Sunday’s first reading comes from the second of the four songs that personify the exiled people of Israel as God’s suffering servant. Some think the prophet Jeremiah inspired this poetry. God called him in the womb to be a prophet; he lived, prophesied, and suffered through the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. The servant in Second Isaiah’s poetry can be seen both as an individual like Jeremiah and as a personification of the people of Israel.
Second Isaiah insists the suffering of the exile, whether the suffering of the individual prophet or the suffering of the defeated and exiled people of Israel, will become a revelation of God’s glory. Their God considers them servants, whose survival in suffering will reveal God’s power. God will not only reunite all Israelites but make them a light to the nations. Their restoration will testify to God’s power beyond Israel’s borders.
God will restore Israel.
The Holy One said to me:
You are my servant, Israel,
through whom I show my glory.
The Holy One has spoken,
who formed me as God’s servant from the womb,
to bring Jacob back to God
and gather Israel as God’s own.
I am made glorious in
God’s sight;
my God is now my strength!
It is too little, says God,
for you to be my servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel.
I will make you a light
to the nations,
that my salvation may reach
to the ends of the earth.
Isaiah 49.3,5-6
- What has made the suffering that inevitably comes in life purposeful for you?
- What makes survivors?
- What service has your own suffering been to others?