When did your life of service begin? Chances are you were given chores around the house: washing dishes, cleaning your room, cutting the lawn, or shoveling snow.
When I was old enough to help out, I was given the chore of feeding and taking care of calves. My job with a newborn started in teaching a calf how to drink milk from a pail. I would straddle the calf between my legs, and get the calf to suck my finger as I dipped its nose into the nutrient-dense first milk of colostrum.
This was a challenge as a full body exercise. The calf is instinctively led to keep its neck and head arched high, so you have to push its head into the pail level to the milk. It requires a lot of patience while other calves are trying to muscle in on the action. Worst case scenario was when the calf was instinctively led to bunt. That’s when milk went flying: in my face, up my arm, or down my rubber boots. All goes well, though, when the calf starts drinking milk on its own, while surreptitiously removing the finger from its mouth.
I will not soon forget those days. It was quite a chore of service, as a servant, but it all happened for a purpose. To further domesticate cattle to enjoy butter on our toast or milk with our oatmeal. Does God choose to domesticate us from our instinctively wild ways to be of service for Him?
Servant language flows through Isaiah’s prophecy, and for the most part, the servant refers to the nation of Israel. They were to be God’s chosen envoy to the world. And, it was not because of anything noteworthy that God set his love on them.
Let’s, though, recall the crying over spilled milk. God’s love was spurned. They bunted the pail, and everything went flying. God tried to get the nation Israel to drink from the rich milk of His care, love and protection. They chose otherwise. Why bend your neck and drink from the pail, when you can arch your neck, to run and seize whatever you want?
Their story is our story. We face the consequences of our sin when we run wild, refusing to be domesticated by God’s Word of life. And besides, we face the inevitable hardship aside from the ruin caused by heinous acts of rebellion. All we want to do is drink of the goodness of God’s created world, but then something (or someone) spills the milk.
19th century Pastor F.B. Meyer wrote in saying: “If I am told that I am to take a journey that is a dangerous trip, every jolt along the way reminds me that I am on the right road.”
Are you feeling the jolts along the way? This fallen world is a dangerous trip. Do you know frustration, defeat, or discouragement?
Then, what do you do when you feel bruised with a broken body, heart, or soul? Then, what do you do when snagged in the thorns and brambles of your wild and sinful rebellion? Then, what do you do when snuffed out and exasperated by your own dangerous trip?
Remember your baptism. There the old Adam (the old Eve) of your undomesticated self is drowned away, as you’re tied to Jesus’ death. There you arise forgiven and immaculate, as you’re tied to Jesus’ resurrection (Romans 6:4).
All because Isaiah proclaimed: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations” (Isaiah 42:1).
Who is this servant? The context changes in Isaiah’s prophecy. The personal language points to an individual. It’s Jesus, of whom our heavenly Father stated at His baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
Jesus is pristine in His humility in being THE Servant for you. To do this – He felt the jolt of rejection. It was a dangerous trip. He became the reed that was not merely crushed, but broken. His wick was extinguished when He gave up His spirit. But in rising from the dead He led “justice to victory” FOR you and IN you. All of this is yours because of your baptism into Jesus.
You then embody God’s redemptive intention. By the indwelling of the Holy Spirit you embody God’s intent to redeem the world through your transformation and witness. Jesus chooses to domesticate a wild world by shining through you, His servants.
Thanks be to you, Lord Jesus. •
— By Pastor Neil Stern
Grace Lutheran Church, Edmonton