Justice (Isaiah 42)

1. Justice

Justice. It’s one of the most important biblical concepts. But the way we use that word “justice” is often not the same way that writers of scripture use that word.

When someone commits a crime, the “justice” system will pronounce a sentence on them: probation, a fine, imprisonment. In many states, the most severe crimes can even result in the death penalty.

And when those sentences are carried out, we say that justice has been served.

And, in a sense, justice has been served. Those who did wrong got what was coming to them. They got what they deserved, at least in the eyes of society. That is justice: giving people what they deserve. 

But in the Bible, there is a different nuance to it. In the Bible, justice seeks to restore right relationships. It seeks healing. It seeks peace.

For this reason, in scripture the word justice is often paired up with the word righteousness. You see those two together. Justice and righteousness. Mishpat & tsedeq, in Hebrew. 

And the word righteousness simply means “what is right.” 

Unfortunately, the word “righteousness” tends to imply a “holier than thou” attitude, and these days it almost carries a negative connotation. So whenever I come across the word “righteousness” in scripture, in my mind I pronounce it “right-ness.” This reminds me that it simply means, “what is right.”

And what is right? What is good? 

What is right and what is good is everything that justice implies: Healing. Restoration. Making good the things that have been corrupted. Making sure that everyone has what belongs to them, their fair share of the resources God has blessed humanity with.

2. Servant Songs

Sometime around the turn of the sixth century BCE, the people of Israel were captured by the Babylonians, and many of them were hauled off into captivity. This was not the way things were supposed to be. This was not what was right. And the people of Israel cried out for justice.

But repeatedly, Isaiah talks about a servant who will make things right again…

There are four “Servant Songs” in the book of Isaiah. Our scripture this morning is the first of those four Servant Songs. The first verse reads, “Here is my servant… I’ve put my spirit upon him. He will bring justice to the nations…”

The second Servant Song is in Isaiah 49. There, the servant says: “the Lord, who formed me from the womb as his servant, has decided to restore Jacob to God.” In other words, through this servant, God will make things right for Israel. God will bring about the restoration of Israel, which can only mean allowing Israel to leave Babylon and return home.

But that’s not enough for God. At the end of this second Servant Song, God says to the servant:  “It is not enough, since you are my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back the survivors of Israel. Hence, I will also appoint you as light to the nations, so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Notice here how justice is paired up with the idea of salvation. Both justice and salvation signify the restoration of what is intended, the restoration of creation to the way God intends.

In the third Servant Song, found in Isaiah 50, the servant gets personal. Here, we see that being God’s servant is not an easy task. Apparently, achieving justice takes some hard work on our part.

In the third Servant Song, the servant says: “I gave my body to attackers, and my cheeks to beard pluckers. I didn’t hide my face from insults and spitting.” Not everyone is in favor of justice, and the one who calls out for justice finds himself attacked.

The fourth and final Servant Song stretches across chapters 52 and 53. This is the one that some of you may be most familiar with. 

About the servant, the fourth Servant Song says: “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

“Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”

Here we see that the servant’s pursuit of justice cost him dearly. He was beaten, struck down, punished, and all but destroyed. And all because he was doing what everyone else should have been doing all along: pursuing justice. Making things right. We should have been doing that, and we should have be suffering alongside him. But he did it on our behalf. He did it for us all.

3. Who is the Servant?

I cannot tell you how many countless pages scholars have filled describing and explaining these servant songs, and making educated guesses as to who this servant is. 

Isaiah is purposely vague in describing the servant. Some believe the servant is the persian king Cyrus, since Cyrus was the one person most responsible for bringing the people of Israel out of captivity and restoring them to their homeland. Cyrus came in, took control, and allowed the people of Israel to return to Israel. And, in that sense, was even referred to by some as a savior, for he saved the nation of Israel.

But why didn’t Isaiah just say, “Cyrus, God’s servant, did all these things?” Why was Isaiah so vague?

Others believe the servant is a prophet, like Zerubbabel, or one of Israel’s kings, like Hezekiah. Also, there are hints that perhaps the servant is actually the nation of Israel as a whole.

After the time of Jesus, the Christian church began to look at these passages, and see in them a description of Jesus. They saw these writings as prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus’s life, and death. 

