The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens - wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

Reading Isaiah can be one of the most challenging experiences in our encounter with God's word. This big, sprawling book has been so strongly identified with the life and death of Jesus, especially through its use in The Messiah, that modern readers have a hard time hearing it in its Old Testament context. These "Servant Songs" in Isaiah 40-53 provide the texts for much of Handel's most famous religious composition: we read them today, the music starts playing in our heads, and we immediately think "Jesus." But what did they mean for Isaiah and the exiled Jewish community in Babylon?

The question of the actual identity of the Servant leads us to a dead end. Scholars have proposed a host of candidates: the whole nation of Israel, King Jehoiachin, the prophet Jeremiah, or another prophet, Isaiah himself, even Cyrus, king of the Persian empire. But far more important than all of these guesses is what we learn about the God who calls the Servant: Isaiah identifies him as the Holy One of Israel, the God of all Creation, the Lord of the nations, and yet he accomplishes his purposes in human history through the suffering of his Servant. Not through military power or political influence, but through the quiet voice of a teacher, the gentleness of the one who binds up the brokenhearted, who gives sight to the blind, who brings freedom to the captive, who ultimately bears the iniquity of the whole world. Whoever this Servant may have been, all of Isaiah's descriptions agree on this: the Servant bears suffering for the sake of bearing God's truth to the world.

To see Jesus in all of this is really no surprise. God's will and purpose receive their ultimate revelation in the cross and suffering of Jesus. This season of Lent reminds us that God calls each one of us to be his servant and to recognize God's presence in the lives of all those who follow Jesus in the path of servanthood for the sake of the world. We too are called to the tasks of sustaining the weary, of giving light to the nations, of extending the salvation of God to the ends of the earth. God assures us that this is where his kingdom comes for all people. It is true for Isaiah's people living in exile, for the world of Jesus' time, for our own time and place. Through God's grace we have the privilege of sharing in the servanthood of Jesus.