December 11, 2022
Isaiah 42: 1-9
Advent 3
I’m pretty sure that when I say the name “Columbo,” most of us here today, would know about whom I am speaking.

More than 50 years after the police detective was introduced on television, we can visualize the short, rumpled man, wearing a rumpled trench coat, smoking a cigar and driving an old, dirty Peugeot … sometimes with his basset hound in the passenger seat. 

Most of us can recall that in every episode Columbo would continually interrupt the suspect’s life with “one more question.”

By now, there are likely more than a few of you wondering “where’s he going with this? What does Columbo have to do with the prophet Isaiah?” Don’t worry, I’m getting to it.

There was an episode when the detective suspected a movie director of being the murderer.

In one scene, the director explains to Columbo that placing a light at different heights behind a picket fence on the set, alters a person’s perspective of the fence … making it appear more imposing or making it seem smaller … giving it added depth or making it appear shallower.

Light is an interesting thing. 

It can illuminate … it can serve as a guide … it can mark a location … it Is the first thing the newly sighted experience. 

Light can be shared. Light cannot be used up … use doesn’t diminish it.

 If five people gather around a light to read, the light isn’t any dimmer than it would be if only one person reads under the bulb. Light makes it possible to see things that could remain hidden in the darkness.

This week’s reading from Isaiah is one of the passages known as the “Servant Songs.”

The servant is never named.

Some scholars say that the “servant” refers to Israel and its people. The Christian church has traditionally understood the servant to be Jesus, this is underscored by this morning’s Gospel passage from Matthew that tells listeners that Jesus was the fulfillment of what the prophet Isaiah had spoken.

As disciples of Jesus, we are to take on the role of servant, as well.

The servant is to heal, to teach, and to work for justice … signs of the new thing … the new way of being … that marks the covenantal life.

This passage is a poem written to the people who live in exile after the Babylonians conquered Judah and Jerusalem. The people’s lives are filled with grief and they likely struggled with their faith.

The people are living during an upheaval in their lives.

Their exile and the destruction of Jerusalem joins the people with those who had been in bondage … and with those who journeyed into freedom. They all faced times of disruption … turning points in the people’s lives.

This chapter from Isaiah tells the people that they can return to their homeland and begin a renewed life … another disruption. 

Those who give up their lives in a foreign land and make the long, dangerous journey … are uncertain if they would be welcomed or even if they would find a place for themselves in their homeland.

But despite these challenges and uncertainty … the people are called to look to others’ conditions and place the other person’s needs ahead of their own. The servant is a creation of hope.

The servant … by their presence and service … offers hope during a time of profound change.

We certainly are in a time of disruption.

For sure, the pandemic has overturned lives … masks were few and far between during pre-pandemic days. We only needed to get annual flu shots as winter approached … now it’s flu shots and whatever number Covid booster we’re on … and let’s not forget the new virus that’s out there.

We can’t gather for coffee … for a party … or even for worship the way we did three years ago. Now, people self-isolate … and … sometimes rightfully, are concerned about the health risks presented by the people they meet.

Through this dark and uncertain time, congregations limp along … trying to be church in extraordinary times … trying to see where their futures lie as attendance declines and finances constrict.

We can feel like bruised reeds or feel that our wicks are burned down.

It is in such a reality, that today’s reading from Isaiah comes to us and asks listeners to consider “What is God asking of me?” and “What is the church to be after the pandemic?”

We are in the midst of the season of Advent.

It is a season of anticipation and preparation. We are called to prepare our hearts and lives for Christ’s inbreaking into our lives and the life of the world.

It is a time when we consider how we live into the promise of God’s love … if we are showing kindness … favouring mercy … and practising justice.

The exiled people … the freed slaves before them … and our own Covid-impacted lives … have all experienced a disruption.

We can’t be sure about what lies ahead.

But here’s the thing, each time that the people faced a great disruption in their lives, God’s response was to form and to re-form the people AND to give the people a mission as they face their new reality. 

This morning, we hear that the mission given the exiled people is to be a light for the nations. This is a mission that we share as disciples.

Being a light means a number of things.

It means illuminating the injustices in the world. It means casting light on the pain and suffering caused by the upheaval created by Covid and by corporate greed and serving those victims as best we can.

When we do this, those imprisoned by fear, anxiety, unhappiness or worry know they are seen and they can see a life where love and hope abound.

It means that we are to be a gentle loving light that announces God’s love and grace through our words and actions and to be a light that invites others let us walk with them on their journey.

Light … as one scholar puts it … does not exist for itself … it allows people to see the world around them … to see hazards and suffering. 

It allows people to see evidence of God’s goodness shown through the words and actions of people of faith.

Light alters or brings perspective to life.

And it is the light from a star that guides the bruised and tired toward a manger. 

The light that is to come in a manger in Bethlehem is the light of the new covenant … the light of a new thing … bringing hope and peace where there once had been darkness.

This grace-filled light most certainly does not diminish when its abundance is shared as we carry it out into the world.  

AMEN