HTC Epiphany 2, Isaiah 49:1-7, John 1:29-42: “New light, new hope II”

HTC Epiphany 2, 15 January 2017

Isaiah 49:1-7, John 1:29-42: “New light, new hope II”

Our OT passage is a prophecy by Isaiah, and our NT passage describes its surprising fulfilment in a way that captures the very essence of our Christian faith. To help explore this, notice how the person in the OT prophecy is presented as Hidden, Humble, and then Highly Exalted. To keep track, we’ll borrow from the design of the classic Morris Minor 1000 estate (the family car when I was a kid – mother, father, six kids all squashed together!) and use a table arranged like a split wind-screen (but I’ll add a third column for the impact on us today)

	Isaiah 49:1-7	John 1:29-42	Impact
Hidden
Humble
Highly Exalted

Hidden

Isaiah 49:2 pictures God as a highly skilled hunter, hiding a special arrow reserved in the quiver, carefully polished to fly as straight as possible, kept back for some supremely important time. This, Isaiah says, is how God holds his chosen person in reserve, hidden away till the crucial time. John 1:32-33 shows the remarkable way in which this comes true in Jesus Christ. There’s John the Baptist, baptizing huge crowds in the river Jordan. John says, he has no idea whatsoever that Jesus is the Messiah. To him, Jesus is just another young tradesman, one of thousands there to be baptized. John the Baptist has no clue that there is anything special about Jesus till – somehow – John sees the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove. However it happened, this sign is John’s only clue that Jesus is far more than just one young man in a crowd.

Impact: Jesus is not some kind of superman. He does not have special superpowers. He does not stand head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. He is just like us – just like us except without sin. No magic tricks. (What about all those healing miracles of His, you ask? Jesus makes it crystal clear, these arise not from special powers but through relationship, through the way in which Jesus lines up with the purposes of God. See for example John 5:19, John 14:10)

If the Son of God can be just like us, then that means that the new way of life He offers is not forever and eternally out of our reach. It is not some impossible dream. We may feel lost, out of touch with God, no hope of finding meaning in our life; but Jesus tells us we are redeemable, just as we are. We don’t have to pretend to be anything other than ourselves. Jesus the carpenter knows how to fix our broken lives.

	Isaiah 49:1-7	John 1:29-42	Impact
Hidden	Hidden in quiver	One in the crowd	No need to pretend
Humble
Highly Exalted

Humble

In Isaiah 49:4 the chosen one describes how their God-appointed task results in fruitless labour, but says that nevertheless they are content simply to fit into God’s plan. And in other accounts of Jesus’ baptism (for example, Matthew 3:13-15), we see Jesus insisting on being treated just like everyone else. Jesus our Lord and God does not play high and mighty. When there’s a job to be done, He steps forward. At the end of the day, when his friends have bruised and filthy feet from a day on the road, he picks up the basin of water and acts as a humble servant would do. Jesus came to be one with us, and that means we can choose to be one with Him. That’s my Lord. That’s the one I want to follow. That’s the King to whom I owe my service.

Impact: Jesus is the friend of sinners (Matthew 11:19). He is not too proud to be seen as my Saviour, as your Saviour. He gives everything for us, even up to dying to set us free (hinted at in John 1:29, 36: Lamb of God). Even when I’ve given up on myself, Jesus has not given up on me.

It can be difficult to accept this humility. In particular it means, Jesus saves us; we are not able to save ourselves. Jesus is not waiting for us to qualify ourselves by acquiring sufficiently many experience points: He is ready to accept us right now. He is not too proud to be seen as my Saviour – I’d better not be too proud to let Him save me. 

	Isaiah 49:1-7	John 1:29-42	Impact on me
Hidden	Hidden in quiver	One in the crowd	No need to pretend
Humble	Fits into God’s plan	Submits to baptism	He dies for my sake
Highly Exalted

Highly Exalted

Isaiah 49:6 says that the chosen one will be massively promoted by God! Not only will He bring Israel back to God but He will fulfil the old promise made to Abraham (Genesis 22:18), to be a light to rescue all the world’s peoples, bringing us all into full salvation. Isaiah 49:7 says that the chosen one will be exalted to the highest possible place; kings, prime ministers, presidents, despots, dictators, all are brought low and must bow down before the chosen one. And, in John 1:30, John the Baptist marks Jesus out as far greater than him, as God’s chosen one; in John 1:32-34 he says that Jesus is going to do more than baptize with water; Jesus is going to pour out God’s Holy Spirit on all of us. This hidden humble man is our Messiah, the one who will set all things right, the one who can take my humdrum life and use God’s Holy Spirit to make it really special. Jesus Christ is 100% man, but also 100% God.

About “baptizing with the Holy Spirit”. John the Baptist probably thought it meant the Messiah would indeed be some kind of super-hero, some kind of super-prophet like Elijah and Elisha, able to call down searing holy fire from heaven, invincible. But through Jesus we have found that it means something quite different: God the Holy Spirit convincing us of an overwhelming sense of the love of God for us through Jesus Christ; that despite all our failings and failures we are deeply loved, immensely valuable to God; God the Holy Spirit inspiring us and energizing us to attempt the seemingly impossible; God the Holy Spirit strengthening us to stand for truth peacefully and graciously in the face of opposition; to turn our lives upside-down and the right-way-up. This is deeply powerful: it changes nations, empires, worlds. When the Lord Jesus Christ calls me, it is no comfortable life-style accessory. I have to acknowledge my failings, I have to come to that difficult place where I recognize that I am at the end of my resources and cannot help myself. And then His Holy Spirit picks me up, assures me I am completely forgiven because of my loving Lord Jesus who died for me, and gets me started on the path that God has chosen specially for me. And that goes for all of us together as well as for each of us alone; all together we must come to that difficult place where we are at the end of our resources, and depend on our Lord and Saviour to save us and to direct us in the ways God has in mind for us.

Impact: this description of Jesus is an overwhelming combination! Not some superman who is way beyond our reach, not some prince high above our heads, but one of us, our friend, who loves us for ourselves, who dies for us to set us free, who is raised by God, exalted high above all, to a resurrection life He shares with us, our Lord and God who will fill us with His Holy Spirit.

	Isaiah 49:1-7	John 1:29-42	Impact on me
Hidden	Hidden in quiver	One in the crowd	No need to pretend
Humble	Fits into God’s plan	Submits to baptism	He dies for me
Highly Exalted	All bow before him	Fills lives with God’s love	Overwhelming!

The point is this: Jesus Christ is not proud nor high-and-mighty. Jesus Christ is here for us, just as we are. I’m going to say a short prayer from our Common Worship prayerbook as we sit together and think about this. Perhaps you have followed Jesus all your life, Here’s a chance to rest in the knowledge that He accepts you, knows you for who you really are, loves you, accepts you. Perhaps you are feeling stuck: caught in expectations, trapped in feelings of duty. Here’s a chance to tell Him how you feel and ask Him to set you free to know that you are safe and known and loved, just as you are. Perhaps this God-stuff has never made sense to you before, but there’s a small voice saying, maybe there’s something here for me, something that will make sense of my life to me in a way I’ve never know before. Here’s a chance to say, if You are there, God, then please can I meet you? I’d really like to find you for myself.

I’ll say the prayer aloud, you take the time to respond in your hearts however you want. And then just one thing: you may well find it helps to tell someone afterwards how you felt: we are called to make our life journeys together not apart.

Let us pray:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.