Servant, Lamb, and Prophet
Rutgers, January 17, 1999; 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Sunday Isaiah 42:1–9 OT, pp. 743–744);
John 1:29–42 (NT, p. 95)
On this day when we remember the birth 70 years ago last Friday
of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
we remember, too,
his bearing of Christ's cross throughout his ministry
and his martyrdom on April 4, 1968.
A year ago on this Sunday for remembering Dr. King,
we sang a contemporary hymn by Harold T. Lewis,
a hymn ["Holy God, You Raise Up Prophets"] whose refrain goes:
"Blest is Martin, pastor, prophet,
Who the mountaintop did see;
Blest is Martin, holy martyr,
Who died so we may all be free."
My sermon a year ago focused on
Dr. King's role as a prophet in the mold of Jesus:
"Blest is Martin, pastor, prophet,
Who the mountaintop did see"—
the mountaintop of which Dr. King poignantly spoke
in his final speech, on April 3, 1968,
in the passage quoted on today's bulletin cover.
My sermon this morning will focus on
Dr. King's role as a martyr in the mold of Jesus:
"Blest is Martin, holy martyr,
Who died so we may all be free"—
a martyrdom which Dr. King presciently anticipated
in that very same speech,
on the eve of his assassination.
In today's Scripture Lessons, we find two images
that Christianity has associated from its beginning
with the life and death of Jesus.
First, there's the image offered in the Gospel of John (1:36);
when John the Baptist sees Jesus walking by,
he proclaims to some of his own disciples,
"Look, here is the Lamb of God!"
And second, there's the image offered
in the Book of the prophet Isaiah (42:1, 4),
where God proclaims,
"Here is my servant …,
my chosen …;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.…
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth…"
Now, Jesus was a prophet of God,
proclaiming God's will and God's dawning reign.
But Jesus was more than a prophet.
According to our Christian profession of faith, he was also,
among other things,
both the Servant of God, come to bring justice to the world
even at the cost of his own death,
+ the Lamb of God, come to bring freedom from death
even at the cost of his own life.
First, The Servant of God.
The anonymous prophet of the 6th century B.C.
whom we call Second Isaiah
composed a series of four songs about a servant figure who would
be called by God to establish God's order of justice in the world,
a suffering servant whose bringing of life to others
would lead to his own death.
The lesson I read a few minutes ago is the first of these four songs,
the one among them that is the most upbeat and optimistic.
In it, God proclaims that the Servant
will bring justice to earth not by exercising force
but by practicing non-violence
and by enduring victimization for the sake of God's victory.
Even in this most optimistic of Second Isaiah's servant songs
the Servant's eventual death is foreshadowed by the words (42:4):
"He will not … be crushed until he has established justice …"
And second, The Lamb of God:
More than 600 years after the prophecy of Second Isaiah
about The Servant,
and more than 60 years after the death of Jesus,
an anonymous gospel writer whom we call John
portrays John the Baptist as pointing to Jesus
and calling him "the Lamb of God."
Perhaps the evangelist means to develop an image found
in Second Isaiah's fourth servant song (53:7),
where the prophet likens the Suffering Servant of God
to a lamb led to the slaughter.
Or perhaps the evangelist means to point forward to his later account,
in which Jesus is crucified on Golgotha (19:14, 17) at the very time
the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the temple forecourt.
Or perhaps the evangelist means to anticipate his later proclamations
about Jesus laying down his life for the sheep (10:15)
+ dying as the true Passover lamb (19:31–37; cf. Exodus 12:46).
Or perhaps the evangelist means to accomplish all 3 of these purposes
by having John the Baptist proclaim: "Here is the Lamb of God."
In any event, John's image of the Lamb serves well to link
the theme of Jesus's vocation of breaking sin's power
to the theme of Jesus's victory over sin by his willingness to die.
Now, Jesus's death on the cross, this saving event,
was not the end of history.
No, far from it, it was the beginning of a new phase of history,
a phase in which the followers of Jesus would continue
the work that had been launched by God's Servant and Lamb,
the work of bringing the fullness of God's reign to earth.
So, when we read this morning's lessons, I believe God intends for
the images of the Servant and the Lamb to suggest much more
to us than simply describing Jesus's own vocation,
I believe God intends for these images to call us
to carry on Jesus's work,
to take upon ourselves these roles of servant and lamb.
Through this morning's lessons, I believe
God means to inspire us to emulate both Jesus himself
and all those followers of Jesus who have gone before us,
showing us the way to fulfill the roles of servant and lamb.
