This is the stated text also in Cycles A and B. The preacher may want to consult those expositions, along with this one.

 This is a poem in the writings of Second Isaiah that scholars have long called a "Servant Song," one of the four that occur in this prophetic book. (The others are found in Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6, and 52:13--53:12.) Although the question has been hotly debated for many years, many scholars have said, and I would agree, that the speaker in the Servant Songs is Israel, but it is Israel as she is meant to be, Israel as she is called to be, Israel as God will make her. In short, the one who speaks to us here in our lesson is an ideal Israel of the future. She is called to be the Lord's special servant, who will give her life for the sake of all nations, and who, through her suffering, will draw all nations to the Lord.

 Thus, in our passage, Israel hears the Word of the Lord and does not rebel against it, but rather undergoes suffering and scorn for the sake of obeying that Word, in the sure trust that in the end her course will be vindicated by God. So we could read the passage from that standpoint.

 Surely, however, the text also says something about the life of the prophet, Second Isaiah, himself. And it is a revealing glimpse into the source of revelation to the prophet. Why does the prophet speak particular words? The answer is that he does not dredge up those words from his own thoughts and imagination. Rather the words are given him by the Lord.

 But how does the prophet receive those words? It has always been a mystery to us moderns as to what a prophet means when he says, "Thus says the Lord," or "The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears" (Isaiah 22:14). We have a hard time identifying that with anything in our experience. But Second Isaiah tells us here in our text that God gives him words in the most intimate communion. Every morning the prophet listens, like a pupil listening to a teacher. He opens his ears in prayer, expectant, ready to hear what God says to him, and God speaks. Moreover, the prophet receives those words and obeys them and proclaims them.

 Prophets, however, are never very readily received. We human beings don't like our lives interrupted by God. As a result, most of the prophets of the Old Testament are the victims of suffering and scorn. Sometimes kings or queens put prophets to death for defying them (cf. 1 Kings 18:4). Sometimes the populace or religious establishment plots to kill them or puts them in prison or in the stocks (cf. Jeremiah 11:18-19; 20:1-2; 32:1-3). As Jesus mourned when he approached Jerusalem, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not" (Luke 13:34). Apparently, therefore, judging from verse 6 of our text, Second Isaiah also suffered for his faithfulness in his ministry. Yet he was sure that God would help him endure the suffering and calumny and that in the end, he would be vindicated and proven right. And the fact that we now have his words in our Bible shows that his faith was not in vain. Sometimes prophets had to wait a long time for their words to be proven true.

 When we average Christians approach this lectionary passage, however, most often we interpret it as the words of Jesus Christ. It was not written by the Second Isaiah with Christ in mind; the incarnation had not yet taken place. But surely the New Testament is correct when it says that our Lord fulfills the picture that we have in these songs of the true Servant of the Lord.

 Can any one of us doubt that Jesus lived in the most intimate communion with his Father? "The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority," he told his disciples; "but the Father who dwells in me does his works" (John 14:10). And so the teachings and commandments that emerge from the mouth of Jesus are the words of God himself.

 Further, Jesus is not rebellious, as our text says of the Servant (v. 5). He is tempted in all things as we are, we are told, but he does not sin (Hebrews 4:15). That is, he never loses his trust in his Father in order to follow his own will. His agonized prayer in Gethsemane is, "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42).

 So the awful picture of suffering portrayed in our text (v. 6) is played out in the passion of our Lord. His is the back that is scourged with the whips of Pilate's soldiers. His is the face that is spit upon. His is the beard that is pulled in scorn, until finally the shouts of "Crucify him!" hang him on the cross.

 We are told that when Jesus determined to go to Jerusalem to meet his death, he set his face like a stone (Luke 9:51 in the Greek), like the flint in our text (v. 7), in unwavering determination to carry out the will of his Father. For he knew, as the Servant knows in our text, that God would vindicate him and show him righteous in the resurrection on Easter morn. That knowledge did not lessen his suffering, or the torture of the death that awaited him. But it enabled him to undergo crucifixion in the certainty that God would help him (v. 9 in our text).

 Suppose, however, that we also read this text for the morning as our words. Because it so accurately pictures the life of our Lord, it is also a model for our Christian living, and it holds up before us the way we are to walk day by day.

 First, there is that intimate communion in prayer to God that begins every morning, and that is the undergirding of all Christian living. The words of God now speak to us through the Holy Scriptures, and to know God and to abide in a living fellowship with him is to read those words of scripture expectantly, with eyes and ears open, to hear what God says to us through the Bible. On the basis of that hearing, then, we are to pray, to pray to the Lord whom we know through the scriptures, daily, consistently, eager for his Word. The Christian life cannot be lived nor can it be sustained, except we enter into that daily, intimate communion with our Lord.

 Second, there is in our text the determination to be faithful to the Lord, even if it means we will suffer. And we should not delude ourselves about that. If we want to be a faithful Christian in our society we will have to undergo suffering. It is not easy in our society to hold a marriage together in faithfulness, when around us one out of two marriages is failing. It is not easy to believe that the accumulation of wealth and goods is not the goal of living, when advertisers bombard us daily and the whole point of our labor seems to be to show a big profit on the bottom line. It is not easy to practice forgiveness or mercy or love toward others when most people are just out for themselves. It is not easy to believe that God is the Ruler yet, when evil and violence are all around us. Others who watch our activities and hear our beliefs may call us wimps or nerds or squares, or even worst of all, irrelevant and divorced from the "real world." Can we live a good life in a society where goodness is out of fashion, and believe with all our hearts that God's goodness will triumph? Our text for the morning sets forth that sure belief.

 Jesus' command to all us disciples was, "Take up your cross and follow me," and if we wish to obey that command, we may expect the words of our Isaiah text to become true in our lives also, as they became true in his. But that means life abundant with God, good Christians, and the glories of Easter morn.