Isaiah 53:1-2a
Who has believed our message and to whom has the
arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
In yesterday’s verse, we read the promise of a day to come when all people will see and understand who Jesus is and why he came. But in the meantime - in Isaiah’s time and today – the message of a suffering, saving servant, sent by God to rescue his people, will not be widely believed. Isaiah knows that this message is true, but hardly anyone is listening. He knows that God’s arm is active, accomplishing his plans, but hardly anyone can see it. Why not? Because what God is doing is - at first glance – very small and insignificant.
The Servant didn’t come in a flash of blinding lights, surrounded by fireworks and serenaded by angels everywhere he went. Rather, he grew up like a tender shoot. Slowly, gradually, unimpressively. Weak and vulnerable. Not a precious sapling that’s been given a good dose of fertiliser, surrounded by protective fencing
and watered regularly. But a seedling that’s appeared against all the odds, in a harsh climate. More like the stray flower that emerges from a crack in the pavement than the plant that flourishes in a well-kept garden.
It’s so small. So ordinary. So unimpressive. For a people who were facing the prospect of being overrun by their hostile neighbours, this wouldn’t have seemed like
the great salvation they needed. It certainly doesn’t seem like a plan that could defeat sin, death, the world and even the devil himself. But, as the Servant himself would one day explain, the Kingdom of God doesn’t look impressive on the outside. Rather, it’s like a mustard seed. The smallest of all seeds that – remarkably - grows into something big and strong and flourishing, out of all proportion to what you would have expected. “God chose
the weak things of the world to shame the strong”, Paul writes, in 1 Corinthians.
And so we can be confident that God’s purposes WILL succeed, however unlikely that might seem. Even when others ridicule our faith, and write Jesus off as irrelevant or ineffective. Even when we look at ourselves and wonder how on earth God could possibly use us to bring others to Jesus. Even when we look at our world, and wonder if there is any power great enough to mend everything that is broken.
Let’s praise God that this tender shoot is stronger and more powerful than we can imagine, and ask for his help to keep believing in Jesus while we wait for the full extent of his glory and greatness to be finally revealed.
