Behold Your God: Advent with Isaiah

Week 3: The Servant

This year for Advent we thought we would concentrate on the writings of the Prophet Isaiah taking the broad themes in his book that make him one of the most beloved Prophets of the Church. Isaiah wrote some of the most sublime text in the Bible and through him God revealed the foundations of our beliefs in Jesus Christ. Many of our readings in this liturgical season are taken from his book, and although we intersect them slightly, we are following an alternative path through them.

If you want to get into Isaiah a bit and find out more, Catholic Answers has done a great little summary which you will find here.

For Week 1 click here and 2 here.

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We can identify a number of different themes within the Advent Season. There are-

• Anticipation of Remembrance: we prepare to call into our minds the historical events of the first Christmas.

• Anticipation of Fulfilment: we prepare ourselves (and our world) for the definitive return of the Christ.

• A making Christ present in the here and now: we open ourselves (and our world) to the actions of Grace.

Each of these can be associated with one of the Theological virtues. It is through Faith that we know that the Logos of God was born of Mary. It is through Hope that we know that He will come again conquering and to conquer. It is through Charity, and only through Charity, that He is made present in our midst now.

It is also the case in Northern countries, like my native Scotland, that Advent is a time of lengthening nights and shortening days. Or, to put it another way, it is a chance for us to appreciate how great a gift light is and how great a depravation of benefit darkness is.

There is a text by the Prophet Isaiah which brings all of these themes together-

Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, 

That heareth the voice of His servant, 

That hath walked in darkness, and hath no light? 

Let him hope in the name of the Lord, 

And lean upon his God.

(Isaiah 50:10, Douay-Rheims)

Faith, Hope, and Charity, Anticipation of Remembrance, Anticipation of Fulfilment, a making present of Christ now, and the depravation of darkness, all intersect and come together in the figure of the servant. And whatever may have been in the mind of Isaiah for us that servant is Jesus the Son of Mary.

Jesus through the mere fact of His Incarnation as the fully human Son of Man experienced darkness relatively, as He left behind the throne of Heavenly Glory for the manger out of which animals ate, as the Adoration of Shepherds was substituted for the Adoration of Cherubim and Seraphim. Later, as Suffering Servant, He would experience darkness absolutely during His Passion and agonising death on the Cross where even the Father, who is Light, wholly abandoned Him.

In this experience of darkness Jesus walked a path which is our path not His. Without Him, without the Holy Spirit, darkness would be our default condition. We would be lost. We would be cold. We would have no knowledge of where we had come from or of where we might be going. By an act of Divine Power motivated by Divine Love Jesus, the Servant, has taken hold of our darkness that we through faith might appropriate His light.

When Isaiah asks who among us ‘heareth the voice of His servant’ we can understand this to be a question which applies equally to the past, to the present and to the future. Who has heard? Who is hearing? Who will hear? And, Advent is a season where we affirm that because we have heard therefore we will hear through the act of listening now. And, of course, although it isn’t always Advent it is always now so we should always be listening.

The first and perhaps chiefest way that the Servant speaks to us is through the very act of becoming a servant at all-

Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But emptied Himself, 

Taking the form of a servant, 

Being made in the likeness of men, 

And in habit found as a man

(Philippians 2:6-7) 

Advent is a time to ponder about the love that prompts the One who created, and every instant upholds, the vast fabric of this universe to come among us as one of us. And not only ‘of us’ but also ‘with us’ as our Emmanuel (a name which means God-with-us.) Our Anticipated Remembrance should overflow into a making-Christ-present-now if, in gratitude we respond to the descent of His Love and indeed His very Self to us with our ascending love towards Him.

The Incarnation of the Word of God as a Servant though is not the whole of the story. It is not the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us-

Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels: 

Thou hast crowned Him with glory and honour, 

And hast set Him over the works of Thy hands: 

Thou hast subjected all things under His feet.

(Hebrews 2:7-8)

We do not yet see Him reigning in triumph on Earth as in Heaven. But we shall. We may do so willingly and gladly or unwillingly and regretfully, but reign He shall, and witness His reign we shall. The King without ceasing to be King became Servant, and the Servant without ceasing to be Servant will be King. And this will be the fulfilment of all things, the consummation of all ages. And until then as Isaiah advises us let us hope in the name of the Lord and let us lean upon our God.

This ‘leaning upon God’ is an act of intimacy. We cannot lean upon those who are distant from us, only those who are close. Nor can we lean upon the proud, for they would not permit it, only upon the humble. Only those willing to serve us, to be our servant, will happily allow us to lean upon them. Will spontaneously offer themselves to be leant upon. Rather than saying that Advent is a season where we prepare ourselves to make-Christ-present-now it may be more accurate to say that it is a time to recognize that He is present, that He is serving and that the only obstacle to His presence being known is us. It is we who prevent Him from being known because we obstruct His actions through us. When we serve, selflessly and unreservedly, then He, the Servant King, reigns through us. So, let us serve.

Steve Hepburn

Steve is a Scot living in the South West of England. Having been previously working as a staff nurse in the NHS. He is very keen on promoting devotion to the Seven Sorrows of Mary and on encouraging people to read books rather than spend excessive amounts of time online. He also writes an excellent blog called ThoughtfullyCatholic