And one such servant and lamb of God who has shown us the way
is the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. King, as a servant of God in the mold of Jesus,
sought to establish the kind of compassionate justice
for which Jesus worked
and upon which the well-being of society depends.
And Dr. King sought to bring justice to our nation
not by exercising force
but by practicing non-violence and by being himself willing
to endure victimization for the sake of God's victory.
For him, the goal of struggling for justice and freedom
was to create what he called "the beloved community"—
a society of people of all races living with each other in equity
and expressing toward each other a redemptive goodwill.
As a servant and lamb of God in the mold of Jesus,
Dr. King believed that people are not able to participate with God
in creating such a loving community
if they are at the same time practicing violence.
For violence, he said, derives from hatred,
and hatred contradicts God's nature.
God's nature has been revealed in Jesus's suffering love,
and physical violence simply contradicts that nature.
Christians conform to God's nature when we, too, are willing
to suffer for the cause of justice—like Jesus.
And oppressed people fulfill God's will for them when
they seek to achieve their just ends by moral means—
like Jesus.
Persons who resort to violence, said Dr. King,
have lost faith in the God of love;
persons who resort to violence
have lost faith that a loving community can be created.
As a lamb of God in the mold of Jesus, Dr. King taught his
followers the necessity of bearing and sharing the cross.
He said:
"Jesus Christ gave his life for the redemption of this world,
and as his followers, we are called to give our lives[—thereby]
continuing the reconciling work of Christ in this world."
Dr King believed that in his time Christ's reconciling work in America
was the struggle to break down the dividing walls of segregation
and to create a loving community
between black people and white people.
And he argued
that in the struggle for the political freedom of the oppressed,
Christians will need freely to take up the suffering of the cross.
For, he said: "There can be … no freedom without suffering."
Inevitably, both individual Christians and whole churches
will have to undergo crucifixion.
Throughout Dr. King's ministry,
his faith was firmly centered on the cross.
It was the cross that defined for him the loving, non-violent,
redemptive course of action Jesus calls his followers to pursue— even unto death.
As Dr. King often stated:
"The cross is something that you bear,
and ultimately that you die on."
The cross must be borne because it is the way God has chosen
to transform sinful hearts.
The cross is God's way of saying to a wayward child,
'I still love you …
and … if you will see within the suffering [servant]
on the cross my power, [says God],
you will be able to be transformed,
you will be redeemed'."
On April 4, 1968,
Dr. Martin Luther King's life as a servant and lamb of God
in the mold of Jesus reached its conclusion in his martyrdom,
in his own "crucifixion" by an assassin's bullet.
Dr. King believed with his whole heart that the death of Jesus,
The Servant and The Lamb of God,
had redeemed the world.
And he hoped that his own death would, in some way,
further God's redemptive purpose.
Well, much remains to be done if God's reign of love and justice
is to be fully established on earth.
There is a great need for us to carry on as servants of God
and as lambs of God—
to carry on these roles where Dr. King left off:
the role of bringing justice through non-violent means,
and the role of offering our lives
for the reconciliation of peoples.
Yes, Dr. King was a prophet of God,
proclaiming God's will and God's dawning reign.
Yet Dr. King was also much more than a prophet.
He was a servant of God,
come to bring a fuller measure of justice to the world,
even at the cost of his own life.
And he was a lamb of God,
whose death, though the result of evil,
has been truly redemptive, for, since his death,
his memory and his ongoing influence
have brought freedom from oppression to many
and have freed the hearts of
countless oppressors from sin.
Just this week, an article in the New York Times spoke of
the influence the martyred Dr. King has had
in bringing a measure of peace and reconciliation
to the peoples of the North of Ireland.
Yes,Blest is Martin, pastor, prophet, Who the mountaintop did see;
Blest is Martin, servant, lamb, Who died so we may all be free."
Let us pray, using words offered to God by Dr. King in 1956,
during the Montgomery bus boycott:
"O God,
We thank thee for thy Church, founded upon the Word,
that challenges us to do more than sing and pray,
but [to] go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers
depended on us and not upon thee.
Amen."
The Servant will bear "witness with … gentleness, confident
that the nations will be drawn to God's reign of justice
not by dint of human force but by attraction
to embodied compassion and righteousness."
[Paul Hanson, Isaiah 40–66, John Knox Press, 1995, p. 46.]
Dr. King was was able to bear powerful witness
while maintaining gentleness, for he believed
that the best way to draw people into God's reign of justice
was not by dint of force
but by the power of compassion and righteousness
Dr. King often spoke of justice as:
"love correcting that which would work against love."
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