e-vo for week of January 9

Dearest e-votees-

This Sunday is the day we commemorate the Baptism of our Lord in the church year. We have a God who is willing to enter into creation and into our pain and mortality that we might be healed and granted life eternal. That is phenomenally good news. We need to celebrate the new life and the life returned in baptism.

Sometimes on days such as these the Old Testament readings get left on the fringes—the image of the older brother pouting outside while the returned brother parties with the robe and ring and fatted calf comes to my mind.

Let’s join the father in making room for this one we have always had who will always be with us.

Peace,

Karl

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Here is 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. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.

Isaiah 42:1-9, NRSV

This is a deep and rich passage of scripture. It is not hard for us to look through the lens of these vibrant words and see Jesus. The promises of deliverance from prison and darkness along with the healing of the blind eyes resonate with Isaiah 61:1-2. That is the part of Isaiah that Jesus read in the synagogue in Nazareth and punctuated with “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (see Luke 4:16-21)

Our annual bishop’s convocation was held last week in the town of Seaside, OR. The phrase about the coastlands waiting for his teaching have a new vibrancy as I think about all of the church leaders gathering on the fringes of the ocean to encounter God through that shared experience. This part of the country is often thought of as particularly unchurched or de-churched. That adds some traction to the coastlands waiting for his teaching as well.

I have met a lot of bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks in my days on this earth. I have some faltering reed and wick in my own story as well. There is great promise that Jesus will bring forth healing and justice. We may be vulnerable but God honors and cares for those who shun pretense and seek him with all their heart and all their mind and all their soul and all their strength. God cares for the rest of us too but sometimes we don’t discern it as clearly.

The text says that the servant won’t be crushed until justice is established. If we take the cross to be that crushing (some see the cross as fulfilling Genesis 3:15) then justice has been established. If the serpent’s work is destroyed and the kingdom of grace and forgiveness is established then justice must be coming to bear in the world. Sometimes, as in our passage above, things need to be declared before they come to pass. Hence the work of prophets and preachers and faithful witnesses.

Let’s end today where the ministry of Isaiah began with his vision in the temple:

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

Isaiah 6:6-8, NRSV

God, you have entered into the world in Jesus. Jesus was joined us through his baptism in the river Jordan. We were joined to him through our baptism at the font. Our guilt has departed. Our sin is blotted out. Here we are. Send us. Amen.