5 th January: 2 nd Sunday after Christmas

It has often been said that Britain and America are two countries divided by a common language. ¹ Perhaps something similar could be said about Christianity and Judaism: they are two faiths divided by a common heritage in the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible. We listen to the same texts, but draw on different reference points to make sense of the meaning. The net result is a very different understanding of what God might be saying through these words. Of course, that meaning is contested across the Christian community, let alone across the faiths. Even scholars, dedicated to the pursuit of academic truth, cannot agree on their proper meaning, so it is hardly surprising that Christians and Jews have a fundamentally different point of view. We are indeed two communities divided by a common heritage.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the four well-known ‘Servant Songs’ of Second Isaiah. Scholars argue endlessly about the identity of this mysterious figure: is it one person - perhaps a prophet called from birth to the service of God like Samuel or Jeremiah, or someone else like a king who could be said to represent the people of Israel as a whole? Or is more likely to be all the people of God in the community of Israel? The text is ambiguous, and it is possible to construct a plausible argument for all these possibilities; and it is equally possible to construct counter-arguments to show that none of them really work. Is that perhaps the point? Maybe this image of the Servant is intended to be multivalent, open to a range of interpretative possibilities, available to speak to the shifting and ambiguous experience of God’s people?

For Christians, of course, it is almost impossible to hear these words and not think of Jesus. More precisely, for anyone into choral music, it is probably impossible to think of the Servant and not hear Handel’s Messiah playing somewhere in the background. New Testament scholars, like their Hebrew Bible counterparts, have their own debates about the impact of ‘Suffering Servant’ imagery on early Christian thought. But whatever the significance of this symbolism for Paul and the evangelists, there can be little doubt about the way in which the language of the Servant captured the imagination of the later Church. For Christians, Jesus is clearly the one called by God to be the ‘light to the nations’.

But Christian understanding of the role of the Servant is also re-formed in an interesting way by that reading from Second Isaiah. If the connection with Christ is allowed, there can be no room for the sanitised and domesticated image of Jesus that so often seems to pass for Christian apologetics. This Servant has a sharp tongue, an ability to use words in a penetrating and critical manner, to cut to the chase. The prophet is called to disturb the people, not to reassure, to point out that there can be no genuine salvation until there has been an honest reality check. So long as Israel and the nations continue to blame everyone else for the mess the world is in, the prophet is wasting his time. ‘I have laboured in vain’, he complains, ‘I have spent my strength for nothing’.

God’s response to the complaint is also interesting. Like Elijah in 1 Kings 19, the Servant is told to stop whingeing and get on with it. In fact, the job is made even more difficult: ‘it is too light a thing’ to preach only to Israel; now it is time to take on the world. The comfortable world of Christian piety is shattered. God’s mission is not to be seen as my own personal quest for salvation, nor even the comfort of our own little congregation. God’s mission is to challenge the world, to refuse to accept what the rest of humanity sees as normal – injustice, tyranny and oppression. Salvation, it seems, means nothing less than a reversal of priorities, where those with power give way to those without any. Why? Because the Holy One of Israel is faithful.

John the Baptist is another one of those biblical figures who shakes our complacency. I have often thought that the traditional Collect for St. John the Baptist Day is one of those prayers that should carry a health warning: it is not to be said by those of a nervous disposition, as we pray that we may follow John’s example and ‘constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake’. That, perhaps, is as good a definition of prophecy as any, and it is a heritage shared as much with Judaism as with other Christians.

But John the Evangelist demonstrates in this gospel story how our two traditions of Christianity and Judaism have come to see things differently. John the Baptist is presented as the representative of all that is good and holy in Judaism; but John now believes God is pushing the story forward, pointing towards a fulfillment of the prophecy from Second Isaiah. ‘It is too light a thing’ to confine the gift of redemption to Jacob and Israel’ alone; the heritage of Israel is now to be given as a ‘light to the nations’ in the coming of this Servant, Jesus. John the Evangelist has already spelt out the theological significance of this in the powerful Prologue to his Gospel. Now the same point is made in narrative form: the gospel takes the reader systematically through the first week of Jesus’ ministry showing that the ‘light that shines in the darkness’ demands a response. Jesus is seen as the promise of Israel, as John the Evangelist skillfully focuses allusions to Passover and the Suffering Servant on the one who is called by God to be the carrier of the Spirit in a mission of renewal. Jesus is more than the promised Servant; he is the ‘Son of God’, the one who challenges the established order and shakes our complacency.

Epiphany is about seeing the signs of God’s presence in a broken world. Second Isaiah reminds the reader that God usually works in unusual ways: it is the one who has no power who will turn the world upside down. God has a habit, it seems, of appearing where God is least expected. John the Baptist suggests in the gospel that this understanding of God is precisely the key needed to make sense of faith. You need to expect the unexpected. Andrew is seen as the first to get it, as Jesus invites him to ‘come and see’ what God is already doing. So he gets caught up in the story and helps to move the narrative forward. As the gospel goes on to say, he, and those who follow his example, will see even greater things (1.50): they will see heaven and earth reconnected in Christ.

But be careful; this story has serious implications. The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of world does it by using a sharp tongue which disturbs the peace and leads to the cross. Following Jesus in this transforming mission will turn out to be no easy option. No wonder Epiphany gives way to Lent.