradually; see how the spark whitens, how it leaps up into a kind of new life; now watch him how he regulates the shaking, and see how that which we thought was only a smoke becomes a flame, bright as fire, useful as a torch, and how it is handed on to the aid of other men.

He has his still greater qualification the qualification of eternal hopefulness. That is where so many teachers fail, but this Man shall not fail nor be discouraged till he hath done the work. Sometimes he nearly turned round. We have seen Jesus Christ himself almost driven to despair. He could not do many mighty works here, or there, because of the people's unbelief. Still, he did not resign the work; he persevered. How many of us have resigned our position given it up because we have felt discouraged beyond the power of sustenance, so that we could no longer bear the weight or live in the darkness. Thus we have been less than Christ, as we must ever be; but we have not been of the quality of Christ, which we may always be. "He shall not fail nor be discouraged: "he shall not wink his eyes or knit his brow as if he were in fatal perplexity, saying in effect, I have come upon something I cannot manage, or control, or direct; I am bewildered; and see how his face is wrinkled up into an expression of absolute dejection. Is there a wrinkle on that shining countenance? It does not mean discouragement; it was ploughed on the face by grief, but it shall yet vanish in light. Herein is the hope and herein is the confidence of the Church. Whoever resigns the evangelisation of the world, Jesus Christ is pledged to carry it forward. Were men to set themselves against him he would say, This can be but temporary: if ye hold your peace, the very stones will cry out; if ye are the children of Abraham, and all turn away from me, I tell you God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. Thus we renew our courage; thus we rekindle our hope; thus we replenish our inspiration. Where is there a Christian teacher who would not sometimes willingly withdraw from the whole service, Because, he says, the wall of hindrance is heaven-high, and I cannot advance; my prayers seem to have come back in nothingness, all my labour has ended in vanity; I have piped, but my piping has not been answered by the dance of delight; I have mourned, no sufferer has blended his tears with mine; all day long have I stretched out my hands, and no man has regarded me?

A singular contrast may be established here as between the attitude of the Old Testament and the attitude of the New in regard to the salvation of the human race. In the Old Testament God seems to be continually withdrawing from the work. He says, It repents me that I have made man. And again he says to the heavens and to the earth, Ye may well be astonished, for amazement has filled my own heart, that I should have brought up children, and they have rebelled against me; though Moses and Samuel were to plead with me for this people, I would not hear even these great intercessors; my whole soul recoils from their ingratitude: I can no longer maintain my relation to this rebellious race. No such voice is heard in the New Testament. Mere deity (if we may so express ourselves) is not the same as deity incarnate, set in direct sympathetic relation with human life and human need. "Jesus wept." That is the infinite secret of the steadfastness of his love. If he had been a majesty only, he would have spurned those who sought to oppose him; but he was a Saviour, he was the Son of God, and therefore he bore all injury; when he was reviled he reviled not again, for it would have been loss of dignity and loss of love, and disqualification of himself for his sublime ministry. All time spent in reviling is time taken away from saving. He gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; and still he thought he could save the world. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. When the fight is over, there will be but one conqueror, and his name shall be Immanuel, Secret, Counseller, Jesus of Nazareth.

All this great qualification, positive and negative, and all this power to sustain discouragement and turn it into inspiration, is found in connection with a purpose to save the Gentiles, to enlighten "the isles," to bring in the very race represented by ourselves. Thus Christ comes near to us. He is not a Saviour of the Jew only, but of the Gentile; he does not operate within the four corners of any chosen country, but on the whole world and through all the generations of men and time. This is the distinctive characteristic of the Gospel. It goes from its starting-place; it says it will not return, except bringing sheaves with it; it says: I will begin at Jerusalem, but I will go forward until I have touched every land and every island, and have translated myself into every speech, and have created speech and civilisation; and I shall come back again, and Zion shall be the praise and joy of the whole earth.

What is our response to this grand purpose? Do we doubt the qualification of Christ, God's Servant, God's upheld One, God's Elect, the Man in whom God's soul delighted, the Man upon whom the Spirit of God rested? To doubt Christ is to doubt God. Let us cast ourselves upon him. Let the isles say unto him: Blessed Son of God, thou didst care for us. Let the Gentiles say to him: Saviour of the world, when there was no man to help us we heard of thy Name, and thou didst speak to us as one who was mighty to save. If we ourselves have tested the qualifications of Christ, let us preach the Gospel to every creature.