Jesus: The Servant
The Great Turnaround
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I have sent my spirit upon him, he will bring fair judgment to the nations. –Isaiah 42:1
This is the first of Isaiah’s “servant songs,” foreshadowing Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River. Directly following his baptism, the Spirit sent Jesus into the desert for his own initiation rite (deliberate exile from business as usual, fasting, temptation, and then encounter). From this experience Jesus went into Galilee and proclaimed: “The time has come! The reign of God is here! Turn around and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15).
The rest of Jesus’ life—his ministry, passion, and death—would be dedicated to teaching and living out this good news, which is for all of us a great turning around. It is even a turning “upside down” (Acts 17:6) of the usual Promethean attempts to climb up to God. It seems we cannot allow God to come down to us (which is the meaning of the Incarnation); we think we have to climb up to God by Herculean efforts and will power to show ourselves as superior, separate, pure, and saved. That’s the ego’s need to feel significant and “worthy.” But we are already worthy, and it doesn’t have anything to do with our efforts. A sincere “yes” to our inherent dignity is all that’s needed every day. The True Self is worthy by virtue of its objective union with a loving, merciful God from the moment of our conception.
Such good news is always and forever too good to believe. The only ones who “got it” in the Bible were those who desired it desperately, those who suffered and/or were outside the usual systems of success: the excluded sinners, the disabled, the gentiles, the lepers, all of whom were aware of their powerlessness and utter need for social mercy. Of course, the freedom and inner authority that this empowerment gave was a threat to the power and the job security of the comfortable church and state. And this pattern has not changed. Today it takes the same form, for example, in the United States’ refusal of immigration reform and resistance to health care for all.
Gateway to Silence:
The way down is the way up.
References:
Adapted from Great Themes of Scripture: New Testament, p. 37 (published by Franciscan Media);
and The Path of Descent, (CD, MP3 download)