Historically that is not true. It can’t be. And yet there is something about faith and the words of scripture that transcend time, so that past, present, and future all come together. And somehow the words of one era speak to the people of another era, so maybe the Spirit was at work in Isaiah so that Isaiah’s words would apply not only to Cyrus, or Hezekiah, Zerubbabel, or Israel, but also to a child that would be born to Mary and Joseph some 600 years in the future.

4. More Justice

One thing that is clear is that the servant of God is the one through whom justice is established. Through him, things are made right. Everything proper and good is restored.

The servant is the one who restores wholeness to a fragmented world.

And a hint as to the nature of this justice is found in the first Servant Song, our reading today, in verse 3. There, it says that “a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.”  Gene Peterson renders it in The Message translation like this: “He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt, and he won’t disregard the small and insignificant.”

So justice that does not protect the bruised and the hurt is no justice at all. Justice that ignores the small and the insignificant is not justice at all. There is no right-ness in ignoring the weak. There is nothing good about that.

For justice to be justice, it must provide healing and restoration to all people equally. For righteousness to be right, it must not favor the wealthy and powerful. 

But because justice and righteousness seek to level things out, those who are wealthy and powerful find God’s justice to be a threat. 

It takes me back once again to the song Mary sang when she came to understand the significance of the child she was carrying. The words of that song describe how God shows special favor to those who have been overlooked and neglected in this world. 

Mary starts out by praising God for looking with favor on the low status of his servant, and how everyone will consider her highly favored even though she is so poor, because the mighty one has done great things for her.

Mary then goes on to sing these words: “God shows mercy to everyone… God has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, just as he promised to our ancestors.”

Thematically, there sure does seem to be a lot that connects Mary’s song with the songs of the servant in Isaiah.

5. Light to the Nations

So. Justice and righteousness involve caring for the poor and the week, and restoring wholeness, and bringing about healing for all people…

And it becomes crystal clear what God is calling us to today.

Through scripture and through the Spirit, God is calling us once again to rise up on behalf of justice and what is right…

To proclaim loudly to all who can hear…

That God’s justice demands that we care for those who are weak…

That we care for those who are poor…

That we refuse to call it acceptable when children go to bed hungry here, in this land of plenty…

That it is not right to give tax breaks to billionaires while at the same time cutting welfare and other aid to poor families…

That it is not right to say there is no money for social security and medicare while insisting there is unlimited funding for unnecessary wars…

And it is not right how people receive favorable treatment in courts of law based on the color of their skin or their celebrity status…

And it is not right for immigrants and refugees to be blamed for society’s problems when all they want is a safe, friendly place to raise their families and earn a living.

And it’s not right that voting rights are increasingly limited and restricted, so that more and more people are prevented from voting…

And it’s not right that, right now, even here in Long Beach, our Jewish and Muslim neighbors have to hire armed guards because of the atmosphere of hate and intolerance that fluorishes under the current administration…

…

And it’s so tempting to ask: where is our modern-day servant, the one who will bring forth justice to the nations?

Where is the one who will be a light to the nations, the one who will open blind eyes, and lead the prisoners out of their prisons of darkness and ignorance?

And the answer is this: that one, that servant who establishes justice, is already here. He is among us. His spirit is within us. In fact, we are his body. He is present on earth in and through each one of us.

And to the question I raised earlier, about just who, exactly, is the servant of God? I now answer that the servant of God is each one of us.

Each of us has been given a voice, to speak words of hope and justice.

Each of us has been given a body, to perform acts of kindness and peace.

Each of us has been given a spirit, with which we pray to God for the restoration and salvation of the world.

And each of us is a part of God’s church, which can lead the way, which can be a light to the nations, shining truth and justice and love and hope for all to see.

The good news that the angels proclaimed at Christ’s birth is present in us. It is present in our prayers and in our words, and in our acts of justice. 

And even though those who proclaim God’s good news may suffer on account of it, we can take comfort, because God’s good news will not fail to deliver on its promises. So whatever backlash we might face for preaching justice and truth and righteousness to the world, we can endure it, because the hope and the promise will not fail to materialize. 

God is good, and justice will prevail.