The Servant of the Lord
1 Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the Lord called me;
from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.
2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver.
3 He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand,
and my reward is with my God.”
5 And now the Lord says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength—
6 he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
7 This is what the Lord says—
the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—
to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,
to the servant of rulers:
“Kings will see you and stand up,
princes will see and bow down,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
8 This is what the Lord says:
“In the time of my favor I will answer you,
and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land
and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
9 to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’
and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’
“They will feed beside the roads
and find pasture on every barren hill.
10 They will neither hunger nor thirst,
nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.
He who has compassion on them will guide them
and lead them beside springs of water.
11 I will turn all my mountains into roads,
and my highways will be raised up.
12 See, they will come from afar—
some from the north, some from the west,
some from the region of Aswan.”
13 Shout for joy, you heavens;
rejoice, you earth;
burst into song, you mountains!
For the Lord comforts his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.
17 Your children hasten back,
and those who laid you waste depart from you.
18 Lift up your eyes and look around;
all your children gather and come to you.
As surely as I live,” declares the Lord,
“you will wear them all as ornaments;
you will put them on, like a bride.
19 “Though you were ruined and made desolate
and your land laid waste,
now you will be too small for your people,
and those who devoured you will be far away.
20 The children born during your bereavement
will yet say in your hearing,
‘This place is too small for us;
give us more space to live in.’
21 Then you will say in your heart,
‘Who bore me these?
I was bereaved and barren;
I was exiled and rejected.
Who brought these up?
I was left all alone,
but these—where have they come from?’”
22 This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“See, I will beckon to the nations,
I will lift up my banner to the peoples;
they will bring your sons in their arms
and carry your daughters on their hips.
23 Kings will be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;
they will lick the dust at your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”
24 Can plunder be taken from warriors,
or captives be rescued from the fierce?
25 But this is what the Lord says:
“Yes, captives will be taken from warriors,
and plunder retrieved from the fierce;
I will contend with those who contend with you,
and your children I will save.
26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;
they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine.
Then all mankind will know
that I, the Lord, am your Savior,
your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
Mark 10:29-31
Jesus Promises an Abundant Life
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Luke 7:20
John the Baptist Sends His Disciples to Ask Jesus if He is the Messiah
20 When the men came to Jesus, they said, "John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, 'Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?'"
Our God is a God of hope...And hope is one of the great virtues of life...The Prophet Isaiah gives us hope as he wrote about a Servant who would one day come and save Israel, and the Gentile...God would send a Light for the Gentile, and He will bring salvation to the ends of the earth...The Servant is the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One, the Christ...Isaiah says that the LORD forms us in the womb...And He would form One to be His Servant and to bring Jacob back to Him...This Servant will be the Redeemer and the Holy One of Israel...This is because God can no longer forget any of us anymore than a loving mother can forget her baby...And the LORD adds that even if a mother does forget, He will never forget His children...
And when I think of hope, I think there are times when hope may drift from us...When we are challenged and God seems to hide or not be there for a simple prayer and when we think He is unresponsive to our needs...And I think we need to be aware that our hope and our faiths will be challenged in this world...
From the Great Prophet Isaiah, we read much about this hope that God gives and about a Redeemer He would send hundreds of years later...C. S. Lewis said this about hope: "Hope is one of the Theological virtues...This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do...It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is...If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next...The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven...It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this...Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither."...
Hope is something we are meant to do...We are to hope and think of better...
When we only think of earth and earthly things, we can lose much hope...When we stay focused on heaven, we will have an abundant life on earth, as well as heaven...Jesus reminds us of that...When He is the central part of our lives our faith can strengthen and mature one-hundred fold, in both this age and in our eternal life...When we are strong in faith we can look around and see the finely tuned universe for man, and see His Incomparable Son, and think of heaven...We can read Isaiah and see that a Redeemer is coming, and did come...But when we are focused only on earth, things will not go as well...We can lose hope...For as Lewis says "when our aim is earth, we will neither get earth nor heaven."...When we are focused on earth we can lose sight of God and our faith weakens...And maybe as Lewis says, in today's world we are less focused on the Kingdom of God, than we were in the time of the Disciples, Apostles, and the people of Jesus' time...
Hope is for everyone...Even the Pharisees had this great hope of a Messiah coming...They just did not believe it was Jesus...Now Jesus' followers needed a resurrection (for the most part) for them to finally believe that He was and is the One to come from the Old Testament Scriptures and is the Suffering Servant that Isaiah wrote about...The point is the men and women of years ago had this Great Hope for a Christ to come...The lived for this Great Hope...Today, sadly we are not exposed to the Bible and Scripture like our ancestors and we have as Lewis writes largely ceased to think of the other world and Kingdom of Heaven that we have become so ineffective in this...We do not give God's Kingdom as much thought in our lives as we should...We are too busy thinking about our world than thinking about His...
Let us use the analogy that the Holy Spirit is like our muscles...Muscles need exercise to stay fit and in top form...Maybe the Holy Spirit controls our Spiritual muscles, and we are not given these Spiritual muscles the right amount of exercise...When we do not use the Holy Spirit, it becomes weaker...Our faith lessens...Maybe when our faith lessens, we are giving testament that we are not using our Spiritual muscles as well as we could...Faith responds to God, Jesus, the Bible, love, mercy, forgiveness, and helping others...Maybe when we lack in those, we become less effective in our faith...The more we exercise the stronger we get...The more we are immersed in God and His Word the stronger faith and hope seems to live in us...
There are times for all of us, when our faith will be challenged...John the Baptist testified about Jesus and knew Him personally...But even the great faith of John the Baptist was tested during his trials and time in prison...He sent his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the One to come, after claiming earlier he was not even worthy of untying Jesus' sandals...And Jesus gave him hope, as He gives us hope...A hope in a world where our faith and our beliefs are constantly challenged...