The beloved Servant establishes justice forever.

 

Sermon for Palm Sunday, April 13, 2025

Grace and peace, hope and strength to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Isaiah 42:1-4  Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.  I am placing my Spirit on him.  He will announce a just verdict for the nations.  ²He will not cry out.  He will not raise his voice.  He will not make his voice heard in the street.  ³A bent reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not snuff out.  He will faithfully bring forth a just verdict.  ⁴He will not burn out, and he will not be broken, until he establishes justice on the earth.  The coastlands will wait for his law. (EHV)

The beloved Servant establishes justice forever.

Dear friends in Christ,

            Over the last few years, the word “justice” has been thrown around in more and more ways.  You hear of social justice, racial justice, gender justice, criminal justice, and a variety of other ways that people seek either retribution, revenge, or in many cases simply to justify their jealousy, greed, or immorality.  Obviously, not all of those cases indicate a desire to see justice in its usual meaning.

According to the dictionary, justice is the quality of being righteous, of being right or fair, and making just judgments.  True justice attempts to rectify evil, or at least, to bring recompense for the one wronged by evil.  Consequently, justice brings deserved punishment to those who have done evil things and frees the innocent from condemnation.  In this text, Isaiah predicts that The beloved Servant establishes justice forever.

The prophet Isaiah was a servant of God.  Indeed, throughout the Old Testament, we read of many servants of God, each serving a special purpose in the plans God had to bring salvation to His people.  Truthfully, also, you and I, as believers in the One true God, are also His servants to do His will on earth.  However, this Servant is someone unique, someone special to God above.  Through the prophet, God said, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.” 

Now, many have tried to argue against what we know is true, but God has made it very clear that this chosen Servant, upheld by God, can be none other than the Christ, the Son of the Living God, for the Holy Spirit had Matthew quote this passage in his Gospel in reference to Jesus.  Furthermore, the Lord God Himself put His stamp of approval on Jesus both at His baptism and at the transfiguration of our Lord.  There, the Father spoke from heaven as “a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to him!’” (Luke 9:35)  Therefore, only Jesus can be The beloved Servant sent by God to establish justice forever.

Through the hand of the prophet, God tells us, “I am placing my Spirit on him.  He will announce a just verdict for the nations.”  St. Luke reported that at Jesus’ baptism, “the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.” (Luke 3:22)  Likewise, St. John tells us, “I saw the Spirit descend like a dove from heaven and remain on him.” (John 1:32)  Having firmly established that this promised Servant can only be Jesus, it is time for us to recognize what the Servant will do for us. 

At the time Jesus was sojourning among the people of Judea, Galilee and Samaria, many of the people were expecting a great King to come from God.  They viewed the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah as promises of relief from earthly oppressors.  Much like those who call for various kinds of justice today, they felt a desire for comfort and prosperity on earth, but they clearly didn’t at that time, nor again in our time, see the need for the real, eternal justice that God planned to bring for the world through His beloved Servant.  In other words, real justice requires punishment for the sins of the world in order to bring reconciliation between God and mankind.

Ordinarily, for God’s great Servant to announce a just verdict upon the nations, He would have had to declare the whole world guilty and condemned to spend eternity separated from God.  The law allows only death and condemnation for sin, and we all are guilty of many grievous sins.

As we think about those wicked men who falsely accused Jesus and eventually sentenced Him to suffer death on the cross, we might be rightly horrified by their wicked actions.  Today also, we might be horrified as we read of murder after murder, riots in the streets, abuse of women and children, and all kinds of wickedness so rampant in our world, and we might be tempted to think of ourselves as more worthy of a home with God in heaven. 

However, God never, in any way, allowed for degrees of sinfulness acceptable to stand in His presence.  Time and again the law demands that we must and will be holy.  Indeed, the first sin committed was “only” a sin of desire, but have we also not desired things that were not allowed or owned by us?  Are we not just as guilty and worth of death as Adam and Eve?  With feelings of envy, anger, hatred, self-righteousness, and self-justification, do we not also mark ourselves as “deserving of death!”? (Matthew 26:66)  Should it not be all of us who are nailed to the cross to satisfy the just judgment for our sins?

