The LORD Prepared His Servant to Display His Splendor

Rev. George Ferch

Dear Friends in Christ,

The way you prepare to display goods is almost as important as the goods themselves. Stockers in grocery stores move items to the front of the shelves. Jewelers take their best pieces and set them on platforms or apart from the others. Chefs pay much attention to the presentation of food as well as to the quality.

Could we define display as to make something known beyond the initial impression; even take it there? For example, the initial impression of the baby Jesus lying lowly in the manger might be that he is not so important. A display of his splendor takes us beyond that initial impression. Behold Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River.

Here he was thought to be the son of Mary and Joseph gets started on his public ministry. The Father anointed Jesus his Son with the Holy Spirit and with power to make him known as the Messiah. The LORD Prepared His Servant to Display His Splendor. The LORD called his Son to this service. The Son’s service brings salvation to the ends of the earth.

Jesus’ baptism fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy. For the first three decades of his life, Jesus had lived quietly in Nazareth. Surely he often stood at Joseph’s side in his carpentry work. Jesus’ neighbors in Nazareth had no reason to suspect Jesus was anything special. They testified to Jesus’ commonness when they were taken aback in the synagogue when after his baptism he stood up and read Isaiah 61 and declared that he is its fulfillment. Now was the time for the revelation that Jesus is the LORD’s servant. He would display the LORD’s splendor.

This was a long time in coming. In fact, it had been coming from eternity. Through the mouth of he prophet Isaiah, the Son of God, speaking of his coming into the flesh, declared, “Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he made mention of my name. He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.’” The LORD’s servant would bear the name, Israel, as did Jacob, the fountainhead of God’s people. As Israel was the Head of the church, so the LORD’s servant would be the perfect head of the church. We get our life, our linage, our inheritance all through him.

For a time the LORD held his servant in secret like a soldier holds a sword away from his enemy’s eyes. He hid his servant as an arrow hides inside its quiver. The LORD’s servant Jesus Christ did not look like much in the manger. It was only through the star and revelation that the Magi were able to know him as their Savior. That is the meaning of Epiphany which was last Friday. God has revealed the LORD’s servant even to us Gentiles.

Jesus began his work of being perfect for us and shedding his blood for us already at his conception, birth and as we heard last week by his circumcision. Jesus’ work remained hidden from sight until his baptism. Now we are able to look beyond what meets the eye as did the Magi. Jesus’ baptism is his coming out party we might say. Now Jesus publicly stepped into our baptism as the bearer of our sins. His heavenly Father endowed the God-man with the Holy Spirit and with power to be our Redeemer.

Now the sharp sword of the living Word is out in the open for all to see and hear. Now the sharp arrow of truth and grace is out of the quiver to strike hearts. With the Spirit and with power the Father prepared his Servant so that he would display the LORD’s splendor of grace and mercy that is our salvation. That splendor is the Word of forgiveness that brings salvation to the ends of the earth.

Sometimes news is just too wonderful and important for only a few to know. Think of the birth of a child or grandchild, or getting accepted into the college you wanted, or that new job. That is true in an even greater way with the Son’s service. The Father says through Isaiah about his Servant, “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 you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

The Magi from the East returned to their homeland. They carried the good news of what they had seen back with them. It was just as the Lord had told them, just like with the shepherds. Jew and Gentile alike had seen the splendor of the LORD’s glory in forgiveness through his Servant Israel, Jesus.

Even before Pentecost when Jews from all around the Mediterranean basin heard the disciples proclaim the wonderful works of God in their own languages, and took what they had heard home, the good news of the newborn King was being shared across the middle and far east. People were hearing about their Savior, and by the Spirit’s working entering into his kingdom of grace and salvation. Where would they have been; where would we be if God had decided to hide his Servant Jesus from the Gentile nations? We would not know God and be without hope in this world and have no hope for the world tomorrow.

The Book of Isaiah often is called the Gospel of the Old Testament. Isaiah’s words have an immediate application to the nation as it faced God’s judgment against their idolatry. He would preserve for himself a remnant of believers, the church, which would continue to pass along the LORD’s promise of the Messiah. The LORD’s splendor, the glory of his undeserved love to us sinners in Christ, is just too great a thing for only a few. The gospel is meant to be proclaimed and spread.

How important it is for us to display Jesus out front, and on a pedestal. The presentation of Jesus is nearly as important as his qualities so people can look beyond their first impression-great teacher, moral example, another prophet-and see that Jesus is the LORD’s Servant to display his splendor in the lowliness of his birth, and finally in the humiliation of his suffering and death on a Roman cross. His splendor is the splendor of the Father who sent him. He is the perfect Servant who does the Father’s will for all the ends of the earth.

Now we see him outside the tomb, sitting at the Father’s right hand, exalted in his work, and experience his daily rule in our hearts and live. What a display of splendor from such lowly and humble beginnings. Amen. <SDG>