OUR LORD WHOSE SALVATION REACHED US IN THE DISTANT ISLANDS AND NATIONS

One of the most incredible conversations in existence is recorded in Isaiah 49 verse 1 - 6.

The two conversants are God the Father and Jesus, the Son of God. This poignant exchange takes place after the death of Jesus and before Jesus is coroneted as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The conversation is narrated to the writer of the passage (Isaiah) by Jesus himself and it reads like this;

Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations:

Before I was born the Lord called me        from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.

He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”

But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all. Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”

In this part of the text, the Lord Jesus addresses the distant islands of the gentiles and He explains that He was commissioned by God the Father before He was in His mother's womb. 

Jesus was given the anointing and authority of speech. He was like a polished arrow hidden in a quiver.

No one knew who He was as He moved incognito through eternity in heaven and then was secretly deployed into history on earth where He lived as a man struggling to build His ministry among mankind. 

He then faced His agonizing death on a cross where all the people he had called to join Him in building His Kingdom had fled leaving him alone with only his mother and  a few dear friends to watch Him die.

It is referencing this seeming failure that Jesus said to His Father,  “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all."

Isn't it astounding to know that Jesus, upon His resurrection, did not know what His  Father had  actually made out of the sacrifice of His life?

Jesus told His Father that He would accept whatever recompense was due to Him for His travails on earth among men.

The next verse captures Jesus reeling in surprise and astonishment at His Father's reply. Whereas He had been sent to bring back the House of Jacob and in the end, only managed to gather a  few who believed in Him, Jesus emphasizes  that  His Father Himself said what was to follow. Here, Jesus is speaking of His Father;

And now the Lord says—he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength—he says:

Then the bombshell is dropped;

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

The manifold refulgent wisdom of God the Father is unwrapped and Jesus is shown the scope of the mission to which He was assigned. 

It was more than the 3 or 4 people who were with Him at the cross as He died; More than the scattered few who had followed Him during His earthly ministry;  Much more than the house of Israel to whom He had been sent but the prize that Jesus had gained was the whole world of people from every tribe and tongue and race  in every corner of the earth. 

Jesus had been prepared to die for a handful of people who believed in Him ( Jesus said in John 15 verse 13 " Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.) but the Father made His sacrifice count for the teeming billions of people who continue to trust in His name and many more added every day. 

The absolute perfection of the sacrifice that our eternal Lord and God died to make, was more than sufficient to save the house of Israel and also to save all of us gentiles.

Let us  give thanks to our awesome God for his global reach that He obtained for us.

Amen.