Here is where we see the difference between us and God’s Servant.  Where we might view ourselves too

highly, God’s chosen Servant, Jesus, came to make right our wrongs.  Furthermore, out of His great love for us who deserved nothing but death, Jesus was determined to put Himself in our place to take the punishment for our guilt.  Speaking of the injustice Jesus would endure for you and me, Isaiah foretold, “He will not cry out.  He will not raise his voice.  He will not make his voice heard in the street.  A bent reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not snuff out.  He will faithfully bring forth a just verdict.” 

Here, seven hundred years before Jesus faced His lying accusers, the world was told exactly how He would react.  Jesus rode into Jerusalem that first Holy Week to the shouts of praise from the crowds He knew would soon turn against Him.  As Jesus stood before the high priests and Sanhedrin in that mockery of a trial, Jesus knew that He was being sentenced to die for sins He never committed.  Indeed, as those men accused Jesus of blasphemy, it was they who were blaspheming God Almighty by rejecting His holy Son.  Yet, Jesus never flinched from His chosen duty nor lifted His voice in complaint because through His faithfulness to His Father’s will, The beloved Servant establishes justice forever.

You see, this was exactly God’s plan, that Jesus would represent all of us in that courtroom and before Pilate.  It is precisely to pay for your sins and mine that Jesus endured silently the false accusations, the whipping, beatings, and mockery.  To achieve a righteousness that could stand before God in peace, a righteousness intended for all the people of the world, Jesus willingly accepted His Father’s plan that although Himself perfectly innocent, Jesus carried the sins of the world into death, so that you and I would never have to face God’s wrath for our guilt.

Because we are all guilty, God could never see us as innocent unless the debt of our sin had been covered.  You and I could never hope to pay without eternal condemnation.  Yet, look at the promises God made about His Servant, “A bent reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not snuff out.  He will faithfully bring forth a just verdict.”  The just verdict is death for sin.  Thus, Jesus told His disciples, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)  Furthermore, Jesus explained what really happened in God’s plan to save us, as He said, “This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.  I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again.  This is the commission I received from my Father.” (John 10:17-18).

The Man, Christ Jesus, was faithful to God in all things for you and me and the world.  Therefore, what we could never do, Jesus did for us.  He lived holiness for us, believed perfectly for us, sacrificed Himself on our behalf, and rose again from the dead, fully and eternally alive, so that we would know how great God’s love is for all who believe in Him. 

Today, our forgiveness and salvation is not dependent upon how good we are, or even how great our faith in Jesus is.  It is dependent solely on the faith that the Holy Spirit works in us to believe that Jesus is God’s Son and the Savior of the world.  Our salvation is solely dependent upon what God did through His Son to deliver us from the verdict of death we had earned and grant to us the verdict that was truly due Jesus instead of death.  Because Jesus was willing to live and die on our behalf, the Father in heaven now says the same thing about those who believe in Jesus that He declared from heaven about Jesus, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.” 

Isaiah wrote, “He will not burn out, and he will not be broken, until he establishes justice on the earth.”  Because Jesus is true God as well as true Man, nothing on earth, nor in heaven nor hell, would stop Jesus from carrying out His mission.  Those who wanted to protect Jesus from death had to fail.  The devil with his wily temptations was no match for God’s Son, and the wickedness of men who so shamefully abused our dear Friend couldn’t do anything that would deter Jesus from dying on our behalf.  Therefore, by His holy life and by His undeserved but holy sacrifical death, Jesus established peace between God and mankind.  All sin is paid for.  All guilt has been removed from our accounts.  God’s will is accomplished that declared, “I will be merciful in regard to their unrighteousness, and I will not remember their sins any longer.” (Hebrews 8:12)

Finally, Isaiah tells us, “The coastlands will wait for his law.”  As mysterious as this may sound, it really just means that God was not saving only the tribes of Israel.  Instead, God heard the pleas and cries of all people who were caught in the trials and torment of sin.  The word law, here, would be better translated “instruction,” because it includes everything God has taught in His holy Word, both law and Gospel.  Yet, both are for you and me. 

The law brought condemnation, but Jesus brought us peace.  Peace with God here on earth, so He now listens to our prayers and answers them, and peace eternally in heaven, so that we may dwell with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit forever in company with His holy angels and all the saints who have ever believed in God’s Promised Savior and Redeemer.  Rejoice today, tomorrow, and forever that Jesus lived, died, and rose again for you.  Celebrate God’s goodness and mercy because The beloved Servant establishes justice forever, so that you may enter eternal life in glory and peace.  Amen.

Now, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.